A dying way of life for Congo's Pygmies

A dying way of life for Congo's Pygmies

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On Idjwi, the largest island in Democratic Republic of Congo, a way of life is dying.

The Bambuti, one of several Pygmy groups in Congo, are among central Africa's oldest indigenous peoples. For millennia, they have lived as hunter-gatherers, surviving off the forest's bounty of plants, birds and monkeys.

. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo
A 10-year-old Pygmy girl laughs as she weeds the land of a Bahavu farmer.

Idjwi, in the middle of Lake Kivu, has been spared the ravages of wars in eastern Congo that have killed millions of people since 1996, mostly from hunger and disease.

. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo
A Pygmy woman, 20, shakes a pendo, a musical instrument made from a metal box filled with gravel, to calm her crying child, at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.

But for its indigenous inhabitants, the advance of another culture has proved nearly as devastating. The Bambutis, like Pygmy groups across central Africa, have been pushed out of a native land to which they could assert no legal title -- in this case, to make way for an exploding ethnic Bantu population who now make up more than 95 percent of Idjwi's 280,000 inhabitants.

. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo
A Bahavu woman and her son stand in front their house.

Around 1980, the Bambuti say, local authorities and customary chiefs from the Bahavu, a Bantu people, expelled them from the forests and turned the land over to Bahavu to farm and build houses.

The Bambuti lost their livelihood and, with few if any assets, no education, and no experience of how to support themselves in an alien environment, their society has withered.

. Djwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo
Mwenyezi, 36, washes her baby who is suffering from fever. Mwenyezi cannot afford to take baby for medical care and her baby has scars from "bleeding," which some Pygmies use to try and treat certain diseases.

"We are no more than 7,000 on the island, relocated on uncultivable land and scattered on the coast in makeshift camps on the fringe of villages, in total destitution," said Charles Livingstone, the chief of Idjwi's Pygmies.

. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

Most cannot read or write, and lack the money to send their children to school.

"Before, in the forest, we had everything we needed for an easy and happy life: food, shelter, medicine, clothes," said Habimana, a Bambuti woman of 45. "It's in our nature to live like that."

. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo
A Bahavu landlord (left) and Pygmy workers have an argument about wages.

Adolphine Byaywuwa Muley, head of a local group for the empowerment of Pygmy women, acknowledges that there has been little concrete progress since she became minister of agriculture and environment for South Kivu’s province in 2013, and says lack of land is the root of the Bambutis' plight.

Ijdwi's local customary authorities say that the Bambutis sold their land, and Muley said South Kivu was "a province where there are a lot of land issues, land disputes everywhere, so you are told that ... nothing can be done".

. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo
A Bahavu woman stands (left) as Pygmy women sell pottery.

Gervais Rubenga Ntawenderundi, the Bantu customary chief in the north of the island where the Bambuti live, said there were "no problems on the island between the two ethnic groups":

"The pygmies have never been driven out of the forest and have always lived near the villages in this way."

Other Bantu argue that entrenched discrimination against Pygmies is a legacy of colonial rule.

. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo
Ahadi, 23, works for a Bahavu landlord and earns 500 CDF (0.46 USD) per day.

At national level, Congo's parliament first discussed a law to protect Pygmy rights in 2007, but it has yet to vote on a bill.

Thus the Bambuti scrape a living clearing fields or carrying heavy loads for Bahavu landowners, who often treat them with contempt.

. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

Habimana weeds the fields of a Bahavu businessman building a hotel on the coast, but earns only one-third as much as other workers, and has to sell pottery at market to make extra money.

"I'm used to it," she said. "We are treated as sub-humans."

. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo
Men repair fishing nets, at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.

At the Kagorwa camp, where close to 300 Pygmies were resettled from their ancestral Nyamusisi forest, crops will not grow on the land, and many of the children are gaunt and undernourished from a diet of "sombe": simple cassava leaves boiled in water, without salt or oil.

"This is the only food we have in sufficient quantity," said Adele, the camp's dean. "There are no more birds, no snakes, no monkeys."

The fishermen who set out onto the bright blue lake in canoes don't have much more luck. This evening, they have brought back only a handful of very small fish.

. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

Manguist, a 24-year-old fisherman, says he has given up on the old Bambuti existence: "Our life from before is finished - but we don't deserve this misery. I want to leave the island, go to town, live in a brick house and educate my children."

Minister Muley believes that at least, through patient lobbying, understanding of the Bambutis' situation is growing.

She said the attitude that "Pygmies don’t have the same human value as the Bantus" had not been helped by the fact that the pygmies themselves thought it was "normal to be discriminated against".

"But, with awareness," she said, "the indigenous people have understood that they have rights like everyone else."

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Slideshow

Melissa, 20, who is Bahavu, returns from market of the village of Burgarula.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

Melissa, 20, who is Bahavu, returns from market of the village of Burgarula.

A woman makes a clay pot at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters

A woman makes a clay pot at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.

A woman boils cassava greens as she breastfeeds at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

A woman boils cassava greens as she breastfeeds at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.

A boy plays football at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

A boy plays football at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.

Children hold used syringes at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

Children hold used syringes at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.

A nurse (right), prepares to give an injection to Voyage, 40, a Pygmy man who is suffering from a wound on his finger that has turned gangrenous, at the health centre in the village of Bugarula.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

A nurse (right), prepares to give an injection to Voyage, 40, a Pygmy man who is suffering from a wound on his finger that has turned gangrenous, at the health centre in the village of Bugarula.

Voyage waits for the nurse.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

Voyage waits for the nurse.

A woman, 60, dies of malaria in her house at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

A woman, 60, dies of malaria in her house at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.

People gather around a fire in Kagorwa Pygmy camp.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

People gather around a fire in Kagorwa Pygmy camp.

A child tries to re-light a fire at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

A child tries to re-light a fire at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.

Manguiste, 24, sleeps at home in Kagorwa Pygmy camp.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

Manguiste, 24, sleeps at home in Kagorwa Pygmy camp.

Mwenyezi, 36, plays guitar at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

Mwenyezi, 36, plays guitar at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.

Kavuha, 73, repairs a container at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

Kavuha, 73, repairs a container at Kagorwa Pygmy camp.

A fisherman works on Lake Kivu.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

A fisherman works on Lake Kivu.

Lake Kivu is seen north of Idjwi island.
. Idjwi Island, Democratic Republic of Congo. Reuters/Therese Di Campo

Lake Kivu is seen north of Idjwi island.