The Sweetness of Human Evolution

"The Sweetness of Human Evolution" is a lovely piece by Heather Pringle at The Last Word on Nothing on the honey-passionate Hadza in Tanzania ... though I want to know more about the interactions of the Hadza, the honeyguide bird, and the honey badger. So, below the "Top of the Story" bit, I've put a couple of links to YouTube videos that show some of the interactions.

Top of the story:

Quite by accident last week, I came across something, an ethnographic detail really, that captured my imagination, and that has clearly delighted and puzzled anthropologists and even contributed to a new theory of human evolution. The detail concerned the Hadza, 1000 or so modern hunter-gatherers who speak an ancient click language and who live in the woodlands around Lake Eyasi, Tanzania, not far from Olduvai Gorge.

The Hadza, as I discovered, prize honey above all else in their diet. Hadza mothers wean their young on liquid honey, and during the wet season, particularly the months of February and April, Hadza families gorge for weeks on its sticky sweetness.  The men possess an expert knowledge of bees and bee behavior, giving the honeys produced by different species different names. Those who forage for honey figure prominently in Hadza mythology.

And there is indeed something almost magical about the way that Hadza collect honey.

While out hunting, the men listen for the call of a small, robin-size bird known as the greater honeyguide (Indicator indicator). The bird dines almost entirely on beeswax and bee larvae, but it needs help to crack open hives. So the honey guide calls to both honey badgers and Hadza hunters ...

[Rusten: as promised, some video links to follow up on that last suggestion of interaction.]

Attenborough did a bit on the human-honeyguide interaction in Kenya:

BBC Talking to Strangers: honey birds

www.youtube.com

Believe it or not, also called honeyguides, these birds communicate with humans....

And here's a bit bringing in the honey badger:

Honey Guide Bird(Amazing Partnership)

www.youtube.com