The Akie are an ethnic and linguistic group based in Tanzania

Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

. In 2000 the Akie population was counted to number 5,268 http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=TZ. The Akie, like other hunter-gatherer peoples in Kenya and Tanzania, are sometimes called Dorobo

Dorobo

Dorobo is a derogatory umbrella term for several unrelated hunter-gatherer groups of Kenya and Tanzania....

or Wandorobo. The Akie were featured by
Bruce Parry in the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 series 'Tribe'.

Lifestyle

The Akie are one of the last actual hunter-gatherer

Hunter-gatherer

A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...

s left on the African savanna

Savanna

A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...

. Beside hunting they collect honey, which involves 'steaming' out the bees, making it possible for a tribe person to reach into the hive and grab the honey. They enjoy beer

Beer

Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

 which they make from honey. Due to competition for land with the Maasai, they have recently been more reliant on maize

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

, although this rarely produces enough food to last year around.

The Akie's closest ethnic and linguistic relatives may be the Ogiek who live farther north in Tanzania and mainly Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

. They may have been farmers, but were forced to migrate south and resume a hunter-gatherer lifestyle after some hardship.
The Akie used to cover the Maasai Steppe, but now agriculture, poaching

Poaching

Poaching is the illegal taking of wild plants or animals contrary to local and international conservation and wildlife management laws. Violations of hunting laws and regulations are normally punishable by law and, collectively, such violations are known as poaching.It may be illegal and in...

 and other hunters have diminished the natural resources forcing the Akie into a bitter rivalry with the Maasai over land and water.