A People in Peril
For thousands of years the many pygmy tribes of Africa had been at war with each other in a fight for dominance and land ownership (Koopmans). As recent as the 1990’s the opposing tribes would hold raids against each other killing as many as 20,000 of its enemies in a single week (Koopmans). However, when the dust settled the pygmy culture remained intact. They were able to recover, and continue with their ancient traditions and way of life as they had for generations. The attacks among neighboring tribes were nothing new to them, and they knew how to handle the destruction that followed. Conversely, a more modern threat is leaving the pygmy culture in danger of extinction, and they fear that they may not be able to continue their lifestyle as they have in the past. The pygmy people of Central Africa should be allotted a piece of land for use in continuing with their traditional way of life as a replacement for the land taken from them as a result of deforestation and enslavement.
The African pygmies are made up of four main groups called the Binga, Twa, the tribes of Rwanda, and the tribes of Ituri (Columbia). All of which are individually composed of several subgroups, and there are over 200 different languages spoken among these tribes (Milios). The diverse culture displayed among these groups serves as just one obvious reason for expected confrontation. Although, today they fight not against each other, but against one common enemy; the Bantu (Thomas). The Bantu people make up the majority of the population of Central Africa, and they have a normal body structure, much unlike the pygmies (Milios). Pygmy men generally do not grow taller than four feet and nine inches, while the women will average four feet...
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All of this poverty, hunger, and slavery can be stopped by the implementation of a simple law allowing pygmies to own their own land, or at least be paid an equitable wage for the labor they are doing for the Bantu. Until then, all of their traditional skills are useless in helping them survive, and they will continue to live on the streets at the edge of the National Parks where they used to thrive (Batwa). A recent study showed that when given land to live on, the mortality rate of pygmies dropped from 59% to 18% (Ohenjo). The continuation of this culture depends on how these people are being treated today. They deserve to be compensated for what has been forcefully taken from them. Otherwise, the only 250,000 remaining pygmies in Africa may soon die off, and their unique culture will be lost forever at the hands of the power-hungry Bantu people (Raffaele).
Selection of Book: There were numerous purposes and objectives as to why I chose to read this particular anthropology manuscript of all the various other options available. For one, I selected this book initially due to the title of the book. “Dancing Skeleton” was the portion of the title that primarily stuck out to me, and made me imagine African children – who we see on commercials all the time in third world countries, which tend to look malnourished all throughout their adolescents – dancing around with skin-wrapped skeletal bones. Personally, for me, seeing children suffering from malnourishment and starvation must be one of the most unbearably agonizing pains a child can go through, not to mention the suffering of a mother having to watching her child gradually starve to death. I was additionally very much interested in understanding precisely what other individuals in different parts of the world and specifically Mali, are lacking that is affecting their health and well-being so noticeably. Furthermore, I was especially interested is reading informal stories and accounts through the eyes of the author about conducting specified field research on infant feeding and the importance of children
“History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples ' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves” (Jared Diamond). In the book Guns Germs and Steel he accounted a conversation with Yali, a New Guinean politician that had asked “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?”. Diamond tries to answer this by describing the difference in use of government throughout history by bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states.
Burmese pythons (Python molurus) are popular pets in the United States because of their attractive color pattern, reputed docility, and the allure, for some, of owning a giant snake. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, approximately 99,000 Burmese pythons were imported to the United States between 1996 and 2006, compared to only 17,000 between 1970 and 1995. The species is classified by the World Conservation Union as “near threatened” in its native range in Southeast Asia due to exportation for the pet trade and hunting for skins. Thousands of pythons are also captive bred each year in the U.S. for sale as pets. An inexperienced snake keeper who takes home a 20-inch hatchling is, within a year, responsible for a brawny eight-foot predator. Unable to
The Mbuti are one of the most fascinating of all the "uncivilized" peoples of the world. This tribe inhabits equatorial Africa near the city of Kisangani in Zaire in the Ituri rainforest. The Mbuti, being the smallest people on earth, live in the most inaccessible place on earth. An Mbuti tribe is almost impossible to find in such a dense forest. The tribe's men and women are only about four and a half foot tall yet they navigate though rich and dense forestry daily in the search for meat and fruit.
The Forest People, by Colin Turnbull, was written in 1961. It follows his accounts among the BaMbuti Pygmies in the rainforest of the Belgian Congo (now known as the Ituri forest in northeastern Zaire). This was said to be the last group of pygmies. These people are one of the few hunter-gatherer groups left of their kind. The book was written while Turnbull spent three years with the group of Pygmies in the late 1950s.
The African empires, kingdoms, and cities had many achievements before the arrival of the Europeans. Some of these achievements had influences many other places in the world. Three major achievements were the trading systems, their military forces and strengths of its people, and the wealth and success.
Religion and the Igbo People The Igbo are a profoundly religious people who believe in a benevolent creator, usually known as Chukwu, who created the visible universe (uwa). Opposing this force for good is agbara, meaning spirit or supernatural being. In some situations people are referred to as agbara in describing an almost impossible feat performed by them. In a common phrase the igbo people will say Bekee wu agbara.
...adaptive to change. Lastly, by observing the invasion of European Missionaries, it becomes clear that these people are a ‘disease’ poisoning the society of African tribes according to Okonkwo and many others. Change can be truly classified as a positive or negative aspect in the lives of countless African men, women and children, but is the change in African tribes for the better or for worse?
In 1958, their population was approximately 40,000. The pursuant gatherers of Mbuti people are separated into several subgroups. They lived within their individual region, where they have their own languages and engage in their hunting practices. Each Mbuti subgroup uses a language of a nearest person and they do not have a text method. Their sizes are usually small and average; they also have naturally brown skin and churlish hairs. Mbuti persons exist in bands of 15 to 60. They live in hot, sticky and plentiful precipitation forest which is sprinkled with lakes and rivers. It also has a wealthy variety of flowers and animals. The Mbuti have exte...
As the Europeans started to invade Africa and split up the land, they paid no attention to the already existing natural boundaries. Over time, villages with different cultures had set these boundaries. The Europeans ignored these invisible borders as they invaded. This caused soci...
Beginning with the previously mentioned Eastern Woodlands, archaeologists find evidence in the osteological record in the form of massacred bodies, wounds inflicted to individuals in a manner suggesting they were fleeing at the time of death, and that conflict was more pick-and-choose rather than outright conflict, which left more potential for misfortune. (Milner, 117) Evidence of large-scale conflict resulting in the wiping out of most or all of a community is not to be found, although the likelihood of finding such evidence is also improbable. (Milner, 117) Also within skeletal evidence, the remains suggest trophy taking was a large factor in conflict, as the trophi...
The Rift Valley in East Africa has been the home of pastoralists for over three thousand years. A number of different tribes migrated to Kenya, grouped by language they include the Cushites derived from Southern Ethiopia, the Nilotes, which include the Maasai, from Southern Sudan, and the Bantu. The Maa speaking people are the group from which the Maasai originated; their expansion southward into the Great Rift Valley began about 400 years ago. The second stage of Maasai expansion involved the emergence of a central Maasai alliance as well as the expansion and differentiation out of the Central Rift Valley. There are numerous Maasai tribes, and we will be primarily discussing the Arusha and Central Maasai.
The earliest inhabitants of the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo are most likely Pygmies, who lived in the north and northeast portions of the forest that occupied the land. Towards the end of the first millennium B.C., a small group of Bantu-speaking people entered from the northwest (from the areas that are now called Nigeria and Cameroon). They established their home in the savanna regions of the south, and they arrived with profound knowledge of iron technology and agriculture. Their skill with iron technology and agriculture helped propel them to migrate to other parts of the Congo and Africa. With their expansion also came the development of new, related languages. Beginning approximately A.D. 700, the Bantu-speaking people worked the Copper deposits of Southern Katanga, and then traded these minerals over wide areas. The Bantu had settled into most of the Congo by about 1000, which consequently reduced the area utilized by the Pygmies. By the early parts of the second millennium, the number of Bantu occupants in the Congo were rapidly increasing and beginning to merge into states. Some of these states had governing power over vast areas and were complemented with multifaceted administrative structures. A majority of these states were governed by monarchy, and even though they had considerable authority, it was moderated by a council consisting of high civil servants and elders. Some of the most notable of these states included the Kingdom of Kongo, the Lunda Kingdom of Mwata Yamo, the Kingdom of Luba, and the Lunda Kingdom of Mwata Kazemba. The Luba and Lunda Kingdoms were somewhat intertwined, and as a result, the Luba transmitted political ideas to the Lunda. Additionally, many small Luba-Lunda sta...
Africa My Africa by David Diop is an excellent example of a post-colonialism piece of work. After researching the author of the poem, I thoroughly understood and enjoyed the text more than just reading it over, without knowing his personal biographical information. David Diop is an African poet, who was born in France. His parents are of the West African descent (Poets.org). Diop emphasizes the problems of Africa that were brought about by colonialism, and shares a message to Africans to bring about change and freedom through his poem, Africa My Africa. Colonialism is the political, social, economic, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power.
...e value, protect the wild species. By creating this mutual relationship between the African people and their environment both sides can thrive.