Hadzabe

The Hadzabe live around Lake Eyasi to the south of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in northern Tanzania. They are the last remaining ancestors of the original hunter-gatherer tribes who first inhabited Tanzania, and their lifestyle has barely changed for millennia. They are skilled hunters, and use a number of methods to attract game within range of their arrows, including the use of the horns of an antelope, attaching them to their heads while mimicking the animal’s characteristic bobbing walk, which draws other curious animals closer. Another method is to hide under an animal skin, and wait for vultures to land, when they can easily be caught. The Hadzabe supplement their diet with roots and plants, and they have a particular liking for honey, which they trade with other tribes in exchange for arrowheads or tobacco.

The Hadzabe are not a Bantu race like the other peoples of Tanzania, but have more in common with the San Bushmen found in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, nearly 2000 miles away. They tend to be small in stature, physically slight, and have lighter coloured skin than most Africans. Their language too contains many of the same click sounds as that of the Bushmen, although the two are not mutually intelligible. Although a number of researchers have concluded that their DNA is totally unrelated to that of the Bushmen, the surface similarities of both languages would imply an ancient root.

Hunting and honey-gathering are predominantly male activities, while the women and children forage for roots or fruit. The Hadzabe are opportunists when it comes to hunting, but tend to avoid eating reptiles, and the greatest delicacy is considered to be baboon. Baboon fur is also worn by the men, while the women usually wear impala skins. The huts are made of grass, woven by the women, and can be constructed in a matter of hours.

It is thought that there are somewhere between 500 and 2500 Hadzabe, and their lifestyle is increasingly threatened as their traditional lands have been taken by commercial plantations and farms. This has had the effect of creating barriers along the seasonal migration routes of the animals, upon which the Hadzabe depend for hunting. In the 1970s the then socialist government of Tanzania attempted to resettle them in a newly constructed settlement with schools, a clinic and brick houses, but within ten years the Hadzabe had abandoned the settlement, going back to their traditional way of life in the bush. The pressures on them are immense, however, as the area of land they inhabit becomes increasingly constrained, and despite their resistance to formal education, a monetary economy and religious indoctrination by missionaries, they have increasingly come into contact with foreign tourists, which has brought problems of its own. Despite bringing in revenue for the tribe, this has proved to be a huge culture shock, and consequent problems such as begging and alcoholism have sometimes arisen.

Given that the Hadzabe are in such a precarious position, mainly due to the tourist industry, which has had such a devastating effect on their culture in recent years, the best thing that can happen to the Hadzabe is that they are left in peace. As such, Tribes feels that it is not appropriate to visit the Hadzabe as part of an itinerary, in the hope that this will prevent further damage to their culture and way of life.