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Alternative Names

Hadzabe, Hadzapi, Hatsa, Tindiga, Watindiga, Kangeju, Wakindiga.

Location and Linguistic Affiliation

The Hadza are located at approximately 3° south, 35° east, around Lake Eyasi, North Tanzania, Africa. Their language, Hadzane, has clicks, and for that reason has often been classified with the San languages of southern Africa, but may be only very distantly related (Sands, 1995).

Cultural Overview

The Hadza are nomadic hunter-gatherers who live in a savanna-woodland habitat around Lake Eyasi in northern Tanzania (Woodburn, 1968 Woodburn, 1968). They number about 1,000 (Blurton-Jones, O’Connell, Hawkes, Kamuzora, & Smith, 1992), of whom many are still full-time foragers and almost none of whom practice any kind of agriculture. Men collect honey and use bows and arrows to hunt mammals and birds. Women dig wild tubers, gather baobab fruit, and berries. Camps usually have about 30 people and move about every month or so in response to the availability of water and...

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© 2004 Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers

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Marlowe, F. (2004). The Hadza. In: Ember, C.R., Ember, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-29905-X_71

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-29905-X_71

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-306-47754-6

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