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CULTURAL TOUR
Maasai Culture
Enrich your safari holiday with a visit to a Maasai village Spend time with the villagers, find out about their way of life, and join in their exuberant singing and dancing. The Maasai tribe, historically a nomadic people, have traditionally relied on readily available materials and indigenous technology to construct their unusual and interesting housing.
The traditional Maasai house was designed for people on the move and thus their houses were very impermanent in nature. The houses are either circular or loaf-shaped, and are made by women. Their villages are enveloped in a circular Enkang (fence) built by the men and this protects their cattle at night from wild animals.
The Maasai used to move nomadically with their herds to abundant lush pastures but these days they have built permanent huts or bomas and prefer to stay in once place. They are pastoralists and cattle is essential to their way of life.
A man’s success is measured by the number of cattle and offspring he has. As great a status and show of wealth the cattle are, they are also a vital food source. This glimpse of authentic Maasai culture is a fascinating experience of an ancient way of life that still flourishes today.
Hadzabe
A true African cultural experience
The Hadza people, or Hadzabe’e, are an ethnic group in central Tanzania, living around Lake Eyasi in the central Rift Valley and in the neighboring Serengeti Plateau. The Hadza number just under 1000. Some 300 – 400 Hadza live as hunter-gatherers, much as they have for thousands or even tens of thousands of years; they are the last functioning hunter-gatherers in Africa. The Hadza are not closely related to any other people.
While traditionally considered an East African branch of the Khoisan peoples, primarily because their language has clicks, modern genetic research suggests that they may be more closely related to the Pygmies. The Hadza language appears to be an isolate, unrelated to any other.
There are four traditional areas of Hadza dry-season habitation: West of the southern end of Lake Eyasi, between Lake Eyasi and the Yaeda Valley swamp to the east, east of the Yaeda Valley in the Mbulu Highlands, and north of the valley around the town of Mang’ola. During the wet season the Hadza camp outside and between these areas, and readily travel between them during the dry season as well. Access to and from the western area is by crossing the southern end of the lake, which is the first part to dry up, or by following the escarpment of the Serengeti Plateau around the northern shore. The Yaeda Valley is easily crossed, and the areas on either side abut the hills south of Mang’ola.
Hadza men usually forage individually, and during the course of day usually feed themselves while foraging, and also bring home some honey, fruit, or wild game when available. Women forage in larger parties, and usually bring home berries, baobab fruit, and tubers, depending on availability. Men and women also forage co-operatively for honey and fruit, and at least one adult male will usually accompany a group of foraging women. During the wet season, the diet is composed mostly of honey, some fruit, tubers, and occasional meat.
The contribution of meat to the diet increases in the dry season, when game become concentrated around sources of water. During this time, men often hunt in pairs, and spend entire nights lying in wait by waterholes, hoping to shoot animals that approach for a night-time drink, with bows and arrows treated with poison. The poison is made of the branches of the shrub Adenium coetaneum.
Datoga
The Datoga people are of nilotic origins, classified as Highland Southern Nilotes. They are thought to have settled in the Lake Eyasi area about 3,000 years ago from Southern Sudan and Western Ethiopia highlands, where they originally lived before moving to this new region.
In their migration southwards, their ancestors came to occupy the highlands of Kenya and Tanzania. During the migration, they split up into two groups: the former settled in Kenya and gave origin to the Kalenjin people; the latter settled in Tanzania and gave origin to the Datoga ethnic group.
The Datoga occupied the open expanses of northern Tanzania, but because of wrong strategic choices and with the Masai progressively taking control of the region, they were forced out of many areas, retreating to the banks of Lake Eyasi, where they currently live.
The elongated ear lobes are a typical feature of the Datoga people. This alteration is sought-after and is not the only one. Girls have very big drawings on their face and shoulders, etched by carving marks in their flesh. Some even carve extremely deep marks to make the picture more visible.
The mask-shaped drawing on the woman’s face is a distinctive mark which identifies members of the Datoga tribe.
