Scientific American - USA (2020-05)

56 Scientific American, May 2020

in the pitch-black darkness, sitting

on the forest floor with our bodies so close that

we touch, we sing, each voice producing a dif-

ferent yodeled melody to create a densely over-

lapping harmony. As the hours pass, individual

melodies melt into one another, and we begin

to lose ourselves in the human and acoustic

tapestry we have created. The intensity of the

singing builds, its coordination increasingly

perfected until the music is so beautiful that

the self melts away. Such splendor attracts for-

est spirits into the camp to join us, the BaYaka

believe. As tiny dots of luminescence, they

float around us, coming close and then retreat-

ing toward the forest, their subtle voices

whistling sweet tunes that occasionally slip

through the polyphony. Overwhelmed by the

beauty we have created together, some call out

“Njoor!” (“My word!”), “Bisengo” (“What joy!”)

or “To bona!” (“Just like that!”).

In such moments, you feel that you are the forest, your aware-

ness expanding to encompass the trees, the animals and the people

around you. Experiencing such expansiveness, as I did during my

doctoral research among the BaYaka Pygmies of the Republic of

the Congo in the 1990s, is deeply moving and establishes a loving

and joyful connection to everything and everyone in the vicinity.

During such “spirit play,” an intensely immersive form of theater,

the BaYaka feel themselves communing directly with the forest,

communicating their care and attention to it and reaffirming a

profound relationship of mutual support and love. As my friend

Emeka said, “A BaYaka loves the forest as he loves his own body.”

The BaYaka follow strict rules in their hunting and gathering.

They harvest wild yams in such a way that they regenerate and

multiply, they try to avoid killing pregnant animals, and they con-

sume everything that they take from their environs. Over millen-

nia their actions and those of other Pygmy tribes in the Congo Basin

have enhanced the forest’s productivity not just for humans but

for all creatures. The BaYaka do not have a word for famine. When

I tried one evening to explain to Emeka and others assembled

around a fire that there are places where people starve to death,

I  was met with skepticism and disbelief.

Also in the 1990s, however, international institutions such as

the World Bank, working in partnership with national govern-

ments and conservation agencies, began to implement sustainable-

development models in the Congo Basin. They zoned the rain for-

est into expansive sections for logging and other activities while

setting aside “protected areas” as safe havens for wildlife. In accor-

dance with the belief that nature thrives if left untouched by

PYGMY BANDS across the Congo Basin share similar

solutions to living in the forest, including their characteristic

“spirit plays” and their leaf-and-liana shelters. At a new

campsite in 1997, Ingoyo tiles the roof of her hut with leaves.

Jerome Lewis is an associate professor of anthropology, director

of the Center for the Anthropology of Sustainability and co-director

of the Extreme Citizen Science group at University College London.

In 2019 he founded Flourishing Diversity, an initiative to raise

awareness of indigenous ways of protecting biodiversity.

IN BRIEF

Pygmy bands roamed the Congo Basin for more

than 55,000 years, evolving elaborate ecological

and cultural strategies for thriving in the forest.

Sustainable development, in the form of extractive

industries alongside conservation areas, generated

a network of roads, enabling commercial poaching.

As wildlife declined, conservationists used “eco-

guards” to curb poaching. But some began persecuting

Pygmies, forcing many into hunger and depression.