ITURI FOREST PEOPLES FUND

Hunter-gatherers of the forests of Central Africa

Karambodu is from the Andiokbo, a clan of Efe-Mbuti, one of the two major groups of Pygmies now living within the Congo basin. The Mbuti live throughout the Ituri forest of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, whereas the other group, the Aka-Binga, forage in Gabon, Cameroon, and the Central African Republic. So-called pygmoid groups also inhabit central Africa: the Tswa, a fishing tribe of the lower Ubangi and Zaire rivers, and the Twa of Rwanda. Both groups have extensively intermarried with Bantu farmers and no longer maintain their traditional subsistence practices. The Mbuti of the Ituri remain the largest and least acculturated of all groups of hunter- gatherers within Africa's rain forests.

Efe are bow hunters and live in the northeastern Ituri; they are one of four subgroups of Ituri forest pygmies collectively called the Mbuti. one subgroup, referred to only as Mbuti hunts with nets and lives in the southern and central Ituri. The Sua and Aka are also net-hunting Mbuti living in the northwestern and northern forest-savanna edges; however, both these subgroups have all but abandoned their traditional way of life and subsist as plantation laborers or as guides to ivory poachers.

Why two different hunting techniques should have persisted in the same rain forest is a puzzling question, especially as both bow and net hunters are aware of the other group's technique and when members of the two groups meet, they will occasionally hunt together. Surely if one hunting technique were better than the other, it would have eventually supplanted the less efficient method. As this obviously has not happened, there must be some other reason for the establishment and perpetuation of two such unique subsistence economies.