Countries and Their Cultures: Tropical Forest Foragers

The term "tropical-forest foragers," or "pygmies," refers to ethno-linguistically diverse peoples distributed across the forested regions of Central Africa who are particularly short in stature and who traditionally have lived by specializing in hunting and gathering wild forest resources, which they consume themselves or trade to neighboring farmers in exchange for cultivated foods. There are exceptions to these generalizations: some "pygmies" are tall, independent from farmers, and live in the savanna. There is so much diversity among these groups that it is impossible to describe a "pygmy" culture. That there is no generic term other than the European word "pygmy" (derived from the Greek pyme, meaning a unit of measure equivalent to the distance from the elbow to a knuckle) bears testimony to the absence of any pan-"pygmy" awareness or culture. Forest foragers in most areas are unaware of the existence of "pygmies" in other regions, and there is currently no sense of solidarity among the different populations. Forest foragers are distributed discontinuously across nine different African countries (Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Zaire, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Congo). Most forest foragers live in the Congo Basin.