Posted on 08/09/2016 5:43:23 AM PDT by Cronos
As the Baka Pygmies of the Dzanga-Sangha region of Central African Republic struggle to live in their traditional ways, they find themselves caught between worlds.
Baka split their time between village and forest. Here, in their forest home, life continues in the face of many challenges, ranging from poachers to ill health. Destructive developments within the forest, such as illegal logging, also pose a threat.
Historically, the Baka have been kept as slaves by the Bantu, an ethnic group from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Bantu are known locally as ‘Bilo’. Persecution by the Bilo is inescapable.
Malala and her 20-something daughter Agate tell of their experience of being slaves in DRC.
‘When you’re owned, you’re obliged to work in the plantations. They will give you alcohol and smoke and, sometimes, manioc leaves for lunch but they won’t pay,’ Malala explains.
Baka would alternate time on the plantation with time in the forest. Owners would give them shotguns with a certain number of shells to bring back meat for them.
‘If he gives you four shells and you only come back with three animals, they beat you really, really badly,’ says Malala. ‘There is terrible trouble. Some will even kill for not bringing back the shell.’
Agate rebelled. ‘When I was a child, Mother told me that that man was “our Bilo” and that we were owned. But when I grew up, I refused. I said I am not that kind of Baka. I would make my own decisions.’ It was not that easy. Agate’s father’s owner claimed her. When she refused, he followed her to CAR and demanded payment from her husband.
While outright ownership is disappearing, Bilo attitudes of superiority and entitlement towards the Baka persist....
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Pygmies is racist. It should be vertically challenged!
Would this be near the Ituri forest area? I remember studying their music when I was in college, I think I still have 2-3 vinyls of ethnomusicological recordings.
But, but, but, only white people own(ed) slaves.
Slavery? Today? And in Africa of all places...!
Who woulda thunk?!
They’ve been kept as pets, and sometimes cannibalized, up to the present time.
--Ivan T. Sanderson
Why the hell don't you just use the four shells on your master ?!?!?
Maybe one of them will run for President in 2020.
Another opportunity for the Justice Brothers. Can you say reparations in pygmy?
I worked with a great guy from Nigeria,US Navy and Citizen, see news of Somalis in US and others.
Never heard of any Pygmy groups movings to the USA?
Do they all work in the circus or something?
Notice there are no #BLM and reparation folks over there protesting.
This can’t be true, Black People are always slaves and they never KEEP slaves, only WHITEY keeps slaves...
What are you? A THOUGHT CRIMINAL?
In North America white and black people have owned slaves. In the USA only white people have legally owned slaves. But in the rest of the world different peoples have enslaved other peoples. I don’t think there is any one ethnicity that has not enslaved another — I guess the Dravidian Tamils might be one and probably the Yenisean peoples
well, besides the black people enslaving pygmies (who are a different race from “black” people), you also have slaves in Mauritania
I wonder if anyone has noted down their folk histories. I wonder what these are - and their pre-contact religion
That is not true. According to the 1830 Census in the United States, there were 3,777 free blacks who owned slaves. In 1840, over 6,000 free blacks owned slaves.
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