About an endangered heathen population. Not about their heathen religion/Gods, but about their views on life, which are still heathen-y.
Start and end paras included for context.
(Now if these people's real lives made it into some romance novels, I'd read them all. But as I only read picture books - being bad at reading and comprehension - can we have them illustrated with photos of real Hadzabe/Hadza couples sitting cutely around the fire, please?)
But oh at last, some normal - down-to-earth - people (like E Asian heathens etc etc). People one doesn't need to jump through mental hoops to understand. Having said that, of course it makes sense that the Hadzabe would turn out to be endangered too: if there's some contented population out there somewhere, anywhere, minding their own business and living their life without bothering anyone else, then out of nowhere the great evil christo-class meme will descend on them to terrorise them into oblivion/conversion. Repeat:
eco-action.org/dod/no8/tribal.html
FPCN (Friends of People Close to Nature) is an NDO (Non-Developmental Organisation), IIRC.
The first quoteblock is the one that's semi-relevant to this thread.
Start and end paras included for context.
Quote:(Narrator is AR)
We [color="#800080"](humans, i.e. the species)[/color] evolved as hunter gatherers, living on similar foods as the [color="#0000FF"]Hadza[/color]. Finding food shapes their society, but it has affected all of us. It seems that the Hadza, and presumably our ancestors too, found a very efficient and effective way of surviving here. Men and women each have different and distinctive roles. So the women go digging for tubers and collecting berries, whilst the men go out hunting for meat and honey. They'll eat some of it while they're out in the bush, but they'll bring a lot of it back home to share, so it makes sense to pair up.
Having a partner to share food with is a massive advantage in this harsh environment. And many Hadza men and women marry for life.
Sharing food like this is thought to be the origin of pairing up and staying together.
[color="#800080"](Hadza gathered around the fire at night)[/color]
AR asks elderly Hadza man, who is sitting romantically beside his elderly wife: Bakoolu, how did you get married? Was there a ceremony?
Bakoolu, reminiscing happily with bright eyes about the happy day he got married to his wife: Yes, we killed zebras and bats and had a huge celebration with honey, baobab fruits. That was the tradition. We loved it. [color="#800080"](Wife also looks visibly animated and interjects a few of her own reminiscences. These don't appear to have been translated.)[/color]
AR: Do you [color="#0000FF"]Hadzabe[/color] men always just have one wife at one time?
Bakoolu: It's our custom to marry only one woman and stay together until we die.
AR asks a very young-looking newly-wed man, also sitting romantically beside his young wife: Mathulu, how long have you and Pendo been married?
Mathulu: Just one month.
AR: And people outside your family, how might they know that you are married?
Mathulu: They know because she has this bracelet that she wears all the time. We call them love beads. [color="#800080"]("Love beads"? Oh heathens and their incessant romantic cuteness.hakes head
[/color]
AR: Pendo, what do you think the benefits of being a married woman will be?
Gentle-spoken Pendo: To have a happy life with children. My husband will bring me meat and I'll bring in the tubers.
AR: And are you looking forward to having children together?
Pendo [color="#800080"](smiling like a young lass and moving her right-eyebrow gracefully)[/color]: Yes. [color="#800080"](She laughs)[/color]
[color="#800080"](Daytime)[/color]
Hadza women typically have around five children, which is hard work. It takes a Hadza woman around 13 million calories to raise a child from conception until it's weaned. And she can't physically do it without support. So choosing the right partner is one of the most important decisions a woman has to make.
[color="#800080"](A stunning beauty - with killer eyebrows and eyes - is seen speaking briefly, but no subtitles. Some things never change: you can always tell the cameraman is male when the camera is lingering noticeably on beautiful women. Not even the professional crew on here was immune.)[/color]
AR: So what do you think makes a good Hadzabe man? What would make you love him?
[color="#800080"](The stunning woman looks curiously on hearing the question)[/color]
Another lovely Hadza lady responds: He has to be a good hunter, able to collect honey and not greedy at home.
AR: Anything else? A nice face? Maybe a tall man?
Another attractive lady, somewhat older, maybe in her 40s: We are not interested in looks. He has to be a good hunter, a man who brings home food and loves his family.
[color="#800080"][Ah yes, that sounds good and well Miss, but uh ... I did carefully notice - with lots of rewinding - that all the Hadza men we got to see were good-looking already. Convenient. Hardly a sacrifice then to ignore looks in picking out the spouse, is it? I mean, with looks being so evenly distributed, there's clearly no point in this being the deciding factor for Hadza women. Naturally these women can then theoretically close their eyes and restrict themselves to picking out the best warrior/most skilled hunter and family man among the menfolk. (BTW, such pointed selection processes must be honing their men's abilities with the bow and in tracking etc to super-excellence over the many generations, I'm thinking.) Anyway, the point was: how convenient for Hadzabe women. Meanwhile, in christoislamania-infested India, I understand that Hindoo women are stuck with terrifyingly ugly (christo)islamaniac men trying their level-best to render native men invisible by parading about on bollywho in what seems to be live spastic attacks (?) set to 'music' and lipflap/syncing. The horror and trauma of the sight seems to have blinded some women and rendered others quite witless. I supose it could be worse, in theory: I mean, it could be Pakiland's islamic men or christomen from India's more openly rabid-christian NE that are undergoing these periodic public seizures set to lame muzak. :Eek:][/color]
AR: Hadza women work hard to bring in food for the family, and they want a partner who will do the same. I think it makes perfect sense in this environment for the women to be so choosey about the men whom they marry*, because if those men aren't good hunters - good providers - the women have a lot to lose.
[color="#800080"](* Narration over handsome Hadza men of different ages fashioning their arrows, especially one extremely good-looking man working away at his sharp arrow's stem.)[/color]
And women's preference for good hunters** is thought to have shaped the way men behave, wherever they live.
[color="#800080"](** Shows a couple of the daring Hadza men leaving for the day's hunt armed with their swift arrows. One of them takes sure aim and let's loose his arrow.)
(Cut to modern west
(OOU-2)
(Now if these people's real lives made it into some romance novels, I'd read them all. But as I only read picture books - being bad at reading and comprehension - can we have them illustrated with photos of real Hadzabe/Hadza couples sitting cutely around the fire, please?)
But oh at last, some normal - down-to-earth - people (like E Asian heathens etc etc). People one doesn't need to jump through mental hoops to understand. Having said that, of course it makes sense that the Hadzabe would turn out to be endangered too: if there's some contented population out there somewhere, anywhere, minding their own business and living their life without bothering anyone else, then out of nowhere the great evil christo-class meme will descend on them to terrorise them into oblivion/conversion. Repeat:
eco-action.org/dod/no8/tribal.html
FPCN (Friends of People Close to Nature) is an NDO (Non-Developmental Organisation), IIRC.
Quote:Tribal Round-up (Do or Die)
Last Call for Freedom
[...]
Hadzabe: East Africa's Last Hunting and Gathering Tribe
A while ago two people from the Non-Development Organisation FPCN (see contact p. 276) and one from FDN Germany, visited their friends the Hadzabe, around lake Eyasi, in northern Tanzania. The following is condensed from their account.
Our trip began from Arusha and headed north-west via Karatu, from where we left the road that circumnavigates the Ngorongoro Crater National Park and headed south west to Mongola.
At the southern end of Mongola were the first Hadzabe community we stayed with. In this place the traditional lifestyle of the Hadzabe can no longer continue due to the proximity of the neighbouring settlement. The area was tradtionally a watering hole used by the Hadzabe. Now with the existence of expatriate settlers and the establishment of newly formed village councils, the Hadzabe are not even allowed to go to the watering hole, except when the village council and warden have arranged a party of tourists to watch them sing and perform. While a 20-strong tourist group pay 300,000TSh to the council for filming, only 10,000TSh would be paid to the total Hadzabe community.
The village has a 25-councillor-strong committe and not one Hadza. When asked about this, Gudo Mahiya, a respected Hadza spokesperson said "we are not interested in changing our culture to conform to the policy of the aggressors". He added that "even in Arusha there were 250 councillors, but the Hadzabe still have no representation, nor wish to have". He does want to go to Arusha to protest about the council here. When asked about the farming and cattle introduced by the settlers he said, "We do not want cattle, just wild animals to hunt and water that we can drink".
Is it right that a people should be driven to extinction just for not wanting to change and adopt the Western mentality of profit and greed-driven motives? Needless to say we continued refusing to pay the campsite fee for visiting and giving humanitarian aid to our friends. Even after the police were called by the campsite warden, the police couldn't believe why they had been called and laughed about it at the end with us. The protest was felt and noticed and FPCN International advises any visitors to the Malete spring to do likewise, until such time as the Hadzabe are allowed full access to the water.
[color="#0000FF"]Two of the occupying expatriate settlers, Ms Jeannette Hanby and David Bygott live on sacred Hadzabe ground in denial of the rights of the Hadzabe, claiming they have never inhabited the area despite it being the only spring for 20km.[/color] They can be written to at S. L. P. 161, Karatu, Tanzania. They claim to be ecologists.
There are three situations that FPCN International was asked by this Hazda community to present to the international community;
Case 1: Enslaved Prostitution
[color="#0000FF"]Through the intermediaries - European priests and "sisters" - Sabina's sister Mele Abande and Salibogo's daughter along with many women have been tricked into prostitution by being taken to Arusha with the promise of work, only to find themselves enslaved in prostitution.[/color] FPCN proposes to act on the wishes of the Hadzabe and bring all the held Hadzabe women back to their homeland.
Case 2: Enforced Schooling
There have been times when the military has searched for Hadzabe children hiding in the bush to escape the duty of being schooled. [color="#0000FF"]Hadzabe girls often complain about being raped by the teachers in the Endamaga school. This happens even with the Hadzabe mothers. Later the Hadzabe girls are compelled into prostitution.[/color] FPCN has previously been successful taking back some of these unlucky girls to their bushhomestead and families. But if caught again, these escapees have to fear severe coporal punishment. This kind of discipline is very common in these schools. When asked, all but a handful of the Hadzabe say that this schooling has a negative effect on them and is of no benefit.
Some Hadzabe have even been taken to colleges in Dar es Salaam. Currently they are all without jobs and are now even more frustrated and irritated. They have been uprooted from their own society, and the new one is unable and unwilling to fulfill its promises. One really must try and not see it from our Western educated standpoint. For these people that are not even on the bottom rung of the surrounding social hierarchy, what use is learning English or reading Swahili or even mono agriculture for that matter? They already know everything they need to know to carry on living as they want to.
Case 3: Bad Religion
[color="#0000FF"]Many times white parsons tried to baptise the Hadzabe and to destroy their traditional beliefs and lifestyle[/color]. FPCN tells the Hadzabe that these missionaries are just business men who have often accumulated quite some wealth from their job. [color="#0000FF"]The hatred against these strangers grows among the Hadzabe. FPCN stands ready to sanction and assist with the burning out of churches on Hadzaland following a similiar successful explosion that occurred at Sanola [the church there was completely destroyed by local tribespeople].[/color]
[...]
The first quoteblock is the one that's semi-relevant to this thread.