African people and cattle have been together long enough for cattle to form an essential part of their culture. Cattle is held in high esteem and ownership is associated with wealth and status.

As China celebrates new year of the Ox, CGTN's Daniel Arapmoi looked at the Maasai community in Kenya, best known for their distinctive cow culture.

The Maasai, a tribe in Kenya would rather get on with doing what they do best, looking after their cattle.

The Maasai view their cattle as the most valuable asset in life, going to extreme length to protect them at all cost.

Their cattle are a form of currency and status symbol, and form a key part of the family's wealth. From dowry to even a friend, a cow to the Maasais is a resource, maintaining not just a people, but a way of life.

Jack Sane a pastoralist says: "When you want to marry a Maasai girl, you will not be entitled to have that girl if you don't have more than a hundred cows but you will have to pay that girl with ten or twenty cows so that you can be entitled to own the girl, failure to that you will not have to get that girl without a number of cows."

Among the Maasai, the tradition of the dowry still remains a key pillar of unifying a man and woman in matrimony and that still calls for a valuable number of cows.

"When we are given a girl for marriage we take cows, we take cows like these ones, we take approximately ten cows and give to your in-laws and that's the culture," submits Partoire Sampeke pastoralist.

Cows also come in handy during cultural initiation ceremonies.

"You must have as many cows as possible because on that particular ceremony, cows like these ones we may slaughter ten or seven so that we can celebrate that particular day and a boy who has been circumcised has to take fresh and pure blood that comes particularly from a cow which is as healthy as this one," insists Sane.

Sampeke, a Maasai pastoralist in Kenya's Kajiado County says for any Maasai boy to be considered a man, one must have a substantial number of cows to be respected by the elders.

For over thirty years, Sampeke has lived a lifestyle based around his herds and that's how he intends to live the rest of his life.

Africa remains home to an extraordinary array of indigenous cattle, well over a hundred distinct breeds.