The Maasai warrior who initiated the touching gift from his remote village in Kenya to the United States following the Sept. 2001, terrorist attacks and the Atlanta author who is retelling the story in a forthcoming book “14 Cows for America” will appear at a public lecture at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at the Northeast Georgia History Center, 322 Academy St., Gainesville. There will be a brief reception at 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Award-winning children’s author Carmen Deedy will talk about her forthcoming book, set for publication next year, and will introduce the man who inspired the story, Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah.

A Maasai warrior, Naiyomah was studying in the United States at the time of the attacks. When he returned to his village, Enoosaen, Kenya, several months later, he told tribal elders what had happened. Although they did not fully understand, they wanted to do something to help the American people. That led to a decision to donate a portion of their collective wealth to help the people of America: 14 cows.

“The significance of the gift cannot be overstated,” said Gnimbin Ouattara, Brenau University assistant professor of international affairs and the university’s resident expert on Africa. “In the Maasai culture, cattle are more than mere possessions. They are at the center of the people’s religion and history.”

Naiyomah, who is completing his master’s in molecular biology this spring at Stanford University, now is consulting with author Deedy, who has completed the manuscript for the book, which will be published by Peachtree Publishers in Atlanta in 2009-10.

According to Stanford’s alumni magazine, Naiyomah’s people had “only a limited understanding of” the events of 9/11. “The village only recently received electricity. So when Naiyomah returned for a visit last May, they were shocked by his stories about ‘buildings that almost touched the clouds’ crumbling to the ground, killing thousands of people. Naiyomah, who was in New York City visiting the Kenyan ambassador when the terrorist attack occurred, encouraged the villagers to offer a gesture of sympathy and support. A few days later, the gesture materialized in the form of 14 cows, donated from the small stocks of local herdsmen. On June 2, 2002, following a ceremony blessing the animals, the cows were presented to William Brancick, deputy chief of mission of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.”

At Brenau, Kimeli will share some insight into the culture of his people, including the correct spelling of the name. “The correct rightful spelling is Maasai, from my tribe’s language, Maa,” said Kimeli, who is currently involved in writing the first comprehensive Maasai dictionary. ‘We have working to correct this but ‘Masai’ was the first way foreigners wrote it.”

Deedy, who visited the Brenau campus in January for a reading of her current book, the best-selling and award-winning “Martina, The Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale,” talked a bit about the project when members of the audience asked her what her next book would be. She said members of the Brenau audience were so receptive to the idea when they talked with her about it later that she decided to bring Naiyomah to Gainesville during his visit to meet with the publishers this spring.

Not surprisingly, the Maasai’s gesture of pure compassion got caught up in politics. According to The New York Times, American officials “declared it too difficult to ship the cows to the U.S.: the cost would far outstrip their monetary value of $2,500, and health regulations block the import of Kenyan cattle. Instead, following a suggestion from a Maasai, he said the cows would be sold and the proceeds used to buy Maasai crafts. Tony Blankley, a columnist with The Washington Times, called the idea an act of ‘ingratitude and insensitivity,’ adding ‘If we can get 80,000 men and machines into Afghanistan, we can get 14 cows out of Kenya,’ he wrote. Others, too, want the cows to come home. One woman suggested they go to the Bronx Zoo. Another imagined putting them out to pasture – in Central Park.”

The gracious herdsmen in Kenya, however, got everybody out of public relations hot water. They said they’d take care of the cows for the Americans, tagged their ears to identify them as the American cows. According to one published report the small herd has now more than doubled.

Deedy’s manuscript shows her reverence for the story and for the power of story-telling.

It was a young man’s story-telling to his people that led them to act, she wrote. The book carries on the tradition.