Overview

The Hadzabe, a hunter-gatherer tribe, live close to the shores of Lake Eyasi, as do the Nilotic-speaking Datoga tribe who are pastoralists. Visits to these tribes are possible on half day or full day excursions which would include a visit to their homesteads, learning about their way of life, medicinal plants, and even animal tracking with bows and arrows with the Hadzabe hunters.

The Hadzabe – what you can learn from the Hadzabe

• Different kinds of materials being used to make arrows – arrow sticks, the preparation of poison and the point of poison in the arrow
• Processing poison from the poison tree
• Fruit, root tubers and honey collection
• Shallow wells prepared by women for water collection from the ground for home use
• Traditional dancing
• How to make fire the traditional way, in the ancient hand-drill method using palms of the hands and two pieces of sticks / wood
• Training and exercise in arrow shooting and targeting
• Preparation of huts for the women (being made of branches of trees)

The Datoga – what you can learn from the Datoga

• General life style of the Datoga
• How mud & cow dung huts are being prepared by women
• Preparation of the boma ( the cattle fence)
• Learning the way men and women dress
• Learning the art of women like jewellery making – e.g. necklaces, bracelets, beads, skin skirts etc
• Learn about black smiths, weapons & weapon making
• Cow milking and preparation of local butter
• Learn the history of polygamy in the Datoga tribe
• Flour making by women using grinding stones
• Preparation of “gissuda” – a local beer – for ceremonies, weddings, prayers to gods & ancestors. The type of honey used is absolutely natural and women are not allowed to drink this local beer made out of honey & some natural tubers.