Forward: Hadza 2.0

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It’s easy to romanticize the Hadza’s lifestyle, especially as they struggle to maintain their traditional ways. They are besieged by officious government bureaucrats, big-game-hunting oil sheiks and poachers, land-grabbing cattle herders, and camera-wielding tourists like me.

I don’t think I’m idealizing them, however. I think they’ve managed to accomplish something extraordinary. They’ve preserved their common sense.

Three stories illustrate how different their thinking is from the modern mind-set.

I asked a 40-year-old tribesman what he thought of Barack Obama. “I watched the inauguration,” he answered matter-of-factly. “He’s saying all the right things but we’ll just have to wait and see.”

One night we sat around the campfire with eight Hadza men and women, including 80-something-year-old Magandula, who told us, “One time a Hadza camp was hungry and everyone debated whether to move camp. Only the old man wanted to stay where they were. Everybody else wanted to move, so they did, leaving the old man behind. The group searched all around for food, but could find nothing. Meanwhile, the old man got hungry and went hunting and found two giraffes, which he killed. After awhile the others, still unable to find food, decided to check on the old man, so they came back and found him with the two giraffes, waiting for them.” End of story.

Another night we heard stories from Gudo (pronounced Goo-doe), who, at somewhere between 90 and 100 years old, is the oldest living Hadza. Someone asked Gudo if he was happy. After lamenting the fact that the Hadza girls no longer wear beads around their waists as they used to, Gudo acknowledged that he was nearing the end of his life. “What brings me happiness,” he said through a translator, “is knowing that, at my funeral, I will be surrounded by many people, including my children, grandchildren, and friends.”

Withhold judgment. Listen to your elders. Don’t fear death. This is the sort of commonsense thinking we need now.

Viva la différence! Long live Gudo!

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