Pygmies of Central Africa Driven from Ancestral Jungles

If the Pygmies of Central Africa don’t survive the assortment of threats currently assailing them, says a leading anthropologist, the continent will lose an important part of its “genetic and cultural history.”
Jerome Lewis has been working with and living among the Pygmies since 1993. He’s based at London’s University College and is a member of Britain’s Royal Anthropological Institute.
Lewis considers the Pygmies to be the “first peoples” of central Africa. “They represent one of the original groups of human beings that lived in Africa some 100,000 years ago, so they really are a very ancient African people, from whom all the Bantu peoples are actually descendants.”

Bantu are now found across eastern and southern Africa, from Rwanda and Kenya to Angola and South Africa. What happens to the Pygmies should therefore be of concern to “millions” of Africans “who are linked to Pygmies by blood,” says Manfred Egbe, a Cameroonian academic who’s completed extensive research on Pygmy groups.
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‘The spirit of the forest’

The Pygmy people have traditionally survived in the rainforests of countries such as the Central African Republic, the Congo and Equatorial Guinea by gathering wild foods like honey, yams, fruits and fish. Hunting is also a very important part of their culture.
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Central to Pygmy identity, according to Survival International - an organization working to secure rights for indigenous peoples around the globe - is their “intimate connection to the forest lands they have lived in, worshipped and protected for generations.” This is demonstrated in their reverence for Jengi, the Pygmy “spirit of the forest.”