Anthropology__the_Bambuti_of_the_Iturji_Jungle__the_Social_Organization,_Beliefs_&_Values,_and_Social_Change

The Bambuti of the Iturji Jungle: The Social Organization, Beliefs & Values, and Social Change Cory L. Manthei ANT101 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology April 24, 2012 The Bambuti of the Iturji Jungle: The Social Organization, Beliefs &, Values, and Social Change The beautiful lush Ituri rainforest of the Congo located in central Africa is home to the indigenous pygmy group Mbuti or also known as the Bambuti. They are one of the oldest foraging groups still practicing most of their old traditions. The social organization of the group shows how structured this ancient culture has stood the test of time. Their sacred beliefs of multiple gods and deities, the ceremonies of thanks, and rites of passage from child to adult shows how these people coexists with the environment while embracing their love of the land. Sadly, as time moves forward the Mbuti culture have faced harsh times of war which has lead to the death of their people and the corruption of their natural way of life. With the knowledge and understanding of this culture, people are better able to assist the Mbuti bands, so as to enable their growth as a culture. The development of any culture is dependent upon the type of social organizations that it carries. The Mbuti bands are a foraging culture, which means these indigenous people are hunters and gatherers in the Ituri jungles. Then, from there the Mbuti are an egalitarian society and this is described as a society where everyone is considered an equal. There are generally no leaders in these bands, but on some occasions there may be a leader for a hunt. Although the Mbuti do use a patrilineal system, or a male based system, this is used for the naming of families and not for any type of authority over the band. A band of the Mbuti will consist of anywhere from fifteen to sixty members and they all work together to help the band thrive. The men of the band will hunt for mostly large game, but will tend to gathering fruits, nuts, and plants. Whereas the women of the band will than build the huts, care for the children, and gather food and water for the band while the men are away. Women would occasionally assist men on a large hunt, so as to help trap the animal in a big net. Women will make a lot of loud noise to scare out the animal from the underbrush and into the nets of the men. Any children of the band will stay near the women and the older children will assist with any of the work done by the women or the older children would help care for the younger children. Any type of culture that can keep the balance between its citizens has strong beliefs, values, and morals to help sustain the culture in the future. The Mbuti’s polytheism system, or the belief of multiple gods, is what the bands live for on a day to day basis. Their rituals, ceremonies and beliefs all revolve around the different deities in the Bambuti Mythology and their mythology is quite similar to that of the Grecians, Romans and Egyptians. The Mbuti worship the Ituri forest, or Ndura, they believe that it is sacred and the giver of life. The concept of life for the Mbuti refers to everything within their culture, such as marriage, pregnancy to birth, intercourse, good hunts, family, weather and safety. Marriage, birth, and intercourse are all involved in the creation of the Mbuti and these activities are generally performed in the Ituri jungle because it is considered sacred. Two of the Mbuti Gods stem from the observance of Ndura, Khonvoum and Tore. Khonvoum is known as the creator of mankind and the hunt. He created mankind out of clay, the white people were made from white clay, black people were created from black clay and the pygmies were molded from red clay. He is also given thanks for a prosperous hunt and prayed to when large game is scarce. Tore is the God of the Forests and Thunder, but he is mostly recognized for Death. It is said that he brought death upon mankind because the Mbuti “disobeyed his command to refrain from following and spying on him” (Turnbull, C. 1965. P. 189). “Any abnormal personal conditions indicates the presence of Tore: mental confusion or disorder, shivering spells, goose flesh, dreams, bad luck and misfortune” (Turnbull, C. 1965. P. 189). The worship of Gods also goes alongside the ritualistic ceremonies that the Mbuti perform to thank the Ndura for a successful hunt. The Molimo “is celebrated to give thanks to the forest or after a bad event such as a death, to put their lives back in order to find balance by becoming more centered” (Suroviak, C. n.d.). The Molimo is not only the name of the ritual, but it is also the name of the horn that is used during the entire Molimo. During the day firewood and food are gathered from each hut within the band because this will signify unity for the ceremony and an offering to Ndura. When it becomes evening, the Mbuti women and children will retire to their huts during the ritual because they are not allowed to look upon the ceremony. Although the entire ceremony does involve everyone initially, only the men are allowed to participate in the evening part of the ceremony. Singing and dancing around the fire slowly begin the start of Molimo. While the men are around the fire some of the younger men retreat to the forest to obtain the Molimo horn, but before they reach camp the young men submerse the horn in water and rub it with leaves from the forest to symbolize air, earth and water. When the young men return to camp they sing and dance around the entire camp with the Molimo horn until the Kumamolimo, or the hearth of the ceremony, is at its most intense with the older men’s singing and dancing. After that the young men re-enter around the fire and they continue to sing and dance with the older men of the band until the men feel the singing and dancing was good enough for the Molimo ceremony. After the ritual has been completed the Molimo horn is then stored back in the forest high up in a tree until it is needed again. The Nkumbi is another ritual that the Mbuti bands perform because it is the male rite of passage into male adulthood. Young boys within the band, usually around the ages of nine through twelve, are taken into the forest with some of the older men of the band to begin their ritual. This rite of passage could take several months to complete, due to the variation of the ages in young boys. While they are in the forest the young boys will hunt, fish, sing and dance. By doing so the young Mbuti boys will learn to better their skills in those areas. Along with those activities to sharpen their skills, than there is the “whipping” and circumcision of each young boy. “Whipping” is when the older men will take small razor blade type instruments and scratch each boy in the chest with about twenty half an inch cuts and then rub mud in all of the wounds. This part of the ritual is said to be a way of toughening up each boy so that he can become a man. The young boys will also be circumcised while participating in this rite of passage. Upon their return to camp, after the ritual has been completed, the “new men” of the group run through the camp lightly lashing the girls they like. Females of the Mbuti also go through a rite of passage ceremony, but theirs are named Asa. This ceremony is performed when a girl first menstruates. Although some people do not believe each band currently still practice this ritual, it is still important to know each gender’s rite of passage. When a girl first menstruates she is placed in a hut alone for the duration of the cycle. As the girl resides within the hut, the other female members of the band will dance in front of and all around her hut as part of the ritual. The older female members of the tribe mimic the mating of the Okapi, a near endangered giraffid artiodactyl mammal, while they dance around the girl’s hut. The Mbuti people hold the Okapi as a sacred animal in their culture and that is why is used in this ceremony. Once her menstruation has come to an end, she then emerges from her hut a woman in the eyes of the band. Over the many thousands of years that the Mbuti bands have inhabited the Ituri jungles they have seen so much change that they have altered their rituals and habits because of outside influence and manipulation. The Simba Rebellion occurred during the years 1964 and 1970. This rebellion against the Congolese central government began because citizens and some people within the African military suspected abuses from the government. As this rebellion spread throughout the Congo many of the native tribes were negatively affected, including the Mbuti. The rebel soldiers would storm through the villages that resided on the outskirts of the Ituri jungle and kill villagers, destroy huts, steal and rape the women. Many Mbuti are in symbiosis with the villagers that the rebels were eliminating due to the changes in territories and government. Villagers would flee with the Mbuti deep into the jungles so as to escape from any more damage to their villagers. There were also a good amount of villagers that ended up joining the rebels because they did not know any better. During this rebellion many of the Mbuti people were slaughtered during those seemingly long six years. “A…political upheaval in the Ituri, illustrates not only the flexibility of the Mbuti’s interactions with outside groups, but also their vulnerability and limited influence over the political future of the region” (Hartjohn, A. & Hartterese, B. 2010. Issue 8.3). Facing this issue and many others that have been similar have completely disturbed their natural way of life by destroying a lot of the forest where they live and hunt. The rebellion dwindled out about 1970 and the government attempted to put the Mbuti bands into small faming communities, but this failed shortly after because the Mbuti are not farmers they are foragers. Since the end of the rebellion many of the Mbuti bands have been sporadically taxed by the soldiers of the military and police. Most of the time they would take large amounts of meat and leave almost nothing behind for the band members, thus creating an increase in starvation. This rebellion has permanently damaged the Mbuti culture and it has been difficult for them to rebuild their homes and reestablish their bands. Aside, the Mbuti bands are gaining their independence. Other outside influences have made it difficult for them to return to exactly how they lived earlier. The land that some of the Mbuti bands inhabit as their homes is slowly being taken over by immigrants. These immigrants are putting up businesses and small towns close to where the Mbuti bands reside which is making hunting wildlife more difficult because of those people hunting or poaching. Wealthier immigrants take advantage of the Mbuti’s skills by using them for personal uses. As everything around the Mbuti culture changes they must adapt to the changes as well. The Mbuti bands have survived thousands of years of change environmentally and from the impact of outsiders, but through all of it they have stood strong as a culture. It is difficult to understand how these people stood the test of time and have still held up a strong social organization that is the foundation of their survival. Their sacred beliefs and values are the backbone of their culture and from that is the derivation of everything they believe as life. The negative changes that have happened around the Mbuti has ever changed their ways of life, but if humankind helps preserve cultures like theirs then it can live on and become prosperous yet again. References Hartjohn, A. & Hartterese, B. 2010. Hunters and Gatherers: The search for survival. The mbuti of Zaire. Issue 8.3. Retrieved from http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/democractic-republic-congo/mbuti-zaire Lindemans, M. F. 2001. Khnovoum. Retrieved from http://www.pantheon.org/articles/k/khonvoum.html Nowak, B. & Laird, P. 2010 Cultural anthropology. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/books/AUANT101.10.2 Olsen, R. (n.d.). On assignment: mbuti pygmies. In National Geographic. Retrieved May 6, 2012, from http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0509/feature5/assignment2.html Olsen, R. 2008. Rites of passage. Retrieved from http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0509/feature5/gallery2.html Suroviak, C. (n.d.). The Mbuti of Zaire. In Peoples of the world. Retrieved May 6, 2012, from http://www.ucc.uconn.edu/~epsadm03/mbuti.html Turnbull, C. 1965. Wayward servants. Garden City, New York. Natural History Press.