( intro music )
I went to Tanzania and I went to an area
in Tanzania near Lake Eyasi, where there's Hadza people.
It is the oldest diet remaining on Earth.
And the Hadza are about 1,300-1,500
and out of these 1,500 there's 300 that are living a real...
last full-time hunter-gatherer,
full-time meaning there's no back-up option.
There's no little bit of agriculture-planting whatever.
There's no herding of something.
They live strictly off hunting and gathering food.
Africa is, you know, difficult.
You need to coordinate everything.
I was going really deep in the bush
I need to have all the food with me, all the water with me.
And then I meet with the Hadza.
And in front of me these guys show up.
( audience laughter )
Band of brothers, you know, they are like "wow"
So they are 100 percent hunter-gatherer
and they go around every day
looking for food every morning.
This guy is like this... what they like most is honey.
They gather a lot of it.
And to get honey they make fire first.
They don't have light or matches,
they don't have this stuff.
They live really self-sufficiently
in the bush, at least these guys.
Some other guys, you know there's other areas of Hadza
land where there is more touristy area but
these guys were really the real deal.
They make fire, then they smoke the beehive
and then they get the honey in it.
Some time there is a bird called the Honeyguide.
that would bring them to the honey, to the beehive.
And then they-- everybody is really excited.
They don't store stuff. They get too excited.
They get bitten, they get stung.
I got stung too.
These are killer bees so bit scary, you know...
Honey is incredible.
It's like the power-bar, the ultimate power-bar.
There's so much energy in this.
And on top of it they often eat it
like this straight with larva.
You can see the little white spot, these are larva.
So you get this sweet and sour mixture in your mouth.
It's just-- you feel like wow, this is so powerful.
There's protein and there is this incredible
amount of energy coming into you.
They share it with the women there.
They sometime put some on the side
to bring to the elderly that's
their camp or their real babies.
But they eat everything on the spot more or less otherwise.
One thing I have to tell you right about the Hadza is
they smoke a lot of marijuana.
( audience laughter )
And so they trade this stuff and this is after they smoke.
( Hadza man coughing )
( Hadza boys coughing )
( audience laughter )
This goes on for five minutes, I had to cut it short.
But then this goes on like this.
( audience laughter )
So, they do that, you know, they
are really living in the moment
it doesn't matter, you know, it's just "whoo".
It's difficult for me to coordinate things.
Can we do that in ten minutes?
"Ah, yeah, it's alright man. Take it easy, yo!"
( audience laughter )
I had to kind of Zen-out.
So, now you know in what state they
are when I am photographing them.
Just so you know.
That's Mokoa and his wife Wande.
And in the morning Mokoa goes hunting
and Wande goes foraging.
Often the woman looks for tubers.
There's this vine coming out of
the trees, they locate them, dig
they find the root, they cut out the root with a knife
and they keep the root, and then
it's a little bit like potato.
When they move around and they pass something edible
they will just grab food.
And some time they are looking straight
but they see food on the corner of their eye,
and they just go like this. It's quite amazing.
They just keep in movement but eating, feeding themselves.
This is "Kongolobe", it's a special berry that grows there.
And then they go back to the watering hole
drink up and go back to camp.
Camp is these beautiful houses
that are like upside down nests.
The women always do them.
Inside, you know, it's quite beautiful at night.
This woman was cooking stork
And outside the men are yapping and yapping
like they always do everywhere, anywhere.
( audience laughter )
And they are telling hunting stories.
( speaking in Hadza )
( bees buzzing )
( speaking in Hadza )
( birds chirping )
( speaking in Hadza )
Matthieu:
and I follow him around.
They take all different kind of arrows.
There's the arrow for the bird, there's
the poison arrow for the big animals,
there's the other one, you know, for medium animals.
And then there is the one on the right
to finish up a wounded animal.
They walk for hours, it's very hard, it's very exhausting
Some time they only get these tiny little birds.
They don't get many animals. It's quite rare.
There are animals but, you know
they are used to being hunted for thousands and
thousands of years and they hear you coming from so
far away and I was with them.
And you know, so it was even extra challenging.
The ancestors of the Hadza
have been living in Hadza land for about 40,000 years.
That's what anthropology tells us.
It's incredible, they have left no impact on their environment.
So they go around with bow and arrows.
They often miss their target.
This is Kampala.
He had missed a... just a bird there.
And whenever there's a higher viewpoint like this
they climb up on top of trees to look for wildlife.
They usually get up early morning and
hunt until noon or something like that.
Below trees they make these blinds
to hunt from blinds.
They some time, they get stork, this
migratory bird that comes from Europe
The hunting process is very meditative.
You know, you're getting really into
the rhythm because nobody talks.
They talk very quietly and you walk and you walk.
It's very beautiful.
It's not like hunting with rifle
because the bow don't make any noises when they're hunting.
But then when they see animals it becomes very hectic
and they start running around.
They eat everything they can find
except snake and elephants.
Elephants, the arrow can't go through their skins
and snake, they're just scared of them.
This is a little baby bush that they got that day.
And then they, you know, have a smoke break.
-
I couldn't believe it.
I was like, "oh, unbelievable".
They roll in newspaper, there's no...
You know, they get newspaper and
they roll straight in there.
And then, you know, it doesn't matter
right after that they are running around
they're incredibly flat.
When they run they have their upper
body that is kind of-- back like this.
It's quite impressive to see them running.
And then get dik-dik like this
This is the smallest gazelle can be found in Africa.
And then Mokoa's like we'll get up to a higher point of view.
He will point and see,
something there and it was really intense.
And we run there, and you know, two hours, three hours later,
after much tracking and stuff they get this vervet monkey
that fell off that tree.
It was very powerful.
I love my time with the Hadza.
You know, they know how to strike a pose too
-
This is Mokoa.
And you know, this is a left camp.
This is what they leave behind.
This stack of branches, the grass has fallen off,
this is all that's left. Think about that.
They have lived for 40,000 years
in that area and there's no tracks.
You know, there's nothing left behind from their times
The thing with their story that really strike me is that
wherever you eat local and you spend energy to get your food
you are for the better.
And this would be the message that
I want to hope and give to that...
through that, you know
through my experience living with these people in all this.
If you can do anything to enforce
yourself to grow something
or if you eat meat, you know, learn to kill a chicken.
I mean, you know, if you're going to eat meat
you should learn once in your life...
I've killed a goat once since I've seen that
because I eat meat every day, not every day, you know
but every three days maybe.
And so I think it's important to understand
where the food comes from.
And to do everything you can to eat local.
Well, that's my point through that experiences.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
( applause )