The absence of craftsmen is a characteristic feature of Pygmy society, each member being able to make whatever he/she requires. But Pygmies do not work either iron or clay and obtain through exchanges with neighbouring societies the implements and utensils they need (pots, knives, blades for axes and assagais).
They live in temporary camps that rarely last more than a few months. Pygmies are mobile but not nomads : their movements are confined within a given area of forest, a restricted territory with easily defined boundaries. in every instance, one end of the territory borders on a village of agriculturists with whose inhabitants the members of the camp carry out exchanges.
400 km2 has been estimated as the area used by a total of 3 or 4 Aka camps in the CAR ; a Mbuti territory in Zaïre will vary between 150 and 300 km2.[77]
Technology is characterized by its simplicity : a restricted number of implements are used in a great variety of contexts. Food supplies are based on forest products and food procurement takes up most of their time. Activities are often carried out on a collective basis, but never headed by a leader.
(after BAHUCHET, 1992)
Famous for their skill at hunting elephants, Pygmies however only eat more common mammals, wild hog and duiker, giant rodents (porcupine, Gambian rat) and tree-dwelling monkeys. Different Pygmy groups do not necessarily use exactly the same techniques, but each group has several methods for catching animals. They use them in turn, depending on the season, the availability of game and the number of people living together at any single moment.
* The Mbuti and Asua, in the south-east and west of Ituri, hunt
collectively with nets and bows and arrows, whereas the Efe in north-east Ituri
hunt with bows and arrows and without nets. The Aka in the CAR and Congo hunt
with nets and assagais, whereas the Baka only use assagais. The Mbuti and Aka
also hunt with assagais, tracking the larger mammals ; all the different groups
catch rodents tracked down with or without dogs, and kill monkeys and big birds
with bows or crossbows and palm wood poisoned arrows.
* Hunting in some cases is an individual activity (such as with bows and
arrows or crossbows), and at other times it brings together several camps (net
hunting) or all the men in one camp (with assagais), whereas 2 or 3 individuals
will be enough to catch porcupine. Though tracking with assagais is always
carried out by men, women participate as a group when hunting is carried out
with nets, and couples often set out together to catch porcupines. In some
ethnic groups (Kola, Aka), women may even go hunting if the men do not.
Meat products are supplemented by animal and vegetable products provided by gathering activities : tubers such as yam, the leaves of lianas, fungi, oil-nuts, caterpillars, termites, larvae of coleoptera to be found in deadwood. The honey of wild bees is also collected.
Women and young girls are in charge of gathering activities but often, the whole conjugal family will set out to collect nuts or caterpillars, just as men will usually pick whatever they find when out hunting. But the only activity which attracts as much attention as hunting is collecting honey : first the hive has to be located (usually up a tree, 30 metres above ground level) and then one has to climb the tree with a belt made of liana and extract the honeycomb with an axe. This is an entirely male activity.
The products of collective hunting are shared out between all those who participated in the beat and the killing. But the products of gathering activities, except honey, are not systematically shared unless vast quantities have been collected.
Food is rarely preserved.
Cured meat is usually for "export" towards other villages ; caterpillars are dried and may be kept for several months, and so can some of the oil-nuts.
But usually, the day's crop is prepared and eaten within 48 hours. Dishes involving preparation always go in pairs : meat, vegetables (leaves, fungi) and condiments (seeds and kernels, chilli peppers) make up a sauce which is eaten with the starchy staple food (yam, manioc or plantain). These dishes are shared out and distributed throughout the camp.
*The following figures give an idea of the yearly consumption of the CAR's
Aka populations in terms of foodstuffs extracted from the forest (for an
average group of 5 huts, i.e. 25 people)[78] :
in one year, an individual eats 60 kg of meat (i.e. 167 g/day), 10 kg of
Gnetum leaves, 6 kg of Irvingia oil-nuts, 6 kg of caterpillars
(i.e. 100 g/day during the rainy season) and 16 kg of honey (i.e. 100 g/day
during the dry season).
(after JOIRIS, 1993)
One should add that the consumption of meat only covers half of what is captured, the rest having been exchanged at the village for plantain and manioc.
*The results of a study of the patterns of consumption among Kola Pygmies in Cameroon shows a diet of 1816 kcal per person, protein intake being of 56,2 g/person/day (81 % of animal origin).[79]
Among all Pygmy groups, the basic socio-economic unit is the camp. The camp provides the basis for the organization of collective activities, sharing and distribution.
A camp is usually made up of about 10 huts, a restricted group of people (30 to 70 individuals). The group includes a certain number of closely related men (brothers or cousins) but also their wives' relations and sisters with their husbands. The eldest (father, uncle or elder brother) has moral authority over the others.
| Ethnic
group
|
Number
of huts
|
Number of adults
|
Sources
|
| Mbuti
|
12-15
|
30
|
Ichikawa
|
| Efe
|
8
|
less
than 20
|
Turnbull
|
| Aka
|
8
|
12
|
Bahuchet
|
| Baka
|
7
|
14
|
Vallois
|
A variety of relationships link up the different groups with each other.
Neighbouring groups meet up periodically, for major collective hunting expeditions, but also for many ceremonies and ritual dances.
Conjugal families often visit their relations living in other camps for a few days or even a few months.
On such occasions, visitors are involved in the camp's daily life and they continue living as they would in their own camp. This common practice makes for continual fluctuation in any single camp's composition : there is always a family off visiting or another that has come to stay. The choice of spouses in distant camps, and the tradition of "bride service" thus encourages more visiting (a husband makes a long-term visit to his wife's community).
Camp mobility is the result of a subtle combination of different causes : food shortage, resources having been exhausted, size of the group, the requirements of visiting, proximity of neighbouring groups, and also social disruption or death. As months go by, communities come together and split up in a perpetual movement of fusion and fission.
Hunting plays an essential role in the social organization.
First of all because it is an activity that mobilizes the strength of all members of the community, and second because it is aroung hunting that evolve religious activities and the different stages of an individual's social development. There is a high level of interdependence between young people's ability in hunting, their aptitude for marriage and their participation in the big prestigious expeditions to hunt for large mammals (especially elephants). Several rituals surround hunting activities, both propitiatory and expiatory. Great symbolic value is attached to the second most important activity : collecting honey, the life-giving fluid. Collective rituals are carried out before they set out to collect honey the first time in the season (and this is the only gathering activity for which it is the case) ; among the Mbuti of Zaïre, the honey season is characterized by temporary dispersion of the group.
We have already said that all Pygmies have been closely associated with groups of agriculturalists for several centuries. For a long time, these relationships remained balanced, but they are a potential source of conflict and inequality in a context of social and economic crisis such as most equatorial countries are living through at present.
It is absolutely essential to include these ancient relationships between Pygmies and agriculturalists in any development project aimed at Pygmies. To omit such a factor would necessarily lead to failure and serious disruption for those same people the project aims at helping.
Breaking up these relationships as a pre-requirement to these projects may not be advisable, though many seem to think so. It would be much more appropriate to study projects that would include the duet "Pygmées -Grands Noirs", i.e. hunter-gatherer Pygmies and agriculturalists.
Everywhere, these populations now tend to spend longer periods each year in a fixed settlement (often for up to 6 months), in villages near the roads. Being sedentary half of the year does not necessarily go together with the adoption of agriculture as the main food providing activity. On the contrary, the attraction of forest activities (hunting and gathering) is still the prime factor inducing mobility, and agriculture never provides more than supplements.
Groups of Pygmies continue to rely on their exchanges with agriculturists rather than develop their own fields.
[77] BAHUCHET, 1992 ; ICHIKAWA, 1978
[78] BAHUCHET, unpublished data collected in the field between 1975 and 1977.
[79] KOPPERT 1991 and pers. comm.