22 August/23 August 2015 ★ FTWeekend 7

Travel

The good lifeSo-called ‘tribal tourism’ has earned a bad reputation for exploitative interactions and embarrassing

dance shows. But in northen Tanzania, Mike Carter finds the real thing — the chance to live alongside

Africa’s last hunter-gatherers and experience their ancient, harmonious relationship with the land

M wapo started whistling:a sweet, piercing melodythat rose and fel l ,with shades of Vivaldi’s“Spring”. From some-

where in the distance came a secondwhistler, the tune the same. Mwapotouched his ear with his finger, pointedtowards a line of acacia and beckonedme to follow him.

Nearby, on a dead tree stump, sat anangry-looking little bird the colour ofmilk chocolate. As we approached, itstarted whistling. Here was our duet-tist. “Tik’iliko,” said Mwapo. The birdtook flight. In the languid dawn lightwe followed, bird and Mwapo whistlingconstantly to each other as if in a scenefrom Mary Poppins.

Eventually we came to an enormousbaobab tree. Mwapo pointed up. There,on a branch, sat the tik’iliko, or honey-guide bird. Next to it, barely visible tothe human eye, was the entrance to anAfrican honeybee nest. Mwapo lookedhappy. Like all Hadza people, he loveshoney, and honeyguides love the waxand larvae. Without the bird, man can’tfind the nests; without man, the birdcan’t get into them. Mwapo cut freshstakes from a bush to drive into the treetrunk to make a ladder. I stared upat the bird, sitting patiently. A fewdays earlier, I could barely haveconceived of this symbiotic miracle.But even a short time spent with theremarkable Hadza, Africa’s last truehunter-gatherers, had taught me thattheir life is one long miracle.

My journey to meet the Hadza hadstarted in Arusha, northern Tanzania,from where I’d driven a few hours southonapavedroadandthenformanymoreoff-road through dense acacia andscrub, deeper and deeper into the wil-derness, heading for the Hadza home-land in the Lake Eyasi basin, borderedbythewallsof theGreatRiftValley.

With me was Daudi Peterson, 64, US-born but raised in Tanzania since hisLutheran missionary parents moved tothe country when he was two. Daudifirst met the Hadza when he was 10years old and a life-long love affair wasborn. Since 1994, through his companyDorobo, he has been taking anthropo-logists and tourists to meet them, keep-ing numbers to between 200-300 ayear, split between the Hadza’s variouscamps. “It is structured tourism, butnot staged,” he said. “We simply followthem around in their daily lives andobserve. Cultural dignity is key.”

As we drove, Daudi told me some-thing about the nomadic Hadza. Theynow number around 1,300 people,although of these only 200-300 stilllive exclusively as hunter-gatherers.Their group structures are egalitarian,without hierarchies. Their “crops” areearth’s natural offerings, foraged; their“livestock” wild animals. According to

genetic testing, the Hadza are perhapsmore than 100,000 years old, whichmakes them one of the oldest branchesof the human tree on the planet. Untilthe birth of agriculture just 10,000years ago, the Hadza lifestyle was thehuman norm. If the genus Homoevolved 2m years ago, then for 99 percent of our time on earth, through thedevelopment cycles that made us suchsuccessful animals, this is how we lived.

“At a time when developed nationsare consuming ever more resources,”Daudi said, “what can we relearn aboutsustainability from the past? These peo-ple live within the limits of the earth,and they take care of the less fortunate.No Hadza falls through the slats.”

Night was drawing in as we finallyarrived at camp, set just under the ridgeline of the Mukengelko kopje (kopjebeing the Afrikaans for “small hill”),with spectacular views across the widebasin, dotted with lumps of gneiss thesize of town houses, and the salty LakeEyasi, shimmering like mercury,beyond. Our tents had been set uparound the foot of a giant baobab. Itwouldbeourbase for thenext fewdays.

Nearby in the gloaming, under anacacia, a group of 20 or so Hadza men,women and children sat on theirhaunches, bows and arrows leaningagainst the tree. On the ground were theremnants of their evening meal: theempty shell of a leopard tortoise.

We sat around the fire. ThroughDaudi (who speaks fluent Swahili andsomeHadza), Iaskedthegroupwhatweshould do tomorrow. There followed alively debate, with everyone, from wiz-ened male elders to teenage girls, con-tributing. Many of the words of theHadza language (which is similar to theKhoisan linguistic group but considereda language isolate) are spoken in clicksand glottal stops, so it sounded like across between people arguing andwhales communicating.

On and on it went. Daudi explainedthat because the earth has always pro-vided the Hadza with abundant foodfound naturally, they’ve never knownthe starvation that comes with crop andcattle failure. It was arguably the deve-lopment of agriculture, he continued,

my tent, listening to hyenas groaningbeyond the ridge and, afterwards,dreamingof lions. Itwasafitful sleep.

The next morning we walked out intothe forest with a percussive accompani-ment from Nubian woodpeckers, adark chanting goshawk watching usfrom a branch. On the forest floor weremillion-strong columns of viciousdriver ants. In front, Mwapo and Musa,both 25, clutched their hunting bows,strings made from the knee ligamentsof giraffe, the bows decked in trophyribbons of impala and dik-dik skin andraptors’ talons. No wonder the gos-hawk was so attentive.

Mwapo bent down, pointing to sometracks and droppings. It was a greaterkudu, he said, a big male, here recently,heading in the direction to which henow pointed. The Hadza read this worldlike a menu. Mwapo and Musa eachplaced an arrow in their bows, the tipscoated with a poison they make fromboiling down the desert rose plant andwhich induces cardiac arrest. Theyheaded off into the trees, on tiptoe now,as tense as hunting cats. “Hunting herewith bow and arrow is a tough as hunt-ing gets,” Daudi said. “In the past 50years, 75 per cent of wild animals in thisareahavebeenwipedoutbyothertribesand tourists coming in and huntingwithrifles.”

Mwapo and Musa returned empty-handed. After an hour, we arrived at the

i / DETAILS

Mike Carter was a guest of Journeys by Design(journeysbydesign.com) and Kenya Airways(kenya-airways.com). A three-night trip stayingwith the Hazda in a mobile camp, including fullboard, private guide, transfers and internalflights costs from £1,970 per person (based ontwo travelling). Kenya Airways flies daily fromLondon to Nairobi, and on to Kilmanjaro airport(near Arusha) from £760 return. ‘Hadzabe: Bythe Light of a Million Fires’ by Daudi Petersen, isavailable from dorobofund.org

neighbouring camp, a collection of littlehuts made from grass draped over a lat-tice framework of branches like upside-down birds’ nests, which melt back intothe earth when the group moves on.Under a baobab, the men were all mak-ing arrows — slender branches werebeing heated on the fire and thengripped between toes and lips andtwistedtostraightenthem.

One young man was dressed up inbeautiful bead armbands and a head-dress of feathers and grass, an initiate inthe Hadza coming-of-age rite of epeme.Babies wore necklaces of sedge bulbs,thought to keep them healthy. A groupof young boys were practising theirarchery skills on small birds. “There area lot of children in this camp,” saidDaudi. “That is a good sign. The Hadzawould never have more children thanthe land can sustain.” Everywhere therewas laughter and smiles. “I’ve neverbeen with happier people,” Daudi said.“They are not hung up on what will hap-pen tomorrow or what happened yes-terday. If you know what you are doing,this is a very benign, plentiful place.It’s no accident that this was the cradleofhumanity.”

A group of women were walking out ofcamp and beckoned us to join them.After a while, some started gatheringberries, others the fallen fruit of thebaobab (containing six times as muchvitaminCasoranges),whichtheypoundwith rocks to make flour for porridge.Some stopped by a tree and pointed to avinegoingintotheground,thesignofthetubers growing underground that are astapleof theHadzadiet.Withsharpenedsticks called ts’apale they tapped theearth to locate the tubers and then dugdeep until they had amassed a pile. Mostanimals can’t get to these tubers sothey’re always available, and the Hadzaonly ever take the top 10 per cent sothey can grow back. Once an area isexhausted, it is left to regenerate as thecampmoveson.

One of the women lit a fire in 30seconds using a stick and knife-blade. Afew minutes later we were feasting onsucculent roasted tubers. “When theykill a giraffe or zebra, or scare a bigpredator off its kill, they gorge likelions until it’s all gone,” Daudi told me.“Word gets out and Hadza come frommilesaround.”

Some young boys had found a nest ofstingless bees at ground level — the besthoney there is — and smashed it in withan axe. Using fingers and grass stems asspoons, they scooped out the nectar,their faces lost in a trance-like reverie asthey slurped it down. Sated, the boysspontaneously broke into a sort of linedance, huge grins on their faces. TheHadzas’ love of honey is matched onlybytheir loveofdancing.

On the walk back to our camp, wecame across pastoralists from theDatoga tribe with emaciated cattle. Thistribe, among others, has for the past5,000 years been encroaching on theHadza’s homelands. The domesticatedanimals denude the grazing and drinkso much that the water table shrinks.Wild animals are slaughtered becausethey are a threat. The Hadza have nowarrior class. They have never had to

develop a fighting mentality. If there isever any conflict, they simply leavecamp and walk into another one.“Maybe when we had the space, that ishow all humans lived,” said Daudi. Thewhole issue of land rights is absurd totheHadza.Nobodyownstheearth.

But for a people whose very survivalhasalwaysreliedonsymbiosis, it isarel-atively new and mutually beneficialrelationship — with tourism — that justmight prove wrong the pessimistic com-mentators who predict that the Hadzaare ultimately doomed. The fees fromvisitors ($51 per person per night as abed tax, $10 a day for each Hadza guide)go into a Hadza bank account. Thisfund, managed collectively, helps payfor healthcare and for some children togo to boarding schools. A few of thesekids have gone on to university, afterwhich they have returned betterequipped to fight for Hadza rights. In2011, perhaps partly in recognition ofthe Hadza’s value to tourism and theirnewfound campaigning strengths, theTanzanian government granted themthree strips of protected land, amount-ing to 23,305 hectares. It is a mere 10 percent of their original homeland, andneighbouring tribes still encroach, butin a situation that remains on a knife-edge, it isaglimmerofhope.

“It was the Hadza who suggestedtourism,” Daudi says. “We said no, itwould be too messy, that people wouldwant to change them. But they are toostrong to be changed.”

On my last day I went out hunting alonewith Mwapo. Fewer people shouldmean better hunting, although as hefloated his way noiselessly through thescrub and I crashed behind him, gettingtangled in the whistling thorns withtheir spikes like cocktail sticks, bleed-ing profusely and cursing loudly, I don’tthink I was helping him in his quest.

We met the honeyguide bird andMwapo climbed the tree. He wasswarmed by angry bees and threw downthe honeycombs. As the bird feasted inthe tree and I feasted on the ground,Mwapo tended to his stings with the sapof a nearby tree. For as well as being afree giant supermarket, this land is alsoavastchemist’s shop.

We walked through another camp.The men were eating some meat, whichthey shared with us, and it was reallydelicious, a bit like steak. I pointed to it,

‘These people live withinthe limits of the earth,and they take careof the less fortunate’

TANZAN IA

KENYA

UGANDA

200km

Arusha

Dar es Salaam

Dodoma

LakeVictoria

LakeEyasi

RWANDA

BURUNDI

Above,clockwise fromtop: Mwapo andMusa restwhile hunting;a young Hadzaboy scoopshoney from atree; a Hadzaman in ritualdress as partof the ‘epeme’ceremony;men use stakeshammered intoa baobab trunkas a ladderMike Carter; ‘By the Light of aMillion Fires’/Dorobo Fund

with its fragility and the surplus men-tality that ensued, that created settledtowns and cities and the inevitablehierarchies and conflicts overresources. “The Hadza share absolutelyeverything. The concept of ownershipin unknown. That is a huge part of theirculture,” he said. “Because there isalways enough, there is no need toworry about tomorrow. And what weare seeing here is a community whereeverybody’s opinion is equal.”

After around 20 minutes, one of thegroup turned to Daudi and said some-thing. “We will visit a neighbouringcamp,” Daudi relayed. And that wasthat. Mwapo picked up a zeze, a two-stringed instrument with a gourd for asoundbox, and sang a song about care-less young hunters who allowed a lion tofollow them back to camp. Later, I lay in

putting my forefingers by my templesand making a mooing noise and a curi-ous face. One of the men laughed anddisappeared into a hut, emergingseconds later holding the severed headof a giant baboon, blood caked on itsenormousfangs.

We came to a kopje and Mwapostalked off on the trail of rock hyraxand impala. I sat and waited for him toreturn. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes.Wewerehours fromcamp,underablaz-ing equatorial sun in the middle ofnowhere. I was surrounded, I was con-vincing myself, by the watchful, hungryeyesof lionsandleopardsandhyenas.

After 30 minutes, I was genuinelyafraid, as helpless as an infant. I thoughtback to Daudi’s assertion that this is abenign place if you know what you’redoing and I felt ashamed — ashamedthat my ancestors would have felt sointrinsic to this place but that now, tome, it was an alien, terrifying world. Bynow, the “primitive” Hadza felt likesupermentome.

Finally Mwapo returned. We climbedthe kopje and sat there, unable to speakto one another, looking down over aland unscarred by human hands. Anelephant trumpeted. Lake Eyasi was inthe distance, the Rift Valley beyond. Itwas a scene unchanged since man, nearthisplace, firstwalkedontheearth.

High above were the straight vapourtrails of an aircraft and, at the tip, thetiny shape of a plane, like an arrowheadon a shaft. I thought of those people upthere, thrusting through space, impa-tient to arrive somewhere else. I lookedat Mwapo and, suddenly fearful for thefuture of the Hadza and the joyful wayof life I had glimpsed, I started to cry.

Below: a Hadzawoman holds ababoon’s head;tribesmentracking awounded animalMike Carter; ‘By the Light of aMillion Fires’/Dorobo Fund

AUGUST 22 2015 Section:Weekend Time: 20/8/2015 - 16:58 User: stokest Page Name: WKD7, Part,Page,Edition: WKD, 7, 1