The Mbuti
culture is a foraging society with bands that exist today. The social organization is made up of the
nuclear family and the gender roles are of the traditional hunter -
gatherer. Mbuti are also known as
egalitarian in that they have gender specific roles but they also believe in
equality and they share and help each other.
Marriage and family is the foundation of their heritage in kinship and
in the structure of their society. They
follow the patrilineal descent. The
Mbuti beliefs and values are embedded deeply within the cultural mythology and
they pay homage to their forest. Mbuti
believe the forest is their great protector and provider. The cultural tradition that they maintain
allows them to continue with the rituals performed by their culture. The Mbuti have a cultural tradition and they
are still living their cultural traditions today.
The Mbuti,
also called pygmies, are short people that can measure up to four feet six
inches tall; this stature allows them to move through the forest quickly and
efficiently. They live primarily in the
Ituri Forest which is a rainforest in the northern Zaire of the Congo region of
Africa. It has been speculated that the
Mbuti were the first inhabitants of Africa.
The Mbuti, also known as the BaMbuti, live together as a band and have anywhere
from 10 – 50 members in a band. They are
a foraging society of hunters and gatherers.
The women and children are primarily the gatherers
and gather fruits, nuts, melons and tubers from the land. According to this text: “Women
foragers provide 80% of the food consisting of nuts, fruits, berries and tubers
and collect this in one day that will feed the family for a whole week” (Nowak,
2011).
The Mbuti believe the forest is sacred or called deity. They consider the forest to be the “mother
and father” and they are the “children.”
The forest will provide them with everything they need and in turn they respect
the forest and pay homage to it. The
Mbuti as a culture have the mindset that they take only what they need to
survive. The Mbuti believe that if there
is something wrong such as a bad hunting season, sickness, death, or if they
feel out of balance the Mbuti believe they must awaken the forest so that the
forest will help to bring balance back to them.
In order to do this the Mbuti hold a “molimo.” A “molimo” is a ritual to give thanks to the forest. Both the name of the ritual and the name of
the instrument are referred to as a molimo.
The instrument which is similar to a trumpet in shape but much longer, is
made out hollowed wood; the type of wood is not important to the Mbuti, what is
most important is the sound that it makes and what it stands for.
The “molimo”
is said to be: “the most powerful and prominent experience of Mbuti life” and was
given the name by “the BaMbuti to the ritual performed at times of great
crisis, and consisting primarily of songs sung nightly by the men" (Liazos,
2008). A molimo celebration is held
only by the men and at night. The molimo
instrument is hidden in a secret place in the forest. They believe that before bringing the
instrument out of its secret place they light a fire; they also believe they must
feed and give drink to the molimo. Once
they have done this the molimo instrument is brought to camp and passed through
the fire, ashes are rubbed on it and hot coals are placed inside. The Mbuti men sing to bring the forest alive. Both the forest akami and the Mbuti singing
makes the sound intensely pleasant as is called the forest song. The molimo song and sounds are described like
this: "it was a deep, gentle, lowing sound, sometimes breaking off into a
quiet falsetto, sometimes growling like a leopard. As the men sang their
songs of praise to the forest, the molimo [here meaning the instrument]
answered them, first on this side, then on that, moving around so swiftly and
silently that it seemed to be everywhere at once.... the sound was sad
and wistful, and immensely beautiful" (Liazos, 2008). The forest people, the Mbuti, are one with
their forest and the forest is one with them.
The Mbuti
hold rites of passage for girls and for boys.
The initiation for boys is called the “nkumbi.” The “nkumbi” is a secret ritual and is the circumcision
ceremony; considered the initiation from boyhood into manhood. The boys are generally the age of eight. It is a five month ritual where the boys get
whipped every morning and they are responsible for hunting and feeding
themselves. The nkumbi gives them
special powers and the boys are brought into the crucial secrets of the forest
of their own culture. On the last day of
the “nkumbi” the boy dances the entire length of the village. Even though the nkumbi is the initiation from
boyhood to manhood the boy once the nkumbi is over will resume his childlike
behavior in the forest until he proves himself.
A boy proves himself by being able to take care of his family by killing
his first game or by participating in the elima festival.
The
“elima” is the celebration of puberty for the girls. Elima is the: “Bantu word for female coming
of age marked by the first appearance of menstrual blood” (Woodcock, pg.
3). For the Mbuti this means life and
the young woman is potentially a mother.
This is a joyous celebration and the news is told to everyone. There is a special house that the young girl,
also called a bamelima, goes to where she can take her friends whether they are
matured or not. In this house she is
taught motherhood lessons, including elima songs, by an older woman or the
instructress. Pygmies from all around
come to visit the young woman including young men. The young men that are interested in this
young woman wait outside the house and patiently
awaits the beginning of the elima singing.
This means it’s a time of courtship.
During this time, the Bamelima girl chooses a male and there are
flirtations. The bamelima will then invite male Mbuti of her choice to sleep in
the elima house by whipping them. Once the boy has been whipped he must fight
his way into the Elima house which is protected by the bamelima’s mother. Not
only is the elima a courting process, but it helps resolving any akami, or
noise, made by male and female relations.
In doing this the entire camp plays a special form of “tug of war” that
is more of a ritual than just a game. The game is all the men are on one side and
all the women are on the other. If it begins
and the men are winning, a man runs to help the side of the women. If the women start to win, a woman will run to
the other side with the men to help; this process goes back and forth between
both the sides until all the women are on the male side and all the men are on
the female side. The game ends and most importantly with both sides laughing
and calling a truce. This helps the Mbuti to teach their children that men and
women are equal and especially in marriage.
As this text states: “the elima festival serves as a preliminary to
marriage” (Mosko, 1987, pg 907).
Marriage is considered sacred. For the Mbuti, an exogamous sister exchange
is the most common form of marriage exchange between families, but due to the
structure of the Mbuti families they can also be considered endogamous since
essentially everyone is family. These
families consist of bands and sub-bands and or also viewed as consanguines and
affines. When making a marriage exchange it is preferred that the
exchange is to a distant band over a neighboring band or exogamous exchange. In any marriage, a
man will offer a sister, niece or cousin to a male relative or to males they
have ties to. There is no official or
formal marriage ceremony for the Mbuti.
A couple is considered officially married when the groom presents his
bride's parents with an antelope that he hunted and killed by himself. There is sometimes an exchange in marriage
with the villagers as this helps in procuring a lasting relationship with the
villagers; they need the villagers for agricultural supplies.
The Mbuti
follow a patrilineal descent system, and their residences after marriage are
patrilocal. The only type of family group seen among the BaMbuti is the nuclear
family. This text states that: “among foraging bands, the nuclear family is the basic unit of
production and consumption. The food supply is dispersed throughout the
environment” (Nowak, 2011). The Mbuti
kinship system is based on age and has no political hierarchy. They have strong family bonds. Each kinship or band is typically
generational in that there are grandparents, children and grandchildren. Kinship also provides allies for each
group of people. During times when
foragers are mobile members can go to different groups, especially if there
have been conflicts and as long is a kinship connection, that person can become
a part of another group of members.
Since the Mbuti are mobile they do not have much in material
possessions. The Mbuti can move as often
as every 3 – 4 weeks. Adults move to another
band or a group; this helps in avoiding conflicts or disagreements. One of the main reasons that the Mbuti move
often is to make sure that the area they live in has enough resources to
regenerate itself. They are conscious of
their environment and respect the forest.
Because they move often they will typically carry a couple of pots and
pans, tools that they have acquired and a few personal items. The Mbuti, since they have been so mobile,
are able to build their forest camp shelters quickly. The huts, or called mongulu, are built in the forest camps and
are shaped as one-family huts. The
mongulu are made of leaves, branches and vines and mostly made by women. Since the Mbuti are mobile their relationship
with the villagers is important for them especially for reciprocity.
The Mbuti
and the villagers share a general reciprocity.
The Mbuti will trade meat and honey, as well as medicinal plants and
edible mushrooms with the villagers. In
exchange the villagers provide the Mbuti with starch. The relationship between the Mbuti and the
villagers is at times a strained relationship since the villager’s believer
they are better than the Mbuti. As
stated in this article: “there is an unbridgeable
gulf between the two worlds of the two peoples" (McDonald, 2004). However, in recent years and because
of the changes in their environment the Mbuti and the villagers need each
other. The villagers respect the Mbuti
for the agility of getting through the forest, of paying homage to the first
and being spiritually connected to the forest.
The Mbuti need the villagers because of their agricultural resources.
Today,
the current cultural environment of the Mbuti is in danger. The industrial revolution and the growing
economies have gradually moved in to the rainforest area and affecting the
Mbuti forest and their environment. Since
the Mbuti do not own the forest the governments have the ability to do whatever
they decide with the rainforest and give little mind to the existing rich
culture of the Mbuti. This article
states that: “In principle, Zaire's central government has the authority to
allocate and manage the land and its resources” (Hart, 1984). The peaceful
happy people, it is speculated within the next 50 years, will become extinct due
to the changing world. The world that Pygmy’s
have known for all these years is disappearing.
They have no rights, no landownership and are being used for the
knowledge of the land and it being used against them. This article says that the: “Mbuti
continue to be recognized as forest specialists, but their skills are often
used to their disadvantage” (Hart, 1984).
The Mbuti are adhering to their way of life
and their culture and remain in harmony with their environment. But we know that the disintegration of a culture
begins as soon as there is contact with the outside world. There is a group fighting for the rights of
the Mbuti that says it is: “of absolute
importance in international law, between assuring the rights of indigenous
peoples to their own lands, languages, and customs, and any acknowledgment of
their right to self-determination”
(Petersen, 2002, pg 986).
The knowledge that the pygmies have developed over thousands of
years is tremendously valuable. Their knowledge
of how to utilize the forest is disappearing faster than we can tap into their
resource of knowledge. According to
this: “the importance 'of
recognizing the vital role that aboriginal communities can play in managing
land is invaluable” (Levine, 2010, pg 240).
It has been said that the people of the forest have physically adapted to forest life
better than other humans. According to this statistic: “Africa is losing 10 million
acres (4 million hectares) of trees annually — an area the size of Switzerland
— because of uncontrolled logging, mining and mass waves of migrants desperate
for land” (Levine, 2010, pg 240).
The culture of the Mbuti and their traditions has impacted who
they are and how they live for hundreds of years. Their cultural traditions have remained the
same and have been passed down to each generation. Mark Mosko represents the Mbuti by saying this: “the Mbuti have been shown here to
possess a tradition that is as symbolically rich, well-structured, and dynamic
as anywhere else…that the cultures of hunter-gatherers, along with the rest of
us, are as much products of logically ordered symbolic expression as they are
of material, ecological, demographic, economic, historical, or even social
forces” (pg. 909). In essence, the Mbuti
have been true to themselves, their culture and their environment; even though
they are faced with an environmental change and industrial revolution coming
into the rain forest. The Mbuti have survived
successful and continue to survive today.
The Mbuti are still around and we can continue to learn from them by ethnography
and from an anthropological perspective.
References:
Coffey, James. (2010).
The Mbuti of
Central Africa: The Only Known Egalitarian Society, pp 1-3). Helium,
Inc.
Hart, John, Hart, T.
(1984). The Mbuti of Zaire.
Hunters and Gatherers: The Search
for Survival. Cultural Survival
(8.3). Retrieved from: http://www.culturalsurvival.org.
Levine, Hal. (2010). Questioning Collapse: Human
Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability and the Aftermath of Empire. Oceania, 80(2), 237-240.
Liazos, Alex. (2008). The 1950s
Mbuti: A Critique of Colin Turnbull’s. The
Forest People.
McDonald, Christie. (2004). Ethnography, Literature, and Art
in the work of Anne Eisner (Putnam): Making Sense of Colonial Life in the Ituri
Forest. Research in African Literatures, 35(4), 1-16.
Mosko, Mark S. (1987). The Symbols of "Forest": A
Structural Analysis of Mbuti Culture and Social Organization. American
Anthropologist, 89(4), 896-913.
Nowak, B., & Laird, P.
(2010). Cultural
anthropology. San Diego, Bridgepoint Education,
Inc. https://content.ashford.edu
Petersen, Glenn. (2002). At the Edge of the State:
Indigenous Peoples and Self-Determination. American Anthropologist, 104(3), 986-987.
Woodcock, John. The Forest People by Colin M Turnbull. pg. 3.
Retrieved from: http://ishk.com/forest_people.pdf
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