Conflict, Warfare, and Violence

The Mbuti tribe is unique in the fact that they are a peaceful people. The Pygmie groups as a whole try and avoid war with one another. For example, the Mbuti tribe found out that another Pygmy group had invaded their territory and were stealing honey. Instead of going to war, a man explained that both groups invade each other's territory every year so it's fair. If they ever did encounter them, the invaders would just flee; leaving the goods they had stolen.

A man named Colin Turnbull, kept a record of 124 disputes in one of the Mbuti camps he had lived in for a year. Over half of these disputes had to do with food, while the other hald dealt with sex, Bantu villagers, theft, and territory. The main way they resolve their conflict is by acting them out, which usually resolve their conflicts before they get too serious.

The most interesting way the Mbuti tribe settles conflict is through laughter, jokes, and ridicule. They have a "camp clown" who tries to resolve conflicts through ridicule, miming, and distraction. He tried to divert the people's attention from the conflict and make them focus on comedy. However, if a person is clearly wrong, an entire camp can punish and offender. Ostracism is another option they use, but rarely.

Gender Roles

The Mbuti have an egalitarian society which means that women, men, and children have all equal opportunity to get resource. There is not a power difference between men and woman in this society. They both share equal power. Any decision is made through a group vote. In a more conceptual manner, the village and physical location is represented as a male, but the layout of the village and what the space is used for is female. As hunters and gathers, the Mbuti must go out and find their food. Although most culture delineate the men to be the sole hunters, woman are incorporated in the hunt, however, they do have different roles. The men are the ones who hold the nets and kill the animal. Women are the beaters and push the animals out. The women also gather vegetables which the men are allowed to help. Both women and men participate in discussions. If an argument arises and a man is winning, another will join the women talking in a falsetto mocking the women, but if a woman is winning, another will join the men and talk in low voice mocking them. This happens until both sides start laughing stopping the argument.

Family and Marriage

The basic unit in the Mbuti is the nuclear family which consists of a father, a mother, and the children. These units live in one hut. Each nuclear family put together becomes a band. During the rainy season, the band stays as one and helps each other with food, but during the dry season, each band goes into the forest for food. In marriage, a member is not allowed to marry kin on either their mother or father’s side. One also cannot marry outside their age group because it is believed that the forest does not like this. The marriage in a community is recognized when the spouses move in together. This is not a formal marriage or divorce ritual in the Mbuti tribe. A divorce is when one of the spouses leaves the house and moves into another. Either spouse has the capacity to do this. The marriage ceremony is composed of giving gifts which are subjective to the couple. The ceremony is in the village according to the custom of the village. They consecrate the marriage by a dance with the forest leaves and singing of elima songs which is a women’s religious association. There is no magical or religious significant in marriage. 

Globalization

The Mbuti people are threatened by the destruction of their land and by official government policies which threaten to end their forest traditions. The Mbuti have no legal land titles given by the government. In the 1980s and first part of the 1990s, Africa lost the highest percent of rainforest according the United Nations and Agriculture Organization. This has further declined the Mbuti population. This loss of rainforest is caused by village expansion, population pressures, and commercial logging. Logging has become especially detrimental to the Mbuti because they bring colonists and diseases to these people who do not have immunity to the illnesses. The animals have become scarce because of the poaching and noises the loggers are creating. Government wise, in the 1970s, the government attempted to place the Mbuti as farmers in permanent villages by the road, but the project was discarded. Now a days, the Mbuti have little contact with the government. There have been attempts, however, to tax the people, and soldiers or police sometimes go into the hunting camps to attain tributes of meat. When immigrants where introduced, the Mbuti liked them because of the wealth. They helped with food and construction, and the immigrants gave them garden food. As the immigrants got a firm hold, they did not need the help of the Mbuti. The immigrants also do not reciprocate relations with the Mbuti anymore. They prefer that they pay them in cash. This has led to the Mbuti doing low end jobs such as caring water in restaurants to pay for these garden foods. The Mbuti are hired and exploited for their knowledge of the forest by helping loggers with identifying and cutting trees, and reducing the wildlife population for commercial traders. Mbuti also help the elephant hunters. There are many prejudices against them, and they find it difficult to enter the towns. Education and healthcare processes are slow, and the need for them is great with the increase of alcoholism and disease gained from life in the town.

Language

• The Mbuti people speak a dialect of the local Bantu language
• The language is gender inclusive meaning that a specific term can be thought of as both male and female
• In mbuti language, the forest is regarded as both "father" and "mother"
• Do not have a writing system

Subsistence

• Hunting and Gathering is the main form of acquiring food
• Mbuti hunt with nets, traps (women and children), and bows & arrows (mainly men)
• Hunting is often a community effort
• Mbuti use their hunting skills to trade animals and other forest products with the local Bantu villagers for baskets, pots, metal goods, etc.
• Gather a large variety of  vegetaion : yams, honey, berries, roots, leaves, cola nuts, and other fruits
• Mbuti are a very cooperative group and work together for the good of all its members
• Bands of the Mbuti tribe construct small circular huts out of sticks and vines in a temporary camp in order to increase the amount of food collection

Kinship

• For the Mbuti people, kinship is a mechanism for expanding the social circle and defusing any possible concentration of power
• In Mbuti kinship systems, the maternal and paternal sides are treated equally
• For the Mbuti people, the issue of kinship is not very important beyond the nuclear family except when selecting a spouse
• Mbuti are not allowed to marry kin on their mother or father's side as far as the tribe elders can remember
• They have a linear kinship group that runs horizontally by age group, with each person identifying with one particular group

Background Information

                                                           
Geographic- the Ituri rainforest in Zaire , Congo

Class system- Mbuti tribe is made up of bands which
                       range from 15-60 people 
                     

Total population-300,000- 400,000 people

Background- They are well known for their tribe
                      members averaging under 4.6"

                    -They have no leading groups or chiefs,
                      issues are settled by discussions
                    - Decisions are made by the consensus
                    - Men & women have equal power 
                    - They are an egalitarian society.

 The tribe is nomadic, which means they only make temporary homes and move when they need to find food. They make their temporary shelters by using wood as the framework and then covering it with leaves. Families normally live in these shelters for about a month before building another one.

People refer to them as pygmies because of their physical height but the Mbuti tribe believe this is a derogatory term.

Change

-most changes are because of regulations put on them by other people

-exploration of the Congo in the 19^th century resulted in colonial exploitation

-mbuti were forced from their land and migrated to areas along the edge of the Ituri Forest

-interdependent relationships between mbuti and villagers are made

-villagers view the mbuti as inferior but a good source of cheap labor

-mbuti trade meat for plantains and other supplies grown on village plantations

-pressure by the Zairian government caused some mbuti to leave the forest and live among the villagers

-overhunting by mbuti to meet the needs of the villagers led to depletion of the animal population

-they are no longer allowed to hunt large game.

-food supply is threatened because of deforestation, gold mining, and modern influences from plantations, agriculturalists, and efforts to conserve the forests

Technology

-bow and arrows are used for hunting game. Nets and spears are also used.

-huts are made of saplings and large leaves shingled together for the roof

-woven baskets are used for gathering

Media Framing

-they are known as the “pygmies” of the Congo

-known as a very primitive group

-“the forest people”

-“primordial savages who, unable to conceive of individual rights, believed that the tribe is a supreme, omnipotent ruler, that it owns the lives of its members and may sacrifice them whenever it pleases.”

-they are marginalized and living along the fringes of the modern world in abject poverty as hunter gatherers

-prehistoric existence

Interesting Facts

Beliefs that Foster Peacefulness. 

The Mbuti tribe sees their forests as sacred and a very peaceful place to live. As a way of showing their appreciation for the goodness and kindness the forest shows they sing songs. When bad things happen they don't blame the forest. They reason is that the forest is sleeping, so they sing songs to awaken it.  They do not believe in evil spirits or sorcery from the forest as the nearby villagers do--their forest world is kinder than that.

Sharing 

The sharing of meat taken in a hunt is usually accompanied by a lot of squabbling, not only about unfairness of portions but also about other unrelated grievances. But this is an effective way of airing grievances, since nothing can interrupt the cooperation of the hunt the next day, on which everyone's survival depends.