Hadza People - Subsistence

Subsistence

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 cooperatively 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. The Hadza are highly skilled, selective, and opportunistic foragers, and adjust their diet according to season and circumstance. Depending on local availability, some groups might rely more heavily on tubers, others on berries, others on meat. This variability is the result of their opportunism and adjustment to prevailing conditions.

Traditionally, the Hadza do not make use of hunting dogs, although this custom has been recently borrowed from neighboring tribes to some degree. Most men (80%+) do not use dogs when foraging.

Women's foraging technology includes the digging stick, grass baskets for carrying berries, large fabric or skin pouches for carrying items, knives, shoes, other clothing, and various small items held in a pouch around the neck. Men carry axes, bows, poisoned and non-poisoned arrows, knives, small honey pots, fire drills, shoes and apparel, and various small items.

While men specialize in procuring meat, honey, and baobab fruit, women specialize in tubers, berries, and greens. This division of labor is rather apparent, but women will occasionally gather a small animal or egg, or gather honey, and men will occasionally bring a tuber or some berries back to camp.

A myth depicts a woman harvesting the honey of wild bees, and at the same time, it declares that the job of honey harvesting belongs to the men. For harvesting honey or fruit from large trees such as the baobab, the Hadza beat pointed sticks into the trunk of the tree as ladders. This technique is depicted in a tale, and it is also documented in film.

There exists a mutualistic relationship between the honey-guide bird and humans: in order to obtain wax, the bird guides people (and, according to popular legend, honey-badgers, although the relationship between honey-guides and honey badgers has since been called into question) to the nests of wild bees. The Hadza honey hunter, typically a man, will engage in a whistle "dialogue" between himself and the honey-guide bird. The hunter and the bird communicate back and forth, via this series of chatters and whistles, until the bird guides the Hadza man to the hive. Once they have located the hive, the honey hunter hammers pegs into the tree, climbs to the hive (which can be located thirty feet up the trunk of the tree), uses his axe to chop into the tree to uncover the hive, smokes the bees in order to pacify them, and retrieves the honey comb. The Hadza honey hunter consumes the liquid honey and larvae while the honey guide bird consumes the wax and the bees. The role of the honey-guide is reflected also in Hadza mythology, both in naturalistic and personified forms. Honey represents a substantial portion of the Hadza diet and this reliance on honey (as well as larvae and bee pollen), exemplified by the Hadza, may have a long and rich history in human evolution.