fPcN interCultural:

defenders of free tribal life

Today, there are some 2000 Hadzabe (singular : Hadza) living around Lake Eyasi (in Hadza language : Balangida!), which is situated within the great east African rift valley. The Hadzabe speak their own distinct click lout language and are known to be the aborigines on their land. It may well also be assumed that they are the direct descendants of the early humans who lived there some 3 million years ago as bone findings indicate.
This is, in human scales, an exceptionally successful existence. For more than hundred thousand generations it has been possible, only due to their lifestyle as hunters and gatherers, without permanent settlements and living in small clans, totally adapted to the surrounding nature. The large number of plants and in particular animal species within the Hadzaland, very clearly shows that their ancestors were an intrinsic part of and not dominant over their surrounding ecology.

Nowadays the Hadzabe and the nature around them is balancing on the edge of extinction, caused by the greed for power and money by the misguided, civilised mankind. The destruction began, very suddenly and recently. It is only a hundred years ago that the first Europeans, hungry for land and profit arrived. Until that point the region had been in peace and was full of retreats for the Hadzabe. These first intruders were mostly Germans and they quickly occupied the profitable parts of the land, in particular those parts on the south eastern slope of the well known Ngorongoro crater, called Sanza! by the Hadzabe, which they found suitable for their agriculture. During this time they also killed thousands of wild animals so that the Hadzabe slowly began to miss them during their very moderate hunting excursions.

The intruders, meanwhile, planted themselves in front of their flags and claimed the land for themselves, including all the animals, plants and minerals there. They did not see any Hadzabe they for decades until the year 1912. It was two decades later, after the flags and laws had changed, that a German-Norwegian couple, Kohl-Larsen, visited the Hadzabe. They may have been the first Europeans to show an interest in the Hadzabe and in their way of living. They observed a world similar to that found some hundreds of thousands of years ago. In a typically colonial manner and always equipped with superior fire arms, Ludwig Kohl-Larsen tried to start a farming business by occupying a fertile part of the Hadzaland and in doing so destroyed the forest there. Back in Europe they were able to market well the knowledge they gained from their time amongst the Hadzabe. In return they gave Hadzabe nothing.

Since that time there the changes in Hadzaland have been so much more devastating than the total three million years before. This, is what, the civilised mankind calls development and he is are proud of it. All these changes have caused a degradation to the biodiversity, a decrease in the variety of species and adverse affects on the well being of the Hadzabe.

Some 20 years ago, when European strong men forced the nation building ethos onto its ex-colonies and with this deception, declared independence, the Hadzabe had already lost nine tenths of their ancestral land. Still there were some retreats with sufficient game, edible roots and berries to continue their successfully practised lifestyle. Then came western developers, farmers, miners, western missionaries, puppet state officials, western teachers, white trophy hunters, ethnologists, anthropologists and tourists, each in search of their own profit. Many of them also tried to find ways, most without any knowledge or interest in the Hadzabe life, to force the Hadzabe into another lifestyle.

Fortunately now, most of the religious missionaries have been ejected, largely due to the help given by f P c N members. The Hadzabe are also extremely resistant to the schooling of their children and this resistance is growing again due to their reluctance being reinforced by
f P c N.

Additionally, the white trophy hunting companies, although also partly repelled with f P c N's help, have also done enormous amounts of damage to the game population. Rhinos, Wildebeest, Élan Antelopes and Buffalo's, once in abundance on the Hadzaland, are hunted out of existence. The Elephants, Zebras, Giraffes and many Antelope species, also once very common, are now hard to locate, say the Hadzabe.

Additional pressures, nowadays come from the cattle keeping, neighbouring tribes. They have often been repelled from their ancestral homesteads because of western aid activities, mostly to cultivate mono-agriculture cash crops for export, or nature conservation NGO's, creating national parks. They are then, forced to invade more and more of the Hadzaland. In doing so occupying the Hadzabe water holes one by one. As a result all the Hadzabe water holes are now polluted and often filled with stagnant water. Previously unknown eye and skin diseases are now common place among the Hadzabe.

The Hadzabe have been successful over the centuries, in keeping the neighbouring nomadic and agriculturist tribes in respectful distance. The European intruders however destroyed this balanced system of coexistence.

Through their education, Europeans are taught to resent primitive life styles and consider them to be no more than vagrants. Game was and is not seen as part of the needs in the Hadzabe life nor are Hadzabe seen as being in need of their own territory. "Vagrants like hunters-and-gatherers do not have need land for their own" that is the taught assumption and common opinion of almost all Europeans and thus so the black Africans educated by them.

The Hadzabe have had to withdraw and retreat, until the present situation that exists now, where everyone is claiming part of their land. Today, the Hadzabe enjoy a landless life due to CUSO, a Canadian NGO that is funded by their governmental and businesses. CUSO demarcated the last Hadza retreat, the Yaeda valley, for the benefit of the local farming communities and livestock holders (pastrolists). Now the Hadzabe have nowhere to go. According to a 1996 census, the area known as the Yaeda valley, to the eastern shores of lake Eylasi, was at that the time, widely free from intruders. A lot has changed since then. The situation today is such that approximately 2000 wild game animals are left to be shared between the trophy hunters, poachers from other tribes and the Hadzabe. Compared to some 60,000 cattle and livestock, mostly owned by the Barabaig (Mangati). The net result is, quite a number of Hadzabe nowadays have no meat in their diet, because it is not there any more. Some of the clans, exclusively have to live on berries and roots. Malnutrition, misery and many diseases have already been seen to enter into their lives.

f P c N calls for an immediate halt to the hardship that is being imposed on the Hadzabe, before it is too late. In order to carry this out illegal activities will become necessary as law and order only seek to promote the impoverishment.

A goal for the foresee able future, will be to secure some of the Hadzabe traditional hunting and living grounds, including water holes for them to continue their traditional existence. This can only be achieved by the area being totally free from livestock and outsiders. Additionally complete sovereignty will be granted allowing the Hadzabe to hunt trespassing cattle. Poachers, from other tribes, either white or black will also be banned from hunting on their land.

It is expected that the poisoning of some cattle will be necessary, in order to get the herders to remove their livestock.

Another strategy, but far more troublesome, will be in getting the frequent spraying of the Hadzaland, with chemicals, stopped. The chemical spraying done by the righteous western developers, combats the tsetse fly which is a considerable pest for livestock. With the return of the tsetse fly cattle would not be able to inhabit the region.

f P c N interCultural sanctions all of the above. It is considered by us as incredibly cynical that the Hadzabe are forbidden to use their traditional hunting grounds on the slopes of the Sanza! crater, which is now part of the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area, while European farmers and hunters, like the Germans Michael Gericke and Udo Marens, enjoy the profits from the stolen Hadzaland, just next to the conservation area. They, with their invited German friends shoot elephants, that have entered the attractive fields planted near to the border with the conservation area. We also consider it extremely cynical that the Hadzabe are refused permission and risk torture and imprisonment if caught hunting in these areas, while Barabaig and Maasai are allowed to open new settlements within the conservation area, while making the area gameless with the massive invasion of their cattle and goats.
Note: Written by Hartmut Heller FdN Germany

Region

• East Africa

Topic

• Campaign

Tribe

• Hadzabe