Mbuti Tribe

Living in the moment of the Mbuti

Berley Fields

ANT 101

Georganne Gabrielli

November 29, 2010

Living in the moment of the Mbuti

In the forest of central Africa, an affluent society of peaceful people exist that respect one another, neighbors, and nature. The Mbuti Pygmies live in harmony with their environment, and their surrounding neighbors. The purpose of this research is to discuss the culture of the Mbuti Pygmies. How their foraging society as a primary mode of subsistence affects their beliefs, values, social organization, and what gender relation within their society? The Mbuti are hunter-gathers who’s society is community based, where mutual respect is the primary belief, which provides balance. All members of the band are productive, which makes daily work very efficient and proved time for recreation. The simplicity of this society is a blueprint of how preserving nature, relationships and resolving conflicts can bring peace to the world.

Living in a band society, which is one of the oldest social structures in human existence. This simple, sometimes considered primitive way of life is what tribes of the Mbuti continue to live. The research conducted will analyze the foraging culture of the Mbuti, discover how their belief system affects the culture, learn their values and how they interact with their environment, see how the Mbuti interact socially within their society, and finally find what role gender has within their culture. Materials gathered for this research were obtained through scholarly journals; Internet based resources and university text. The most useful source of information came from the JSTOR database of scholarly journals, because it offered a large selection of material to balance the fairness of the facts discovered.

Geographically the tribes of...