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The July issue of National Geographic has a photograph of 'bridging', an
exercise advocated by Matt Furey.  Bridging is a pose where you lie on
your back and raise your body up so it is supported by your feet flat on
the floor and your forehead.

http://brookskubik.com/combatconditioning.html

But this is no ordinary bridging.  It is a picture of a Barabaig youth
(the Barabaig are a pastoralist tribe in Tanzania) rolling his head back
even further so his face is flat on the ground as he attempts to grasp a
stick with his mouth.

Matt Furey himself has picked up the stunning 'bridging' photograph:

http://www.mattfurey.com/bridging_exercises_062504.html

One purpose of this exercise is to practise bearing pain with fortitude.
There is another photograph of a headstand exercise which National
Geographic describes as one of 'a battery of exercises to hone strength
and battle readiness' for an elephant hunt.  I must admit this is the
first time I have come across reference to physical exercise by tribal
peoples and this puts a whole new slant on 'Evolutionary Fitness'.

Other strenuous work would be the carrying of water over long distances.
This is women's work.  They use gourds to transport the water.

It seems the Barabaig presently eat a lot of corn (that is, maize) as well
as milk (daily) and meat from their herds:

http://www.connect.ab.ca/~dmoore/page4.htm

They also collect honey in leather containers to make honey beer in
gourds.  The beer takes about 24 hours to brew and is used as a ceremonial
food.  They drink it from cows' horns.  The ceremonial singing was about
their cattle, about a good year when there had been lots of rain so the
cattle had abundant feed. They would also sing about the best pastures in
the area.

I was going to stop this account here.  But as I surfed I became aware of
developments in the land of the Barabaig and their neighbours.  I came
across pictures of well-meaning (and mainly overweight!) missionaries and
government advisers trying to demolish the Barabaig's gathering / pastoral
ways by substituting Western thoughtways and Western agriculture.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/1994/11/23/the-scattering-of-the-dead/

Even David Moore's pages gave no hint of the disaster he was complicit in -
 as described by George Monbiot.  The Barabaig themselves, with their
pastoral ways, are a threat to the hunter-gatherer Hadzabe

http://www.islamonline.net/english/science/2003/10/article05.shtml

Things are not as simple as they seem, when extracted from their full
context.  And this is apparent from the apology National Geographic have
published about their article:

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0407/feature4/

Keith

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