Mbuti Culture Essay

The Mbuti or Bambuti are one of several indigenous pygmy groups in the Congo region of Africa. Their language belongs to the Central Sudanic subgroup of the Nilo-Saharan phylum.1 After researching the Mbuti culture, I think we will see that their government, traditions, and culture is slowly and sadly melting into the surrounding, changing world. Mbuti’s primary mode of subsistence is Foraging. They hunt and gather food from the forest, and they trade as well for survival. The Foragers, or hunter-gatherers, in modern-day Zaire have survived with a subsistence lifestyle in small-scale societies. Political organization-Bambuti societies have no ruling group or lineage, no overlying political organization, and little social structure. The Bambuti are an egalitarian society in which the band is the highest form of social organization. Leadership may be displayed for example on hunting treks. Men and women basically have equal power. Issues are discussed and decisions are made by consensus at fire camps; men and women engage in the conversations equivalently. If there is a disagreement, infraction, or offense, then the offender may be banished, beaten or scorned. No chief or formal council has imposed rules. Kinship of the Bambuti tend to follow a patrilineal descent system, and their residences after marriage are patrilocal. However, the system is rather loose. The only type of group seen amongst the Bambuti is the nuclear family. Kinship also provides allies for each group of people. One of the Mbuti’s social problems is interclan disputes, over children and women. Women migrate to villages, losing close to one out of five of their female population. An uneven number of women lead to the inevitable transfer of women from one family, to another. This leads to great conflict between the men, over the disposition of their female siblings. â€Å"Divorce is common. The women often initiate divorce simply by packing their things (including small children) and moving back to their family’s camp. If they have boys, they return to their father when they are old enough to hunt. The typical marriage is monogamous because women are scarce.† Beliefs and Values – Prior to independence, tropical forest foragers remained outside the mainstream of society and politics. However, post independence wars and nation-building drives have changed customary ways. Landscapes are eroding due to the cutting of timber, the building of roads and mining. Commerce has also further isolated the Mbuti peoples. They are in a state of social flux affecting their beliefs, values, and traditional culture. Everything in the Bambuti life is centered on the forest. They consider the forest to be their great protector and provider and believe that it is a sacred place. They sometimes call the forest â€Å"mother† or â€Å"father.† An important ritual that impacts the Bambuti’s life is referred to as molimo. After events such as death of an important person in the tribe, molimo is noisily celebrated to wake the forest, in the belief that if bad things are happening to its children, it must be asleep. As for many Bambuti rituals, the time it takes to complete a molimo is not rigidly set; instead, it is determined by the mood of the group. Food is collected from each hut to feed the molimo, and in the evening the ritual is accompanied by the men dancing and singing around the fire. Women and children must remain in their huts with the doors closed. These practices were studied thoroughly by British anthropologist Colin Turnbull, known primarily for his work with the tribe. â€Å"Molimo† is also the name of a trumpet the men play during the ritual. Traditionally, it was made of wood or sometimes bamboo, but Turnbull also reported the use of metal drainpipes. The sound produced by a molimo is considered more important than the material it is made out of. When not in use, the trumpet is stored in the trees of the forest. During a celebration, the trumpet is retrieved by the youth of the village and carried back to the fire. The Mbuti people are in great cultural transition, being influenced more and more by the surrounding dominate encroaching culture. As the outside word encroaches on these indigenous people, their beliefs, traditions and practices, they are slowly losing their original uniqueness in an ever shrinking world that seems to be losing boundaries. As of recent, they are even given to the accumulation of outside currencies for use in their day to day lives.