Hunting with the Ba'Aka of the Central African Republic

CAR: Late October 2011. It was early morning on the last day of our 12 day Congo Basin gorilla expedition. Our expedition group was now in Bayanga village in the southern part of the Central African Republic ("CAR") on the Sangha River. Bayanga is also on the edge of CAR's portion of the Sangha Tri-State Protected Area, a vast gorilla rich wilderness. The Sangha Tri-State Protected Area is so named because it sprawls over large regions on each side of the borders of three countries: The Congo Republic, the CAR and Cameroon.

We had covered a lot of ground on this expedition. Our group had trekked, slogged through swamps, and traveled upon rivers and streams. We had done so in sections of both the Congo Republic and CAR portions of the Sangha Tri-State Protected Area. Along the way, we had some great wildlife encounters. To read the story of the expedition, see Congo Basin: Gorilla Expedition in the Sangha Tri-State Protected Area.

For me, perhaps the most enjoyable activity of our time in the CAR was the event of this day: We took some local Ba'Aka pygmy people out on a hunt. Of course, the idea that foreign tourists are taking the locals out on a hunt must sound a bit strange. But the Ba'Aka now live in villages a fair distance away from the forest. In general they are very poor and have no practical means of transport. So, when tourists do come to the area with trucks to take them to their hunting grounds, the occasion is a festive and special one.

Many of the villages around Bayanga are populated by displaced Ba'Aka pygmies. In a common theme in many places in Sub-Saharan Africa, they have been "persuaded" or outright moved, out of their ancestral lands in the forest. They now live in villages on the edge of the forest. Their lives bear only a passing resemblance to what they used to be. They are mostly very, very poor.

The village dwelling Ba'Aka suffer from living sedentary lives in conditions for which they are not accustomed. For example, many are afflicted with bad cases of chiggers (tiny mites whose larvae live under the skin of its victims). The tell-tales signs can be seen on the numerous bumps and scabs seen on the exposed legs of many of the Ba'Aka. Traditionally the Ba'Aka were nomadic. They moved through the forests to various hunting grounds, only living in temporary camps. By constantly moving through the forest in their past lifestyle, the Ba'Aka would be in constant contact with the brush. This helped wipe off chiggers.

The new sedentary village life of the Ba'Aka brings people together in denser proximity. This requires sanitation practices not necessary in forest dwelling nomadic life. So now, they suffer a whole host of communicable diseases that were not prevalent in the past. Even diseases associated with the forest like malaria (which are not communicable), have become much more common. Being cut off from their ancestral forest lands, their medical care suffers. In the forest, they had access to numerous plant and herbal remedies for their ailments (including malaria). Now, these are harder to come by and modern medicine is in short supply in poor forest-side villages.

Poor nutrition is another problem of the new more modern sedentary village lifestyles. As with medicine, the forest provided a nutritious variety of foods. So, Ba'Aka pygmies living in villages outside the forest quite often have a difficult time eating a nutritious diet.

Finally, the Ba'Aka tend to live a very marginalized existence in their threadbare villages. Because of their small stature, other peoples look down on them and see them as inferior. They are often subject to discrimination in village and towns of mixed ethnicities. In the forest, as us visitors could plainly see, they are in their element. Their small stature makes them superiorly adapted to the forest environment in comparison to other types of normal stature peoples. But outside of the forest, their smaller stature makes them vulnerable physically to larger stature people. Their ingrained cultural habits put them at tremendous disadvantage in many other ways as just outlined.

On this day of the hunt, our group took two trucks to two Ba'Aka villages that were near Bayanga. The villagers had been alerted to our coming and were ready and waiting! Almost immediately after arriving at each village, our trucks were surrounded by the Ba'Aka. The atmosphere was like that of a carnival. Everyone was lively, animated and excited. It is a special occasion for the Ba'Aka.

Many of the Ba'Aka in the festive crowd were carrying big coils of netting. When the lucky group that got to go on the hunt was loaded up onto the backs of our trucks, everyone started singing and hollering. This joyous espousal continued all the way down the road until our trucks arrived at the place the Ba'Aka designated for the day's hunt.

Everyone then jumped out of the truck, if anything, in even a more animated and excited mood. They were going to do something that harkened back to their "real" way of life. (It is also a welcome change from what must be the stiflingly dull routine of daily village life, with nothing to do most of the day). And, if their hunt was successful, they would treat their families and fellow villagers later that day to a barbecue feast of freshly slaughtered bushmeat.

First they all agreeably posed for pictures for us visitors. Then they were off whooping and hollering their way into the forest. They charged and scampered nimbly through the forest, without following any visible paths, making it look easy. The evolutionary trait of pygmies, being short in stature, is of obvious advantage when in the thick forest environment. It is much easier for them to scamper under low-lying branches and between narrow openings in the brush. They move quickly without even having to watch where their feet are stepping. My fellow visitors and I, in contrast, lumbered awkwardly through the brush, crashing between vines and tripping over roots. For me, the challenge was amplified as I was in my knee brace. But I clumsily soldiered on.

Soon, the hunters began setting the nets that several had been carrying. The nets were very, very long, but quite narrow in width. They would string them above the ground, creating a sort of long, low level fence. Then, they all went away from the net a ways. Continuing to make a lot of noise, they began to stir and disrupt the bushes and vegetation around them, slowly moving back towards the net as a group. Using sticks, the women beat at the ground and at imaginary things along the ground, trying to create as much disturbance as possible. The idea was to scare prey into coming out of hiding and make a run for it — hopefully into the direction of the net fence.

After about ten minutes or so of this, the first catch was noted. This caused yet more noise and commotion. Several of the hunters gathered around the small duiker, an antelope like animal, that had gotten entangled in the net. One of them quickly took a hold of the terrified animal by the hind legs. Another hunter smashed its head with a machete, killing it.

After a second small duiker was caught, the nets were gathered up and moved to another spot. The process was repeated until another duiker was ensnared. Usually, as we saw with the several of the catches, the bewildered animal, wide-eyed with terror, would be grabbed by its hind legs by a hunter. The hunter would then snap the poor animal's hind legs like twigs to ensure that it could not squirm free and run away. Then some in our group would take pictures of the "trophy". After the picture taking, the doomed animal received its requisite clubbing to the head which finished it off. I assumed that the squirming animal's hind legs were snapped specifically to safely keep the animal alive, without risk of it escaping, so we tourists could take pictures.

The method of hunting we witnessed was one type of hunt in the traditional Ba'Aka lifestyle of the past. This method of hunting was usually done by women, though. Typically the men, as in most hunter gatherer societies, would go off at some distance from camp for periods of time, hunting for large game. The women stayed around their home encampment to do their various chores. These chores included doing hunts in the manner just described.

Men's hunts could involve the use of weapons, such as bows and arrows. In a similar concept to the hunt method used by women, nets would be strung up creating a fencelike barrier. But the fence-like barrier would resemble the shape of a long funnel in the forest. The men would then go a ways away from the large "opening" of the netting funnel and attempt to scare/chase animals into the direction of the funnel. Eventually the animals would be trapped in the net funnel enclosure where they were ultimately killed by the hunters.

After the hunting group had caught five duikers, the hunt was over. Everybody got together in a small clearing in the forest for a well-deserved rest. Some of the men smoked cigarettes and marijuana. Some women danced. Part of their dancing was an imitation of the hunt they just did.

After a bit of time, the five duikers were butchered. The dissected pieces of animal were wrapped in large leaves and divided up amongst the group. Nothing was wasted as every edible part of the animal would be consumed. The villages where the hunters lived would feast that afternoon on the freshly caught barbecued meat.

It was time to bring the happy hunters back to their villages. The reality of their new lifestyles could only be escaped for very short periods of time.

Click to see video:

Ba'Aka Pygmies Celebrate Successful Hunt
This video was taken of the Ba'Aka women playfully
dancing in the forest after a successful hunt.