Hunter Gatherers: Hadza

Humankind appeared on the Earth thousands of years ago and considerably developed since then. However, there are still tribes that follow the same survival principles as their ancestors did. It is hard to believe that in the time of high technology development, some people still use arrows and bows to kill animals for food, and when the majority of use the GPS-technology, tribes still measure distance with walking. In the time of sharing personal information in social networks, they even do not know their own age. One of such tribes is the Hadza, hunter-gatherer inhabitants of Tanzania. The Hadza tribe is considered the most ancient people on the Earth that preserved their lifestyle unchangeable until now. The research paper reflects the organization of the tribe, its gender roles, and the impact of globalization on its uniqueness.

General Information

Nowadays, the Hadza tribe inhabits the Lake Eyasi area in the Great Rift Valley in Tanzania, the East of Africa. Their main feature is not consuming more products than necessary for their survival ("Hadza Culture," n.d.). People in the tribe hunt animals for meat. Men construct arrows and use sap from the desert rose as poison for arrowheads (Motika, 2012). The most popular animals for hunting are zebras, wildebeests, baboons, monkeys, and birds. Elephants are dangerous because of their trunk, so tribespeople do not kill them. The Hadza people cook meat on fire because of evolution of human behavior. The tribe also gathers roots, the most favorable of which is tuber due to its water and nutrients. They value honey from African killer bees even more than meat and fruits. The Hadza can trade it with other neighboring tribes such as Swahili and Datoga. The tribe consists of a thousand of Hadzabes that inhabit the territory of about 4,000 square km. Their language called Hadzane consists mostly of clicks and does not belong to any language family. It exists only in an oral form and is the oldest language in the world. Only 300 of inhabitants still live nomadic life. They sleep outside during the dry season and build small huts with branches and grass (Supine Now, 2017). Surprisingly, in these conditions, the health level is very high. The most widespread health issues are diarrhea, broken bones, respiratory and eye infections. People live until the age of seventy or eighty approximately. They look happy and relaxed during most of the day. Hunting and gathering roots and honey take from four to six hours per day; the rest of the day is leisure time. The Hadza spend evenings storytelling and dancing. It is known that they are smokers; even teenagers smoke cannabis. As they do not have words denoting months and time, calendars and years, it is hard to define exact time. For instance, the Hadza count the age of their children according to their height and the order in which they were born. The tribespeople are environmental activists since they do not take from nature more than they need and believe that animals own the land, while people only rent it for a lifetime. Their culture is peaceful not only to animals but also to other humans. The tribe already exists for thousands of years. As the anthropologist said: “When the Egyptian pyramids were completed, the Hadza had already been on their lands for over 50,000 years” (Benenson, 2013).

Leadership

The main Hadzabe’s principle is equality regardless of age and gender. There is no official leader or group of leaders. They try to make decisions by reaching consensus between all tribe members. Every day they decide who will perform work, form groups and plan what they will do tomorrow. They do not store food, so there is a need for hunting and gathering roots every day. No one is in charge of any particular process. Besides, they collect food and provide it for everybody. The tribe lives in camps with ten to twenty residents in each. A man who was successful in hunting has to give food not only to his wife but also to his mother-in-law (Jones, 2016, p. 264). Hunters also share meat with women in the neighborhood who live without a husband. First of all, they treat children with food and then share it among rest of the tribe. Such behavior is a result of survival opportunities that depend on the group ability to live peacefully and kill animals for food and leather. They feel responsible for other people who came to their community such as guests or tourists. The Hadzabe are good at accommodating and welcoming people, adapting them to their daily activities and traditions. It seems that the absence of a leader is the recipe for the conflict-free society. Their standards of individual freedom, equality and the right to make decisions are opposite to political organization of the contemporary countries. The change of the organization of the tribe happened in 2013. Thus, obtaining the land certificate would not be possible without a representative from the community. Therefore, the tribe elected Mr. Naftali Zingu for this role (Benenson, 2013). In their routine life, every person leads, participates and shares what they have. Their characteristics are alertness, curiosity, and intelligence (Leider, 2014). A religious leader is absent as well. The tribe does not have any religion, churches, meetings, and praying. They believe in cosmological phenomena such as the moon, the sun, stars and their ancestors (Crittenden, n.d.).

Gender

The gender roles are cross-trained and clear. Thus, men create weapons, hunt and collect honey, while women take care of children, gather roots, berries, and fruits, and build and fix houses. Men usually hunt solo or in pairs at night. In case when hunting is not successful, men gather baobab fruit. The responsibilities of men and women complement each other because the job done by two genders and there is always an alternative meal. The Hadza males and females rarely have conflict with each other as they spend most of the day separately. Another reason is the peaceful nature of the Hadzabe people. Children also collect fruits and berries near the camp. Boys learn hunting before the age of eight, and girls make dolls for themselves from the items they found. The Hadza people are monogamous, but there is no formal marriage or divorce. They have a tradition to make couples and raise children. When a boy decides to get married, his parents ask for permission of the girl’s family. Both parents discuss the possibility of having a new relative. Five members from each side go to work together and make a house for them. The Hadzabe people change the partner every couple of years (Burrows, 2016). The relationship between genders has not changed considerably since the emergence of the tribe.

Effect and Reaction to Globalization

Globalization affected the Hadza from different perspectives. For instance, women used to wear animals skins, while nowadays they have colorful tribal fabrics on them. There is evidence that the Tanzania government in the 1970s pressured them into wearing cloth, which had been donated to them by foreigners. Currently, the government provides them with cloth, or they trade it for honey. Besides, it can be traded for jewelry made from shells and beads, house suppliers, and other things made by tribespeople. It is a clear evidence that the market economy has reached those forgotten places. The Tanzania government implemented the policy of moving the Hadza people to villages in order to provide them with education, health facilities, and water. The tribe did not like the opportunity and soon returned to their native land (Benenson, 2013). However, some of them stayed in villages and faced the alcohol problem. The lack of activities for them adversely influenced the Hadza, who increased consumption of alcohol instead of food. The other globalized world trend is education. The number of Hadzabe who attend school increased from 20% to 60% during the last forty years. The first Hadzabe primary school was built by missionaries. Most of the parents argue that knowledge received at school has no value for their life (Crittenden, n.d.). The water question is one of the most problematic after globalization. The development of the agriculture industry and climate changes led to higher incidence of droughts and reduced water level in spring. At present, the Hadza people create deep wells to get water. The land was taken from the tribe, and now commercial hunting groups offer safari for tourists. The Hadzabe are forbidden to hunt there; they even can be arrested for such actions. Moreover, gathering fruit and roots in those place is not safe because of the risk of being shot (Benenson, 2013). In general, the tribe lost about 90% of the land during the past fifty years. Their soils were given to neighboring tribes or governmental agriculture companies. Crops, sweet potato, and onion are now grown on the cultivated lands instead of savannas and forests. Since acres of land appeared unoccupied, the companies and the government decided to use them. They neglected the fact that some tribe, even with no legal right for it, has a moral right to live and use the land as they lived there for thousands of years. Numerous attempts of the government to modernize the Hadza failed. However, in 2011, the authorities recognized the rights for 20,000 hectares of Hadzabe lands ("The Hadza," n.d.). Generally, globalization adversely influenced the tribe. Their ecological world became a target for businessmen, who grow crops or vegetables their using modern technologies. As a result, their activity damages the soil and water of the land and endangers the hunt-and-gather lifestyle of the Hadza. The tribe decided to continue their ancestors’ way of life and work, and they have a right to do this. The Hadza needed to change the tradition to wear animal skins and to learn writing and languages. For modern people, they are natural things, but for the Hadza, they constitute dramatic changes. They currently wear fabric clothes and attend school, which means the tribe accepted such innovations. Nevertheless, in most cases, they try to stay isolated from modernization.

The materials studied for the report showed the interest to the tribe from the outside world. Journalists and writers from the USA, Europe, and Asia go to the East of Africa to see wild places and wild people. Tourists visit them for hunting courses and trying their diet. The number of killed animals increases when the guests arrive. On the one hand, hunting is their survival resource. On the other hand, tourists require the show and the television needs action on the screen for earnings profit. Hence, globalization makes a negative impact not only on the Hadza’s future hunting but also on the animals.

Conclusion

To conclude, the Hadza tribe is the oldest, the most interesting and not studied society known on the Earth. Their lifestyle is hunt-and-gather, which is caused by the geography of the location they inhabit. The way of the Hadza’s life is almost the same as their ancestors had. There is no difference between basic procedures such as organizing camps, sharing food and seasonal moving. However, there are changes in the way they look, trade, study and use land. Globalization negatively affected their lifestyle because of introduction of ecology and governmental rules. The missioners and numerous projects help tribespeople with donations and building schools for Hadza children. The Hanza deserve the life they have chosen and the right to privacy on the lands of their ancestors.