ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the characteristics of Hadza residential groupings. Hadza residential groupings are open, flexible, and highly variable in composition. The chapter examines the nature of the camps, their composition and their flexibility. Any individual Hadza may live, hunt, and gather anywhere he or she likes without any sort of restriction and without asking permission from anyone. In comparison with other Hadza relationships, the noteworthy aspect of the marital relationship is not its instability, but on the contrary its stability and strength. The flexibility and variability of Hadza residential arrangements are fundamental; the regularities within the flux that is Hadza society emerge clearly only from an examination of residential arrangements through time. Most Hadza men settle down and live for many years with a particular wife; to sustain the marriage they do not leave her for long on her own and they fulfill onerous obligations to her and also to her mother.
