Oral tradition One telling of Hadza's
oral history divides their past into four epochs, each inhabited by a different culture. According to this tradition, at the beginning of time, the world was inhabited by hairy giants called the
akakaanebee (first ones) or
geranebee (ancient ones). The
akakaanebee did not possess tools or fire; they hunted game by running it down until it fell dead; they ate meat raw. They did not build houses but slept under trees, as the Hadza do today in the dry season. In older versions of this story, they did not use fire because it was physically impossible in the earth's primeval state. Younger Hadza, who have been to school, say that the
akakaanebee did not know how to use fire. In the second epoch, the
akakaanebee were succeeded by the
xhaaxhaanebee (in-between ones), who were equally gigantic but without hair. Fire could be made and used to cook meat, but animals had grown more wary of humans and had to be chased and hunted by dogs. The
xhaaxhaanebee were the first people to use medicines and charms to protect themselves from enemies and initiated the rite. They lived in caves. The third epoch was inhabited by the people of
hamakwanebee (recent days), who were smaller than their predecessors. They invented bows and arrows, cooked with containers, and mastered the use of fire. They also built huts like those of Hadza today. The people of
hamakwanebee were the first of the Hadza ancestors to have contact with non-foraging people, with whom they traded for iron to make knives and arrowheads. They also invented the gambling game
lukuchuko. The fourth epoch continues today and is inhabited by the
hamayishonebee (those of today). When discussing the
hamayishonebee epoch, people often mention specific names and places and can say approximately how many generations ago events occurred.
Archaeology and genetic history The Hadza are not closely related to any other people. The Hadza language was once classified with the Khoisan languages because it has click consonants; however, there is no further evidence they are related. Genetically, the Hadza do not appear to be closely related to Khoisan speakers; even the
Sandawe, who live around away, diverged from the Hadza more than 15,000 years ago. Genetic testing also suggests significant
admixture has occurred between the Hadza and
Bantu. Minor admixture with
Nilotic and
Cushitic-speaking populations may have occurred in the last few thousand years. Today, a few Hadza women marry into neighbouring groups such as the Bantu
Isanzu and the Nilotic
Datooga, but these marriages often fail, and the women and their children return to the Hadza. In previous decades, rape and capture of Hadza women by outsiders seems to have been common. During a famine in 1918–20, some Hadza men were reported as taking Isanzu wives.
Precolonial period Until about 500 BCE, Tanzania was exclusively occupied by hunter-gatherers akin to the Hadza. The first agriculturalists to enter the region were
Cushitic-speaking cattle herders from the
Horn of Africa. Around 500 CE, the
Bantu expansion reached Tanzania, bringing populations of farmers with iron tools and weapons. The last major ethnic group to enter the region were
Nilotic pastoralists who migrated south from
Sudan in the 18th century. Each of these expansions of farming and herding peoples displaced earlier populations of hunter-gatherers, who were at a demographic and technological disadvantage and vulnerable to the loss of environmental resources (i.e., foraging areas and habitats for game) to farmland and pastures. Groups such as the Hadza and the
Sandawe are remnants of indigenous hunter-gatherer populations that were once much more widespread, and they are under continued pressure from the expansion of agriculture into their traditional lands. Farmers and herders appeared in the vicinity of Hadzaland relatively recently. The Isanzu, a Bantu farming people, began living south of Hadzaland around 1850. The pastoralist
Iraqw and
Datooga were both forced to migrate into the area by the expansion of the
Maasai, the former in the 19th century and the latter in the 1910s. The Hadza also have direct contact with the Maasai and with the
Sukuma west of
Lake Eyasi. The upheavals caused by the Maasai expansion in the late 19th century caused a decline in the Hadza population. The Hadza's interaction with many of these peoples has been hostile. Pastoralists often killed Hadza as reprisals for the "theft" of livestock since the Hadza did not have the notion of animal ownership and would hunt them as they would wild game. The general attitude of neighboring agro-pastoralists towards the Hadza was prejudicial. They viewed them as backward, lacking a "real language," and made up of the dispossessed of neighboring tribes that had fled into the forest out of poverty or because they committed a crime. Many of these misconceptions were transmitted to early colonial visitors to the region who wrote about the Hadza. The Isanzu were hostile to the Hadza at times. Isanzu people may have captured them as part of the
slave trade until as late as the 1870s when it was halted by the German colonial government. Later interactions were more peaceful, with the two peoples sometimes intermarrying and residing together, though as late as 1912, the Hadza were reported as being "ready for war" with the Isanzu. Still,
folk tales depict the Isanzu as favorable and, at times, heroic, unlike the Iraqw and the cattle-raiding Maasai. Moreover, many goods and customs come from them, and the Hadza myths mention and depict a benevolent influence of the Isanzu in their mythology. The British colonial government tried to make the Hadza settle down and adopt farming in 1927, the first of many such government efforts. The British tried again in 1939, the independent Tanzanian government tried in 1965 and 1990, and various foreign
missionary groups have tried the same since the 1960s. These numerous attempts, some forceful, have largely failed. Generally, the Hadza willingly settle as long as provided food stocks last, then leave and resume their traditional hunter-gatherer lives when the provisions run out; few have adopted farming for sustenance. Disease is also a problem – Of the four villages built for the Hadza since 1965, two (Yaeda Chini and Munguli) are now inhabited by the Isanzu, Iraqw, and Datooga. Another, Mongo wa Mono, established in 1988, is sporadically occupied by Hadza groups who stay there for a few months at a time, either farming, foraging, or using the food given to them by missionaries. At the fourth village, Endamagha (also known as Mwonyembe), some Hadza children attend school, but they account for just a third of the students there. Numerous attempts to convert the Hadza to
Christianity have also been largely unsuccessful.
Present In recent years, Hadza territory has seen increasing encroachment from neighboring peoples. The western Hadza lands are now a private hunting reserve, and the Hadza are officially restricted to a reservation within the reserve and prohibited from hunting there. The
Yaeda Valley, long uninhabited due to the
tsetse fly, is now settled by Datooga herders, who are clearing the Hadza lands on either side of the valley for pasture for their goats and cattle. The Datooga hunt out the game, and their land clearing destroys the berries, tubers, and honey that the Hadza rely on. Watering holes for Datooga cattle can cause the shallow watering holes that the Hadza rely on to dry up. Most Hadzabe are no longer able to sustain themselves in the bush without supplementary food such as
ugali. After appearing in documentaries on the Hadza on PBS and the BBC in 2001, the Mang'ola Hadza have become a tourist attraction. Although this may seem to help the Hadzabe, much of the money from tourism is allocated to government offices and tourism companies instead of the Hadzabe. Money given directly to Hadzabe also contributes to
alcoholism, and deaths from
alcohol poisoning have recently become a severe problem, further contributing to the loss of cultural knowledge. In 2007, the local government controlling the Hadza lands adjacent to the Yaeda Valley leased the entire of land to the
Al Nahyan royal family of the
United Arab Emirates for use as a "personal safari playground". Both the Hadza and Datooga were evicted, with some Hadza resisters imprisoned. However, after protests from the Hadza and negative coverage in the international press, the deal was rescinded. The Hadzabe were part of major studies concerning
evolutionary anthropology and
bioenergetics, primarily conducted by
Duke University professor
Herman Pontzer and Pontzer's research team. Pontzer's fieldwork was also overseen by the Tanzanian National Institute for Medical Research and Commission for Science and Technology. The Hadzabe were instrumental in the researchers' discovery of the
exercise paradox, which found that the Hadzabe had comparable caloric expenditure to sedentary individuals in industrialized nations, despite being more physically active. ==Range==