Hadza people

The Hadza ( Hadzabe also, Hadapi, Kindiga, Tindiga, Wakindiga, Kangeju ) are an ethnic group in Tanzania, which in 1988 comprised an estimated 1,000 people and is estimated at about 700. They live scattered on the shores of Lake Eyazi in an inaccessible and little fertile area of about 1500 square kilometers.

They are traditionally hunters and gatherers and one of the last people groups that has been used stone tools or used in the recent past. Meanwhile, their influence grows through the modern age.

The Hadza language is isolated, but has typological similarities with the so called Khoisan languages ​​.

Habitat

Traditionally, there are four different areas in which the Hadza during the dry season to live: West of the southern end of the Eyazi Lake, between Eyazi Lake and east of it located Yaeda Swamp, east of Yaeda Valley in the Mbulu Highlands and north of the valley around the village Mang'ola. In the dry, they can easily move from one habitat to the next. Access to the western area is via the south end of the Eyazi Lake which dries up in the dry season first, or the slope of the Serengeti Plateau on the north shore. Also the Yaeda Valley can easily be crossed. During the rainy season the Hadza live between and outside the described areas, as these are not easily accessible then.

The Hadza investigated traditionally outside the described areas to the Serengeti into it for food. Food sources are hunting and gathering berries and honey. Although hunting is prohibited in the Serengeti, the Tanzanian authorities to recognize, that this is a special case, and not put the regulations by. Similarly, the Hadza are the only ethnic group in Tanzania, the need to pay any taxes.

In October 2011, the Tanzanian government has for the first time the land rights of a Hadza community formally recognized and handed over title deeds. For other communities, however, the struggle to secure their land rights continues.

Existential threat

The remaining hunting, berry and honey reasons the Hadza are threatened by intervention. The western habitat of the Hadza is located in a private hunting area; the stay of the Hadza is limited to one reserve where they can not hunt. The Yaeda Valley, long uninhabited because of the tsetse fly, is now claimed by Datooga herders. The Datooga vacate the Hadza lands on both sides of the valley as a pasture for their goats and cattle. The game is hunted and driven from the field, the berries, tubers, honey sticks and water holes to which the Hadza are instructed to disappear.

The finally Mang'ola region became the main growing area for onions in East Africa and led to a sharp increase in population in recent years. By documentation in the media Mang'ola - Hadza became a tourist attraction. That made her the first time but also in contact with alcohol and the tuberculosis epidemic, for the weakened from alcoholism organisms are particularly vulnerable.