Transcript:

The Bayaka - Net HuntMusic; Ambiance: rainforestJM: The southwestern tip of the Central African Republic is home to the Bayaka people. They are hunter/gatherers and this time of year is the start of their net hunting season. I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet. Author and musicologist Louis Sarno has lived with and recorded the sounds and music of the Bayaka since 1985.LS: "The day usually starts very early at dawn. If there is any food from the hunt from the day before the women will heat that up and basically what we have is leftovers for breakfast. Then after maybe a bit of gossip, the entire camp empties out except for maybe a few small children and one or two old people. Everyone goes net hunting. There might be one or two people who have cross bows so they go off alone cross bow hunting for monkeys. Everyone else goes net hunting. These nets string out... each net is about 75 feet long and make a big circle with however many nets there are in the camp usually between three and ten. And then people, men women and children drive animals that are inside the circle into the nets. Its usually the men that are doing the hunting cries to drive the animals into the nets and the women and children are stationed around the perimeter ready to jump on any animal that is momentarily caught up in the nets." JM: More on the net hunt of the Bayaka people in future programs. Pulse of the Planet is presented by the National Science Foundation. I'm Jim Metzner.