Maasai religion centers on Engai, a single divine being whose nature Naomi Kipury's collected oral literature and Paul Spencer's fieldwork both describe as holding two aspects: Engai Narok, black and benevolent, associated with rain and blessing, and Engai Na-nyokie, red and vengeful, associated with drought, lightning and misfortune. Prayer is addressed to Engai directly by elders and by age set groups rather than through a separate priesthood for most purposes, though the laibon, a ritual specialist and diviner drawn from particular lineages, blesses warriors before raids, interprets omens and is consulted in times of drought or epidemic; Spencer's study of Matapato ritual describes the laibon's authority as advisory and spiritual rather than political in the way a chief's would be. Engai is asked above all for rain and for the health of cattle, the two conditions on which Maasai life depends, and prayers, songs and the color symbolism of black and red recur through blessings given at birth, circumcision, marriage and the passage between age grades.
Christianity, chiefly through Catholic and Protestant missions established from the colonial period onward, has become the professed religion of a large share of Maasai in both Kenya and Tanzania, typically held alongside continued address to Engai and continued observance of the age set ceremonies rather than displacing them outright.