Siena Yates
whole family partook in traditional celebrations, smoke baths and more.
Mark offered the most insight as he struggled to get a grip on Himba life.
He was not only rubbish at keeping cattle but consistently had his masculinity questioned and mocked because he did not do as the Himba did — even helping his wife around the house apparently emasculated him.
He also struggled to watch the young Himba boys go hunting, unsupervised, armed with machetes at as young as 8-years-old.
When, in the final episode, the Moffatts were challenged to live overnight as Himba do, Mark struggled again, watching his wife and two daughters fetching wood and water, preparing food and cooking while he did nothing.
Yet every step of the way, Mark and the rest of the Moffatts, took it all on the chin and rather than question the Himba, questioned themselves.
Even when the Himba women demanded they get to have sex with Mark, his wife Betty politely declined and despite her shock, she conceded that it’s simply different, not wrong.
That’s the important part of this show. The differences are always so clearly highlighted, but no way of doing things is made out to be right or wrong.
The Himba were as perplexed as the Moffats: puzzling over concepts like monogamy, putting elders into homes and the fact that the Moffatts all slept separately, they shrugged it off because “that’s their culture”.
It really is a wonderful look at what could have happened if colonisers weren’t obsessed by white supremacy; if they’d simply observed and shared with cultures instead of trying to replace them with what they thought was “right”; if they actually learned from other cultures instead of erasing them.
At the end of the experiment, the replica terraced house was entirely dismantled and every trace of the Moffats’ visit was erased, as if it had never happened.
All any of them had left were photographs and memories and there’s something really simple and beautiful about that.
iThe British Tribe Next Door Streaming now on TVNZ On Demand
That’s the important part of this show. The differences are always so clearly highlighted, but no way of doing things is made out to be right or wrong.