Violence between the Barabaig people and their traditional enemies, the Maasai, has ceased along with the purely pastoral way of life both once enjoyed. Ritual murders are now as rare as gardens used to be.  The Barabaig grow maize and beans, which ties them to the land in a way they once shunned.

The Barabaig people are traditional enemies of the Maasai.
Photo by David Moore

Forty thousand Barabaig, a people closely related to the Datoga, who moved south from the Nile Valley into Tanzania about 200 years ago, once lived exclusively on the Zebu cattle they herded around Mt. Hanang.  Their semi-nomadic lives took them  among homesteads they built on the Basotu Plains, which cover 2,400 square miles of land south of Lake Eyasi.  (The Hadza people live east of the lake.)

Traditionally, the Barabaig, like their enemies, the Maasai, lived exclusively on the milk, blood and meat of their cattle and, occasionally, other animals.  Sparse rainfall in their homeland prompted them to keep moving to find suitable grazing.  They started to become farmers when Barabaig men married Iraqw women who cultivated fields of maize north of Lake Eyasi.  Today, Barabaig homesteads often include plots of land that grow corn and beans.  Especially during the dry season, when milk is scarce, the people rely on ugali, a bread or porridge made from dried corn.

Honey plays a part in nearly all ceremonies.  It supplies energy, and it is the stuff of honey beer.  To make honey beer, or kishoda, the Barabaig take honey from hives in hollow trees.  They put it in specially treated gourds, after shaking out any cockroaches that may be inside, and add the root of a plant which catalyzes fermentation. 

When the honey  brew loses its sweetness, it is ready to drink.  It is then imbibed in the course of ceremonies that involve facial scarring, a mark of beauty among the Barabaig that makes them easy to distinguish from the Maasai. Only men may drink the beer, a dubious privilege that extends to bulls.  When a bull has sired many calves and grows old, it is led to the corral of its owner and fed huge quantities of honey beer.  It becomes intoxicated and, eventually, passes out.  The bull's honor culminates in its strangulation by young men with ropes, butchering by women, and joyful consumption by all.

One thing the Barabaig have never eaten is wheat, so there is much controversy about a Canadian project to grow wheat on the Basotu Plains.  After the government of Tanzania claimed this land in the 1970s and opened it to wheat production by a Canadian-sponsored organization, tensions developed between the Barabaig and the Hadza as well as between all indigenous people the Canadian wheat growers.  The nomadic Barabaig and Hadza had to compete for smaller and smaller amounts of land to graze and hunt. Many Barabaig have also witnessed the ploughing of their burial mounds.  Although numerous Barabaig have moved to villages and cities, many remain near Lake Eyasi and practice their traditions.  The land they inhabit makes difficult and capricious demands, but it offers opportunities for celebration and intoxication as well.