Mbuti of Africa
Thesis statement
Living in a remote section of the African rainforest where extreme climate and resource availability is common, the Mbuti are actually a collection of several hunter-gatherer groups who live in bands of ten to fifty people who are very mobile, both for purposes of tracking food supplies, and in recent centuries, to avoid interference from outsiders. Their environmental surroundings have impacted their modes of subsistence and in turn this has affected their culture and way of life in a very profound manner.
Introduction
Culture generally defines a system of principles, ideals, ideas, views and values as well as physical and non-physical acquisitions such as language, which define the distinct mode of life that a specific group of people that share common interests uphold. These cultural systems define and shape required conduct, views, thoughts, interaction among people and other cultures as well as the environment.
The Central African Mbuti or Bambuti people consist of a collection of indigenous groups of pygmies who live within and on the edges of the vast span of the Congo basin rainforest in the Central African republic of Congo. Their language is part of subgroups that form the central Sudanic group of languages. Therefore, the Mbuti language falls in the category of the Nilo-Saharan phylum. Their lingual affiliation to the Sudanic group implies that they may have originated from the region of Sudan. These groups of people mainly inhabit Ituri forest. The forest is part of the larger tropical rainforest within the Congo basin (Gibbs, 1965).
This region gets high levels of precipitation annually and the amount of precipitation ranges between 50 to 70 inches 127 to 178 centimeters. The long periods of rain are punctuated by short spells of dry seasons that mainly run for about two months. The region is thus moist and humid almost all round the year, and as such the region has a large number of lakes and rivers. The region they inhabit is 70000 square kilometers in size. This community encounters a number of challenges including diseases which are common due to the high humidity as well as too much rain that at times reduces their food supplies. Diseases spread at a faster rate in these hot and humid climates and thus killing both man and beast, and this results into a shortage in food supply too. The rearing of larger mammals is greatly restricted by tsetse flies that cause sleeping sickness. The population of the Bambuti groups is estimated to be in the range of 30 to 40 thousand people, and they are the oldest occupying natives of the region in central Africa (Turnbull, 1983).
The mode of subsistence of the Mbuti people
The Mbuti are basically hunters and gatherers and they do not engage in animal or crop husbandry. They forage for plant food from the forest resources and hunt within the forest for wild animals that are edible within their culture. The Mbuti are entirely dependant on the forest and as such they have a wealth talent and knowledge on how to seek for foods within the Ituri forest. The range of wild animals that they hunt for include monkeys, wild pigs, antelopes, crabs, shellfish, snails and ants (Gibbs, 1965).
They also fish in the numerous rivers that flow within Ituri. Their foraging activities yield various foods such as cola nuts, wild berries, roots, wild yams, honey and edible leaves-just to mention but a few. The Mbuti mainly hunt for the giant forest hog which is common in the Ituri. However, the Mbuti do not consume the giant forest hog, but rather use it as a trading commodity in exchange for other forms of food with the farming tribes that live at the edges of the forest. The meat from giant forest hogs and rats is considered kweri and thus should not be eaten. The Mbuti belief system holds that kweri is any bad animal from the forest that may cause sickness if its meat is consumed. The Bantu groups that inhabit the edges of the forests have no such beliefs and as such they are able to consume the hog meat supplied by the Mbuti in exchange for some of their cultivated foods.
Therefore, the Mbuti are able to supplement their diet of forest foods with agricultural produce from the neighboring Bantu groups (Gibbs, 1965). Mbuti folklore states that giant wild hogs were classified as Kweri because their nocturnal nature and the fact that they foiled the first few advances towards agriculture that were initiated by the Bambuti communities. A part from these assertions there are other probable reasons as to why the Mbuti may have classified the giant hog as kweri. This may have originated from Mbuti mythology in which the giant hogs are associated with the physical manifestation of Negoogunogumbar(Turnbull, 1983).
The second possible reason may have been because of unconfirmed claims that the forest hog ate infants of the Bambuti community in their cribs if they were left unattended to. Other subsistence commodities obtained from the forest and are not classified as kweriinclude fishes, wild animal meat from other animals not classified as kweri and root plants such as yams, bananas, wild honey, gourds, legumes, palm trees, legumes, amaranth and palm trees. Due to the high reliance on gathering and hunting the Mbuti have learned to develop hunting skills which include the making of traps, nets and weapons such as bows and arrows. The gathering activities are usually left to the women and children of the community whereas the hunting activities are relegated to men.
However, in some instances women and children are allowed to set traps drive animals into the traps. There is a clear specificity of duty, but it can be generally stated that men and women as well as children take part in gathering and foraging. The forest has specific designated grounds for each group’s activities, however; the borders are loosely designated and thus not easy to maintain.
Social, Political and Economic Organization among the Mbuti
Kinship among the Mbuti people
The mode of subsistence among the Mbuti organizes the community into small bands and therefore makes associations limited to the bands and nuclear families that make up these bands and as a result kinship becomes limited to this small social structure and confines.The kinship systems among the Mbuti people treat paternal and maternal kinship in an equal manner. Among the Mbuti people, kinship recognition has very little significance when such recognition goes beyond the nuclear family. However, kinship recognition gains importance when making marriage propositions.
When choosing a spouse kinship considerations have to be carefully looked into. The Mbuti youth are prohibited from marrying their members of their kin on both maternal and paternal sides, and this should be considered as far back in time as the communities elders can remember. Marriage outside one’s age group is also prohibited because it is termed as a displeasing act to the forest. Marriages among the Mbuti get recognized the moment the spouses move in and the community has no regulations on post-marital residence and this could be on either side of the family (Gibbs, 1965).
The economic considerations of a band are what define where the couple may decide to live. There are no formal rituals associated with the Mbuti’s marriage ceremonies and as such there are also no formalities for divorce, and when one of the spouses leaves for another place then the marriage is counted as terminated marriage. The Mbuti regard kinship as a formal mechanism that helps expand their social circles, and to them the survival of the band is the most significant thing. The most common social structural mechanism recognized among the Mbuti us age groupings. Linear groups of kinship make horizontal cuts in the population (Turnbull, 1983).
This kind of kinship seems to be mainly influenced by the Mbuti’s mode of subsistence which lays emphasis on the development of the band as the main determinant of survival. Thus the community tends to center its kinship considerations to narrow scopes rather than extend it beyond the band where it plays little significance.
The Mbuti’s form of leadership is egalitarian in nature and all people are deemed equal and therefore; there is no designated ruling class. The lack of ruling groups and hierarchy in power leads to the amorphous structure of self governance among bands, where deliberations are made after consultations among the members of the group. The band forms the top leadership of each group and is thus the largest social organization. This form of social and political organization is primarily as a result of subsistence, which brings the band together with the objective of seeking food resources together through gathering and hunting.
Thus the same structure and group formed for the sake of subsistence ends up being the formal social and political organization. Thus the same organization is adopted for the sake of offering leadership and a decision-making, and it is the only recognizable economic, social and politically viable communal unit (Gibbs, 1965). This structure around which leadership is organized is also seen at action in gathering and hunting expeditions where it offers leadership in economic activities. Under the social and political framework decisions are made by the elder members of the band. Their gathering offers a forum for the development of decisions whenever there are any challenges in society.
Gender Relations among the Mbuti
The Mbuti community holds both genders equal and as such they have equal power and say when it comes to the making of deliberations even though the communal roles and jobs do differ. Issues of concern are deliberated among the group’s members and consensus is reached on issues that pose challenges to the band. Decisions are reached round campfires and both genders participate in the deliberations (Gibbs, 1965). The male and female members of the band have equal rights when it comes to making deliberations on important issues in society.
Offenses among band members may be settled via different means such as corporal punishment, banishment and scorning. The male members of the family are regarded as the major providers in society, whereas the female (mothers) play the role of supplementing for the family. The major subsistence activity is hunting which is carried out by the male members of the band. On the other hand the children and women complement by gathering wild foods mainly from edible plants (Turnbull, 1983).
Beliefs and Values
The Mbuti communities live in forests and their entire life is centered on the forest. Thus their life is totally oriented to the forest in most aspects. Their meaning of life and interpretation of life is based on their understanding of their surroundings which is the forest. The Mbuti consider the forest sacred, this is because it is their main protector and provider (Turnbull, 1983). Therefore the forest is considered the “mother” and the “father.”
The community engages in rituals that portray the community’s ritual aspects. These rituals include the molimo. This ritual is performed whenever an important person in the community dies. The ritual is accompanied by the making of a lot high pitched noises that are meant to be an awakening call to the forest. The forest is woken as the father and mother to witness the death of its sons or daughters. The forest is called to witness the bad things that happen to its children the Mbuti (Turnbull, 1961). The Mbuti believe that whenever bad things happen to them, it means that the forest is a sleep and not protecting its children (the Mbuti). Molimo is thus a ritual by the children of the forest to awaken their parents from slumber so that it can offer protection to the people.
The molimo performances’ time is determined by the mood of the people and they may choose to extend the performance to as long as they feel necessary. When celebrating the molimo each family and band makes food donations to be shared in the in the ritual. The ritual is usually concluded by night through dances performed by men round fires lit in the open. In these night performances women and children are advised to be locked within their houses. The rituals name also denotes the molimo trumpet which is used during the celebrations of the rituals. The bamboo trumpet is made from stems of bamboo or at times metallic drain pipes. The trumpet is stored in the forest –the “home” of the parents of the Mbuti till when needed. The molimo trumpet is retrieved during ceremonies by the village youth (Turnbull, 1961).
Conclusion
Living in a remote section of the African rainforest where extreme climate and resource availability is common, the Mbuti are actually a collection of several hunter-gatherer groups who live in bands of ten to fifty people who are very mobile, both for purposes of tracking food supplies, and in recent centuries, to avoid interference from outsiders. Their environmental surroundings have impacted their modes of subsistence and in turn this has affected their culture and way of life in a very profound manner.
Conclusively, this exercise shows that culture is an ever changing force that is ever shaped by various forces that occur within the surroundings that people live in. The activities that people engage in are also important determinants of what a people’s culture can be, and the engagements in economic activities and interactions with other communities may help shape the community’s social, political and economic life. The mode of subsistence of the Mbuti people has greatly affected their lives in various aspects. They form a good example of a community whose activities have greatly been greatly shaped by cultural subsistence modes. Their hunting and gathering activities and style of seeking for their needs have shaped their life into a nomadic temporal society whose social, political and communal structure is shaped around bands seeking means to sustain their livelihood.
References
Gibbs, James (1965),. Peoples of Africa; New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Turnbull, Colin M. (1961),. The Forest People: New York : Simon and Schuster.
http://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublications/csq/article/the-mbuti-northeast-zaire
Encyclopedia Britannica Eb.com
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1987.89.4.02a00090/abstract
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