The Hadza people are an ethnic group living around Lake Eyasi in the Great Rift Valley and near the Serengeti plain in Tanzania, in an area called Hadzaland.
In 2015, there were between 1,200 and 1,300 individuals, with only about 300 of them, a small group, still surviving, dedicated exclusively to hunting and gathering.
This small community, extensively studied by anthropologists in recent decades, has some characteristics that make it certainly unique and peculiar within the African continent.
They are not related to any other people. Genetic tests show that even the Sandawe people, who live just 150 kilometers away, separated from the Hadza over 15,000 years ago. These same tests reveal significant mixing with the Bantu people in recent centuries.
They are considered descendants of the indigenous hunter-gatherer population of the area they inhabit, a territory they have occupied for thousands of years (there is no record of them coming from elsewhere, and their tradition does not mention any migration).
Furthermore, their way of life has remained unchanged, with few modifications except in the last hundred years due to contact with the agricultural and pastoral population in the vicinity.
It is worth noting that Hadzaland is only 50 kilometers from Olduvai Gorge, considered the cradle of humanity due to the large number of hominid fossils found (with the oldest evidence of elephant hunting by Homo ergaster), and 40 kilometers from the prehistoric site of Laetoli, where the first footprints of bipedal hominids were discovered.
According to Frank Marlowe, the evidence suggests that the entire area has been continuously occupied by hunter-gatherers like the Hadza, at least for the past 50,000 years.
The Hadza have a unique oral tradition divided into four epochs. Collected, among others, by D.K. Ndagala and N. Zengu, each of these epochs is characterized by being inhabited by a different people, all ancestors of the Hadza.
The description of their way of life suggests that these stories could be so ancient that, at least regarding the first people, they could refer to Homo erectus or another similarly ancient hominid, now extinct.
According to the Hadza, the first people who lived at the beginning of time were the Akakaanebe or Gelanebe, that is, the ancestors. They had no tools or fire (because the land was too wet, although they could produce sparks by striking stones), but they hunted by staring at animals, and the animals would drop dead. They were hairy giants who ate raw meat and slept under trees because they didn’t build houses. They also had no weapons.
In the second epoch, the Akakaanebe are succeeded by the Tlaatlanebe, also giants but without hair. They already knew how to make fire (thanks to the land drying up) and used it to cook meat.
In this epoch, animals had become more cautious and would flee from humans, so they had to rely on dogs to chase and hunt them. The Tlaatlanebe were the first to use medicines and amulets, and they lived in caves. They also began to worship a sacred being called epeme.
The third epoch is that of the Hamakwabe, smaller than their ancestors. They invented the bow and arrows, cooking containers, and houses similar to those of the current Hadza.
They were the first to have contact with other peoples not engaged in gathering, from whom they obtained iron to make knives and arrows. They mastered fire and invented a game called lukuchuko.
Finally, the fourth epoch, continuing to this day, is inhabited by the Hamaishonebe, that is, the current people. They are smaller than the Hamakwabe and were the ones who began mixing with other societies in the vicinity.
According to Ndagala and Zengu, these oral traditions of the Hadza reveal many elements of continuity and change, not only in recent decades but also since the very beginning of human existence.
As if all this were not peculiar enough, most Hadza still live without a calendar, laws, or writing (and yet their language is not considered endangered).
This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on July 3, 2019. Puedes leer la versión en español en Las leyendas del pueblo Hadza son tan antiguas que podrían referirse a ancestros homínidos ya extintos
Sources
R.Layton, ed., From the raw to the cooked: Hadzabe perceptions of their past, D.K. Ndagala y N. Zengu en Who Needs the Past?: Indigenous Values and Archaeology | Frank Marlowe, The Hadza: Hunter-gatherers of Tanzania | Daniel Shriner, Fasil Tekola-Ayele, Adebowale Adeyemo, Charles N Rotimi, Genetic Ancestry of Hadza and Sandawe Peoples Reveals Ancient Population Structure in Africa. Genome Biology and Evolution, Volume 10, Issue 3, March 2018, Pages 875–882, doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evy051 | Michael Finkel, The Hadza | Wikipedia
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