There are at least four Mbuti cultures, including the Sua, Efe, and Asua, all of whom face various environmental challenges that make their lives in the forest harder. Ituri is a tropical rainforest and it experiences high annual rainfall that sometimes reaches up to seventy inches.
This forest is in the north of the country. The forest covers an approximate area of Due to the moist and humid conditions, the Mbuti people and their animals face frequent health risks. Deadly diseases have caused havoc not only to humans but also to animals and plants, consequently threatening the survival of this minority group. Too much rain also leads to diminishing food sources because of lack of optimal weather balance for plants to survive.
The Mbuti people live in organized villages called bands with each house comprising a single-family unit. A typical house is a small, round, and temporary hut made of long stick walls and large leaves that form the roofs. These villages are normally scattered and located a good distance from each other. As of , there were only an estimated 40, Mbuti in the entire Ituri. The band has a territory that is geographically isolated from other bands and is able to provide sufficient resources for its inhabitants.
In addition, fluidity of band membership helps to ensure appropriate band size to prevent outstripping resources while providing the group with enough people to hunt. Band members can move to other bands temporarily or permanently as they see fit. Ties of kin through marriage provide one type of link to other bands.
Band size is also variable depending on factors such as seasonal variation in game and hunting style. During times of plenty, such as the honey season, Mbuti bands may break into smaller units while hunting is temporarily suspended. In general, band size is larger for net hunters than for bow and spear hunters. Although techniques vary, all Mbuti traditionally have met their subsistence needs by hunting and gathering.
The Mbuti make use of up to species of plants and more than species of animals, but the bulk of their diet consists of a smaller number of preferred plant and animal species. Women gather and men hunt, but men often gather while on the hunt if they see food that is especially good to eat, and women—especially among the net hunters—are a vital part of a successful hunt.
Among net hunters, men and women participate cooperatively in the hunt using strong nets made of a forest vine nkusa that average approximately 1 meter high and 30 to meters long.
Men form a large semicircle linking the individual nets, while women close in the other half of the semicircle driving game into the nets. Once an animal is caught in the nets, a man will spear it to death. Because they lack ways in which to store meat over a long period of time, excess meat is traded with villagers for plantation goods, but to hunt too excessively is thought to displease the forest.
Among bow hunters such as the Efe Mbuti, cooperation is also required for a successful hunt, but women do not participate directly in the hunt. Groups that bow or spear hunt do not generally capture as many animals in a hunt but require fewer participants. For this reason, bow and spear hunting bands generally average roughly 6 huts, whereas net hunting requires roughly 15 huts. Regardless of the way in which a group hunts, securing food requires an average of only 4 hours per day four or five times per week.
All meat is shared among the group members, but gathered foods, being more abundant and readily accessible, are kept primarily within the nuclear family.
Other jobs are also divided by gender as well. Men weave and repair hunting nets. However, gender divisions of labor are not strictly maintained. There is no shame in a man cooking, and bachelors often cook for themselves. Women have an equal voice in decision making and control powerful ritual knowledge. Frequent trade with neighboring villagers may obscure the fact that the Mbuti need only the forest for their subsistence.
Beyond a desire for luxury items, they require no outside materials for their survival. In exchange for meat, villagers provide the Mbuti with items such as metal cooking pots and cups, metal spear tips, and plantation foods. Plantation foods, far from being a necessity to the Mbuti, are not as healthy as forest foods.
The second sees them as fully independent if they so choose because the forest supplies them with everything they need; contact with villagers offers an agreeable change of pace but is voluntary and temporary. The third view finds a mutual interdependence between forest dwellers and villagers, with neither side holding an advantage; each has something the other wants and needs. Traditionally, material comfort, wealth, and security are the least of the concerns of forest dwellers.
They trust the forest to provide their needs, which are extremely minimal. The Bambuti need spears, bows and arrows, and nets for hunting; pots to cook in; huts to sleep under; and loincloths to wear.
They trade forest products to villagers for items difficult to obtain such as salt, knives, and metal tips for their weapons. Settlements are rustic, temporary camps situated within fifty yards forty-five meters of a stream suitable for drinking. Their igloo-shaped huts have open doors. Huts are made of bent saplings that form a frame onto which large mongongo leaves are tied.
Mats or leaves generally serve as beds, and cooking is done on open fires near the huts. People simply relieve themselves in the forest near the camp. After one to three months in one place, animals, fruit, and honey become scarce, and the smell of garbage and human waste becomes unbearable.
The community packs up and moves to a new site. Family life among tropical forest foragers is much different from that in the West. As previously mentioned, the Bambuti learn the value of interdependence and communality living as part of a group as children. Children call all women in the camp Ema mother. Nursing goes on long after a child can walk and talk. Mothers often swap and adopt children of their sisters and close friends.
The Efe live in small camps of fewer than fifty residents. Mbuti camps usually have two to three times as many people because net-hunting, which the Mbuti practice, requires communal participation.
Individual households are nuclear families endu consisting of a husband, a wife, and their children. Families are patrilineal, meaning they trace their lineage through the male line to a common male ancestor. Marriages are exchanges between families. Mutual affection can play a part. However, generally a man offers a sister, niece, or cousin to his wife's brother or male relative. Divorce is common. A women often initiates divorce simply by packing her things including small children and moving back to her family's camp.
If she has boys, they return to their father when they are old enough to hunt. The typical marriage is monogamous because women are scarce. Tropical forest foragers wear loincloths. Traditional cloth is made from the inner bark of vines. Men generally process the cloth, which involves pounding, wetting, and working it until it is soft and pliable.
Western influence has increased the use of cotton fabrics. The Bambuti enhance their appearance by scarification scarring on the face.
Some women also wear bead necklaces. Both men and women file their teeth to a point, which is thought to improve their appearance. The Efe diet is seasonal depending on the rains, which determine hunting and gardening productivity. Typical crops include rice, cassava, and sweet potatoes. The Efe also gather honey, fruits, and nuts in the forest. Peanuts, plantains, and other foods are acquired through trade with villagers. Tropical forest foragers enjoy many forest delicacies, ranging from pangolins an armadillo-like animal to reptiles and insects.
Food taboos are associated with clan, sex, or individuals. Clans identify with animals that performed a kind deed or may have helped an ancestor through a crisis. They make these animals their totems and are not allowed to hunt, eat, or even be around them. The Bambuti have avoided formal education. In camp, children learn basic skills, such as tree-climbing, before they walk. Boys practice shooting bows and arrows at the age of three.
As they grow older, boys accompany men on the hunt. Girls learn to gather food, cook, and make huts. This basic education is complete by the age of six or seven. The Bambuti have not developed a written literature and do not create visual arts.
Perhaps their most important cultural legacy is their sense of family, their community reliance, and their belief in the forest.
Featured here are the Mbuti Pygmies of the Ituri rainforest, which is located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Mbuti community appears to have been largely unaffected though not entirely by the many changes which have occurred in the DRC. From , the country was a Belgian Colony, and the land was renamed Belgian Congo. The effects of deforestation and a country at war DO have an impact, even if it is not as big as I would have imagined.
Adding the political context of the country where the Mbuti people live would give an interesting depth to the installation.
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