Efé people
The Efé are a group of part-time
Dr. Jean-Pierre Hallet was very involved with the Efé, from raising awareness to the plight of the tribe, to the introduction of new foods and methods previously unknown (such as a legume called the "winged bean" of New Guinea). He also introduced new methods of farming to the Efé, who likely had been a hunter-gatherer society for many thousands of years.[citation needed]
Origins
The Efé (and other Western pygmy groups) show genetic evidence of an early genetic divergence from neighboring groups.
Location and overview
The Efe are one of three groups of pygmies, collectively named
History and external influences
There is some debate over how long the Efé have lived in their present state, with accounts of their having been in the Ituri forest for 20,000 years.[6] Bailey states that the Ituri area has been inhabited since 40,700 BC, but that the region was most likely savannah and temperate forest (as opposed to rainforest) until somewhere between 2900 and 720 BC.[5]
His analyses suggest that
Some suggestions as to the evolutionary benefit of the pygmy short stature was the ability to navigate the dense jungle, with its low hanging branches, more easily. Small stature also confers a small advantage for body heat dissipation in equatorial (hot, humid) regions. (While there are pygmy peoples in colder climates as well, this may have occurred by migration.)[8]
Belgian Congo was established in 1908, and the Belgian colonial government played a role in shaping the lives of the Efé and Lese. Chiefdoms among the Lese were formalised and police forces were created with Lese policemen. These supervised the work projects of the colonial administration: primarily the construction of three main roads in the Ituri region. Whole villages of Lese and Efé were relocated alongside these roads in these work projects, and new crops were planted for sale as well as for village use.[9] The structure of these roadside villages and the resultant behaviour of the Efé differed significantly from their forest villages.[10]: 86–88
When Congo became independent from Belgium on June 30, 1960, the Ituri region began to fall into decay. The dictatorship of
Economic and cultural features
The Efé are primarily a
Recently, the Ituri forest has been logged at a tremendous rate, and Efé have been hired to assist with the logging.[11]
Attaining necessities
Hunting is a primary way in which Efé men contribute to the food supply of the tribe, which they were observed doing 21.1% of the time during 12-hour observation days.
Another exclusively male task is to gather
Family life
One interesting feature of the family life of the Efé is the degree of cooperation involved in caring for children, particularly babies. Sometimes Efé infants will even be nursed by a woman other than the mother if the mother's milk has not come in yet. Other women help more in caretaking than the baby's father, and studies indicate that Efé babies spend just 40% of their time with their mothers and are switched around between caretakers 8.3 times per hour, with about 14 people looking after the infant on average in 8 hours of observation. Also notable is the fact that children constitute only a quarter to a third of the population, and nearly half of women have either no or one child during their lifetime.[12]
The Efé ideal is to marry by
Relationship to the Lese
The Efé can be said to live in cooperation with the
One aspect of the Lese–Efé relationship that is less than cooperative is the way in which they view each other. Efé often steal from Lese gardens, particularly around April and May when there is little food and the Lese are ungenerous about payment for Efé labor.[5]: 22
The Lese, on the other hand, view the Efé with something of a condescending attitude and see themselves as entirely separate entities.[14]: 112 Efé are viewed by Lese men and women alike as being female.[13]: 74 The Lese also see strict dichotomies between themselves and the Efé – they characterize the Efé as uneducated savages and see themselves as more civilized since they go to school and live in villages.[13]: 73–74 Another interesting image they create is that of red versus white – the Efé and the meat and honey they provide are described as red, and the goods the Lese provide (dried corn, cassava, etc.) are closer to white in colour.[13]: 102 However, Lese men describe Efé men as "devoted friends and protectors" and also find Efé women "stronger, more sexually attractive, and more fertile than Lese women".[14]: 113 The Lese also believe that the Efé can hunt witches and protect the village from them.[13]: 189
Religion
It is rather difficult to accurately describe the Efé religion, as there is not a great deal of information that deals specifically with the Efé. The main source used was a collection of
Another interesting aspect of Efé religion is that it is also shared with the Lese. Many of pygmy legends deal with their larger partners, and the associated tribes have myths dealing with the pygmies.[15] Even some religious ceremonies are held in common, such as the ima celebration in which girls who have reached menarche and been secluded in a hut together are carried back out into the village.[5]: 152 Bailey describes the period of seclusion as being three months, but Grinker states that it is more like six months to a year and that the girls’ feet are not allowed to touch the ground without being wrapped in palm leaves and that whenever they have to use the bathroom, they must be carried to an outhouse wrapped in palm leaves so that the sun does not touch them.[13]: 102–103 This period is also supposed to make the girls fat, and they are supposed to consume a lot of palm oil and meat while they are being sequestered.[13]: 102–103
Language
The Efé speak Lese without any dialectical distinction from the Lese themselves. They also have a relationship with other farming peoples in the region: the Mamvu and Mvuba (close relatives of Lese) and the Bantu Bira, Nyali, and Nande.[16]
Footnotes
- ^ Wilkie, David S.; Morelli, Gilda A. (September 2000). "Forest Foragers: A Day in the Life of Efe Pygmies in the Democratic Republic of Congo".
- ^ Veeramah; et al. "An Early Divergence of KhoeSan Ancestors from Those of Other Modern Humans Is Supported by an ABC-Based Analysis of Autosomal Resequencing Data".
- ^ Foldvari, Fred E. (November 1998). "Save the Efe Pygmies in Africa". The Pygmy Fund, Malibu (CA), USA. Archived from the original on 2007-07-05.
- ^ Gordon, Raymond G. Jr. (1991). "Efé: A language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo". Dallas, USA: Ethnologue.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Bailey, Robert C. (1991). "Efé: The Behavioral Ecology of Efé Pygmy Men in the Ituri Forest, Zaire". Ann Arbor, Michican: University of Michigan Press.
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(help) - ^ a b Wilkie, David S. (2005-03-15). "Ituri Forest Peoples Fund: Assisting Indigenous Peoples in Conflict Areas". Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival Quarterly. Archived from the original on 2007-09-28.
- ^ Diamond, Jared (1 May 1992). "Why are Pygmies smaller than other people?". Discover Magazine.
- ^ "A Question of Size Bigger is better, right? So why in the world have Pygmies opted for smallness?". Discover Magazine, New York, USA. 1992-05-01.
- ^ a b Wilkie, David S. (1999). "What chance for self-determination? – farmers and foragers in the forest of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo" (PDF). Waltham, MA: Ituri Forest Peoples Fund. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-10-11.
- ^ Hallet, Jean-Pierre (1965). "Congo Kitabu". New York: Random House.
- ^ "Increase in Forest Cutting Speed in Eastern Ituri Forest, DR Congo" (PDF). Kleinood, Netherlands: Foundation Pygmy. 2007-02-21. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-28.
- JSTOR 679753.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Grinker, Roy Richard (1994). "Houses in the Rainforest". Berkeley: University of California Press.
- ^ a b
Grinker, Roy Richard (1990). "Images of Denigration: Structuring Inequality between Foragers and Farmers in the Ituri Forest, Zaire". American Ethnologist. 17 (1): 111–130. JSTOR 645255.
- ^ JSTOR 2844436.
- ^ Bahuchet, Serge (10 August 2006). Languages of African rainforest " pygmy " hunter-gatherers: language shifts without cultural admixture (PDF). Historical linguistics and hunter-gatherers populations in global perspective. Leipzig, Germany: Max-Planck Inst., Leipzig.