Mbuti Community
In his book, The Forest People, Colin
Turnbull achieves the taste and feel of
life inside a Mbuti community, but in
doing so offers a skewed anthropological
look at the peoples of the African
Congo. When reading the book, I did truly
feel a part of the Mbuti world, but
I also noticed a lack of anthropological
accuracy when it came to portraying
effect had on Pygmies by the lives and
cultures of surrounding natives. Not
only does Turnbull lack respect non-Pygmy
culture, but he also doesn't much
account for the possibility of change as he
idealizes the Mbuti belief and
living system in the state it currently exists.
As illustrated quite
early in the book when Cephu's daughter dies of dysentery,
the Mbuti people
copy some of the patterns of ritual grief used by their
villager Negro
neighbors. It is clear from their behavior that the Pygmies hold
little stock
in the cultural beliefs of the villagers, and play along simply to
not upset
the good food source they can use the Negroes as. However, the way
that
Turnbull portrays this relationship is extremely one-sided, often times
not
even giving the "Negroes" the dignity of a tribal name. His
treatment
of their beliefs is similar, and gives only the vaguest reasons for
their
behavior, citing belief in spirits and fear of the forest. Since Negro
customs
obviously affect pygmy behavior, it seems curious that Turnbull
should come so
close to completely ignoring cultural reasons driving it.
Forces moving culture
are much clearer and completely defined when Turnbull
follows the pygmies into
the forest and away from the influence of
surrounding villages. Here, the ritual
of the molimo is seen in its pure
state, as are other rituals such as marriage
and the elima. From the Mbuti
(and therefore Turnbull's) point of view, it is
there in the middle of the
forest that everything is right with the world, and
no polluting influence of
the villagers or of change can approach them. However,
this is a false view,
because change is inevitable in any culture, and even
though not always
accepted, changes will occur. Turnbull sees the using of a
length of pipe as
the Molimo trumpet, a man-made material replacing the
traditional bamboo, and
in this at least he understands that is not so much the
ritual that is
important, but the idea behind the ritual. But even in the
understanding of
this concept, Turnbull still argues for the non-changing Pygmy
way of life,
which is really not possible. I will not call the older style of
Pygmy
culture "isolated", because no group of people is really cut off
completely
from surrounding groups. Because of his immersing style of
writing,
Turnbull captures the spirit and heart of the Mbuti Pygmies with
just the basic
knowledge of how changes from the outside world affect the
cultural activities
of the group. He assumes the Pygmies are impervious; they
may try a new
activity, like raising plantations, for a while, but in the end
they will always
return to the forest and the hunter-gatherer way of life,
because that is what
they have always done and what is right for them. Herein
lies the biggest error
made by Turnbull in The Forest People: he doesn't give
the Pygmy culture enough
credit for what it is. The Mbutis are changing,
dynamic piece of humanity being
fueled by not only age-old traditions and
customs, but also the very real
beliefs and values of the tribes that they
share the Congo with.