#Mbuti

[folkfashion]

Mbuti woman, Democratic Republic of the Congo, by Mattia Passarina

[philosophenstreik]

mit kara walker wählt konstanze berner für ihre umschlaggestaltung nicht nur eine künstlerin, deren name bereits im untertitel steht, sondern auch eine der vermutlich bekanntesten künstlerinnen, die in diesem hervorragenden buch besprochen wird. eine illustration von sumuyya khader, die das gesamte buch illustrativ gestaltet ist natürlich eine sehr gute wahl für die gestaltung, die absolut unaufgeregt und doch sehr ansprechend wirkt. (rezension im vorigen beitrag)

[transgenderer]

I like religous worldbuilding but imo it tends to focus overmuch on the beliefs and practices and not enough on the *practitioners*. There are I guess probably some religious traditions somewhere that lack a practitioner class but I don't think there's basically any I've read about. I mean certainly not every religion has "priests". But if they do seem to basically all have *experts*, especially in the sense that they either have the knowledge or social/magical capacity to perform certain rites, rites that are performed both for abstract theological reasons but also are *sought out* by lay people for their purposes. Even among like hunter gatherers (where you might expect things to be very decentralized) this seems to be the case, some people are experts and some are not. I gotta reread wayward servants, I think the mbuti are the closest to lacking this class that ive read about. But iirc even they had experts and people disinterested

But anyway this practitioner/expert class is interesting! Like, consider the differences between the catholic priest, the pastor, the imam, the rabbi, all manner of shaman, the healer, the voodoo hungan, the candomble father-of-saint, etc etc. I mean I think any rich system lives in it's practicioners, esp if it's not super centralized and standardized. What is the law without lawyers!

[o-craven-canto]

Recent evolutionary adaptations to the environment in human populations, from Going global by adapting local: A review of recent human adaptation (Fan et al., 2016). The icons show the type of adaptation recorded in various parts of the world, and the acronyms besides (e.g. EDAR1) are the names of the involved genes. Also see Genome-wide detection and characterization of positive selection in human populations (Sabeti et al., 2009), Population Genomics of Human Adaptation (Lachance & Tishkoff, 2013).

Some examples are:

Lactase persistence in Europe, Near East, and East Africa, allowing the digestion of milk in adult age (by default, the lactase required to digest milk sugar would only be produced by infants; this was just a matter of removing a timed switch).

Similarly, greater production of amylase, which breaks down starch, is reported in Europe and Japan (diet based on farmed grains) and among the Hadza of Tanzania (diet based on starchy tubers).

Improved conversion of saturated into unsaturated fatty acids in the Arctic Inuit peoples. This makes it easier to live on a diet of fish and marine mammals in an environment where plant food is scarce.

Smaller stature ("defined as an average height of <150 cm in adult males") in the "pygmy" peoples (Aka and Mbuti) of Central Africa, and other hunter-gatherer peoples in equatorial Asia and South America. This helps shed heat in a hot humid climate where sweat does not evaporate.

More efficient fat synthesis in the Samoa, helping with energy storage at the price of more risk of obesity or diabetes with a richer modern diet.

Improved resistence to malaria, sleeping sickness (trypanosome), and Lassa fever in Subsaharan Africa. Fighting off against parasites is especially difficult (since unlike the inorganic environment, parasites also evolve), so this resistence often comes at a cost, such as anhemia, but is still a great advantage on net. Some improved resistence to arsenic poisoning is noted in an Argentinian population.

Denser red blood cells on the Andean, Ethiopian, and Tibetan highlands, to carry more oxygen which is scarcer at high altitude. I recall from elsewhere that this might increase the risk of thrombosis or strokes due to obstructed blood vessels.

Less melanin (which blocks UV light) and therefore lighter skin color in Eurasia. Melanin shields skin cells from damage due to UV radiations, but some UV light is necessary for the synthesis of vitamin D.

A change in the gene EDAR1, resulting in denser head hair, slightly different tooth shape, and fewer sweat glands (all skin annexes), appears strongly selected for in East Asia, but as far as I can find the advantage of this mutation is still unknown.

From another article (Ilardo et al., 2018): the Sama Bajau people of Indonesia, who have a long tradition of free-diving in apnea, seem to have developed larger spleen to store more oxygenated blood during dives.

[pissvortex]

hey guys, episode is leaving early access tomorrow at 6:30 CST but i would love if you guys supported us on patreon to listen early anyway!

This episode of our series on the Congo is all about the colonial roots of the national park system and the story of Ota Benga, the Mbuti man enslaved and put on display in the Bronx zoo in 1905. really harrowing stuff, and also we found out you can find the address of the gravestone of the guy who enslaved him on Google for free btw

[tanadrin]

So besides "all religion is a pathetic cope" what exactly is the point of all your recent posting?

Religion isn't a pathetic cope! Religion is fundamentally hard-wired into who we are. This is something both Dan McClellan and David Bokovoy talk about quite cogently: we are evolved to detect agents in the world around us, that agency-detection mechanism errs on the side of false positives rather than false negatives (bc false negatives tended to get eaten), and that plus other cognitive systems like our relentless pattern-matching ability and our capacity for theory of mind produce some quite complex intuitions about the world, out of which a sense of the supernatural almost inevitably falls.

Dan McClellan in his interviews on Mormon Stories in particular talks about the cognitive science side of religious studies, and the experiments done to try to get at the underlying intuitions, and he points out that in these experiments it becomes pretty evident that both atheism and the more philosophically complex forms of religion most readers of this post are probably accustomed to are the result of highly reflective attitudes toward the world; the intuitive sense of supernatural agency tends to ascribe very humanlike qualities to supernatural agents--I am reminded of some of the stuff @transgenderer has posted about the Mbuti and the Ainu and their beliefs in a parallel "spirit world" that is very much like our own, where the spirits live lives very similar to the ones we do.

When you add in the ways that religion taps into other important human social functions--collective mythmaking, social organization, the creation of networks of trust and reinforcement of particular identities--it becomes clear that religion is something which fulfills what are for many people important psychological needs, and that (in some form) we will always have something like religion with us. Now, "religion" itself is kind of a tricky category--in religious studies it is apparently accepted as a truism that "religion" is just "anything we call a religion," because it lumps together what are often some quite heterogeneous phenomena, and the original formation of the category was in discourse by mostly-Protestant Europeans trying to understand the cultures and traditions of the rest of the world mostly with reference to (again, mostly Protestant) Christianity. So as long as we're aware that this is a very loose category, and everything above has to be taken mutatis mutandis so far as it applies to individual members of the category, we can talk carefully about religion in general terms.

Dan McClellan, David Bokovoy, and the guy who originated the application of cognitive theory to the study of religion are all religious. So clearly they don't see religion as cope, or as this perspective as one that necessarily implies religion is cope.

What would be pathetic is someone who cannot tolerate the existence of an outside view of religion, either because it causes them to doubt truth claims of that religion in ways that make them uncomfortable (because the truth of that religion is deeply integrated into their personal sense of identity), or because they can only read differing viewpoints as a hostile attack, and who then sends aggressive anons to strangers on the internet as a result. That would in fact be the kind of thing that only someone with really profound insecurities that they are unloading on other people does, because they don't have the strength to deal with those insecurities themselves.

[esyra]

I cannot help but feel Jewish people have a right to a state in the region after what the Romans under Tiberius and others did, but it should not require atrocities against other people's in the area. Being bullied does not justify bullying others, no matter how many generations suffered. Is there really no way the children of Ishmael and Isaac can live peacefully in Abraham's land? Are any of them even willing to try?😥

I don't oppose Jewish people having their own state, it's literally none of my business how they organize or not, but they don't get to destroy and brutalize an existing population to achieve it just because the British agreed.

Exactly like you've said it, it should not require atrocities against other people but that's what Zionism requires, because it claims sovereignty over a land important to Christians, Muslims and Jews alike. To make Palestine a Jewish ethnostate, it requires erasing the footprint of other religions.

While some prospects of Zionism have merit — calling for protection to a historically persecuted group and understands that the creation of a State is the safest and most efficient way to do so —, all rhetorics used to create Israel, as we know, are untrue and baseless.

Some say that Israel must exist because the Jewish are the only ethnic group without it's own state, which is just widely untrue. Many other persecuted groups like the Mbuti, Romani and Karen people are not even acknowledged and do not have their own State. Even if you consider just religious groups, there are thousands of religions that do not get their own state for there's no reasonable way to empty an entire land nor force people to convert to their beliefs. The Baha'i face ongoing persecution to this day and do not have their own State, for example.

Finally, to say Palestine belongs to the Jews because of the Holy Book it's specially insane, since we shouldn't force our religious beliefs onto others, but also because it's widely untrue.

The first explicit promise to Abraham was at Sichem described in Genesis, Chapter 12 and verse 7: "Unto thy seed will I give this land." The words in Chapter 15, verse 18, are clearer: "Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates." The words used are "to thy seed" which would include all who descended from Abraham.

All Christians, Jews and Muslims believe that Ishmael was the firstborn of Abraham and is recognized by Muslims as the ancestor of several northern prominent Arab tribes and the forefather of Adnan, the ancestor of Muhammad. Muhammad was the descendant of Ishmael who descended from Abraham, whose descendants were promised Palestine/Canaan.

The words of Genesis 21, verses 13, concludes: "And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed." Therefore, despite Israelites calling themselves the 'seed of Abraham', the descendents of Ishmael have every right to call themselves his seed also and ultimately to live in the land.

Furthermore, at the covenant of circumcision made with Abraham (Genesis, Chapter 17), when Canaan was promised to him, it was Ishmael who went through it: Isaac had been born yet.

Therefore the Divine promise included all descendents of Ishmael and although narrowed down in the times of Isaac and Jacob, it did not exclude their Arab brethren. It is well known that many Arabs accompanied Joshua into Palestine.

If everything Israel is based on it's false or unfairly violent, can anyone really claim it has the right to exist?

I'm sorry for the gigantic text but I came back to thousands of asks about if I think Israel deserves to exist and some pointed out the religious rhetoric to justify Israel, I've picked yours to unleash this for no exact reason other than you sounded the most empathetic and I'm trying to stop only answering the nasty asks.

And again, I'm sorry, I don't wish to sound aggressive or impolite but can we stop implying Palestinians are not willing to try? We have no power over Israel, any attempt at peace and justice must come from them first. We can only counter react to Israel, we have no upper hand over them.

[haggishlyhagging]

Minimal differentiation of sex roles also exists among the Mbuti, who form the largest single group of pygmy hunters and gatherers in Africa. Their habitat and their heaven is the Ituri Forest.

The Mbuti have no creation myth per se. The forest is their godhead, and different individuals address it as "father," "mother," "lover," and/or "friend." The Mbuti say that the forest is everything: the provider of food, shelter, warmth, clothing, and affection. Each person and animal is endowed with some spiritual power that "derives from a single source whose physical manifestation is the forest itself." Disembodied spirits deriving from this same source of power are also believed to inhabit the forest; they are considered to be independent manifestations of the forest. The forest lives for the Mbuti. It is both natural and supernatural, something that is depended upon, respected, trusted, obeyed, and loved.

The forest is a good provider. At all times of the year men and women can gather an abundant supply of mushrooms, roots, berries, nuts, herbs, fruits, and leafy vegetables. The forest also provides animal food. There is little division of labor by sex. The hunt is frequently a joint effort. A man is not ashamed to pick mushrooms and nuts if he finds them or to wash and clean a baby.

In general, leadership is minimal and there is no attempt to control or dominate either the geographical or human environment. Decision making is by common consent: Men and women have equal say because hunting and gathering are both important to the economy. The forest is the ultimate authority. It expresses its feelings through storms, falling trees, poor hunting—all of which are taken as signs of its displeasure. But often the forest remains silent, and this is when the people must sound out its feelings through discussion. Diversity of opinion may be expressed, but prolonged disagreement is considered to be "noise" and offensive to the forest. Certain individuals may be recognized as having the right and the ability to interpret the pleasure of the forest. In this sense there is individual authority, which simply means effective participation in discussions. The three major areas for discussion are economic, ritual, and legal matters having to do with dispute settlement. Participation in discussions is evenly divided between the sexes and among all adult age levels.

-Peggy Reeves Sanday, Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality

[mybeingthere]

Barkcloth ‘Pongo’ from the Mbuti people of the Ituri Forest of DR Congo, 20th century, Beaten bark from ficus tree, stamped and drawn with natural pigment.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Chapter 3. Economy

Who will take care of the elderly and disabled?

Only in a society with what is euphemistically termed a “highly competitive market” are elderly people and disabled people so marginalized. In order to increase profit margins, employers avoid hiring people with disabilities and force older workers into early retirement. When workers are compelled to move frequently in search of jobs, in a culture in which the rite of passage to adulthood is moving into your own house, parents are left alone as they age. Most eventually move into whatever kind of retirement facility they can afford; many die neglected, alone, and indignant, perhaps with bed sores and diapers that have not been changed in two days. In an anarchist, anti-capitalist world, the social fabric would not be so coarse.

In the plethora of experiments that arose in Argentina in response to the crisis of 2001, the economics of solidarity and care for all members of society flourished. The economic collapse in Argentina did not lead to the dog-eat-dog scenario that capitalists fear. Rather, the result was an explosion of solidarity, and the elderly and disabled have not been left out of this web of mutual aid. In participating in the neighborhood assemblies, elderly and disabled people in Argentina got a chance to secure their own needs and represent themselves in the decisions that would affect their lives. At some assemblies, participants suggested that those who own their own houses withhold their property tax and instead give that money to the local hospital or other care facilities. In parts of Argentina with severe unemployment, movements of unemployed workers have effectively taken over and are building new economies. In General Mosconi, an oil town in the north, unemployment is above 40%, and the area is largely autonomous. The movement has organized over 300 projects to see to people’s needs, including those of the elderly and disabled.

Even in the absence of stored wealth or fixed infrastructure, stateless hunter-gatherer societies generally take care of all the members of their community regardless of whether they are economically productive. In fact, grandparents — genetically useless from a Darwinist point of view since they are past the age of reproduction[39] — are a defining characteristic of humankind going back millions of years, and the fossil record from the beginning of our species shows that the elderly were cared for. Modern hunter-gatherers demonstrate not only material care for the elderly, but also something that is invisible in the fossil record: respect. The Mbuti, for example, recognize five age groups — infants, children, youth, adults, and elders — and of these, only the adults carry out significant economic production in the form of gathering and hunting or collecting raw materials like wood; yet social wealth is shared by all regardless of their productivity. It would be unthinkable to let the elderly or disabled starve simply because they do not work. Likewise, the Mbuti include all members of their society in making decisions and participating in political and social life, and the elderly play a special role in conflict resolution and peacemaking.

[ask-jaghatai-khan]

If you were put in charge of fleshing out a non-racist version of the Pygmies in Warhammer, and were told you could give them the central jungle of the Southlands as their territory, as Games Workshop wished to seperate them from the Lizardmen in Lustria, how would you flesh out their culture to be similar to both Mbuti Pygmies and Zulus, whilst not being offensive? Also, what sort of character would be their Big Hero, like Sigmar for Humans or Grimgor for Greenskins?

If I wanted to do Southlands human stuff I would probably leave the pygmies in the bin where they belong. The actual Bambuti people would be best respected by not being in a Games Workshop property.

I think you could totally have a cool West/Central-African themed faction. Lightly armored. Maybe drawing upon dark magic but not necessarily being evil themselves. Golden warriors. Elite scouts. Witch doctors. I’m all in favor of cultural diversity in Warhammer, you just have to be a little bit careful and focus more on making things that look badass rather than offensive.

[philosophenstreik]

black artists now

von el anatsui bis kara walker

sachbuch von ann mbuti

erschienen 2022

im verlag c.h.beck

isbn: 978-3-406-78801-7

(von tobias bruns)

der westliche kunstkanon ist tatsächlich sehr beschränkt... schaut man sich in den museen europas um, so sind dort vor allem werke von alten weißen männern präsent... sie dominieren alles, haben hre eigenen museen, einige wenige frauen dürfen auch dabei sein, wie paula modersohn-becker, eine der wenigen frauen, der ein museum gewidmet wurde. auch frida kahlo ist dabei und einige wenige andere. doch allgemein scheint die kunstwelt nicht viel mehr zu bieten zu haben... doch weit gefehlt - die kunst setzt sich aus unzähligen stimmen zusammen, stimmen von frauen, männern, stimmen jedweder ethnien, religionen, gender und sexuellen vorlieben. ann mbuti widmet dieses buch nun den stimmen schwarzer künster/-innen, die extrem stark sind und doch weiterhin nicht unbedingt in den etablierten kunstkanon eindringen, was auch immer dieser heute noch für eine bedeutung hat, in einer welt, in der kunst schon lange nicht mehr nur in museen, galerien oder privaten sammlungen stattfindet. ann mbuti stellt in ihrem buch black artists now 15 verschiedene schwarze künstler/innen aus aller herren länder - von ghana über brasilien, von frankreich nach nigeria,... - vor, deren stimmen laut vernehmbar sind und unbedingt teil des allgemeinen kunstdiskurses sein sollten, ihren weg in die offiziellen lehrpläne von schulen finden sollten, in die offiziellen lehrpläne der kunsthochschulen und akademien... ann mbuti hat “ein buch geschrieben, das sie als jugendliche selbst gern gelesen hätte” - zurecht, und sie ist mit sicherheit nicht die einzige, der es so geht oder ging. vielen der von ihnen beschriebenen künstler/-innen sind auf ihrem weg durch das studium der künste an hochschulen und in der schule ausschließlich künstler/-innen europas und nordamerikas - meist eben alte weiße männer - vorgestellt worden. gerade so, als existiere nur hier kunst, als wäre nur das, was im “westen” produziert wurde tatsächliche kunst. die großen künstlerischen traditionen asiens oder afrikas werden weitestgehend übergangen, ausgeblendet, nicht als kunst angesehen... auch damit will ann mbuti mit ihrem buch aufräumen. zu recht und auf wunderbare weise. 15 starke und beeindruckende künstler/-innen stellt sie in ihrem buch vor, ihren lebensweg, ihren weg zur kunst, ihren weg in der kunst, ihre bedeutung für die kunst. das ganze wird kongenial illustriert von sumuyya khader. es ist dadurch nicht nur ein längst überfälliges und toll geschriebenes buch, welches mit sicherheit um hunderte weitere menschen angereichert werden könnte (mbuti beschäftigt sich hier allerdings eher mit zeitgenössischen und lebenden künstler/-innen), sondern auch noch ein augenschmaus! ein muss für jeden, dem die kunst am herzen liegt.

[transgenderer]

a strange commonality betwen the !Kung and the Mbuti: neither group particularly values being a great hunter. they value being a hunter, but have a negative response to being really good at hunting. relatedly they have strong humility norms.

examples among the !Kung, from nisa (from memory, maybe mistakes):

after a successful hunt, you are not supposed to announce what you caught, but rather come back calmly, wait for someone to ask what you caught, say it was nothing, and only after further prodding actually say what you caught. hunters mark their arrows, to give credit to the kill, but everyone has a few of someone else's arrows in their quiver, so a bad hunter will still get occasional credit, and the best hunter will often have credit go to someone else, so they dont get too negative a reaction from too many catches.

excerpt from wayward servants:

Young married couples and youths have the most to say, being the most active hunters and gatherers, but while ability as a hunter carries some weight, too much ability may lead to ridicule. That is, a man who displays himself as a great hunter, and boasts of his achievements too loudly, is somewhat distrusted, and any attempt on his part to use his reputation to gain more say than others will lead immediately to ridicule.

not sure if common in hunter gatherers cross culturally? tried to search it but discussion either vague or re: !Kung

[pixoplanet]

It's October 18th, 🌍 World Okapi Day. Deep in the heart of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, hidden in the dense rainforest, lives the mysterious and enigmatic okapi. We humans rarely see this shy, elusive creature in the wild. When we do manage to see an okapi for the first time (almost always at a zoo), most of us imagine that it must be related to the zebra because of its stripes, but the okapi is not related to the zebra – it's related to the giraffe, and is in fact the giraffe's only living relative.

World Okapi Day was created to celebrate this special, endangered animal and protect the Okapi Wildlife Reserve in which it lives. Despite the protected status of the reserve and its wild animals, the okapi's continued existence is threatened by habitat destruction, slash-and-burn agriculture, illegal gold mining, and bushmeat poaching. World Okapi Day provides the Mbuti People who live in the reserve with an opportunity to celebrate the hard work they've accomplished to help preserve the natural environment they share with their national animal – an animal that is very important to their culture and traditions.

World Okapi Day is accompanied by a call to action to all of us around the world. The okapi’s rainforest home is a habitat for thousands of species. It's also one of the largest land-based carbon sinks in the world, helping to mitigate global warming. We can all help protect this Congo Basin Rainforest. If we choose to live sustainably, we help the okapi. ☮️ Peace… Jamiese of Pixoplanet

[foggynightdonut]

B haplogroup M60 mutation, 60-65Kyr in Central Africa , clades B1, B1a, B2, B2a and many more.

svdsmw

read below, important

BT, origin: 70-80Kyr in North West or central West Africa

mutation: M42

BT has not been found in any current population. No male has been shown to carry BT (BT*).

note In Y haplogroups, paragroups are represented by an asterisk " * ", placed after the main haplogroup nomenclature. Paragroups contain the mutations which define the parent haplogroup, but they do not have any further (known) unique markers. Without these unique markers, they do not form truly independent sub-clades.

B haplogroup, origin: 60-65Kyr in Central Africa

mutation: M60

current populations: B is localized among the Baka and Mbuti peoples of the tropical forests of West-Central Africa and the Hadza of Tanzania. 2.3% of African-American males carry B.

B is the second oldest and a very diverse Y haplogroup, but it is scattered widely and thinly in Africa, suggesting that the carriers of B were displaced by later (5Kyr) flows of people and events. A competing hypothesis runs that the sub-Saharan population dwindled (to ~2K persons at 35Kyr) and that there were few remaining carriers of B around to have been displaced by even much later migrations of (Bantu) people.

Some of the sub-clades of B are: B1 mutation: M236 current population: southern Cameroon (Bamileke 4%)

B1a mutation: M146 current population: Burkina Faso (Mossi 2%)

B2 mutation: M182 current populations: Congo (Mbuti), southern Cameroon (Bakola), Namibia (Dama) and Central African Republic (Biaka "pygmy")

B2a mutation: M150 current populations: Congo (Mbuti 8%), Cameroon (Tupuri 11%), Mali (Dogon 6%) and Kenya (Kikuyu and Kamba 2%)

B2a1 mutation: M218 current population: northern Cameroon

B2a1a mutation: M109 current populations: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Egypt (2%), Southern Iran (3%), African-Americans (1.5%), Pakistan and India

B2b mutation: M112 current populations: Central African Republic (Baka "pygmy" 67%), Tanzania (Hadza 51%), Congo (Mbuti 43%), Namibia (San 31%)

B2b4 mutation: P7 current populations: Central African Republic (Baka 67% and Biaka 45%) and Congo (Mbuti 21%)

B2b4b mutation: MSY2.1 current populations: Central African Republic (Biaka 20%)

CT haplogroup, origin: 68.5Kyr in East Africa

mutation: M168

CT is often referred to as the "Eurasian Adam" - the most recent common ancestor of all non-African males. This hypothetical male is conjectured to have existed in Africa - immediately prior to the exodus of Anatomically Modern Humans from Africa. CT is the considered the common ancestral lineage of most men living today - though no male has been shown to carry CT (CT*).

The mutations M168, P9.1 and M294 have been found in all males tested - with the exception of those exclusively carrying A and B (sub-Saharan) haplogroups.

note Paragroup (CT*) contains the mutations which define the parent haplogroup (M168, P9.1 and M294), but it does not have any further (known) unique markers.