The Mbuti, commonly known as the Bambuti people is one of the many pygmy groups of people living in the Ituri rain forest in Congo region of central Africa. This group of indigenous people is one of the native communities in Congo region who have preserved their cultural and social practices for a long time. They are known for their active foraging lifestyle that is characterized by hunting and gathering wild fruits, roots and vegetables as their main source of food as well as their inhabitant which is the tropical rain forest where they live in small villages known as bands. The group has distinct cultural values in terms of language and cultural practices that define their indigenous lives as well as differentiate them from their neighboring communities.
The Mbuti people in addition, are known for their unity as they perform most of their duties as a group including hunting, gathering and even other social activities. This form of unity has enabled them to live successfully in their small communities in the forest while surviving the current conflicts facing the Congo region as well as preserve their culture and social beliefs. This paper discusses in details the cultural existence of the Mbuti people in relation to their social organization, their culture and beliefs as well as the gender relations and division of roles between the genders.
Overview
The Bambuti have lived in the Ituri forest for a long period of time as recorded by various famous anthropology researchers in the past. The current population of this indigenous group of people is estimated to be about 30000 to 50000 people and they live in small villages comprising of fifteen to sixty people in a group known as a band which is the cultural clan of the Bambuti people. The Bambuti or Mbuti people forms one of the distinct people who live in the forest characterized by their pygmy nature described by their short bodies whereby a fully grown male is mostly less than a hundred and fifty centimeters tall. Although other tribes have mixed with the neighboring Bantu communities and even intermarried to alter the pygmy nature into what is referred to as pygmoids, the Mbuti people have succeeded in retaining their cultural characteristics of being natural pygmies whereby they intermarry between themselves by getting spouses from other clans’ settings.
The larger Mbuti community is divided into three distinct cultural groups each characterized with distinct practices and beliefs. In addition, these groups have distinct language and cultural practices, economic empowerment and techniques as well as the geographical territory within the Ituri forest. The Asua group of the larger Mbuti people has incorporated the Mangbetu language used by the neighboring Sudanese community and they are the only cultural group which has established their own language although it is closely related to that of the Mangbetu people of Sudan. This group uses spears as the main hunting weapons and geographically, they live in the north region of the Ituri forest.
Efe group is another cultural group of the Mbuti people who are characterized by their hunting method which involved the use of archers and they speak the Lese language used by a Sudan group of people known as Lese. This group of Mbuti people lives in the Eastern region of the Ituri forest. The Aka group of the Bambuti people on the other hand uses Bira language with a mixed dialect of the neighboring Bantu group of people belonging to the Benue family in Congo. The Aka group lives in the southern part of the Ituri forest and they uses nets for hunting and other times use arrows and bows to hunt big animals. These three sub groups of people are only united by the larger tribal name Mbuti, although the current diversity in language has made them experience difficulty in conversing and even understanding each other’s language. The three groups used to understand one another in the past but the linguistic difference is however said to evolve in the recent past after the three groups drifted apart and established languages based on their neighboring communities.
Mode of subsistence
The Bambuti people are foragers and mainly depend on hunting and gathering as their main mode of subsistence. Apart from hunting and gathering, the Bambuti also exchange food stuffs with the neighboring communities who are agriculturalists through barter trade. The process of food gathering involves collecting wild fruits, vegetables and roots such as wild yams. They also collect forest honey for food as well as for barter trade with the neighboring Bantu communities who in exchange provide them with agricultural cereals and animal milk (Mukenge, 2002). Hunting is mostly carried out by men in cases where arrows and bows are used to hunt big animals such as elephants, hippos, antelopes and wild pigs among others. In cases of hunting for small animals involving the use nets, women and children are also actively involved although these are actively involved in the gathering processes. The mode of proximity adopted by the Mbuti people is made convenient by their existence in the Ituri rain forest which is a home to many wild and aquatic animals and edible plants.
Social organization
The social organization of the Mbuti people is determined by age, sex and kinship. They live in small villages organized into small units of nuclear families consisting of a husband, wife and the children. The nuclear families live together in small huts. The people are said to establish their neighborhood whereby they exist in small villages referred to as Bands which consist of a group of nuclear families mostly ranging between fifteen to sixty people. This is the largest unit which consist of several nuclear families living together to form a small community (Grinker, 2012). A band is equivalent to a clan and they group together in this form so as to assist each other in the daily survival activities of hunting and gathering wild fruits and vegetables.
The bands participate together in hunting and gathering spree in dry seasons and even during rainy season where they hunt big animals to be used for trade between the band and the neighboring farming communities so as to obtain cultivated products for food. They mainly move into the forest together when there is drought and remain together in the villages during dry seasons because there is plenty of food for the community (Snyder, 2002). Through this movement into the forest, a band is able to establish a wider territory for their hunting and gathering activities and is able to collect enough food for the village/band. They establish temporary huts into the forest where they live temporarily until the rainy season comes back when they move back to the forest banks as there is adequate food stuff during this period.
Beliefs and Values
The Mbuti people have distinct cultural beliefs that are shaped by their hunting-gathering lifestyle that take place in the forest. Their core belief is that the Ituri forest is the source of their food and protection hence they sometime regard the forest as their ‘father’ and mother and a sacred place that is highly respected (Grinker, 2012). They perform a special ritual known as ‘Molimo’ in the forest to awaken the forest spirits in cases of bad things such as death. The ritual is mostly performed by the Bambuti men and it involves noisy celebrations which are meant to awaken the forest which the people believe it could be sleeping while the bad things are happening to them. The Bambuti also perform other celebrations such as dancing around the fire in other special occasions. The Bambuti women also perform special rituals known as the Elima which is mainly performed during crisis issues affecting the welfare of the women including child birth complications, marriages, puberty and even death of a child or a woman. This ceremony is also performed during the woman’s initiation ceremony from being a girl to womanhood while their male counterparts performs an initiation ceremony known as Nkumbi which involves male circumcision and teaching him special hunting techniques.
The Bambuti people believe in a peaceful coexistence with the neighboring communities and they try as much as they can to maintain peace. They believe and teach their children that it is the obligation of each member of the society to promote peace because the gods are not pleased with people who portray aggressive behaviors (Thomas, 2010). They do not allow any member of their society to go to war with any other community because the forest, which could be the only possible source of conflicts with other foraging communities, has enough for all of them. This defines the Mbuti people and portrays them as peaceful people who in their minds believe that nothing in this world should make them go to war with their neighbors. They like spending their time with their friends and close relatives engaging in various recreational activities.
Gender relations
The women and men of the Mbuti people have equal contribution to their families whereby there is an equal treatment of both male and female members of the Mbuti people in terms of decision making as well as the economic activities. In other terms, the Mbuti people live an egalitarian form of life where both genders have equal powers in the day to day operations and decision making processes. The lives of the Mbuti people require both genders to be actively involved in the upkeep of the families though equal involvement in gathering and the family upkeep activities (Butler, 2012). This is in contrast to most of the neighboring communities whose males and female roles are distinct while the males have more power over their female counterparts in making decisions concerning their family upkeep and daily routine activities.
Men and women as well as the grown children are actively involved in the gathering sprees whereby they collect wild fruits and vegetables as well as roots such as wild yams for food and trade purposes collectively as a whole band. Women also participate in hunting by the use of nets to capture small animals, fish and crabs. The women are however exempted from activities such as hunting sprees involving the use of arrows and bows with their main activity being cooking and taking care of the children as well as maintenance of the huts while the men look for food. Women of the Mbuti community also play a major role of taking care of the children and cooking. They are also known for building the huts for the family both in their villages and also in times when they migrate into the forest during dry seasons.
The cultural practices and heritage of the Bambuti people is however currently being affected by various factors such as the regulations inhibiting mass game hunt and civil wars taking place in the Congo republic. This is likely to affect the socio cultural pattern of this indigenous group of people by altering their cultural setting that has defined them for a long period of time. This has also affected the settlement of the Mbuti people whereby some of them have been forced to move out of the forest and settle down in the agricultural rich villages hence abandoning their tradition mode of survival as well as start learning of the religious beliefs and practices that are totally different from that of the group in the forest as the supernatural provider.
Conclusion
The cultural way of life is shaped by various social and cultural practices and belief all depending with the people’s mode of subsistence. The cultural organization and unity of the Bambuti (pygmies) people has enabled them to preserve their cultural identity and their main mode of subsistence which has been in existence for thousands of years. This is something that most cultural communities have not been able to preserve as their cultural beliefs have been eroded through intercultural marriages, westernization among other factors.
References
Butler, R. (2012). African Rainforest People. Retrieved from www.mongabay.com
Grinker, R. (2012). Forests of Belonging: Identities, Ethnicities, and Stereotypes in the Congo River Basin Anthropological Quarterly. Vol. 85 (4).
Mukenge, T. (2002). Culture and Customs of the Congo. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
Snyder, J. L., (2002). Anarchy and culture: insights from the anthropology of war. International Organization. 56(1). Retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ino/summary
Thomas, E. (2010). The Harmless People. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
