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Who Rules the Forest?

The world beneath a jungle canopy is neither dim, nor gloomy, nor monochrome.

/2005/09/mbuti-pygmies/img/01-714.jpg /2005/09/mbuti-pygmies/img/01-60.jpg Photograph by Randy Olson Children of the Forest In the heart of central Africa's Ituri forest, a Pygmy boy angles for lunch. Known as the Mbuti, these semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers might be the original inhabitants of the enormous central African rain forest—though no one knows exactly how long they have lived there. Just one of about several Pygmy groups, the Mbuti trap, trade, and hunt to ancient rhythms, their lives intimately tied to the forest.]]> /2005/09/mbuti-pygmies/img/02-714.jpg /2005/09/mbuti-pygmies/img/02-60.jpg Photograph by Randy Olson Rites of Passage Their faces full of fear, Mbuti boys wait in turn to be whipped during the nkumbi, a grueling initiation into manhood. During the nkumbi, boys about 9 to 12 years old are circumcised and then marched into the forest, where they spend several months hunting, fishing, dancing, and singing. Each morning the boys are whipped by their elders to instill toughness. When they're not singing, the boys are kept silent by clamping leaves in their mouths.]]> /2005/09/mbuti-pygmies/img/03-714.jpg /2005/09/mbuti-pygmies/img/03-60.jpg Photograph by Randy Olson Hunter's Crown Hauling a net of twined liana bark, an Mbuti man threads through the thick Ituri. The Mbuti hunt in groups, setting their nets end to end between trees, then driving antelope, forest giraffes, and other animals into them. But meat accounts for only part of the Mbuti diet: Hunters regularly trade meat for grains and vegetables with Bantu farmers. The two cultures have evolved to depend on each other for goods, services, and even important rituals. Throughout central Africa, Pygmies form such bonds with farming neighbors. The relationships work—unless Pygmies lose their traditional hunting grounds to miners seeking gold, poachers hunting wild game, or loggers hacking tropical hardwoods. When their forest home disappears, Pygmies often become paupers.]]> /2005/09/mbuti-pygmies/img/04-714.jpg /2005/09/mbuti-pygmies/img/04-60.jpg Photograph by Randy Olson Hide and Seek The smack of whips drives two Mbuti girls into a Bantu mud hut as they try to avoid a phase of the nkumbi when boys enter a village and lash—lightly—the girls on whom they have crushes. Girls endure their own coming-of-age rite, including being sequestered in a special hut at the time of their first menstruation. During the nkumbi they show support for the boys by painting their own bodies with white clay.]]> /2005/09/mbuti-pygmies/img/05-714.jpg /2005/09/mbuti-pygmies/img/05-60.jpg Photograph by Randy Olson Cutting In Clearing room for a garden, Mbuti men hack through tropical hardwood. The Mbuti and Bantu have harvested wood on this small scale for centuries, but large commercial operations threaten Congo's rain forest. Logging camps—some of them illegal—eat away Mbuti territory and wildlife habitats. For now, regional conflict between local militias, rebels, government soldiers, and other factions has mostly kept large-scale harvesting companies out of the Ituri forest. But some ecologists worry that when peace arrives, more loggers, poachers, and immigrants will follow.]]>