The African grasslands stretched as far as the eye could see. In this season, every part of the grasslands seemed exactly the same to Li Du. If he had been alone, he would have been lost.
Fortunately, there was no need for him to tell the direction. Apodu was leading the way. He was a living map of the grasslands, and he remembered the way back.
However, people were not machines. Sometimes he would get lost on the road, and they had to stop and rest for a while. Apodu wandered around for a while and found the way back.
After walking for a while, Li Du saw a lush forest in front of him, which was rare in the grasslands. He reminded the lion hunter, "Are we going the wrong way again?"
The lion hunter took a puff of his cigar and went to talk to the lion hunter. When he came back, he shook his head and said, "No, Apodu wants to find something here."
The forest covered a large area, hundreds of hectares, and there were trees that Li Du did not know. They were all very tall and had green and yellow leaves in this season.
There were fallen leaves on the ground. As soon as they walked in, Ah Meow suddenly jumped sideways. He waved his claws in the air and caught a poisonous snake that was poking its head down.
Seeing this, the lion hunter quickly said, "Be careful!"
Shortly after his voice trailed off, a black man appeared behind a tree, his hands crossed over his chest, looking at them warily.
It was almost evening, and the light was not so strong. Because of the branches and leaves in the forest, their vision was not very good.
Just like that, a black man suddenly jumped out. Li Du was startled and instinctively wanted to pull out his gun.
However, the black man did not show any aggression. He did not speak after jumping out, just looked at them with his hands crossed over his chest. Behind him, another young black man came out and looked at them in the same posture.
Li Du asked, "What's going on?"
The lion hunter said lazily, "Don't you recognize them? We met today. "
Li Du suddenly realized and said, "The Hadza tribe?"
The lion hunter nodded.
The two men had no markings or paint on their bodies, so Li Du could not tell who they were. In his opinion, the Zulu men were no different from these people.
Apodu turned around and said something. The lion hunter said, "They must be looking for honey. We are now competitors. Be careful, guys."
Li Du said, "Looking for honey?"
The lion hunter said, "This is a forest of big leafy trees. Bees like to nest in such places. There will be several bee colonies living in this forest, which produces very good honey."
The Hadza people had a special pursuit of honey. Every day, when they were hunting, they would pay attention to the location of the beehives and then collect the honey.
Li Du looked at the Hadza people, who did not show any signs of attack or kindness, and asked, "What do we do now? It won't dry up because of the honey, right? "
The lion hunter said contemptuously, "These cowards dare to fight us? With their javelins and bows? Ha, we have guns with us. "
The bodyguard who was previously frightened by Leopard took the opportunity to show off. He loaded his rifle and said, "I can handle 20 of them by myself!"
Li Du waved his hand and said, "Don't keep thinking about conflict. How can you explain? Can you communicate? "
The lion hunter continued to say contemptuously, "Who understands this primitive language? Ha, it's hard to say whether they have a language or not. "
"My dear friend, we have a language." A rather fluent English voice rang out, and another black man came out.
The one who spoke was the leader, a burly, muscular man wearing the skin of an animal. Li Du could not tell what it was, but he could see that the animal was not small because the skin was very large.
Seeing the man's skin, the lion hunter put away his contemptuous expression and said, "You can speak English? Are you the leader of this tribe? "
Brother Wolf whispered, "The Zulu chief wears leopard skin, the Hadza leader wears baboon skin, and this man is wearing baboon skin."
The lion hunter put his right hand on his forehead and patted his heart. He said to the man, "I am a Zulu lion hunter. How should I address you?"
The big black man returned the greeting and said, "I am a Hadza tramp. My English name is Cheeks."
The lion hunter said, "Have you received higher education?"
Cheeks smiled and said, "I was lucky enough to be adopted by a kind person as a child and went to school in the United States."
Hearing that he had gone to school in the United States, Li Du became interested and asked, "I live in the United States a lot of time now. Which school did you go to?"
"University of California, San Francisco," said Cheeks. "You are?"
Li Du was embarrassed. Even a black native of Africa had a better education than him. In fact, the University of California was one of the world's top universities, and this black man was very good academically.
If Cheeks had received an American education, everything would be simple.
The two sides talked, and the lion hunter said that they also wanted to come here to find some honey.
Cheeks waved in a friendly manner and said, "Then let's go together. My people are preparing to hunt for honey. Welcome to our team."
They walked into the depths of the woods together and saw more Hadza people. There were about twenty or thirty of them.
These people were building ladders. They used the weeds picked from the grassland to make hemp ropes. They used the ropes to tie strong wooden sticks to make a ladder. Then they combined them into one long ladder.
There were two black women circling around a big tree, singing softly as they circled. Li Du could not understand what they were singing, but the intonation was quite pleasant.
Shortly after Li Du and the others appeared, the two men who were weaving straw ropes stood up and walked to Cheeks to say a few words.
Cheeks looked up and looked at Li Du and the others in surprise. "My people got a porcupine this morning. So you gave it to us as a courtesy?"
Li Du did not recognize the two men. First, they looked similar, and second, when they met, the two black men were wearing camouflage clothes similar to ghillie suits.
However, from what Cheeks said, these two men were the ones who had hunted the porcupine.
When he learned that Cheeks and the others were Hadza people, he expected that the two sides would meet because the Hadza tribe was small, only a few thousand people.
Most of the Hadza people lived in Tanzania, and very few migrated to South Africa. It was unlikely that they would meet two Hadza people.
With this relationship, the two sides felt more friendly to each other.
The two women were still singing in circles around the tree. After singing for a while, they left, went to another tree, and continued to sing in circles.
Cheeks knew that Li Du and the others were full of doubts, so he took the initiative to explain, "This is a tradition of our Hadza people. We sing repeatedly before collecting honey to comfort the angry bees and reduce the risk of being stung."
Li Du asked, "Does it work?"
Cheeks laughed and said, "It's a tradition."
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