Chez les Pygmées d'Afrique Centrale, des outils de l'éphémère...

National audienceoutillage et techniques chez les chasseurs-collecteurs du bassin congolai

Des hommes et des forêts

Sous toutes les latitudes, partout où elles existent, les forêts ont joué un rôle d'importance dans l'histoire des civilisations

Circulation et échanges en Afrique Tropicale

présentation des modes d'interaction et d'échange entre les chasseurs-collecteurs Pygmées et les agriculteurs en Afrique centrale forestièr

Linéaments d'une histoire humaine de la forêt du bassin congolais

Hunting and gathering groups are few in Africa. Other some general common features, the techniques for food appropriation have great regional diversity. The agricultural groups trained to «clearing cultures», grow starch producing plants. Between those living in the forest, those on the forest edge and those in marshy forest clear differences are noticeable in the type of plants used and in the agricultural cycle. But in all cases, the planted area is more like a garden than a field, and a large amount of food is provided by forest exploration along trails belonging to the different lineages. Then the forest is the site for social interferences between activities of both groups which are more ancient that was thought and specially explained by an acculturation process. The fact that ail the basic cultivated plants have been introduced reveals the constant and ancient existence of exchanges between forest and other societies. On the other hand, prehistoric data (mainly stone 1Ools) show there is a long history of man in the African tropical forests.Dans cette communication volontairement succincte et quelque peu schématique, nous montrerons au moyen de quelles économies les sociétés humaines vivent traditionnellement dans le bloc forestier congolais, avec une référence particulière à la zone sud de la République Centrafricaine. Ensuite, nous chercherons, en remontant le cours du temps, à jeter le trouble dans l'esprit des naturalistes, en traquant les traces de plus en plus anciennes des hommes dans la forêt dense humide

Linguistique et histoire des Pygmées de l'ouest du bassin congolais

International audienceContrary to comon opinion, the Pygmies of the western Congo basin do not speak the same language as their agricultural neighbours but a language of the same family. Their present economy based on a system of barter which, according the oral traditions, is of recent origin does not explain the linguistic situation. The problem of "Pygmy languages" is not to find a genetic relationship nor to reconstruct a proto-language but to analyze the conditions for language borrowing. The paper starts with examining the linguistic situation of the Aka (southern C.A.R., Bantu language CI0) and of the Baka (east Cameroon, Ubangian language of the Gbandili-Sere group) in order to consider the social implications of that situation. At present, the hunting and gathering Pyqmies and the agriculturalist "Grands Noirs" are juxtaposed, with frequent but not general bilingualism and with a great diversity of other languages in contact. There is at present no intention, from one side or another, to belong to the same linguistic community and, on the contrary, the system of "symbiosis" is based upon a very clear ethnic differentiation. The paper shows that the acquisition of a new language by an entire society presupposes a voluntary bilingualism which 16 linked to daily, durable and efficient contacts. Although the economic context for the linguistic borrowing without fusion of races and cultures is unknown, the authors postulate from the oral traditions that the "Grands Noirs" (ancestors of C 10 on the one hand and of the Gbandili-Sere on the other) came from the savannah and encountered the Pygmies since they bagan te penetrate the forest. 'lbese two societies, one attracted by metal, the other by the skills of "professional" forest people, associated, one guiding the other across the forest basin. The authors propose the hypothesis of original contact between the two societies at a very remote period, followed .by a long time of cotllJlW1al lite with slow migration and ending in a separation. After that the "Grands Noirs" continued their migration, up to their present locations, whereas the Pygmies dispersed over vast territories and finally entered into contacts with other groups, i.e. the present villagers. With them they established the type of economy for which they are known today

Haudricourt et les ethnosciences au Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle

contribution à un volume d'hommage à paraître au MNHN. Ethnoscience, ethnobotanique et ethnobiologie telles qu'enseignées par André-Georges Haudricourt dans le cadre du laboratoire d'ethnobotanique au Muséum

Historical perspectives on the Aka and Baka Pygmies in the western Congo basin: 86th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association

Several ethnological descriptions of some Pygmy groups in central Africa are published; some works try to compare the Different groups, other try to understand the ecological basis of the life in forest, and to discover their roots and antiquity, but very few studies pay attention to the linguistic status of the various groups. The usual opinion is that Pygmies do speak the same language as the neighboring villagers . We found something very different, working firstly among the Aka during more than 12 years, and recently among the Baka. Each of these groups has his own language, each of them is easy to classify among the African languages, but fully isolated and recognizable. The question is then, how in the past, these groups borrowed their language? The second question is what kind of relationship exists between the various Pygmy groups in Africa, and particularly between Aka and Baka ? In this paper I will show how much rich are the informations on historical nature that give to us the lexical and semantical studies of the Pygmy languages

L'homme indigeste ? Mort et transfiguration d'un musée de l'Homme

histoire du Musée de l'Homm

L'Homme et le milieu végétal dans le bassin du lac Tchad : introduction

Aperçu historique et culturel des relations entre les populations du bassin du Tchad et la végétation

La cueillette chez les Pygmées Aka, chasseurs-cueilleurs de la forêt centrafricaine

National audiencela pratioque de collecte dans un groupe de chasseurs-collecteurs d'Afrique central