Tanzania: Rural Group Demands Monkey Meat During Census

Karatu — THE Hadzabe who live in some parts of Lake Eyasi basin, in Karatu District, Arusha Region are demanding monkey's meat and "gongo" as a condition for them to take part in the population and housing census.

However, officials in the district say they were not ready to hunt monkeys or baboons and give to the Hadza people, but were willing to look for zebras instead.

"We are prepared to send a hunting team to get them Zebra meat for their special census treat next Sunday," said the Karatu District Commissioner Mr Daudi Ntibenda. The DC added that the bushmen also demanded bhang and illicit liquor known as "gongo".

"We also refused them their demand for eating monkeys because under hunting regulations there are some wildlife species that cannot be killed. These include monkeys," he said. But during a meeting between the bushmen and district officials in the Mang'ola ward of Karatu, members of the Hadzabe community maintained that being small scale subsistence hunters, monkeys have always been their main source of meat.

They were, however, happy with the proposal to get zebra meat. "We have earmarked 12 counting stations in the area resided by the bushmen," stated Ms Margaret Martin, the Arusha Regional Chief Statistician and area Census coordinator.

She said the only way to gather the bushmen at one location is to provide them with something interesting to eat and use the occasion to collect their data.

Living deep in the forests, the Hadza Bushmen residing in (Lake Eyasi area of) Karatu and in the vast Yaeda Valley stretching between Mbulu District of Manyara Region and Singida Region, have for years been avoiding National Census exercises and only a few of them have been turning up to be counted in the past.

In 1975 the number of Hadzabe people in Yaeda was estimated to be around 5,000 but in recent years, local researchers have been reporting that the Hadza population had dropped to hardly 1000.

Tanzania Daily News (Dar es Salaam)