Tanzania: Hunting with Africa's Last Full Time Hunter-Gatherers

The technician was prepping the MRI machine for the scan of my injured left knee. I was at the Sport Sciences Institute in Cape Town South Africa, the well-known sports medicine center used by the South African National Rugby Team. The MRI machine being used was the latest in cutting edge technology. It had a small scanner for individual limbs, and not at all like the claustrophobic tube-like contraption that I had used in the past when undergoing MRI scans. While the technician set up the device, I was thinking of how unimaginably different this modern world was from that of the hunter-gather Hadzabe people with whom I spent some time the previous week.

The Hadzabe people are a small band of people in north central Tanzania, and considered the last full-time hunter-gatherer people in Africa. Their very simple lifestyle, mostly unchanged from countless millennium ago, had managed to survive through the colonial period of Africa, the space age, internet age and into whatever "age" future historians will call this one.

While tagging along with them on a hunt, this most basic of human activities dating from deep in our evolutionary history, I had sharp stabbing pains in my knee. I knew instantly during that hunt that I had a serious knee injury which required the miracle of modern medicine to fix. If I was a Hadzabe, I would be essentially crippled and no longer able to hunt.

The few remaining Hadzabe that still follow their traditional lifestyle, are a nomadic people. They live outdoors day and night much of the year, only building simple, temporary stick structures during the rainy season. They will move during the year, in their now very constricted territory, to the best areas seasonally to hunt and forage for food. Animist in their beliefs, their main gods are the sun and moon and they strongly worship ancestors.

Interestingly, they don't hunt or eat hyena. Traditionally they left their dead out for the hyenas to eat (now the dead are buried due to people of other cultures living around them). This relationship between their ancestors and hyenas makes the hyena off-limits.

On the surface, life is amazingly simple for the Hadzabe. Typically the able bodied males may start their day off with a hunt. The women tend the children and then go into the forest and scrub to scrounge for berries, edible roots and other forest foods and medicines. Men also forage, often while hunting.

After the morning hunt, the catch of the day is divided and consumed. Another hunt might then take place in the evening. There is no "house" or home to keep up since they live out in the open. As mentioned above, the only shelters the Hadzabe construct are very crude stick "igloo" shaped structures for some relief from the rains during the wet season. There are no books to read as they have no written language, and no "planning" for the future as there is no calendar, in the modern sense, for the Hadzabe. For the most part, children don't go to school. Those that do, typically don't last long at it.

If the world's dwindling population of tigers might make them the poster-child for disappearing wildlife, then hunter-gatherer peoples, along with forest dwelling pygmies, would be the same in the human culture realm. The population of Hadzabe has dwindled to perhaps around 1000, with only about 300 to 400 actually living their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Just a few centuries ago, the Hadzabe were far more numerous. They also dwelt in a much larger geographical domain. This larger area ranged across a significant section of north-central Tanzania, including the Serengeti region, and the Central Rift Valley region around Lake Eyena.

A disastrous population crash of the Hadzabe started in the late 1800s. The causes of this were the usual dismal factors experienced by countless traditional peoples all over the world in the modern era: Encroachment by more-advanced peoples on their lands, large die-offs from infections brought by the outsiders, to which they had no immunity, being killed off by foreigners who view them as inferior peoples, and outsiders attempting to force an alien lifestyle upon them.

The first big population plunge for the Hadzabe came in response to Masai, a pastoral and herding people, who moved into Hadzabe lands in the 1800s. Then European colonists and eventually the independent governments of Tanzania, along with foreign missionaries, tried to force the Hadzabe into settled farming lifestyles and conversion to Christianity. These outsider efforts, made over a big part of the twentieth century, only succeeded in killing off most of the Hadzabe, but won few converts to a settled farming lifestyle or Christianity.

Ironically, it is two uniquely modern forces which have saved the last tiny remnant of the traditional Hadzabe people from final oblivion. Documentaries by PBS and the BBC in 2001 called attention and gained worldwide sympathy to their plight. This in turn made the Hadzabe into a tourist attraction, thereby placing a monetary value on preserving their way of life.

During my relatively short time spent with the Hadzabe, the highlight for me was my coming along with them on a hunt. When I first arrived at their camp, it was early morning. The small band of around two dozen tribal people was huddled around a few campfires. The men and boys were preparing for the hunt. This involved making arrows from sticks and fitting the several various weapon ends on them to use on differing prey.

The most basic tip for an arrow is just the stick itself carved to a sharpened point. These are good for birds and small animals. Another type of arrow head uses a small corn cob at its end, so that it does not stick into trees, making the arrow easier to retrieve if it misses its mark. The more sophisticated arrow heads are made of metals, used for larger game, such as taking down a kudu. The metal arrow heads are gained through trade with a neighboring group of people, the Datoga, that specialize in metal blacksmithing. (The Hadzabe themselves do not do any type of metal blacksmithing). Poisoned arrow tips are also employed.

At first, my interactions with the people in the Hadzabe camp were a bit awkward. But then I gave the one who appeared to be the leader a pack of cigarettes that I had brought. This broke the ice as it seems all Hadzabe savor smoking. The pack of cigarettes was promptly opened and each cigarette was distributed to one of the members of the group—women and children included. Someone then asked, through my interpreter guide, if I had brought any marijuana. They really like to smoke this too. They only can get it from visitors, or in the wild, as they don't grow or cultivate things.

Then we were off. Six hunters, my guide/interpreter and I all hustled along a dusty pathway along a forest of scrub, short trees and some larger baobab trees. The two youngest hunters, Maluca and Alamo, still boys, took a few wild arrow shots at some birds off in the distance, even trying to hit one in flight. Their arrows fell harmlessly after missing their targets.

Then about 20 minutes into the hunt, the first "kill" took place. Maluca had shot a small bird that looked like it might provide the amount of meat found on a chicken wing.

Very quickly I realized that there seems to be no real discretion or discrimination in what is hunted. Basically anything that moves and is edible is shot at along the way. This of course means that most of the kills are small or even tiny animals or birds, barely a gulp or two worth of meat. There are only two animals that are off limits: Hyenas as mentioned above, and snakes.

About an hour into the hunt, everyone all of a sudden got excited. They started shouting, whistling, making clicking sounds at each other and waving their hands at a section of trees and bushes nearby. The group broke out into an all-out sprint to the bushes. I followed anticipating that a big animal, perhaps a kudu, had been spotted and was being cornered.

Now lest you imagine that the kill would be a dramatic scene such as that you see on the movies, think again. In the movie scene, the heroic hunter gatherer takes a measured and cool aim at the majestic beast. He draws back his bow with cool precision and fires a precise kill shot, with the dramatic poignant death of the beast ensuing. Reality, on the other hand, is more likely to be a drawn out affair. One can expect a frenzied, bloody and gory mess. Probably the first arrow shot would hit somewhere on the shoulder or leg or midsection of the poor animal. The victim would then howl, squeal, or scream in blind panic and fear, and become quite dangerous. It would be cornered, fighting for its life and uncomprehending of the type of wound it was sustaining. It has no instinctive built-in behavior or knowledge of arrow piercings.

Eventually, the proud hunter gathers will take more and more shots at the wounded, cornered, terrified and eventually exhausted animal. When the victim looks like a porcupine, with perhaps several arrows sticking out of it, and collapses, one of the brave hunters will come upon it and do the final kill, with a spear if available, a club, or an arrow shot at very close range.

For example, I once watched a group of Huli Wigman in the highlands of Papua New Guinea take down a large pig with arrows and spears. The 4 proud warriors surrounded the pig. One took his shot and hit the pig on the upper thigh. The pig shrieked an ear piercing squeal and charged the hunter that inflicted the wound. The hunter, quite understandably, scrambled up a nearby tree like a scared rabbit.

After about 10 minutes of the other hunters baiting the scared and frenzied pig, the animal turned and started to walk away in a confused state with the arrow still sticking out of his thigh. Then one of the other hunters came from behind and shot the pig in the ass. This set off another round of the pig charging and squealing in frenzied panic, with the brave warrior involved scrambling away for dear life.

Eventually the poor pig started to tire as it was losing a significant amount of blood from its wounds. The hunters tentatively got close again, and shot it two more times with yet more resulting frenzied squeals and charges. After another 5 to 10 minutes and another 3 arrows the pig finally collapsed. It looked like an arrow target at a shooting range with 5 or 6 arrows still poked into its body. One of the hunters then, quite warily and with great caution, approached the mortally wounded animal and thrust a spear into it. After yet another spasm and set of loud piercing and anguished screams, the pig fell back whereby one of the hunters plunged yet another spear into it to finish it off. The whole process took over a half hour. There was nothing proud, dramatic or heroic about it.

As it turned out, the source of excitement on this day with the proud Hadzabe hunter-gatherers was not such a notable kill. 5 of the 6 hunters scrambled, surrounded and crawled into a bush and thorn thicket where the prey was. The sixth hunter stayed on the outside presumably to kill the beast when if it managed to get out of the bush area. After some more excited whistling, clicking, there was a lot of shouting of triumph as they emerged from the thicket. The young hunter, Alamo, proudly held up the kill for me to see and take a picture: A small squirrel hung bleeding and pathetic on the end of his arrow. It was probably not more than a few months old and maybe enough for 8 or 9 bites as a meal.

After a few more small animal kills, the group of hunters took a break. For their resting spot, they took me to see some old rock paintings that were in a small shallow cave near the top of a moderately high steep hill. The cave was used often by this group of Hadzabe as a place of shelter in the event of heavy rains, during the wet season.

While everyone was resting around the cave opening, we had a few moments to converse through my guide, who interpreted. They spent a few moments pointing out the various faded crude rock paintings on the cave ceiling, which had been done by their ancestors, they believed.

I then asked them a number of questions about their lives and thoughts on various things. One of the most surprising things I gained from the conversation was their seemingly total lack of curiosity about the world outside of their familiar surroundings. While I asked them lots of questions about their lives, they had no questions for me about mine, except for one: How many children did I have?

I was a bit surprised at this lack of interest in anything outside their life realm. So, I finally had my interpreter just ask them directly if they were curious about the outside "modern" world and if they ever wanted to visit areas outside of their familiar surroundings. The answer was that they were happy with their lives there and had no real interest or curiosity in other lifestyles or the modern world.

I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. The Hadzabe people have had a disastrous experience with the outside world over the past century and a half.

Altogether the hunt lasted around three and a half hours. The take for the morning affair: Two tiny birds, one baby squirrel and two small bushbabies, which are small nocturnal primates (the ones I saw sort of looked like tree squirrels more than primates). Hopefully the women of the group had better luck with their gathering!