Hadza people

The Hadza, or Hadzabe, are an indigenous ethnic group in north-central Tanzania, living around Lake Eyasi in the central Rift Valley and in the neighboring Serengeti Plateau.

There are, as of 2015, between twelve hundred and thirteen hundred Hadza people living in Tanzania; however, only around three hundred Hadza still survive exclusively based on the traditional means of foraging.

Additionally, the increasing impact of tourism and encroaching pastoralists pose serious threats to the continuation of their traditional way of life.

Genetically, the Hadza are not closely related to any other people.

While traditionally classified with the Khoisan languages, primarily because it has clicks, the Hadza language (Hadzane), appears to be an isolate, unrelated to any other.

Hadzane is an entirely oral language, but it is not predicted to be in danger of extinction.

Hadzane is also considered the most important factor of distinguishing who is and is not actually a part of the Hadza people.

In more recent years, many of the Hadza have learned Swahili as a second language, which is the national language of Tanzania.

As descendants of Tanzania's aboriginal hunter-gatherer population, they have probably occupied their current territory for thousands of years, with relatively little modification to their basic way of life until the past hundred years.

Since the eighteenth century, the Hadza have come into increasing contact with farming and herding people entering Hadzaland and its vicinity; the interactions are often hostile and cause population decline in the late nineteenth century.[

The first European contact and written accounts of the Hadza are from the late nineteenth century.

Since then, there have been many attempts by successive colonial administrations, the independent Tanzanian government, and foreign missionaries to settle the Hadza, by introducing farming and Christianity.

These efforts have largely failed, and many Hadza still pursue virtually the same way of life as their ancestors are described as having in early twentieth-century accounts.

In recent years, they have been under pressure from neighboring groups encroaching on their land, and also have been affected by tourism and safari hunting.

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