Twa
Twa populations according to Hewlett & Fancher. From west to east: Ntomba, Kasai, [unidentified], Great Lakes, Nsua [not clear if Nsua is Twa]. Twa populations according to Stokes. Only a few groups are shown, but these include several between the Kasai and Great Lakes Twa. Twa/pygmoid populations according to Cavalli-Sforza. Several southern groups are added. Twa populations scattered through shaded area, according to Blench. Several southern Twa areas are shown. | |
Languages | |
---|---|
Bantu languages, French |
Twa | |
---|---|
Person | Mutwa |
People | Batwa |
Language | (NA) |
Country | Butwa [citation needed] |
The Twa (also Cwa, OvaTwa or Batwa—plural, and OmuTwa or Mutwa—singular) are a group of indigenous Central African foragers tribes. These cultural groups were formerly called Pygmies by European writers, but the term is no longer preferred based on its cultural and geographic inaccuracy, as well as being seen as pejorative. Cultural groups are being reclassified by themselves based on their function in society, lineage, and land ties.[1]
Name
It is often supposed that the Twa were the aboriginal inhabitants of the forest before the advent of agriculture.
Relation to the Bantu populations
All Pygmy and Twa populations live near or in agricultural villages. Agricultural Bantu peoples have settled a number of ecotones next to an area that has game but will not support agriculture, such as the edges of the rainforest, open swamp, and desert. The Twa spend part of the year in the otherwise uninhabited region hunting game, trading for agricultural products with the farmers while they do so.
Roger Blench has proposed that Twa (Pygmies) originated as a
Congo
Twa live scattered throughout the
The island of Idjwi has a native population of approx 7000 BaTwa. According to UNHRW more than 10,000 BaTwa are displaced from Virunga Park in the Northern Kivu province's refugee camps such as Mugunga and Mubambiro due to decades of war.[6]
The term Batwa is used to cover a number of different cultural groups, while many Batwa in various parts of the DRC call themselves Bambuti.[7]
Arab and colonial accounts speak of Twa on either side of the Lomami River southwest of Kisangani, and on the Tshuapa River and its tributary the "Bussera".[clarification needed]
Among the Mongo, on the rare occasions of caste mixing, the child is raised as Twa. If this is a common pattern with Twa groups, it may explain why the Twa are less physically distinct from their patrons than the Mbenga and Mbuti, where village men take Pygmy women out of the forest as wives.[8] The Congolese variant of the name, at least in Mongo, Kasai, and Katanga, is Cwa.[a]
Uganda
The Batwa of Uganda were forest dwellers who lived by gathering and hunting as their main source of food. They are believed to have lived in the
In 1992 the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest became a national park and a
Angola and Namibia
Southern Angola through central Namibia had Twa populations when Europeans first arrived in the 16th century. Estermann writes,
The southern Twa today live in close economic symbiosis with the tribes among which they are scattered—Ngambwe, Havakona, Zimba and Himba. None of the individuals I have observed differs physically from the neighboring Bantu.[10]
These peoples live in desert environments. Accounts are limited and tend to confuse the Twa with the San.[3]
Zambia and Botswana
The Twa of these countries live in swampy areas, such as the
The geneticist
See also
Notes
References
- ^ Client, U. B. (2022-09-23). "Who are the Batwa people? | The Batwa Cultural Trail | Cultural Tours". Uganda Budget Safaris. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
- ISBN 978-0-299-12574-5.
- ^ ISBN 9057890186, archived from the original(PDF) on January 26, 2012, retrieved October 26, 2011
- ^ "Meet the enchanting Batwa Tribe of Bwindi | andBeyond". www.andbeyond.com. Retrieved 2024-02-12.
- ^ Dlamini, Nonhlanhla (2014). The early inhabitants of the Upemba depression, the Democratic Republic of Congo (PhD). University of Cape Town.
- ^ Refugees, United Nations High Commissioner for. "Looking for solutions for North Kivu's vulnerable Pygmies". UNHCR.
- ^ "Batwa and Bambuti". Minority Rights Group. 19 June 2015.
- ISBN 9780521213998
- ^ Vice News (July 17, 2015). Forced Out of the Forest: The Lost Tribe of Uganda (video). YouTube.
- ^ Estermann, Carlos (1976). Gibson (ed.). The Ethnography of Southwestern Angola. Vol. I. Africana Publishing Company.
- ^ Lehmann, D. (1977), "The Twa: People of the Kafue Flats", in Williams, Geoffrey (ed.), Development and Ecology in the Lower Kafue Basin in the Nineteen Seventies, University of Zambia, pp. 41–46
- S2CID 145198759.
- ^ Clark, J. Desmond (1950). The Stone Age Cultures of Northern Rhodesia: With Particular Reference to the Cultural and Climatic Succession in the Upper Zambezi Valley and Its Tributaries. South Africa: The South African Archaeological Society.
Further reading
- Francis, Michael (2007). Explorations in Ethnicity and Social Change among Zulu-speaking San Descendents of the Drakensberg Mountains, KwaZulu-Natal (PDF) (PhD). University of KwaZulu-Natal. Retrieved 31 October 2018.
- Francis, Michael (2009). "Silencing the past: historical and archaeological colonisation of the Southern San in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa". S2CID 143103640.
- Francis, Michael (2011). "Eland Ceremony, Abatwa People's (Southern Africa)". In Downing, John D.H. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media. SAGE Publications. p. 172. . Retrieved 31 October 2018.