Part eight of an eight-part series on the meaning of life
Prior: Insanity
A couple years ago, I spent an afternoon hunting with the Hadzabe tribe in the Great Rift Valley. The Hadza are one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer tribes in the world (population 1,200). We spent the day hunting birds with arrows and then cooking them over a fire started from donkey shit. While we ate, I asked a tribe member (pictured below) a few questions through an interpreter.
Hadza tribe member I interviewed, 2021
Q: “If I showed you a map of the world, could you point to Tanzania?”
A: Confused silence. (From the interpreter: “He doesn’t know what Tanzania is.”)
Q: “What are you afraid of?”
A: *Thinks for a second, then: “The lion. Yes lions… And the leopard.”
**Q: “**What’s the most important thing in life?”
A: *Again has to think about it, then: “Meat. Yes, meat.”