The Forest People: A Study of the Pygmies of the Congo by Colin M. Turnbull.
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DESCRIPTION: Softcover: 295 pages. Publisher: A Touchstone Book published by Simon and Schuster; (1962). "The Forest People", a study of the BaMbuti Pygmies of the Congo, has become a classic work in the finest tradition of literate anthropology. Its author, Colin M. Turnbull, was at the time a young anthropologist and eventually Curator of African Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, lived with the BaMbuti for three years. He did so not as a clinical observer from the outside world, but as a friend learning their customs and sharing their daily life.
In this celebrated account, he describes their hunting parties and nomadic camps, their love affairs and ancient ceremonies - the molimo, in which they praise the forest as provider, protector, and deity; the elima, in which the young girls come of age; and the nkumbi circumcision rites, in which the villagers of the surrounding non-Pygmy tribes attempt to impose their culture on the Pygmies, whose forest home they dare not enter.
CONDITION: VERY GOOD (MINUS). Unread (?) oversized softcover. Touchstone Books (1983) 196 pages. On the inside, the book appears never read. Pages are pristine; clean, crisp, unmarked, unmutilated, tightly bound, perhaps flipped through once or twice, but almost certainly never read. Pages are bound tight as new. From the outside the book is pretty rough evidencing considerable shelfwear. It's not a disaster or unattractive, however there are neatly repaired 1/2 inch edge tears (made with invisible ("scotch") tape, to the top edge of the front cover, as well as both to the cover spine head and heel. The cover also shows considerable rubbing to the extremities (edges and corners). The back cover, which is white, also shows a few marks. Though clearly this book lacks the "sex appeal" of a "shelf trophy", nonetheless as a budget-priced "reading copy", it is otherwise clean and only lightly read. For those not concerned with whether the book will or will not enhance their social status or intellectual reputation, it's a solid reading copy at an attractive price. Satisfaction unconditionally guaranteed. In stock, ready to ship. No disappointments, no excuses. PROMPT SHIPPING! HEAVILY PADDED, DAMAGE-FREE PACKAGING! #1033b.
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PLEASE SEE PUBLISHER, PROFESSIONAL, AND READER REVIEWS BELOW.
Colin M. Turnbull's best-selling, classic work describes the author's experiences while living with the BaMbuti Pygmies, not as a clinical observer, but as their friend learning their customs and sharing their daily life. Turnbill conveys the lives and feelings of the BaMbuti whose existence centers on their intense love for their forest world, which, in return for their affection and trust, provides their every need. We witness their hunting parties and nomadic camps; their love affairs and ancient ceremonies "The Forest People" eloquently shows us a people who have found in the forest something that makes their life more than just living, a life that, with all its hardships and problems and tragedies, is a wonderful thing of happiness and joy.
"The Forest People" adds an entirely new dimension to literature on primitive people. The book is constructed with great dexterity, so that the reader is carried along by the charm and movement of the narrative, almost unaware of the underpinning of arduous scientific field work that lies like bedrock below. The reader feels sheer delight in an entirely new world. [Margaret Mead]
[Harry Shapiro, Curator of Physical Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History] "The Forest People" is about the life of a Pygmy people living in the Ituri Forest of the Congo. Its author is an anthropologist. The book is exceptional. Most of the literature on the life of "primitive" people is in the form of fairly technical reports in which individuals are swallowed up by the abstractions and feeling is replaced by analysis. Consequentially you get little idea from these monographs of what it is like to lead the kind of life they describe, or what the people observed are really like as human beings.
One of the reasons why "The Forest People" is an exceptional book is because its author, Colin M. Turnbull, was an anthropologist who knew the Pygmies intimately from years of living among them. In this book he has fortunately chosen the unusual course of writing about them as individuals, as his friends, each with a personality of his own. From his knowledge of their culture and its adaptation to the conditions of an African rain forest, he is able to provide another dimension to their lives that the casual visitor might easily miss altogether. As a result the reader can enter into some understanding of the meaning of their lives and enjoy the exhilaration of participating in a culture other than his own.
I first read The Forest People when I was in college. I took an anthropology course, and I was absolutely enchanted by this book. First of all, do not fear that this book is written by an anthropologist using dry and boring language and by an absolutely objective thus unimpassioned observer. This is not a book filled with statistics and boring observations and theories. No, Turnbull described the life of the Mbuti pygmies with such color, exuberance, detail and a healthy dash of humour that you cannot help but just being entranced by this book.
You will learn of their daily lives, their hissy fits with each other, their methods of punishment, their relationship with the "negro" villagers whom they think are animals because they do not understand the forest. You will see their marriage rites, the rituals of the Molimo and the celebration of the Elima, when young pygmy girls are first "blessed" by menstrual blood. You will see the pygmies as individuals each with his or her own personality. Kenge the author's best friend, Moke an elderly and respected member of the Mbuti, Cephu the "bad hunter", beautiful Kidaya of the Elima, Kondabate the pygmy belle who filed her teeth like a shark's, flirtatious Akidinimba with her infamously huge bosoms, "ugly" Aberi, Kamaikan, Kelemoke and even Amina, the daughter of a sub-chief from a nearby village. You will get to know them and feel as if you have known them all your lives.
The Forest People is one of the best books ever written on anthropology. You can't help but think about how life, as simple as it seems for the Pygmies, is still filled with both joy and tribulations. I have read this book many times and every time it still has not lost its magic on me. This book was written in the 1960's. Turnbull has since passed away. I cannot help but think about what happened to all these wonderful people we meet in the book today. Did Kenge have any children since? Did Kondabate ever have a child? Did Akidinimba stayed married? I just wish that there's a sequel to this wonderful book.
This is an account first published in 1961, of a year (1956) spent by the author, anthropologist Colin Turnbull, among a clan of Pygmies of the Ituri Forest in Northwestern Belgian Congo (later Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo). I found it a fascinating read. It's fashionable, and all too easy, to pooh-pooh the work of anthropologists living amongst primitive tribes, but the author's done something that none of us have, and for that, and for the obvious love and respect that he felt for the pygmies with whom he lived, the work is worthy of respect.
What stands out most, for me, in the account is the essential common humanity of the pygmies. In their petty jealousies, rivalries, flirtations; in their practical joking, on each other and on the African villagers who view them as property, as much as the romanticized, spiritual world of the forest, I saw "us" reflected clearly. Some of the aspects that will stay with me include the double-edged relationship with the African negro "villagers", for whom the pygmies are a kind of property; one that supplies them with a less than reliable source of meat, honey and other forest foods, and occasionally labor - and who compel the pygmies to observe their initiation, marriage and funeral rites.
The pygmies on the other hand receive some food from the villagers' plots, and steal more without compunction, and disappear into the forest for months when the whim takes them. Equally indelible were the spiritual forest rites, especially the men's kumamolimo, with its mysterious voice of the forest the molimo. Actually an instrument like an Australian aboriginal didgeridoo, normally made from a hollowed out tree. Turnbull is "put out" by the sacrilege of his clan using a 15-foot metal pipe for this purpose, which they proceed to demonstrate at first by blowing a "long, raucous raspberry", but is told quite firmly "What does it matter what a molimo is made of? This one makes a great sound, and besides, it does not rot like wood."
The author explained that the first Turnbull was a borderland Scot who turned the head of a charging bull and saved the King, so the pygmies named him Eba-mu-nyama - literally, "His father killed an animal". A well-meaning European's attempts to convince some pygmy clans to settle and farm cleared land on the edge of the forest - where they died at a high rate from exposure to the sun. The tears of a mother when Turnbull showed her daughter, crippled by hip dysplasia, how to walk using crutches. All in all a fascinating account of a world that was then, and still is under threat. I've written this in the present tense - hopefully that's not entirely in vain.
This was a fantastic book. I had to read it for my Ethnology class and fell in love with the MaButi Pygmies. Turnbull does a great job of explaining the lives of the "forest people." His few years with the Pygmies are portrayed in this book. It is enchanting and amusing. I would recommend it to anyone.
This ethnography of the Mbuti Pygmy of Africa's Ituri forest is a fabulously romantic piece, and a refreshing look at a people that have suffered from exploitation and the image of being hopelessly primitive. The late Dr. Turnbull uses reflexivity and a particularly observant eye to capture his subjects in time and offer up this portrait to his readers. As such, the book's appeal is undeniable.
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