Proven Enduring
We Hadzabe are hunter-gatherers living in four districts in Tanzania. Our total population is about one thousand people. We speak a click language which is unlike any other language in Tanzania. Everybody recognizes that we are the original inhabitants, the first people to live here. Everyone else came later.
Until recently we lived entirely by hunting and gathering: - by hunting eland, buffalo, zebra, wildbeeste, hartebeeste, impala and other animals with bows and poisoned arrows - by gathering baobab fruit, undushibi berries, //ekwa roots, the honey of wild bees and many other bush foods. We did not cultivate and we had no cattle, sheep or goats. Now our life is much more difficult.
*Source: http://cendoc.docip.org/collect/cendocdo/index/assoc/HASH4fae/a6021d22.dir/210228.pdf
What are the beliefs and practices of my people regarding how a human being is meant to exist in relationship with a living earth?
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Proven Resilient
For many years the Government has tried to change us into farmers. We were taught to cultivate…but we prefer our own food and the hunting and gathering way of life…
Other Tanzanians often think of our land as unused and empty. But it is not empty. Every part of it is owned and used by us. We have looked after it well. Until so much of our land was taken, the animals, the bees and the plants all multiplied well. We were never hungry. All our neighbours suffered from famines. In the history of the Hadzabe there has never been a famine…. For our future and for the future of our children, we must have our land. Without land, we will have nothing.
*Source: http://cendoc.docip.org/collect/cendocdo/index/assoc/HASH4fae/a6021d22.dir/210228.pdf
What are the beliefs and practices required to survive and thrive in the contemporary world?
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Additional Resources
Powerpoint
Download the entire Hadzabe slide deck for educational purposes