The Language of the Land: Living Among a Stone-Age People in Africa

by James Stephenson

At the age of twenty-two, James Stephenson arranged to spend a year living among the Hadzabe, the last hunters and gatherers still living a traditional life in Africa. He wanted to live their life, hunting what they hunted, eating what they ate, participating in their dances and ceremonies, consulting with their medicine men, and learning their myths and dreams.

Armed only with his camera, his art supplies, and the open-hearted courage of youth, he set out to visit with a people who have changed little since the Stone Age to glimpse the world as they perceived it and learn the wisdom they had wrested from the land.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[DO · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite accounts of Africa, this is a book to re-read every year. Fortunately, teaching part of the book in a college setting encourages me to set aside time to re-encounter James Stephenson's hunting with the Hadzabe (now easily available in the Kindle version). A painterly eye for details, a cast of fully-drawn people, and encounters with a life as far from the writer's NYC as I can imagine beckon to us from the earliest pages. Perhaps the single most potent chapter for me is "The Mountain of Nudulungu and the Ancestor Spirits." It is adventure and discovery writing at its most potent, filled with the possibility of being smashed by a buffalo in the night, clawed by a lion, or offending a spirit--all later delivering a vision of birth, life and death impossible to forget. Inside this book we see a man come to Africa with wounds, and a quest changes him. Still it is not an solemn reading experience, either: there is plenty of humor in his real-life storytelling, too. James Stephenson's prose wins me over every time, helping me forget for a time who and where I am, and it might just be the most impressive African work I teach. May you savor this sojourn as much as I do every year.

[Adam Uzelac]

For those of you from Michigan - the author of this book is James "Jimmy" Stephenson, who was a classmate of mine at Detroit Country Day. Quite an amazing adventure. If you know Jimmy, pick this book.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved this book-makes our modern lives seem even more silly than i already knew they are