October 6, 2003 306 Rainforest Peoples

[Forest Peopling map]

[Lese and Efe]

- Western Bantu, Sudanics

- Lese prob pushed into Ituri in 19th Cent

Cultural Relationships Chart

  Cultural relation be/Pygmies and farmers

- Schebesta: farmers dominated pygmies;

- Turnbull: Bambuti distinct group, independent; voluntary assw/farmers

- Grinker: single social collectivity, ethnically differentiated but also bound by div of labor

- forest products vs. cultivated [Lese cultivation]

- "savage" Pygmies? [bangi photo]

More on Turnbull:

• at Oxford, 1947
• with Mbuti, 1953
• with Joe, 1971
• grave, 1988
• as monk, 1993

Now the St. Louis connection

St. Louis connection

• 1904 fair displayed new autos, ostriches, and 1400 humans reprenting 40 tribes

• William McGee of fair's Dept of Anthro sent people collectors around world w/shopping lists; said "The special object of the Dept of Anthro is to show each of the world how the other half lives and thereby to promote not only knowledge but also peace and good will among nations..."

• McGee wanted scientific anthro, not just side show, so needed specimens to show evolution; classified Africans between Patagonians & Amer Indians on level of evolution

• Ota Benga was one of several pygmies taken in Congo, bought in 1904; family killed by Force Publique; bought by Verner

• Post-Dis identified as cannibals, "more at home in the trees than on the ground". Fair president, David Francis:

  The Badinga tribe...are notably cannibalistic and Otabenga, like others of the tribe, had his incisors filed to sharp points in imitation of the teeth of tutelaries in token of his anthropophagous habit. He confessed of feasts of human flesh but a few months before his departure from Africa, while his mouth watered at the sight of some of the plump colored folk among the visitors at the Exposition.

  But he also worried about treatment:

  At first charmed by the kaleidoscopic novelty of strange sights and surroundings, the passing crowds and especially the insatiate photographers soon palled on the Pygmies and they held long and frequent palavers with Mr. Verner with the object of hastening their return. When cold rains fell and chill winds blew, they actually suffered.

  
  

• his end is sad -- cage at Bronx Zoo w/parrot & orang, capping teeth, Lynchburg suicide 1916, unmarked grave

Musical Interlude:

• Ba Benzele Pygmies (C.A.R.), "Hindewhu" singing & whistling (UNESCO 1966; also on Anthology of world music)
• Herbie Hancock, "Watermelon Man" off of Headhunters;
• Madonna, "Sanctuary" off of Sanctuary;
• Zap Mama, "Ba Benzele"

Steven Feld (1996) Pygmy POP: A Genealogy of Schizophrenic Mimesis. Yearbook for Traditional Music 28:1-35.