Datoga Safari

January 27, 2018, Saturday

Disclaimer: This is a report of John’s short safari, not my observations of the day.

John connected with two Dutch men who have been in Tanzania seeing the sights together. They made plans to go past Manyara and near Ngorogoro Crater to visit the Datoga group.These people are pastoralists like the Masai but remain more reliant on older ways of life. They are known for smelting their own metal and creating arrows, which they trade to the Hadza, who are true hunter-gathers, for meat. John was fascinated by the bellows, the liquid metal and its quick cooling and formation into barbed arrowheads. Traditionally the men excavated ore for smelting, but these days, they simply melt down parts of broken faucets, doorknobs, etc.

Starting the hot fire with bellows

 Increasing the heat

 

The molten metal is poured into a mold greased with cow fat.

The ingot cools quickly.

Shaping begins with pounding and then filing.

The finished arrowhead.

The Datoga women demonstrated some of their home skills such as grinding maize with stones. I liked all the gourds they had hung up in their food and cooking area. They are similar to Masai in many ways, just more resistant to change and more modern ways.

 Grinding millet

 

On the return to Arusha, the men passed huge warehouses built to store onions and maize for export to neighboring countries. An individual or a group of two or three farmers may own their own warehouse and decide when prices are most advantageous for selling. This reminded John of the big potato warehouses the Hutterites near Spokane have.

Large warehouses for storing crops

Stored onions

 Unloading corn for storage

 

As they got closer to Arusha, the Dutch guys wanted to stop at a Masai boma near the highway. The men in the boma were obviously used to drop-in tourists and quickly assembled both women and men to dance. The boma was extremely clean with none of the piles of cow manure and sheep shit found in a regular farming boma. Still the Dutch guys got to see how a typical Masai house is constructed and compete in the jumping games with the young men. John sat in the car, as the cost was $15 per person, and he has seen all this in more authentic settings.

The rad eroded soil in this region.

John returned in time for dinner quite triumphant, bearing a nice watermelon he had bought along the road for about 25 cents. I had little to report about my day, as it was very quiet with lots of reading and a long afternoon nap. It’s good that we each enjoyed our very different days.