Ed Stafford's Rite of Passage

Have we got one? Okay, at last we've got one.

This tree is hollow

and there is a big beehive inside the tree.

And it's just amount of making it accessible enough

to get our hands in and grab the honey out.

I'm Ed Stafford.

As an explorer and survivalist,

I've made a career out of mucking around in the wild.

If I'm honest, I've never really grown up.

Look at that!

So now...

Ready, guys?

...I've set myself a mission

to see how cultures across the world

navigate the messy business of becoming an adult.

I believe many of us in the modern world

have lost our sense of identity.

But I'm hoping by immersing myself

in the often-extreme trials that young people face,

I can figure out how these rituals

make us better members of our communities.

I've never experienced anything even comparable in terms of pain.

By joining them on their journey,

I hope I'll learn to become a better man...

...maybe even grow up...

Expelliarmus.

Okay, he wants me to jump. I'm going to jump it now.

...and successfully pass my own...

"Rite of Passage."

I'm currently in northern Tanzania's Great Rift Valley,

a vast area,

steeped in humanity's ancient history.

I've been travelling for 48 hours just to get here

and this is now my final leg.

A five-hour drive deep into one of the most remote corners

of the African bush.

I'm heading to the Soqoro community, on the fringes of Lake Eyasi.

A place often called the cradle of mankind

and where human remains dating back

around two million years were discovered.

I'm here to live with the Hadza

and from what I know of their rite of passage into adulthood,

it involves expert tracking and bush skills

to find honey and big game.

The Hadza have been surviving on these lands

for over 50,000 years.

And are one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer tribes

left in the world.

Okay, one of the local Hadza boys has just come out.

It's nice to see a smiling face.

Hello, mate.

Hi, guys.

I'm Ed.

-(ED SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) -(GONGA SPEAKING)

Thank you.

What's your name, mate?

That's your name?

-(ED SPEAKING) -(SOQORO SPEAKING)

Chop the tree.

Cool. Nice to meet you all.

Not only do I not speak the language,

but I can barely pronounce their names.

This could be a challenging week.

I appreciate being allowed to come and live with you

for a small period of time in your community.

The key thing for me coming here is to learn

about how you guys transition young men into the adults

and if it's okay with you,

the thing that I'm really, really interested

in learning about is how you hunt for the honey

and extract the honey from wild sources?

Thank you very much, mate.

Okay.

The guys are hungry

and they've got no food and they need to hunt.

So it's almost perfect for me.

Rather than sitting around and all the awkwardness

of being introduced to a tribe, we are straight out on a hunt.

Hadza camps are named after their best hunters.

With this community named after Soqoro.

His right-hand man is 17-year-old Gonga.

The Hadza diet is not for picky eaters.

I reckon they like squirrel!

Consisting of over 30 different wild mammals,

including monkeys, porcupines, badgers, and impala.

Do you want some water?

Other end. Other end. Other end.

Amazing!

Good water. It is good water, mate, yes.

Wow! I mean, that's so cool, isn't it?

Look at that. That's extraordinary.

He's cut the bottom, drank out the bottom,

because he didn't know that you could unscrew the top.

Why would you?

Does just show, doesn't it,

how divorced from everyday life this place is.

Thank God, that plastic still hasn't infiltrated

this corner of the world yet.

Nice.

Oh, you've got quite a big tuberous root being exposed now.

It's good, is it?

What's it called?

Halfway between a potato and kind of a cucumber.

It's kind of got that watery inside like a cucumber has,

but with the flavor of a raw potato.

Hont-Lont-Lo. -Hont-Lont-Lo.

What are we looking for, mate?

Okay, cool. Looking for honey.

For a Hadza boy to transition into manhood

and complete their rite of passage,

they must prove themselves as a provider for the community.

So although facing an angry swarm of bees seems daunting,

it is a primary food source for the Hadza people.

So it's something I must help them collect

if I am to pass my own rite of passage.

The white wax on the exterior of a bee's nest

means that the bees are actively building new combs,

which should hopefully be overflowing with fresh honey.

How do you get the honey out of that?

Wow! Okay.

With the hive more than 10 meters above the ground,

it's not exactly the kind of place

that you want to be stung by a swarm of angry bees.

I'm not sure I particularly want to go climbing up that one.

To make it even more precarious,

the only way to climb is by using homemade wooden pegs.

With only one squirrel successfully hunted

and now shifting our focus to honey, we've returned home with little food.

She looked really hungry

and very grateful with that tuberous root got given to her.

She looked really hungry.

The Hadza's traditional hunting grounds

have been whittled away

to only 10 percent of what it was just 50 years ago.

Meaning less game to hunt for food.

Yeah, there's a lot of little mouths to feed.

Not that long ago the Hadza could easily feast on giraffes,

elephants, and their favorite, baboons,

but that looks like a distant memory today.

Dead posh service, this is.

Thank you, this is perfect.

Laga means "lay down".

Thank you, mate. Thank you, thank you!

This is cool.

So basically, this is my accommodation

for the next week.

I don't want to become another mouth to feed,

making my need to help provide honey for this community

all the more vital.

Gonga, how many do we need to make?

Gonga, some of the guys were saying

that there is a girl you want to get married to?

Have you know her a long time then?

Not long. What's her name?

For a Hadza boy to complete their rite of passage and marry,