;N tjnthro q notes National Museum of Natural History Newsletter for Teachers

vo 1. 9 no. 3 fall 1987

PYGMIES OF THE ITURI: AN ETHNOARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATION

The tall, dark green forest canopy from the eastern forest edge. Here, the on each side of the dirt road pressed villages of the sedentary horicultur- closer and closer together overhead ists and their wide swaths of cleared with each passing mile of westward and cultivated land are fewer and more travel. As the emerald-green grasslands widely separated than in the forest of the Zaire-Uganda border country- margins or on its "main" roads. dwindled behind us, I sat high in the back of our Toyota Hilux pickup on a Independent hunter-gatherers or serfs? pile of food, gasoline containers, Toyota spare parts, camp supplies, and The various groups of Ituri Forest shovels and hoes that we always carried Pygmies, collectively called Mbuti by to dig the pickup out of deep mud. Our their village neighbors (or BaMbuti, destination— the Ituri Forest Project's meaning Mbuti people) are well-known to field station in a remote area of the anthropologists through studies by Ituri Forest inhabited by the Efe English, Japanese, American and German Pygmies. The station where Helen scholars. Although they have been cited Strickland, my wife, and I would live as a classic example of tropical forest for a year, lies along an almost hunter-gatherers, their economic impenetrable narrow track, one and one- independence from village agricultur- half days journey, more than 120 km, ists has been much disputed. In the

; ^.^n 1920's and 30' s, Paul Schebesta, a reliance On vegetable foods, long-birth German anthropologist, noted in the spacing, low fertility, and a high first comprehensive study of the Mbuti degree of personal and group mobility their strong reliance on cultivated among desert hunter-gatherers. These foods from the gardens of villagers, to conclusions were further corroborated whom the Mbuti were bound in a type of by other studies of desert hunter- master-serf relationship. He expressed gatherers in Australia. Would these doubt that the Pygmies he saw could adaptations persist in the more stable have survived without such foods. environment of the tropical forest? Perhaps the best known studies, Did the cyclical fluctuation of wet and however, are those of the English dry seasons in the forest affect group anthropologist Colin Turnbull, author structure and mobility in the same way of The Forest People (1961), who worked as the seasonal changes of the desert? with a group of Mbuti net-hunters ca. What were the major resource 110 km southwest of our research area. limitations for humans in this Turnbull argued that the Mbuti were not environment where most mammals are dependent on their sedentary horticul- small and many dwell in the forest^ turist neighbors for basic staples but canopy? How independent were the Efe could live off the wild foods of the of their village hOriculturist forest for extended periods. Although neighbors, the Lese? the Mbuti often chose to participate in a symbiotic relationship with the Since 1980, more than a dozen villagers in which each group provided anthropologists and other researchers the other with certain foods (bananas, have come to the Ituri field station to manioc, game meat) and services (field gain a relatively long-term perspective labor, initiation and funeral rites), on the cyclical fluctuations in the Turnbull described Mbuti culture as an forest environment and on the ways in independent entity, based on identity which the Efe and the Lese have adapted with and dependence on the forest. to this environment.

The Ituri Project Researchers have observed a symbiotic relationship between the Efe The Efe are one of the least- and the Lese. For instance, two-thirds studied and most isolated Pygmy groups, of the calories the Efe consume come and the only one hunting almost from cultivated foods—bananas, manioc, entirely with bows and arrows rather rice, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and than with nets. One of the goals of the other plants —grown mostly in Lese Ituri Project, which began in 1980, was gardens. Efe women, in return for these to document the subsistence practices foods, assist the Lese in planting, Of the Efe, as part of a broad study of caring for, and harvesting the gardens. their adaptation to a forest Efe men help the Lese by clearing environment. The project co-director, patches of forest for gardens and by Irven DeVore, had helped, during the providing honey, meat, and Other forest 1960's and early 1970's, to direct the products. In exchange, the Lese provide Harvard Kalahari Project, an ecologi- the Efe with such items as metal tools cally-oriented study of the !Kung San and clothing. Efe sometimes plant small (Bushmen) of the Kalahari desert in gardens, but their mobile lifestyle, Botswana. The Ituri Project, one of moving to a new camp every two or three the first comprehensive studies of weeks, is not compatible with the human ecology, demography, and health constant care that gardens require in and nutrition among tropical forest the tropical forest. hunter-gatherers (and horticulturists), was designed to build on and further Forest foods make up one-third of explore some of the results of the the calories in the Efe diet. These Kalahari study. In particular, the foods include wild plants such as yams Kalahari project had demonstrated major and the olive-sized fruit of the Canarium tree, honey, fish, and meat. Harvard Kalahari Project had done for Several species of duiker (small the !Kung (Yellen, 1977). My interest antelope) and monkey are their primary in hunter-gatherers came from my work prey. Less frequently, they hunt with the material remains of prehistor- animals up to the size of buffalo and ic hunter-gatherers of the Great elephant. Men, armed with metal- tipped Plains; Helen and I had met at an arrows, hunt duiker by a variety of archaeological site in Colorado while strategies. One method involves a man excavating bones of bison and mammoth, and dogs working together to flush out as well as stone spear tips and other game while other men, carefully and artifacts left at the site by people quietly positioned, wait for duiker to long gone. The interpretation of these come within arrow range. On other ancient sites, however, required some occasions, a solitary man waits in insight into hunter-gatherer ecology quiet ambush on a platform built in a and behavior. Was this the kind of tree of ripe fruit. Early in the debris normally deposited near or in morning and late in the afternoon the family dwelling, or were these the duiker will feed on fruit that have kinds of bones and stone tools normally dropped to the ground, and if lucky, left at a kill? How much and what parts the hunter will get a shot at the of the skeletdn were usually left animal. behind when a mammoth (or elephant) or other animal was butchered? How many Monkeys are hunted with poison- people did a mammoth feed, and how tipped arrows, their wooden shaft Often would one have been killed? What carved to an extremely fine point. kinds of debris did other food-procure- Poison, made from several forest ment practices generate? Can group size plants, is applied to the tip and dried and organization be reconstructed from over the coals of a fire. To hunt ancient debris-patterning? How is monkeys in the forest trees, solitary domestic space organized and used? By hunters walk quietly and when within carefully Observing the Efe, as they range of the animal shoot several carried out routine activities at their arrows. campsites, we hoped to learn how to make sense Out Of the ancient pieces Of Despite the hunting skill of the bone and stone and other clues at Efe, we and other researchers find it archaeological sites to reconstruct difficult to imagine that the Efe could what life was like in the past. live in the forest in the absence of cultivated foods, on which they seem to A central question concerns the rely quite heavily. Forest ecologists degree to which hunter-gatherer camp working elsewhere in the Ituri Forest design, activity patterns, and disposal were not able to identify year-round practices are universal among all abundant sources of carbohydrates, hunter-gatherer groups or are affected comparable to the mongongo nuts and by different environments or cultural roots collected by the !Kung, among the rules. Archaeologists had often assumed wild plants gathered by the Efe. If that tools and bones found together cultivated carbohydrate-rich staples related to a single activity, spatially are essential to human existance in the segregated from other activities. The tropical forest, then human occupation Kalahari research, however, suggested of the deep forest may be limited to that hunter-gatherer camps were small, the last 2000 to 3000 years since the closely spaced circles of ephemeral domestication of African food crops. huts. Since most in-camp activities were conducted around the family hearth The Archaeology of Present-Day Efe Life in front of the hut, debris from many distinct but spatially overlapping As archaeologists, Helen's and my activities tended to be concentrated in role in the project was to document the a ring surrounding an open public material remains of Efe life, as the space. Only messy activities were carried out in "special activity areas" The first step in setting up an Efe on the outskirts of !Kung camps. Since camp is to clear away smaller trees and the size of the debris ring was undergrowth. The size of these proportional to the number of huts, it clearings ranges from 40 square meters could be used to estimate the number of to about 550 square meters, depending familes and hence the population of a on the camp population. The number of !Kung camp. If these patterns and people living at a camp ranges from others were also true of tropical about three to thirty-five or forty. forest and arctic hunter-gatherers, Each nuclear family inhabits a then perhaps the patterning could be dome-shaped hut made of a frame of used to understand the hunter-gatherer saplings covered with broad leaves. sites on the Great Plains 11,000 years Huts are situated near the perimeter of ago. the camp in an oval layout. Each hut has one or more fires inside, for The research that Helen and I warmth at night, and a fire outside the carried out benefitted considerably hut near the door. from the work of other researchers on our project. Their studies give a Trash heaps, located beside and detailed picture of Efe subsistence behind the huts, are a feature of all practices and of other aspects of their camps. Initially composed Of cleared adaptations to the forest environment. brush, the Efe trash heaps continue to Thus, we had a strong foundation from grow through the life 6f the camp as which to focus on material aspects of its inhabitants discard food remains, Efe life, in particular the spatial ashes from fires, and worn out or organization of their camps. We found broken implements. that although each campsite is unique in the details of camp layout, all The placement of huts within a camp camps conform to a single broad is strongly influenced by interpersonal pattern. relationships and kinship ties. Families that get along particularly well will situate their huts close together, while those that are feuding will place themselves a good distance apart.

The location of day-to-day campsite activities —preparing food, eating, making and repairing implements, socializing, and relaxing—conform to a pattern. Almost all such activities are V . -^) performed inside Of the camp perimeter. For safety reasons, applying poison to fti arrows is usually done outside of camp. Children's play takes place inside of camp and in some cases in a separate area cleared nearby.

The fireplace situated Outside the doorway Of each hut serves as the focus for many activities. Women sit beside the fire to prepare and to cook food. Men relax and socialize by the fire, and here they also get ready for the hunt, carving new arrOwshafts, sharpening metal arrowheads, or strengthening their bowstave over the hot coals. During a rainstorm, these Efe reoccupation of a recently activities are conducted inside the abandoned camp is another fairly common hut. Most of the debris generated by behavior that can lead archaeologists these activities eventually ends up on into overestimating camp population. the trash heap. Some families might reinhabit the hut they had previously lived in. Often, Efe huts vary considerably in size. however, One or more families will

Floor area ranges from about 1 .3 square build a new hut and leave their meters to 13.6 square meters (the previous one unoccupied. The reason for average is 5.1 square meters). To our returning to an abandoned camp goes surprise we discovered that the size of back, at least in part, to Efe ties a hut does not correlate with the with the Lese. Although Efe move from number of people that live in it. Some one camp to another rather frequently, large huts had only two or three they usually do not move very far. Lese occupants; conversely, some small huts villages and gardens are a fixed point were the home of five or six people. A on the landscape, where Efe obtain partial explanation might be that material sustenance and social sleeping arrangements, especially among interaction. As a consequence, Efe children, are fairly loose at Efe rarely move more than a day's journey camps. One night the children may sleep away from their affiliated village. in their parent's hut and the next night in their grandparent's. Even We discovered that when the Efe adults sometimes move around. And if move camp, they sometimes leave behind one family moves away to another camp, a wide variety Of possessions such as an incoming family might inhabit the clay pots, glass bottles, baskets, and empty hut rather than build its own. sharpening stones. They do this, we This loose fit between hut size and think, because of the restricted number of occupants is distressing mobility that is characteristic of archaeologically; it means that their settlement pattern. Clay pots, archaeologists cannot estimate for example, are heavy and breakable accurately the population of a camp on compared to their aluminum pots. During the basis of the floor area of the honey season, when they move deeper individual huts. However, this loose into the forest, the Efe might leave fit might not be characteristic, of clay pots behind, knowing that they other hunter-gatherer societies; eventually will return to the vicinity further studies might be very of their previous camp and retrieve illuminating. their belongings. It seems unlikely that other hunter-gatherer societies The makeup of Efe camps is rather that have a more wide-ranging fluid. Families and individuals move in settlement pattern would practice this and move away during the lifespan of a kind of storage to the same extent as camp. This flexibility seems to be do the Efe. characteristic of most or all hunter- gatherer societies. Sometimes, during Comparing the Efe to other the lifespan of a campsite, one (or hunter-gatherers more) of the families will abandon their hut and build a new one at the The knowledge Helen and I have same camp. This behavior could confuse gained during our year studying the Efe archaeologists into thinking that more has considerable potential for families had lived at the camp than was assisting archeologists in interpreting the case, because there would be little prehistoric archeological sites, with archaeological evidence for recognizing respect to questions such as the that the same family had lived in two possible size-range Of the population huts. Hence, the archaeologist probably that made the site, the length of time would overestimate the number of the site was occupied, the nature of families that had lived at the camp. activities carried out at the site, and the practice of storing implements. account, however, for the small size of However, we must recognize that the Efe campsites. We never heard Efe patterns of the Efe cannot be casually express anxiety about predators— in generalized as a model for all fact, the greatest danger comes from prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies. falling branches or trees. More likely, they build compact camps to keep within Comparisons with studies among sight and sound of each other, thus Other present-day hunter-gatherers, maintaining a physical and emotional including the !Kung and various groups cohesiveness in the dense forest. in Australia, reveal that although the Efe share many similarities with these If we could spend another year in peoples, some important differences set the Ituri, what questions would we them apart. Similarities exist, for address? We would like to explore the example, in the general layout of Efe way material goods move or are and !Kung campsites. A !Kung camp exchanged between the Lese and the Efe consists of a circular arrangement of and among neighboring Efe bands. Which closely spaced brush huts, each hut the objects are owned individually and home Of a nuclear family. As with the which are treated as communal property? Efe and other Mbuti Pygmy groups, the What factors influence the size of distance separating huts in a !Kung huts and Of domestic space if not the camp is swayed, in part, by kinship number of occupants? These and other ties and interpersonal relationships. A questions will continue to draw family fire is situated in front of the archaeologists such as ourselves to the hut at a !Kung camp, and a wide variety Ituri, the Kalahari, the Arctic, the of domestic tasks are carried out Australian deserts, Malaysia, and other around the fire. areas to study living hunter-gatherers.

Differences between Efe and !Kung Additional References: camps emerge in some details of layout and use. Trash heaps are not a feature Recent articles on the Ituri Pygmies by of all !Kung camps; those occupied for Robert Bailey, John A. and Terese less than two weeks might lack them B. Hart, and Nadine Peacock in altogether. !Kung campsites tend to Cultural Survival Quarterly 6(2), cover a larger area than Efe sites, and 1982; and 8(2)(3), 1984. the amount of camp space per person is greater among the !Kung. Habitation Binford, Lewis R. I_n Pursuit of the sites of Western Desert Aborigines in Past . London: Thames and Hudson, Australia far exceed the Efe and !Kung 1983. in both of these attributes. And, when !Kung move out of a camp, they leave Turnbull, Colin M. Wayward Servants: behind few or no possessions for future The Two Worlds of the African re-use other than nut-cracking stones. Pygmies , Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975. Reprint of 1965 ed. One of the great challenges facing archaeologists today is to explain the Yellen, John. Archaeological Approaches similarities and the differences to the Present: Models for among hunter-gatherer groups. Recent Reconstructing the Past . New York: studies have suggested that the much Academic Press, 1977. greater size of Australian Aborigine campsites compared to !Kung campsites John W. Fisher Jr. is related to the freedom from fear of Postdoctoral Fellow natural predators in Australia. The Smithsonian Institution Kalahari Desert, on the other hand, is home to several dangerous animals including lions, leopards, and hyenas. This explanation probably does not