The Mbuti Pygmies in the Ituri Forest

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The Mbuti Pygmies in the Ituri Forest

The Mbuti Pygmies in the Ituri forest in central Africa are foragers who use a combination of foraging, net hunters, and archers. Their kinship, social organization, and gender relations make them a unique band. Even though they live in the rainforest of equatorial Africa with hardly any possessions, they are happy, peaceful people. The pygmies are small people who are typically less than five feet tall.

The Mbuti have lived in the Ituri forest for many thousands of years. They live among the tall, green trees of the rain forest with its thick underbrush. The trees provide protection from several elements that may cause terminal illnesses. “The Mbuti’s main health hazard is respiratory problems—the humidity averages about 95% throughout the year. Torrential rains fall almost every afternoon. (Turnbull, 1985) They possess the bare minimum essentials for survival.

The Mbuti hunt and gather in the northeastern corner of the great equatorial rainforest of central Africa. The canopy is about 150 feet above the forest floor, shutting out all direct sunlight except where rivers cut through the forest, where there are salt licks or where immigrant village farmers have cut their plantations. Under the canopy, as a result, the temperature barely fluctuates and is always comfortable, dropping as low as 70 degrees at night, seldom rising above 80 degrees during the day. (Turnbull, 1985)

Their food consists of “elephant, hippopotamus, buffalo, okapi, bongo, bush pig, yellow-backed duiker, chimpanzee, baboon, Perter’s duiker, Gabon duiker, black-fronted duiker, chevrotain, mangabey, red colobus, Abyssinian colobus, Angolan colobus, blue duiker, blue monkey, red-tailed monkey, Bate’s pygmy antelope, mo...

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... and social organization. American Anthropologist, 89(4), 896-913. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/677863

Nowak, B., & Laird, P. (2010). Cultural anthropology. (Chapter 3 Band societies, section 3.8 Rituals and Religion, Case Study 3.5 the Mbuti Molimo Ritual, para. 1). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/books/AUANT101.10.2/sections/ch00

Roscoe, P. (1993, March). The net and the bow in the ituri. American Anthropologist, 95(1), 153-154. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/681184

Roue, M. (1998, January). An economy of sharing: there is no place for selfish individualism in nomadic hunter-gatherer societies. UNESCO Courier, R2 (RN A20355193) (3), 23. Retrieved from http://infotrac-college.cengage.com/itw/infomark/333/797/166533649w16/purl=rc1_WAD_0_A20355193&dyn=9!xrn_2_0_A20355193?sw_aep=olr_wad

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