Hadzabe
The Hadza, or Hadzabe, are an indigenous ethnic group in
north-central Tanzania,
living around Lake
Eyasi in the central Rift Valley and
in the neighboring Serengeti Plateau.
There are, as of 2015, between 1,200 and 1,300 Hadza people living in
Tanzania, although the increasing impact of tourism and encroaching
pastoralists pose serious threats to the continuation of their traditional way
of life.
Genetically, the
Hadza are not closely related to any other people. While traditionally
classified with the Khoisan languages,
primarily because it has clicks, the Hadza language appears
to be an isolate,
unrelated to any other. As descendants of Tanzania's aboriginal
hunter-gatherer population, they have probably occupied their current territory
for thousands of years, with relatively little modification to their basic way
of life until the past hundred years.
Since the 18th
century, the Hadza have come into increasing contact with farming and herding
people entering Hadzaland and its vicinity; the interactions often were
hostile and caused population decline in the late 19th century. The first
European contact and written accounts of the Hadza are from the late 19th
century. Since then, there have been many attempts by successive colonial
administrations, the independent Tanzanian government, and foreign missionaries
to settle the Hadza, by introducing farming and Christianity. These
efforts have largely failed, and many Hadza still pursue virtually the same way
of life as their ancestors are described as having in early 20th-century
accounts. In recent years, they have been under pressure from neighbouring
groups encroaching on their land, and also have been affected by tourism
and safari hunting.
History
Oral tradition
The Hadza's oral history of
their own past is divided into four epochs, each inhabited by a different
culture. According to this tradition, in the beginning of time, the world was
inhabited by hairy giants called the Akakaanebe or Gelanebe, "ancestors". The
Akakaanebe did not possess tools or fire; they hunted game by staring at it and
it fell dead; they ate the meat raw. They did not build houses but slept under
trees, as the Hadza do today in the dry season. In older versions of this
story, fire was not used because it was physically impossible in the earth's
primeval state, while younger Hadza, who have been to school, say that the
Akakaanebe simply did not know how.
In the second
epoch, the Akakaanebe were succeeded by the Tlaatlanebe,
equally gigantic but without hair. Fire could be made and used to cook meat,
but animals had grown more wary of humans and had to be chased and hunted with
dogs. The Tlaatlanebe were the first people to use medicines and charms to
protect themselves from enemies and initiated the epeme rite. They lived in caves.
The third epoch was
inhabited by the Hamakwabe "nowadays",
who were smaller than their predecessors. They invented bows and arrows, and
containers for cooking, and mastered the use of fire. They also built houses
like those of Hadza today. The Hamakwabe were the first of the Hadza's ancestors
to have contact with non-foraging people, with whom they traded for iron to
make knives and arrowheads. The Hamakwabe also invented the gambling game lukuchuko.
The fourth epoch
continues today and is inhabited by the Hamaishonebe,
"modern". When discussing the Hamaishonebe epoch, people often
mention specific names and places, and can approximately say how many
generations ago events occurred.
Archaeology and genetic history
The Hadza are not
closely related to any other people. The Hadza language was
once classified with the Khoisan languages because
it has clicks;
however, since there is no evidence they are related, Hadza is now considered
an isolate.
Genetically, the Hadza do not appear to be particularly closely related to
Khoisan speakers: even the Sandawe, who live just
150 km away, diverged from the Hadza more than 15,000 years ago. Genetic
testing also suggests significant admixture has
occurred between the Hadza and Bantu; and minor
admixture with the Nilotic and Cushitic-speaking populations
in the last few thousand years. Today, a few Hadza women marry into
neighbouring groups such as the Bantu Isanzu and the
Nilotic Datoga,
but these marriages often fail and the woman and her children return to the
Hadza. In previous decades, rape or capture of Hadza women by outsiders
seems to have been common. During a famine in 1918–20 some Hadza men were
reported as taking Isanzu wives.
The Hadza's
ancestors have probably lived in their current territory for tens of thousands
of years. Hadzaland is just 50 kilometres (31 mi) from Olduvai Gorge, an area
sometimes called the "Cradle of Mankind" because of the number
of hominin fossils found
there, and 40 kilometres (25 mi) from the prehistoric site of Laetoli. Archaeological
evidence suggests that the area has been continuously occupied by hunter
gatherers much like the Hadza since at least the beginning of the Later Stone Age,
50,000 years ago. Although the Hadza do not make rock art today, they
consider several rock art sites within their territory, probably at least 2,000
years old, to have been created by their ancestors, and their oral historydoes
not suggest they moved to Hadzaland from elsewhere.
Precolonial period
Until about 500
BCE, Tanzania was exclusively occupied by hunter-gatherers akin to the Hadza.
The first agriculturalists to enter the region were Cushitic-speaking
cattle herders from the Horn of Africa. Around
500 CE the Bantu
expansion reached Tanzania, bringing populations of farmers with iron
tools and weapons. The last major ethnic group to enter the region were Nilotic pastoralists who
migrated south from Sudan in the 18th century. Each of these expansions of
farming and herding peoples displaced earlier populations of hunter-gatherers,
who would have generally been at a demographic and technological disadvantage,
and vulnerable to the loss of environment resources (i.e., foraging areas and
habitats for game) as a result of the spread of farmland and
pastures. Therefore, groups such as the Hadza and the Sandawe are
remnants of indigenous hunter-gatherer populations that were once much more
widespread, and are under pressure from the continued expansion of agriculture
into areas which they have traditionally occupied.
Farmers and herders
appeared in the vicinity of Hadzaland relatively recently. The
pastoralist Iraqw and Datoga were both
forced to migrate into the area by the expansion of the Maasai, the former in
the 19th century and the latter in the 1910s. The Isanzu, a Bantu farming
people, began living just south of Hadzaland around 1850. The Hadza also have
contact with the Maasai and the Sukuma west of Lake
Eyasi. The Hadza's interaction with many of these peoples has been hostile. In
particular, the upheavals caused by the Maasai expansion in the late 19th
century caused a decline in the Hadza population. Pastoralists often killed
Hadza as reprisals for the "theft" of livestock, since the Hadza did
not have the notion of animal ownership, and would hunt them as they would wild
game.
The Isanzu were
also hostile to the Hadza at times, and may have captured them for the slave trade until
as late as the 1870s (when it was halted by the German colonial government).
Later interaction was more peaceable, with the two peoples sometimes
intermarrying and residing together, though as late as 1912, the Hadza are
reported as being "ready for war" with the Isanzu. The Sukuma and the
Hadza also had a more amiable relationship; the Sukuma drove their herds and
salt caravans through Hadza lands, and exchanged old metal tools, which the
Hadza made into arrowheads, for the right to hunt elephants in
Hadzaland. The general attitude of neighbouring agro-pastoralists towards the
Hadza was prejudicial; they viewed them as backwards, not possessing a
"real language", and made up of the dispossessed of neighbouring
tribes that had fled into the forest out of poverty or because they committed a
crime. Many of these misconceptions were transmitted to early colonial visitors
to the region who wrote about the Hadza.
20th century
In the late 19th
century, European powers claimed much of the African continent as colonies, a period known
as the Scramble
for Africa. The Hadza became part of German East Africa,
though at the time the colony was proclaimed there is no evidence that
Hadzaland had ever been visited by Europeans. The earliest mention of the Hadza
in a written account is in German explorer Oscar Baumann's Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle (1894).
The Hadza hid from Baumann and other early explorers, and their descriptions
are based on second hand accounts.
The first Europeans
to report actually meeting the Hadza are Otto Dempwolff and Erich Obst. The latter
lived with them for eight weeks in 1911. German Tanganyika came under
British control at the end of the First World War (1917),
and soon after the Hadza were written about by British colonial officer F. J.
Bagshawe. The accounts of these early European visitors portray the Hadza at
the beginning of the 20th century as living in much the same way as they do
today. Early on Obst noted a distinction between the 'pure' Hadza (that is,
those subsisting purely by hunting and gathering) and those that lived with the
Isanzu and practised some cultivation.
The foraging Hadza
exploited the same foods using many of the same techniques they do today,
though game was more plentiful because farmers had not yet begun directly
encroaching on their lands. Some early reports describe the Hadza as
having chiefs or big men, but
they were probably mistaken; more reliable accounts portray early 20th century
Hadza as egalitarian,
as they are today. They also lived in similarly sized camps, used the same
tools, built houses in the same style and had similar religious beliefs.
The British
colonial government tried to make the Hadza to settle down and adopt farming in
1927, the first of many government attempts to settle them. The British tried
again in 1939, as did the independent Tanzanian government in 1965 and 1990,
and various foreign missionary groups
since the 1960s. Although many attempts were forceful, they by and large
failed; generally the Hadza willingly settle and take advantage of provided
food, but leave and return to foraging when the food runs out; few have adopted
farming. Another problem is disease – because their communities are sparse and
isolated, few Hadza are immune to common infectious diseases such
as measles, which
thrive in sedentary communities, and several settlement attempts ended with
outbreaks of illness resulting in many deaths, particularly of children.
Of the four
villages built for the Hadza since 1965, two (Yaeda Chini and Munguli) are now
inhabited by the Isanzu, Iraqw and Datoga. Another, Mongo wa Mono, established
in 1988, is sporadically occupied by Hadza groups who stay there for a few
months at a time, either farming, foraging or taking advantage of food given to
them by missionaries. At the fourth village, Endamagha (also known as
Mwonyembe), the school is attended by Hadza children, but they account for just
a third of the students there. Numerous attempts to convert the Hadza to Christianity have
also been largely unsuccessful.
Tanzanian farmers
began moving into the Mangola area to grow onions in the 1940s, but came in
small numbers until the 1960s. The first German plantation in Hadzaland was
established in 1928, and later three European families have settled in the
area. Since the 1960s, the Hadza have been visited regularly by anthropologists, linguists, geneticists and
other researchers.
Present
In recent years,
the Hadza's territory has seen increasing encroachment from neighbouring
peoples. The western Hadza lands are on a private hunting reserve, and the
Hadza are officially restricted to a reservation within the reserve and
prohibited from hunting there. The Yaeda Valley, long
uninhabited due to the tsetse
fly, is now occupied by Datoogaherders; the
Datooga are clearing the Hadza lands on either side of the now fully settled
valley for pasture for their goats and cattle. They hunt out the game, and the
clearing destroys the berries, tubers, and honey that the Hadza rely on, and
watering holes for their cattle cause the shallow watering holes the Hadza rely
on to dry up. Most Hadzabe are no longer able to sustain themselves in the
bush without supplementary food such as ugali.
After documentaries
on the Hadza on PBS and
the BBC in 2001, the
Mang'ola Hadza have become a tourist attraction. Although on the surface this
may appear to help the Hadzabe, much of the money from tourism is allocated by
government offices and tourism companies rather than going to the Hadzabe. Money
given directly to Hadzabe also contributes to alcoholism and deaths
from alcohol
poisoning have recently become a severe problem, further contributing
to the loss of cultural knowledge.
In 2007, the local
government controlling the Hadza lands adjacent to the Yaeda Valley leased
the entire 6,500 km² of land to the Al Nahyan royal family of
the United
Arab Emiratesfor use as a "personal safari playground".
Both the Hadza and Datooga were evicted, with some Hadza resisters
imprisoned. However, after protests from the Hadza and negative coverage in the
international press, the deal was rescinded.
There are four
traditional areas of Hadza dry-season habitation: West of the southern end of
Lake Eyasi (Dunduhina), between Lake
Eyasi and the Yaeda
Valley swamp to the east (Tlhiika),
east of the Yaeda Valley in the Mbulu Highlands (Siponga), and north of the valley around the
town of Mang'ola (Mangola). During the wet season the Hadza camp
outside and between these areas, and readily travel between them during the dry
season as well. Access to and from the western area is by crossing the southern
end of the lake, which is the first part to dry up, or by following the
escarpment of the Serengeti Plateau
around the northern shore. The Yaeda Valley is easily crossed, and the areas on
either side abut the hills south of Mang'ola.
The Hadza have
traditionally foraged outside these areas, in the Yaeda Valley, on the slopes
of Mount Oldeani north
of Mang'ola, and up onto the Serengeti Plains. Such foraging is done for
hunting, berry collecting, and for honey. Although hunting is illegal in the
Serengeti, the Tanzanian authorities recognize that the Hadza are a special
case and do not enforce the regulations with them, just as the Hadza are the
only people in Tanzania not taxed locally or by the national government.
Social structure
The Hadza are
organized into bands,
called 'camps' in the literature, of typically 20–30 people, though camps of
over a hundred may form during berry season. There is no tribal or other
governing hierarchy, and conflict may be resolved by one of the parties
voluntarily moving to another camp. Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher point out
that the Hanza people “exhibit a considerable amount of altruistic
punishment” to organize these tribes. The Hadza live in a communal
setting and engage in cooperative child rearing, where many individuals (both
related and unrelated) provide high quality care for children.
The Hadza move camp
for a number of reasons. Conflict is resolved primarily by leaving camp; camps
frequently split for this reason. Camps are abandoned when someone falls ill
and dies, as illness is associated with the place they fell ill. There is also
seasonal migration between dry-season refuges, better hunting grounds while
water is more abundant, and areas with large numbers of tubers or berry trees
when they are in season. If a man kills a particularly large animal such as a
giraffe far from home, a camp will temporarily relocate to the kill site
(smaller animals are brought back to the camp). Shelters can be built in a few
hours, and most of the possessions owned by an individual can be carried on
their backs.
The Hadza are
predominantly monogamous, though there is no social enforcement of
monogamy. While men and women value traits such as hard work when
evaluating for partners, they also value physical attractiveness. In fact, many
of their preferences for attractiveness, such as symmetry, averageness and
sexually dimorphic voice pitch are similar to preferences found in Western
nations.
Hadza men usually
forage individually, and during the course of day usually feed themselves while
foraging, and also bring home some honey, fruit, or wild game when available.
Women forage in larger parties, and usually bring home berries, baobab fruit ,
and tubers, depending on availability. Men and women also forage cooperatively
for honey and fruit, and at least one adult male will usually accompany a group
of foraging women. During the wet season, the diet is composed mostly of honey,
some fruit, tubers, and occasional meat. The contribution of meat to the diet
increases in the dry season, when game become concentrated around sources of
water. During this time, men often hunt in pairs, and spend entire nights lying
in wait by waterholes, hoping to shoot animals that approach for a night-time
drink, with bows and
arrows treated with poison. The poison is made of the branches of
the shrub Adenium coetaneum. The
Hadza are highly skilled, selective, and opportunistic foragers, and adjust
their diet according to season and circumstance. Depending on local
availability, some groups might rely more heavily on tubers, others on berries,
others on meat. This variability is the result of their opportunism and
adjustment to prevailing conditions.
Traditionally, the
Hadza do not make use of hunting dogs, although this custom has been recently
borrowed from neighboring tribes to some degree. Most men (80%+) do not use
dogs when foraging.
Women's foraging
technology includes the digging stick, grass
baskets for carrying berries, large fabric or skin pouches for carrying items,
knives, shoes, other clothing, and various small items held in a pouch around
the neck. Men carry axes, bows, poisoned and non-poisoned arrows, knives, small
honey pots, fire
drills, shoes and apparel, and various small items.
While men
specialize in procuring meat, honey, and baobab fruit, women specialize in
tubers, berries, and greens. This division of labor is rather apparent, but
women will occasionally gather a small animal or egg, or gather honey, and men
will occasionally bring a tuber or some berries back to camp.
A myth depicts a
woman harvesting the honey of wild bees, and at the same time, it declares that
the job of honey harvesting belongs to the men. For harvesting honey or
fruit from large trees such as the baobab, the Hadza beat pointed
sticks into the trunk of the tree as ladders. This technique is depicted in a
tale, and it is also documented in film.
There exists
a mutualistic relationship
between the honey-guide bird
and humans: in order to obtain wax, the bird guides people (and, according to
popular legend, honey-badgers,
although the relationship between honey-guides and honey badgers has since been
called into question) to the nests of wild bees. The Hadza honey hunter, typically
a man, will engage in a whistle "dialogue" with the honey-guide
bird. The hunter and the bird communicate back and forth, via this series
of chatters and whistles, until the bird guides the Hadza man to the hive. Once
they have located the hive, the honey hunter hammers pegs into the tree, climbs
to the hive (which can be located thirty feet up the trunk of the tree), uses
his axe to chop into the tree to uncover the hive, smokes the bees in order to
pacify them, and retrieves the honey comb. The Hadza honey hunter consumes the
liquid honey and larvae while the honey guide bird consumes the wax and the
bees. The role of the honey-guide is reflected also in Hadza mythology,
both in naturalistic and personifiedforms. Honey
represents a substantial portion of the Hadza diet and this reliance on honey
(as well as larvae and bee pollen), exemplified by the Hadza, may have a long
and rich history in human evolution.
Mythological figures with celestial connotations
There are some
mythological figures who are believed to take part in arranging the world, for
example rolling the sky and the earth like two sheets of leather and swapping
their order to achieve the recent situation – in the past the sky used to
locate under the earth. These figures also have made crucial decisions
about the animals and humans (designating their food, environment), giving
people the fire and the capability of sitting. These figures have
celestial connotations: Ishoko is a solar figure, Haine is a lunar figure.
Ishoko ("sun")
The character
"Ishoye" seems to be Ishoko. She is depicted in some tales as
someone who created animals, even people. Her creatures included also some
people who later turned out to be a disaster for their fellow people (the
man-eating giant and his wife): as Ishoko saw this, she killed the man-eaters:
"you are not people any longer".
Uttering Ishoko's
name can mean a greeting, a good wish to someone for a successful hunt.
Ishoko is the wife
of Haine.
Roles of a culture hero
The man who returned from the grave to become a hero
Indaya, the man who
went to the Isanzu territory
after his death and returned, plays the role of a culture hero: he
introduces customs and goods to the Hadza.
Isanzu people
The Isanzu people neighbor the
Hadza. Unlike the Iraqw and
the cattle-raiding Maasai (who
used to lead raids towards Isanzu and Iramba through Hadza
territory), the hoe-farmingIsanzu
are regarded as a peaceful people by Hadza. Moreover, many goods and customs
comes from them, and the Hadza myths mention and depict this benevolent
influence of the Isanzu. This advantageous view about Isanzu makes the role of
this people comparable to that of a culture hero in Hadza folklore.
Also in some of the
mythical stories about giants (see
below), it is an Isanzu man who liberates the Hadza from the malevolent
giant.
Stories about giants
The stories about
giants describe people with superhuman strength and size, but otherwise with
human weaknesses (they have human needs, eat and drink, they can be poisoned,
cheated).
Sengani and his brothers
One of the giants,
Sengani, was Haine's helper, and Haine gave him power to rule over people. In
Haine's absence, the giant endangered people with his decisions. The people had
to resist him, thus the giant ordered the lions to attack people, which surprised
people, because formerly lions were regarded as harmless beings. The people
killed the giant in revenge.
This giant had
brothers, Ssaabo and Waonelakhi. Several tales describe the disaster these
giants caused to Hadza by constantly killing, beating them. The Hadza had to
ask for help from neighboring groups, finally, the giants were tricked and
poisoned, or shot to death by arrows treated with poison.
Man-eating giant
A man-eating giant,
"!esengego" (and his family) was killed by a benevolent snake. The
snake turned out to be the remedy applied by Ishoko to liberate people. Ishoko
changed the corpses of the giant family into leopards. He prohibited them to
attack people, except for the case they would be provoked or wounded by an
arrow.
Hongongoschá
Another
giant, !Hongongoschá, played the role of a mythological figure. He did not
bother the Hadza (except for some smaller thefts done secretly at night). His
nourishment was flowers of trees (and stolen vegetables). People greeted him
with great respect, and the giant wished them good hunting luck, which was
indeed realized. The giant provided further his good will to people even after
he was hurt deliberately by a boy, but he took a fatal revenge on the boy.
Finally, the god Haine decided about the fate of this giant and the people: he
warned people, revealed the malevolent deed of the boy, and changed the giant
into a big white clam.
'Source: Wikipedia'
'Source: Wikipedia'