Bantu Farmers Research Articles

Environmental conservation, tourism development and the dilemma of the indigenous Pygmy people in southeast Cameroon

This paper examines the implications of the paradox implicit in the conflation of Pygmies and other forest-based peoples (Bantu farmers) as a single identity group by conservationists and tourism developers. These actors share a hardened image and a single field view of the Pygmies as people of the forest that must paradoxically be evicted to give way for neoliberal development activities. The paper demonstrates that while Pygmies have diversified livelihood trajectories, prevailing prejudicial views about their non-contamination by the tourist and academic industry persists. As agents, the Pygmies are however, simultaneously maintaining their identity while engaging in performatic performances through which they stage their authenticity (reflective ethnicity) for their own benefits. To avoid conflicts between protected areas and people, and ensure co-management, conservationists and eco-tourism developers should take note of the co-constitution of man-nature relationships, the intersection between economic and ecological justice as well as inter-group power dynamics among multiple stakeholders in local communities.

The Bagyéli of South-west Cameroon

The Bagyeli of South-west Cameroon are going through a process of sedentarisation established by the government since the 1960s. A few groups still have a forest-oriented lifestyle, but most of the Bagyeli are now settled in villages along the roads, living in close contact with Bantu farmers. Sedetarisation campaigns have had a great impact on Bagyeli’s musical and dance practices, as most of the latter are deeply bounded to hunter-gatherer’s activities. Gatherings of several camps for net hunting or initiation rites are made difficult by agriculture, which restrain flexibility of the community members. Due to this phenomena, a whole set of musical repertoires are disappearing, and others have seen their meanings reinvented to fit with Bagyeli’s new way of life. Different rituals, intrinsically interlinked with practices such as net hunting or women initiations are not performed anymore, while others take a more and more important place in Bagyeli’s musical patrimony. In this paper, I will explore the co...

Phylogenetic reconstruction of Bantu kinship challenges Main Sequence Theory of human social evolution.

Kinship provides the fundamental structure of human society: descent determines the inheritance pattern between generations, whereas residence rules govern the location a couple moves to after they marry. In turn, descent and residence patterns determine other key relationships such as alliance, trade, and marriage partners. Hunter-gatherer kinship patterns are viewed as flexible, whereas agricultural societies are thought to have developed much more stable kinship patterns as they expanded during the Holocene. Among the Bantu farmers of sub-Saharan Africa, the ancestral kinship patterns present at the beginning of the expansion are hotly contested, with some arguing for matrilineal and matrilocal patterns, whereas others maintain that any kind of lineality or sex-biased dispersal only emerged much later. Here, we use Bayesian phylogenetic methods to uncover the history of Bantu kinship patterns and trace the interplay between descent and residence systems. The results suggest a number of switches in both descent and residence patterns as Bantu farming spread, but that the first Bantu populations were patrilocal with patrilineal descent. Across the phylogeny, a change in descent triggered a switch away from patrifocal kinship, whereas a change in residence triggered a switch back from matrifocal kinship. These results challenge "Main Sequence Theory," which maintains that changes in residence rules precede change in other social structures. We also indicate the trajectory of kinship change, shedding new light on how this fundamental structure of society developed as farming spread across the globe during the Neolithic.

Diet-Related Buccal Dental Microwear Patterns in Central African Pygmy Foragers and Bantu-Speaking Farmer and Pastoralist Populations

Pygmy hunter-gatherers from Central Africa have shared a network of socioeconomic interactions with non-Pygmy Bantu speakers since agropastoral lifestyle spread across sub-Saharan Africa. Ethnographic studies have reported that their diets differ in consumption of both animal proteins and starch grains. Hunted meat and gathered plant foods, especially underground storage organs (USOs), are dietary staples for pygmies. However, scarce information exists about forager–farmer interaction and the agricultural products used by pygmies. Since the effects of dietary preferences on teeth in modern and past pygmies remain unknown, we explored dietary history through quantitative analysis of buccal microwear on cheek teeth in well-documented Baka pygmies. We then determined if microwear patterns differ among other Pygmy groups (Aka, Mbuti, and Babongo) and between Bantu-speaking farmer and pastoralist populations from past centuries. The buccal dental microwear patterns of Pygmy hunter-gatherers and non-Pygmy Bantu pastoralists show lower scratch densities, indicative of diets more intensively based on nonabrasive foodstuffs, compared with Bantu farmers, who consume larger amounts of grit from stoneground foods. The Baka pygmies showed microwear patterns similar to those of ancient Aka and Mbuti, suggesting that the mechanical properties of their preferred diets have not significantly changed through time. In contrast, Babongo pygmies showed scratch densities and lengths similar to those of the farmers, consistent with sociocultural contacts and genetic factors. Our findings support that buccal microwear patterns predict dietary habits independent of ecological conditions and reflect the abrasive properties of preferred or fallback foods such as USOs, which may have contributed to the dietary specializations of ancient human populations.

Color Categories in Language Contact: ‘Pygmy’ Hunter-Gatherers and Bantu Farmers

<p>When speakers adopt colors from another language, do they only borrow certain lexical forms or do they absorb whole concepts? And if both a lexical term and a color category are borrowed, are they both borrowed at the same time or is one of them borrowed first? In this paper, I address the question of how color categories are borrowed, providing evidence from Gyeli ‘Pygmy’ hunter-gatherers (PHGs) in contact with Bantu farmers in southern Cameroon. The data shows rich variability in borrowing patterns. Color categories are not borrowed in toto, but only partially, i.e. the resulting color category in the recipient language only partially coincides with the color category in the donor language. Further, the borrowing of a color category may or may not be in conjunction with the borrowing of a color term from the recipient language. While Gyeli PHGs borrow a lexical term first from neighboring Bantu farmer languages and then expand the color category in a second step, the path of borrowing of Bantu farmers from colonial languages is the inverse. Farmer languages first adopt a new color category, but reject loanwords. Their second step in acquiring a new color is to find a name for the new color category.</p>

Secular trends in growth of African Pygmies and Bantu

The aim of this study was to investigate whether a secular trend in growth occurred during the last century in Pygmies from Cameroon (West Pygmies) and in Bantu rural farmers, the latter being studied to serve as controls. The evolution in height of West Pygmies and Bantu farmers from 1911 to 2006 was evaluated using data from the literature as well as data gathered by our research team during an expedition to Cameroon in 2006. During the last century, no secular trend in west Pygmies is apparent, as height changed from 151 cm to 155 cm in males and from 143 cm to 146 cm in females. A small though significant (p=0.026), increment (about 2 cm) was observed only in female subjects during the last ten years. By contrast, Bantu heights show a significant change from 1943 to 2006 for both males (from 159 cm to 172 cm; p=0.025) and females (from 148 cm to 160 cm; p=0.029). Over the last century, the Bantu population exhibited a significant secular trend for height, whereas West Pygmies did not increase their linear growth. The lack of secular trend in Pygmies possibly suggests that their stature reflects adaptation to the forest lifestyle. We may hypothesize that not only environmental but epigenetic factors have also contributed to their growth potential.

Genetic and Demographic Implications of the Bantu Expansion: Insights from Human Paternal Lineages

The expansion of Bantu languages, which started around 5,000 years before present in west/central Africa and spread all throughout sub-Saharan Africa, may represent one of the major and most rapid demographic movements in the history of the human species. Although the genetic footprints of this expansion have been unmasked through the analyses of the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA lineages, information on the genetic impact of this massive movement and on the genetic composition of pre-Bantu populations is still scarce. Here, we analyze an extensive collection of Y-chromosome markers--41 single nucleotide polymorphisms and 18 short tandem repeats--in 883 individuals from 22 Bantu-speaking agriculturalist populations and 3 Pygmy hunter-gatherer populations from Gabon and Cameroon. Our data reveal a recent origin for most paternal lineages in west Central African populations most likely resulting from the expansion of Bantu-speaking farmers that erased the more ancient Y-chromosome diversity found in this area. However, some traces of ancient paternal lineages are observed in these populations, mainly among hunter-gatherers. These results are at odds with those obtained from mtDNA analyses, where high frequencies of ancient maternal lineages are observed, and substantial maternal gene flow from hunter-gatherers to Bantu farmers has been suggested. These differences are most likely explained by sociocultural factors such as patrilocality. We also find the intriguing presence of paternal lineages belonging to Eurasian haplogroup R1b1*, which might represent footprints of demographic expansions in central Africa not directly related to the Bantu expansion.

Y-chromosome diversity in Bantu and Pygmy populations from Central Africa

Linguistic and archaeological data have placed the Bantu homeland near the border between Cameroon and Nigeria, where the Bantu farmers are thought to have migrated from approximately 5000 years ago, spreading out over most of sub-Saharan Africa. In order to provide genetic insights into the so-called Bantu expansion, we have typed 18 well-characterized Y-chromosome short tandem repeats (STRs) in 24 Bantu and 3 Pygmy populations from Gabon and Cameroon. The results have shown not only that Bantu populations are very homogenous, but also that they are statistically very different from Pygmies and other African and non-African populations. High frequencies of the modal Bantu haplotype and of its one-step neighbours previously described have been found in all the Bantu populations sampled. Some traces of these haplotypes have also been found in Pygmies, indicating a possible Bantu-to-Pygmy flow of paternal lineages. No evidence has been found of the Fang being non-Bantu, despite their claim of having a semitic origin in Egypt. They do, however, show an intermediate allele (13.2) for DYS 385, whose date of appearance (approximately 5500 years ago) happens to coincide with the Bantu expansion.

Contrasting patterns of Y chromosome and mtDNA variation in Africa: evidence for sex-biased demographic processes

To investigate associations between genetic, linguistic, and geographic variation in Africa, we type 50 Y chromosome SNPs in 1122 individuals from 40 populations representing African geographic and linguistic diversity. We compare these patterns of variation with those that emerge from a similar analysis of published mtDNA HVS1 sequences from 1918 individuals from 39 African populations. For the Y chromosome, Mantel tests reveal a strong partial correlation between genetic and linguistic distances (r=0.33, P=0.001) and no correlation between genetic and geographic distances (r=-0.08, P>0.10). In contrast, mtDNA variation is weakly correlated with both language (r=0.16, P=0.046) and geography (r=0.17, P=0.035). AMOVA indicates that the amount of paternal among-group variation is much higher when populations are grouped by linguistics (Phi(CT)=0.21) than by geography (Phi(CT)=0.06). Levels of maternal genetic among-group variation are low for both linguistics and geography (Phi(CT)=0.03 and 0.04, respectively). When Bantu speakers are removed from these analyses, the correlation with linguistic variation disappears for the Y chromosome and strengthens for mtDNA. These data suggest that patterns of differentiation and gene flow in Africa have differed for men and women in the recent evolutionary past. We infer that sex-biased rates of admixture and/or language borrowing between expanding Bantu farmers and local hunter-gatherers played an important role in influencing patterns of genetic variation during the spread of African agriculture in the last 4000 years.

HLA class I variation in the West African Pygmies and their genetic relationship with other African populations.

We have studied the polymorphism of HLA class I in two West African Pygmy populations, namely, the Bakola from Cameroon and the Mbenzele from the Central African Republic. A unique number of HLA alleles and haplotypes showed specific patterns of these populations. In this study, we identify two alleles (B*37, B*41) and three haplotypes (A*30-B*37, A*66-B*41 and A*68-B*58) that appear to be 'private' or typical of Western Pygmies. These data reflect similarities with the AKA Pygmies from the Central African Republic. On the other hand, we failed to identify alleles that are found at high frequencies among other sub-Saharan populations (B*42, B*51). Allelic and haplotypic frequency distributions show differences between the two Pygmy groups, e.g. B*35 was very common in the Mbenzele but has been found to be absent in the Bakola. In contrast, B*53, which is found in the Bakola, has been found to be rare in the Mbenzele Pygmies. In order to analyse the genetic relationships of the Bakola and Mbenzele Pygmies with other sub-Saharan populations, HLA gene frequencies were subjected to the Neighbour-Joining tree analysis. The Mbenzele, Bakola and AKA were found to be relatively close to each other and isolated from other sub-African populations. However, both the genetic distances and the within-group variation suggests that the Bakola are more admixed with Bantu farmers than Mbenzele.

Knowledge and Utilization of Edible Mushrooms by Local Populations of the Rain Forest of South Cameroon

Indigenous knowledge of edible fungi and their utilization by local populations were investigated in southern Cameroon from 1996 to 1999. Some 100 participants from the major ethnic groups, comprising Bantu farmers and Bagyeli (Pygmy) hunter-gatherers, were interviewed. Mushroom usage by 30 families, (319 persons), was monitored daily for over a year. Mushroom knowledge among both groups was extensive. Over 50 vernacular names were provided by respondents. In Bantu households, women and children, and to some extent hunters, harvest mushrooms. In contrast, the whole Bagyeli household participates. Bantu harvest mushrooms preferentially in secondary forests while Bagyeli collect them predominantly in primary forests. Mushroom consumption is low for both groups, 1.1 and 1.4 kg of fresh mushrooms per person per year, respectively, a rate that is much lower than in central and eastern Africa. The apparent discrepancy between extensive mushroom knowledge and rather infrequent mushroom consumption probably relates to the social valuation of mushrooms.

Verbal Interaction of the Bongando in Central Zaire: With Special Reference to Their Addressee-Unspecified Loud Speech

Daily verbal interaction of the Bongando, Bantu farmers in central Zaire was studied. Their speech forms were classified into four categories by two criteria: nonloud/loud, and addressee-unspecified/addressee-specified. Frequency of speeches in each category was measured by the time sampling method, and contents of them were analyzed. In these categories. I paid attention to Addressee-Unspecified Loud speech (AUL speech).'' This speech was uttered frequently, but completely differed from conversation. That is. (I) no organizing device of usual conversation, such as tum-taking system was confirmed, and (2) it was not certain that the speech was surely heard by others, and the people usually kept ritual indifference to the speech. By AUL speech, Bongando people manifested their own opinion, expressed complaints, and accomplished ·•feeling of co-presense. AUL speech was uttered as the speaker's own accord, regardless of the listeners' circumstances. Even so, inconsistency between the speaker and the listeners did not occur, because AUL speech \vas •·cast from the speaker, and was not certainly caught by others. This property (castness) was thought to be an important method, which placed unrestrained AUL speech into the interaction system of the Bongando.

Nineteenth Century Settlement Sites and Related Oral Traditions from the Bungoma Area, Western Kenya

Summary A survey of structural remains coupled with oral tradition sketches a picture of complicated socio-technical change during the 200 years preceeding the onset of British administration of Elgon-Nyanza in the 1890s. The development of forts enabled Bantu farmers to enter contested areas, once the domain of Nilotic pastoralists, in reasonable security. The broad adaptive pattern discernible from information at hand seems to be that of successful strategic agricultural hamlets sending out satellite populations into surrounding regions which in turn fortified themselves and developed farming. In the northern mountain regions this process of fort building and pioneering clearly continues after the turn of the century. The combination of a fort site survey with oral tradition has been valuable in revealing some of the key elements of individual and corporate activities contributing to rapid socio-cultural change and the development of a distinct Northern Luyia culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen...

Reproduction des écosystèmes et transformation des systèmes sociaux

Reproduction of ecosystems and transformation of social systems - In this article the writer analyses recent studies, American ones in particular, made by anthropologists, of various societies of hunters — plant-gatherers (Pygmies, Bushmen), of nomadic shepherds (Jie, Karimojong, Dodoth in Eastern Africa) and the farmers of New Guinea. He shows that these societies make a selective, intelligent use of the resources of their environment and do not make use of some resources although they are aware of their existence. He shows that peoples with different economies may have opposite attitudes to the same ecosystem. For the Pygmies the equatorial forest provides the plants and wild animals they use and it seems to them welcoming and protective ; for the Bantu farmers who grow manioc and bananas by burn-beating, the forest seems hostile and aggressive. The writer analyses the constraints that ecological and technological structures impose on the dynamics of such societies. He poses the general problem of the rationality of the economic processes and shows that one cannot have an a priori universal model of economic rationality. Finally he discusses the still more general problems of the forms, places and effects of production relationships in various societies.

Folktales of the Non-Bantu Speaking Peoples in Southern Africa (Bushmen, Khoekhoen, Daman)

BEFORE the arrival of Bantu peoples in the southern part of Africa three peoples had been living there: (I) the Bushmen, people of small stature and yellowish-brown skin, living entirely by hunting and collecting; (2) the Khoekhoen, called Hottentots by Europeans, a people very similar in appearance to the Bushmen but owning cattle and sheep and leading a pastoral life; (3) the Daman, Negro people, sometimes rather tall in stature and with a very dark skin, without livestock or special skills in hunting. They were outcasts who hid in inaccessible mountain regions in the northern part of South West Africa. The relationships between these three peoples have not yet been fully revealed by research. They all use click languages. There are three distinct Bushman language groups of which the Central one (of the Bushmen of the Kalahari) is closely linked to the Khoekhoe branch of the Naman. Nama is also the only language of the Daman, who lost their own language in prehistoric times. The Khoesan peoples (Khoekhoen and Bushmen) in the Republic of South Africa have disappeared; their descendants form part of the Afrikaans-speaking colored population. The last Khoekhoe tribe, the Naman in South West Africa, will suffer the same fate within a few generations. Naman and Daman have adopted a European way of life to a large degree; they are all Christians and have become workmen and farmhands. A few thousand Bushmen of the Kalahari still live from hunting with bow and poisoned arrows, but many of them have become servants to Bantu or European farmers. The folklore of the Khoesan and Daman peoples is very heterogeneous. It varies from region to region and from collector to