AHC#6 Forest Dwellers Pt1 | african-hunter

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Forest Dwellers Part I

By Cam Greig

The deep jungle has always fascinated those who prefer blinding sunlight. Strange creatures seem to inhabit its deep recesses, only grudgingly to be coaxed, or more often dragged into the dimpled light for partial observation. The elephants that fled into the gloomy darkness slowly developed into a smaller race, along with the buffalo and a wide variety of other mammals. On the other hand insects seem to have found the environment invigorating and grow to goliath proportions. Moths are as big as dinner plates and six inch grasshoppers crop the leaves on the forest floor.

Living in among them are the human inhabitants of the forest, which are sometimes referred to as pygmies. In fact this term is considered derogatory to these forest nymphs and they prefer to be called by their tribal names. In Congo they are known as the Bayaka. In Cameroun they are referred to as the Aka.

My association with the forest dwellers goes back over 50 years. I was born in their country, and learned their language early on. I have watched 16mm film of myself when I was only about four years old dancing with the Aka of Southern Cameroun. My father was a medical doctor and would occasionally make a trip into the jungle to set up a pharmacy. I remember having to go for hours over mud encrusted log bridges, marching in the high humidity to reach their villages. We always brought a traditional present of salt and for this the villagers were grateful. They inevitably staged a dance in our honour. This is the way the forest dwellers celebrate: they dance. Sometimes complicated, sometimes simple, but always a dance. With no electronic gadgets they have learned to enjoy life by finding the rhythms of nature in drums and rattles. They have even learned how to “beat” the water in a remarkable manner that simulates a drum beat.

I have had the privilege as an adult to spend months on end with them in their jungle haunts. I have visited the Bayaka pygmies of Congo, a much more primitive group, on a number of occasions. Here the villages are still loosely connected to the Bantu villages. Even in the new millennium the women still wear only a grass skirt and the men hunt with nets woven from the jungle and poison tipped arrows shot from a crossbow. Reaching this village of pure Bayaka was a feat in itself. We travelled by air to a very remote airstrip in the northern part of Congo. From here we hired a motorized canoe that ran for a full day to get us up the Ubangi River and deep into the jungle. We transferred to some rutted logging roads and then back to a large dugout canoe. This time the propulsion was by paddles as we penetrated ever deeper into the dapple lighted jungle. When the canoe ran out of water we had to carry all of our gear for over an hour to finally reach the village. I was not so glad to find that the mud encrusted tippy logs from my childhood were still in vogue. A light rain added to the slippery texture of the bark as we slipped and scampered to high ground. Here the Bayaka had made a semi-permanent camp. This group of Bayaka stayed a long way from the Bantu village so that they could be totally independent.

Bayaka Hunters

A Bayaka Family

An example of Bayaka face painting

A red river hog

In response to a 20 kilogram sack of the still traditional salt I was welcomed into the village. The afternoon of our arrival we were treated to a “Dance of the Forest Spirit”. I felt much honoured to have them perform this dance for us in the daylight. This was done at my request, as I wished to take pictures. I had seen the dance a number of times, but always after dark when photographing it was impossible. I was able to shoot video and still photos as the spirit emerged and danced with the villagers, a memory I will always cherish.

Alas, even with the proper introduction I was sitting in a pickle. I was in a Bayaka village hundreds of miles from nowhere with a huge pile of goods, some camping gear and a rifle, but no way to head off on my trip. Not a single Bayaka villager seemed to be willing to go with me, and the Bayaka society is one where each individual makes his own decisions. Once away from the Bantu they did not want to be told what to do and felt very suspicious that my proposal to actually pay them to go hunting would entail a lot of work and not much reward. To them it seemed better to just sit this one out at home rather than risk being exploited. Again.

I felt very handicapped. In Cameroun where I am used to negotiating, I speak the tribal language of the Aka, but here in Congo they did not even speak Lingala or French, and so I had to resort to the use of interpreters to help me out. Conferring with the village elders I managed to convince the oldest Bayaka to come with me. This was extremely fortuitous, as he had a calming influence. He also acted as my emissary and cobbled together a crew of 13 porters to go with me on this trip.

Daily we penetrated further and further into the back yard of the Bayaka. Every evening we would sit around the campfire and share a meal. Dark comes at 6:00 every day on the equator, so there is always a lot of time to talk. Storytelling went from Bayaka to Lingala to French to English, as I did the final translating for my thirteen year old son who was on the trip with me.

The most amazing story was that of the origin of the Bantu-Bayaka relationship. Here is the story as it was explained to me by this old and gracious gentleman:

Our people lived in the jungle for many years. We hunted and fished and had a free life. We needed nothing, as everything was in abundance all around us. One day the Bantu people came into our world. They were warriors and very aggressive. They hunted all of the animals, but they also the hunted and ate the Bayaka. They ate us like monkeys. This went on for a long time and the elders of the Bayaka held a conference to decide what to do. They decided that we must make the Bantu understand we are also human and not animals. It was decided the means to do this was to get two volunteers to give themselves up to the Bantu. This was done and the Bantu were able to understand that the Bayaka were not animals, but people like themselves. None the less they enslaved the Bayaka and made us work in their gardens. Although this was not good, it was better than being hunted and eaten for food.

Every morning the old man would take a small log with burning embers from the fire and walk along with it in his hands. He explained that he was doing this in case we ran out of matches, as fire was so important. Only the elders could be trusted to carry the fire and make sure it did not go out. Since he was the only elder he carried it himself.

Every evening the young men would clear him a place by his own fire and although I had brought sleeping covers for each person he stripped naked and slept in that manner by the fire. Like most of his tribe he had a very hard time rising in the morning, as they hate getting wet with the dew. The only way to get him or the hunters to go out early with me was to simply start out on my own. Once they saw I had left the camp and knew I would not be returning they would hurry after me and guide me on. Short of this we could not get out of camp before the sun had already been up for several hours.

An example of Bayaka face painting

The happiest man in the world

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cam Greig was born in Cameroon, and grew up hunting with the locals and learned to speak both French and Bulu. His high school and collage years were spent in the United States, but he has returned to Cameroon two to three times a year since 1989 to go hunting, both there and in the surrounding (french speaking) countries. He keeps a standing “safari” complement of equipment including dug out canoes in Cameroon, the C.A.R. and Congo. His emphasis is on the adventure of the trip and less so on the actual hunt, and he has hunted many areas that have been abandoned or neglected since the end of Colonial rule forty years ago.