Tanzania lures tourists to live with primitive tribe

By Kizito Makoye

Manyara, TANZANIA (AA) – Tanzania is enticing adventure tourists to spend time with the primitive Hadza tribe living deep inside forests of Yaeda Valley in the northern part of the country.

Numbering approximately 1,300, anthropologists believe that they represent a modern link to ways of human existence and survival.

The tourists, who enlist for the trip undertake a cultural journey, learn hunting techniques and survival skills from this primitive tribe, said Ezekiel Phillipo, a leader of the Hadza community.

From lighting a fire by rubbing a wooden stick between their palms against a small hole gouged on a piece of log, the tourists grasp the ancient technique of igniting the fire.

A tourist Jennifer Brown, who has flown from Michigan in the US to spend time with the primitive tribe, said they deserve an improved life.

“It is a fantastic experience. It baffles my mind how these people manage to survive with very little resources,” she said.

She had joined Hadza women singing and dancing under a moonlit night. She recalls that men dressed in feathered headdresses and bells around their ankles stomped their right feet in the tune of the singing.

Luka Kikwa, 30, a tribal said the visitors share dinner with his family, which includes hunted animals and edible plants. The tribals eat everything they can kill, from birds to wild pigs, buffalos to baboons.

According to Phillipo, they smear poison on their arrow tips made up of the boiled sap of the desert rose and are powerful enough to kill a big animal. Tourists spend nights in temporary thatched shacks made of dried grass and tree branches, the abode of tribals.

Kikwa in his home has just a cooking pot, water container, and an ax which he often carries on his shoulder.

-Showcasing ancient skills

While there is little hunting ground now left due to encroachments, off late the tribal elders with the help of the Tanzanian government have switched to earn a living by promoting cultural tourism, where they demonstrate their unique skills to visitors.

Adventure tourists drive through the rift valley, up the cliff over the Mbulu plateau, and venture to the banks of serene Eyasi Lake to camp at the Yaeda Valley.

The visitors say that the traditional and unchanged way of life of tribals is exciting for them.

Phillipo, said the visitors along with tribe members collect tubers, berries, and other wild fruit along with honey depending on the season.

Tourists say, walking through the forest is challenging as it is packed with spiked acacia trees and thorny bushes.

“For us, every day is a struggle, we have to find something for the family to eat,” said Kikwa.

Kikwa, who is married and has three children, has scars on his chest and arms as marks of his struggle with bushes, snakebites, arrows, and knives.

He, however, opposes the idea of switching to a modern lifestyle.

“We cannot survive without hunting,” he said.

While some Hadza families have started to let their children go to school, but many of them drop out or escape from classrooms to return to forests.