In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature for populations in which adult men are on average less than 150 cm tall.
Pygmy music refers to the sub-Saharan African music traditions of the Central African foragers, predominantly in the Congo, the Central African Republic and Cameroon.
The Mbuti people, or Bambuti, are one of several indigenous pygmy groups in the Congo region of Africa. Their languages are Central Sudanic languages and Bantu languages.
The Baka people, known in the Congo as Bayaka, are an ethnic group inhabiting the southeastern rain forests of Cameroon, northern Republic of the Congo, northern Gabon, and southwestern Central African Republic. They are sometimes called a subgroup of the Twa, but the two peoples are not closely related. Likewise, the name "Baka" is sometimes mistakenly applied to other peoples of the area who, like the Baka and Twa, have been historically called pygmies, a term that is now considered derogatory.
The Efé are a group of part-time hunter-gatherer people living in the Ituri Rainforest of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the depths of the forest they do not wear much clothing, using only leaf huts as shelter for their bodies in the intense heat. The Efé are Pygmies, and one of the shortest peoples in the world. The men grow to an average height of 142 cm, and women tend to be about 5 cm shorter.
Baka Beyond is a world music group formed in 1992 with members from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures, fusing Celtic and other western music styles with traditional Baka music from Cameroon.
Jean-Pierre Hallet was a Belgian ethnologist, naturalist, and humanitarian known best for his extensive work with the Efé (Bambuti) pygmies of the Ituri Rainforest. He wrote the 1964 autobiographical book, Congo Kitabu, the 1973 ethnologic book Pygmy Kitabu, and the 1968 book Animal Kitabu, which details his extraordinary collection of animals in the Congo and in Kenya. He initiated the Pygmy Fund for the benefit of the Efé.
Barry S. Hewlett is Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University, earned his A.B. and M.A. degrees at California State University, Chico and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is best known for his study of the Aka people of Central Africa. He has worked with his wife, Dr. Bonnie Hewlett, who concentrates her study on the Aka women and health issues. His publications include six books, 24 chapters in books and 27 scholarly journal articles.
The Bongo people, also called Babongo or Bazimba, are an agricultural people of Gabon in equatorial Africa who are known as "forest people" due to their recent foraging economy.
Congo is a 2001 BBC nature documentary series for television on the natural history of the Congo River of Central Africa. In three episodes, the series explores the variety of animals and habitats that are to be found along the river's 4,700 km (2,922 mi) reach.
Baka music is the music of the Baka people who come from the southwestern Central African Republic. Most Baka music is vocal and it is polyphonic. The music is based on repetitive melody and rhythm, with little variations and a lot of improvisation. Music and dance is important to them. It is done to prepare for a hunt or show a skill. Music is also used in daily life for healing rituals, initiation rituals,traditional stories, group names, and for entertainment. Dance and music helps bring groups together. This helps people to become friends while they share their surviving techniques.
Aka, also known as Yaka or Beka, is a Bantu language spoken in the Central African Republic and Republic of Congo, along the Ubangi River dividing the two countries.
Baka is a dialect cluster of Ubangian languages spoken by the Baka Pygmies of Cameroon and Gabon. The people are ethnically close related to the Aka, collectively known as the Mbenga (Bambenga).However, the languages are not related, apart from some vocabulary dealing with the forest economy, which suggests the Aka may have shifted to Bantu, with an estimated 15000 people have shifted.
The term Congo Pygmies refers to "forest people" who have, or recently had, a hunter-gatherer economy and a simple, non-hierarchical societal structure based on bands, are of short stature, have a deep cultural and religious affinity with the Congo forest and live in a generally subservient relationship with agricultural "patrons", with which they trade forest products such as meat and honey for agricultural and iron products.
The Twa are a group of indigenous Central African foragers tribes. These cultural groups were formerly called Pygmies by European writers, but the term is no longer preferred based on its cultural and geographic inaccuracy, as well as being seen as pejorative. Cultural groups are being reclassified by themselves based on their function in society, lineage, and land ties.
The Great Lakes Twa, also known as Batwa, Abatwa or Ge-Sera, are a Bantu ethnic group native to the African Great Lakes region on the border of Central and East Africa. As an indigenous pygmy people, the Twa are generally assumed to be the oldest surviving population of the Great Lakes region. Current populations of Great Lakes Twa people live in the states of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2000 they numbered approximately 80,000 people, making them a significant minority group in these countries. The largest population of Twa is located in Burundi estimated in 2008 at 78,071 people.
Louis Sarno was an American adventurer, recordist and author. In the mid-1980s until about 2016 he made field recordings of the music of a Bayaka (BaAka) "pygmy" forest people while living among them in the Central African Republic. The recordings are now held by the Pitt-Rivers museum at Oxford University, UK, and Wild Sanctuary, an archive of indigenous music, stories and natural soundscapes. Sarno lived in the CAR for more than 30 years, and held a dual citizenship there and in the United States. He documented some of his experiences in his memoir, Song from the Forest: My Life Among the Pygmies (1993), which Geoff Wisner included in his survey work A Basket of Leaves: 99 Books That Capture the Spirit of Africa. In the late 1990s two albums, Music of the Bayaka, Volume I and II, produced by Bernie Krause were released under Wild Sanctuary, an archive that holds additional music and natural soundscape recordings by Sarno.
The African Pygmies are a group of ethnicities native to Central Africa, mostly the Congo Basin, traditionally subsisting on a forager and hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They are divided into three roughly geographic groups:
The Bakoya are pygmies, earlier known as Négrilles or Babinga, who inhabitant the rainforest between Cameroon and the Great Lake region of the Congo Basin in Central Africa. Since the 1930s, the Bakoya, in particular, have settled in Gabon in the Ogooue-Ivindo Province, in the northeastern region of the country. Similar minority groups are the Babongo and the Baka pygmies. Before they adapted to the agricultural practices in the new settlements in Gabon along the flanks of the road, Bakoya were “semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers” like the other forest-dwelling pygmies; they resided in small huts. The word 'Pygmee' is a French coinage, adopted by the Gabonese. They are the earliest inhabitants of the forest and are nomadic hunter gatherers.
Song from the Forest is a 2013 German documentary film written and directed by Michael Obert. The film premiered on 21 November 2013 at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, where it was honored with the Best Feature Length Documentary Award.
