Hunting with the Hadza

The Hadza people

I have always had an interest in old tribal ways. If I had my life to do over again, I probably would major in anthropology, but at this stage of my life, at the age of 63, I will stick to pursuing my love of learning about tribes as a hobby.

My husband, Jon, and I traveled to Tanzania for a safari in September-October 2011. While we were there, we went to a remote region near Lake Eyasi where there is a nomadic tribe called the Hadza, or Hadzabe, that still maintains their traditional life as hunter-gatherers. They have rejected adapting to modern civilization, resisting even such things as owning cows or goats or becoming farmers.

It was a 2½-hour drive from Ngorongoro Crater on extremely bumpy, dusty roads. When we arrived with our local guide, Hassan, we were welcomed by the Hadza to go hunting with the men or berry picking with the women.

At a young age, Hassan, who grew up in a neighboring Iraqw village, befriended a Hadza boy and learned their unique clicking language. Only a handful of people can understand this language.

An exciting excursion

We arrived in the early afternoon, so we had missed the morning hunt, but, for some reason that I didn’t understand, four of the hunters decided to go hunting again, so Hassan and I went with them. One of the hunters promptly killed a bird with a bow and arrow, tucking it in his shorts as if it were a cell phone.

We then walked on to Lake Eyasi, which was mostly dry at that time of the year. I soon found out that the tribe had shot a flamingo that morning but it had gotten away, so that’s why they wanted to go back out in the afternoon. They did find the dead flamingo.

As we were walking on the dried-out lake, all of a sudden a hippo popped out of a nearby watering hole. Now, I know that hippos are very dangerous when a person gets between them and the water, and this hippo was already in the water, but I still felt unsafe. Hassan told me not to worry because he would take care of me.

I couldn’t figure out how he could protect me from a hippo since he didn’t have a gun, but he told me he had a Swiss army knife. Wow — that blade was a whole three inches long!

He also told me that the Hadza would take care of me. The tribe members approached the watering hole and threw rocks at the hippo while making all kinds of weird yelling noises. The hippo growled back.

I realized that if the hippo decided to attack, those guys could run as fast as lightning and I would be the weak link, so I asked Hassan to ask them if we could leave. These nice people just turned around and we left. Maybe I had overreacted, but I felt much better when we had some distance between the hippo and us.

After we got off the lake, we sat on the ground and, rubbing two pieces of wood together, they started a fire. The flamingo was thrown onto the fire, feathers and all. After stripping the burned feathers, they turned the bird, reaching into the fire with their bare hands.

After the flamingo was cooked, they ate every last bite — the head, the intestines, the bone marrow, the brain and the skinny legs. They offered me some, but I decided that, for hygienic reasons, I had better not eat anything. I really didn’t want to get sick.