Hadzabe

From National Geographic:  “The Hadza:  They grow no food, raise no livestock, and live without rules or calendars. They are living a hunter-gatherer existence that is little changed from 10,000 years ago. What do they know that we've forgotten?”

We’ve been to this campground at Lake Eyasi two other times.  The first time it was just our family and we did a family visit to the Hadza.  It was amazing, but really made me want to go out on one of their early morning hunts.  The second time we camped here the guys got out, but I missed the opportunity and have been kicking myself ever since.  This time I was not going to let that happen and Mirjam and I called first out for a hunting trip. 

Even if you take out the cultural experience of the Hadza as well as the whole hunting aspect, it is an amazing way to spend a morning.  A bit early to wake up at 5:30 am, but well worth it when we started ‘hunting’ with the group by 7 am.  It was basically a 3 hour fast hike/jog in the bush.  It was gorgeous.  I’ll basically let the pictures speak for themselves, but the Hadza are still primarily living the hunter-gatherer existence that they have for thousands of years.  They will basically eat anything that they can find with the exception of reptiles (snakes!), dogs, and cats.  They ‘gather’ fruit from bushes and trees (including baobab), dig for root vegetables (look like a potato, but have lots of water…almost like a water chestnut), and look for wild honey.  We were primarily hunting birds and squirrels, but they would have been ecstatic with any small game.  Baboon is a big prize, but we heard that this time of year they are very far away.  You can see that the “shirts” they are wearing are made from baboon hides. 

They live in small groups called bands.  We met this band at their current camp for a quick intro before we took off.

Hadza house and hides of dik-dik and impala drying.

 

Making fire with two sticks and using the fire for their pre-hunt marijuana hit.  We asked how old they were, but they have no idea.  We guessed that they were approximately 14 years old.

Finding honey from stingless bees (to us they look like ants that make honey).  It took some work to knock it down.  They ate everything that was in there…honey, pollen, eggs, wax.  I ate some yummy honey with wax mixed in.  It was really good!

They saw some mouse tracks and started digging; this eventually sent the mouse scurrying under a bush.  You can run, but you can’t hide.  “Special for baby”.  Mmmmm. 

The bush could get quite dense in places and I ended up with more than a few scrapes on my arms and legs.

 

Some successful hunting (some of these pics are from Matt’s trip the next morning).  Birds, squirrel, mongoose, and don’t forget about the mouse.

Fruit from the baobab tree.  We had tried it before and I thought it had tasted very bitter, but now I know to look for the seeds with fruit that is white.  Much better tasting and Mirjam and I definitely had a few between us.

Happy hunters.

We saw some really cool plants, too

Back to camp and we sat with the mamas for a little bit.  Mostly to see this cute little one. 

Group photos at the end of a great morning.  While they must think that we are crazy to go out and buy food when they can just walk from their camp to gather or kill it, I was excited to head back to camp for some leftovers and coffee.