Photo gallery with soundscapes and quotes from the book The Forest Has You

BAKA PYGMIES - CHILDREN OF THE FOREST (GABON)

African Rainforest & Pygmy Peoples


Children of the forest, from Luis Devin's anthropological research in Central Africa (Baka Pygmies, Gabon)
Baka child in a rainforest camp (Baka Pygmies, Gabon).

"Every now and then a mother arrives and puts her child down on the ground. Toddlers who can barely speak, unsteady on their legs, still feeding at the breast. But then it becomes clear that when it's time to sing, no-one gets a single note wrong, no hesitation in adding a triple metre to a double metre, to make micro-variations to the line of the melody. They are not even aware that they are doing it. Easy as dressing a Barbie doll. As normal as stacking building blocks..."

Luis Devin, The Forest Has You. Story of an Initiation
Italian edition: La foresta ti ha. Storia di un'iniziazione
(Castelvecchi - LIT Edizioni)


Soundscape: Baka children speaking and, in the background,
elderly woman singing a jodel lullaby (Baka Pygmies of Cameroon).




Photo gallery about African Pygmies and the rainforest, with soundscapes from pygmy camps and the forest.

      Page URL: http://www.pygmies.org/rainforest-pygmies/photo-gallery.php?photo=52       Photos, texts and audio recordings by Luis Devin.
The time in the tropical rainforests of the Western Congo Basin, where the Baka and the other Pygmy peoples live, is 23:23.
Every minute, at least 25 hectares (250.000 m²) of forest are destroyed around the world (source: WWF).