Pygmies

1. Pygmies By: Kyra Madden

2. History • A new study shows that the pygmies of Western Central Africa descended from an ancestral population that survived intact until 2800 years ago when farmers invaded the pygmies' territory and split them apart. • The Pygmies have been in central Africa long before other groups migrated into that region. The ancient Egyptians left records of contacts with the Pygmies. They are a distinct race of human beings with their own culture and languages, and not just small people.

3. Climate • The  Congo cultural area is centered on the Congo river basin were the climate is  tropical. Because the land is low and the temperature and humidity is high,  tsetse flies are found in great numbers in this area. 

4. Location • tropical forests in central Africa and also in the Malay Peninsula (the Senang people), the Philippine Islands (the Aeta and other tribes), central New Guinea (several tribes), and the Andaman Islands of India.

5. Resources • All Pygmy groups have close ties to neighboring farming villagers, and work for them or exchange forest produce for crops and other goods. At its best this is a fair exchange, but it can involve exploitation of the Pygmies, especially where they have lost control of the forest and its resources. • Most African forest people spend much of the year near a village where they trade bush meat and honey for manioc, produce, and other goods

6. Economic Lifestyle • The 'Pygmy' peoples are forest dwellers, and know the forest, its plants and its animals intimately. They live by hunting animals such as antelopes, pigs and monkeys, fishing, and gathering honey, wild yams, berries and other plants. • hunter-gatherers who live in small, seminomadic bands with patrilineal or bilateral descent

7. Declining Status • The small number (in proportion to the Sub-Sahara population) of forest people are highly threatened by destruction of their homelands and official government policies to end their forest traditions. • 'Pygmy' peoples see their rainforest homes threatened by logging, and are driven out by settlers. In some places they have been evicted and their land has been designated as national parks

8. Migration Of Culture • African Pygmies are the direct descendants of the late stone age hunter-gatherer peoples of the central African rainforest, who were partially absorbed or displaced by later immigration of agricultural peoples, and adopted their Central Suddanic, Ubangain, and Bantu languages.

9. Government • They are routinely deprived of their rights by governments, which do not see these forest-dwellers as equal citizens. • Neglect by governmental authorities is made worse by pygmy communities inheriting political weakness, which stems from their dispersion, imbalance of power and the discrimination they suffer from their co-nationals. • The traditional power structure of representative institutions is entirely foreign to pygmy society, as hierarchy is not necessarily a dominant feature of pygmy clans. Executive power over the clan often stems from elders’ collegial decisions.

10. Relationships • This close personal relationship is inherited on each  side of the father to son. Since other Congo Negroes look down on Pygmies to  some extent, They seldom intermarry. When they do marry, however, the Negro  takes the Pygmy woman to live in his village. • They pygmies and  their Negro neighbors who live along the Congo river basin have close trading  relations that are tied up with the family unit. Each Negro family has it's own  Pygmy trading partner. This close personal relationship is inherited on each  side of the father to son. 

11. Culture • Relatively short people scattered across equatorial Africa. • They speak various languages, Despite their cultural variety, a new study shows that the pygmies of Western Central Africa descended from an ancestral population that survived intact until 2800 years ago when farmers invaded the pygmies' territory and split them apart.

12. Contributions To Society/World • The unique contribution of indigenous people to the development and plurality of society and strongly reaffirms the commitment of the international community to their economic, social and cultural well-being and their enjoyment of the fruits of sustainable development

13. Religion/Belief System • The pygmies have taboos against  eating certain animals. Members of the clan can't eat their totem, the animal  representing the clan, believing that any one who does must die. They also  believe that animals once were like people and could talk. Therefore, pygmies  tell many adventure stories about talking animals. In general the pygmies tend  to fear storms and are afraid of the spirits who live in the streams. Magic is  very important to them and work charms to prevent rain, otherwise control  weather, and help hunting. They have one god and believe that the souls of good  people live with him. This god looks like human being and is named Mungu. The  Congo Negroes have four categories of living being.

14. Music • Music is an important part of Pygmy life, and casual performances take place during many of the day's events. Music comes in many forms, including the spiritual likanos stories,  vocal singing and music played from a variety of instruments.

15. Literature • Pygmies speak the language of their neighbors

16. Art • Nearly three thousand hunter-gatherer rock art sites have been found within the ‘schematic’ zone and more than ninety percent of these comprise superimposed layers of massed, finger-painted, geometric designs. The other ten percent of sites comprise highly stylized and distorted animal forms plus rows of finger dots. • The painted animals resemble the concept of a sacred animal spirit and the dots mimic the belief in the encircling power of the forest and the power of the songs. The geometric designs mirror the symbols and concerns of elima that relate to fertility and weather control. 

17. Clothing • Animal hides used for clothes. • Pygmies dress in original bark clothes (mulumba) painted with beautiful abstract patterns.

18. Customs • Men and women may have only one spouse at a time, as in the United States.  Marriage also is exogamous, that is a man must choose a women from outside his  clan in another camp. A wedding is an important event for the two camps  involved. The ceremony and accompanying dance often lasting for more than three  days .A pygmy likes to marry a woman whose brother has married his sister. Camps  are usually filled with visitors from other camps, which come to see the  relatives or look for husbands and wives. These visitors usually stay for only  one or two months. • The Congo Negroes have  initiation schools in the bush country for their young boys before they are  initiated into adulthood. Pygmies are allowed to send their boys to these  initiation school periods, boys join with their parents in a big festival to  celebrate their new manhood. 

19. Cuisine • Pygmy women gather  wild plants, nuts, honey, fruits, leaves, fibers and insects. The pygmies never  preserve or store food but feast when they have a lot of food on hand. The best  season for gathering food is the dry season of January and February, and this  season abounds with feasts.

20. Education Going to school, usually a boarding school, is a new experience for the Batwa and they do not accept it as easily as one would think. I am speaking of both children and parents. The children have been fairly isolated in their settlements. They do not know the children from around the area, the Bakiga, the dominant tribe. Batwa students are new to their Bakiga classmates, the teachers and even, the head master.

21. Technology •  Pygmies use small bows and poisoned arrows for hunting

22. Works Cited • "A Short History of African Pygmies." ScienceNOW. Web. 31 May 2012. <http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2009/02/05-03.html>. • "African Tribes - Pygmies People." African Tribes - Pygmies People. Web. 04 June 2012. <http://www.africaguide.com/culture/tribes/pygmies.htm>. • "Pygmy." Web. 4 June 2012. <http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Pygmy.aspx>. • "Some General Information about African Pygmies - AssataShakur Speaks - Hands Off Assata - Let's Get Free - Revolutionary - Pan-Africanism - Black On Purpose - Liberation - Forum." Some General Information about African Pygmies - AssataShakur Speaks - Hands Off Assata - Let's Get Free - Revolutionary - Pan-Africanism - Black On Purpose - Liberation - Forum. Web. 04 June 2012. <http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/they-all-look-like-all-them/14468-some-general-information-about-african-pygmies.html>. • "Pygmy Peoples - ENotes.com Reference." Enotes.com. Enotes.com. Web. 04 June 2012. <http://www.enotes.com/topic/Pygmy_peoples>.

23. Citations Continued • "People of the Congo." People of the Congo. Web. 06 June 2012. <http://rainforests.mongabay.com/congo/congo_people.html>. • "ThinkQuest : 404." ThinkQuest. Oracle Foundation. Web. 06 June 2012. <http://library.thinkquest.org/C006418/local%20host/Pygimies/body_pygimies.html>. • "In-depth: Minorities Under Siege - Pygmies Today in Africa." IRINnews. Web. 06 June 2012. <http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?InDepthId=9>. • "SARADA." Pygmy – South African Rock Art Digital Archive. Web. 06 June 2012. <http://www.sarada.co.za/traditions/african_hunter-gatherers/pygmy/>. • "Education." Education. Web. 06 June 2012. <http://www.afriquespoir.com/pygmeeswamba/eng/index_fichiers/education.htm>. • "WiseDude.comPygmy Tribes Of Africa." Pygmies Of Africa. Web. 06 June 2012. <http://www.wisedude.com/misc/pygmies.htm>