Datoga

The Datoga (also written Datooga) are a Nilotic people who have lived in northern Tanzania for centuries. Their heartland is the volcanic highlands and plains around Mount Hanang in Manyara Region, and many families also live around Lake Eyasi, south-west of the Ngorongoro Crater, where most safari guests meet them. The best-known Datoga group is the Barabaig of the Hanang plains. Their neighbours often call them Mang’ati.

Herders of the plains

Like the Maasai, the Datoga are cattle people: their herds give them milk, meat and hides, and are the measure of a family’s standing. The Datoga grazed the Ngorongoro highlands before the Maasai moved in during the 1800s, and they have long lived alongside, and at times competed with, their neighbours for grazing. Today most Datoga families combine herding with farming, living in homesteads ringed by thorn fences.

Blacksmiths

The Datoga are famous for their blacksmiths, who form their own clan and, unlike other Datoga, marry within it. Working with hand bellows and charcoal fires, they turn scrap metal such as old car springs and nails into knives, spear blades, bracelets and arrowheads. Around Lake Eyasi, the Hadzabe hunters get many of their iron arrowheads from Datoga smiths, a partnership between two very different peoples that you can see on a visit.

Dress and adornment

Datoga women are known for long leather skirts decorated with beads, and for heavy brass bracelets and coils on their arms and necks. Many Datoga, women in particular, have circles of small tattooed dots around their eyes, a mark of beauty and identity.

Meeting the Datoga

A visit to the Datoga is usually combined with the Hadzabe at Lake Eyasi. You can watch a blacksmith at work, hear about Datoga life from the family and visit their homestead. The lake is a scenic drive from Karatu and the Ngorongoro Crater, so a day at Lake Eyasi fits easily into a northern safari.