The Simple Life

All adults are autonomous and equal. There is no religion. There is no calendar. The only time is now. God is the sun. There is no worship. No one knows what comes after death. There are no settlements. And baboons taste good. Many children do not survive. The dead are not mourned, neither birth nor marriage celebrated. There is no marriage.
As we all were 100,000 years ago.

It is impossible to overstate just how much Onwas—and most Hadza—love to smoke. The four possessions every Hadza man owns are a bow, some arrows, a knife, and a pipe, made from a hollowed-out, soft stone. The smoking material, tobacco or cannabis, is acquired from a neighboring group, usually the Datoga, in exchange for honey...

...Onwas then reaches into the fire and pulls out the skull. He hacks it open, like a coconut, exposing the brains, which have been boiling for a good hour inside the skull. They look like ramen noodles, yellowish white, lightly steaming. He holds the skull out, and the men, including myself, surge forward and stick our fingers inside the skull and scoop up a handful of brains and slurp them down. With this, the night, at last, comes to an end.