This week we’ve been hearing about the Bayaka people, hunter gatherers who live in the forests of the Central African Republic. Right now it’s their net hunting season, and today we’ll learn what happens at the end of the day when the hunt is over. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
American Louis Sarno has lived with the Bayaka since 1985.
“Usually they manage to get enough animals by late afternoon. They come back to the camp and then it’s a time for gossip. Everyone is telling stories about the hunt. At the same time, they have certain forest products which they’ve brought back and everyone begins to work on these. Some men might have brought back some fiber from a vine that they stripped in the forest. And then – that fibre, they will roll it on their thigh to make rope. This is the rope that they make their hunting nets from.
“The women boil up chunks of meat in water, and then they make their sauces and they then stew it in these sauces. So usually by nine o’clock the meals are ready and everybody eats. Then when night falls, is the time of music, where you have the storyteller singing the story. These are stories that everybody knows – you have the chorus, the refrain – which is often children or women. And so these stories go on for a long time and now and then there’s a song involved where the storyteller will suddenly start singing a song and other people join in. And then the song stops and the story goes on. This is how the nights go. Usually then, when everyone is asleep finally, you might have somebody playing a mondum, a harp zither. Or maybe somone playing a flute – and so on, until the next morning.”
ambience: Mondume/harp
More on the Bayaka people in future programs.
Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. I’m Jim Metzner.