Pygmy Musicians Race to Save Dying Art

For the Aka Pygmies, music is a language of spirituality, a means of communication and an essential element of the traditional ceremonies accompanying marriage, death and hunting. In 2003, members of the tribe formed the musical group Ndima, which means forest. Over the past decade, they have performed across Europe and Latin America.

Ndima’s music makes captivating use of what’s known as polyphonic rhythm, or the combination of multiple distinct melodies. Two or three singers collaborate to modify their voices, producing an array of pitches and sounds with the vocal technique known as the yodel.

“Our music is an important tool for many rituals that we use in order to channel the spirits of the forest,” Ngolou Emilliene, a singer and a member of the Aka tribe, told OZY. “Every Aka child learns how to sing the yodel sounds from a very young age.”

The vocalists are accompanied by the evocative sounds of handmade musical instruments, including the lenzeko harp and a single-strand bow known as the mbela. The music can express profound joy as well as anger and grief.

“The Aka pygmies are currently in danger of extinction,” says ethnologist Sorel Okanango Eta, who has lived with the Aka people and studied their culture for the past 26 years, and serves as Ndima’s manager.

In an interview with OZY, Eta explained that the Aka culture was unknown to many people before Ndima was created. Locally, most people knew little about the tribe, while today the Aka music is broadcast on TV, radio and the internet. Ndima has hosted events focusing on the tribe’s traditional shamanic practices and master classes on Aka’s polyphonic sounds.

“Imagine if an epidemic were to destroy this minority population? We could lose all of this knowledge and culture in the blink of an eye, and that is why it is important to diffuse the Aka music,” says Eta.

Logging of the forests that are the traditional terrain of the Aka has endangered animals such as antelopes and wild hogs, which used to be abundant here and provided an essential food source for the tribe. The Aka can no longer rely on hunting and fishing. Formerly a nomadic people, the many threats they face today have forced them into sedentarism, fundamentally altering their culture. Now, to adapt to the modern way of life, they must seek employment elsewhere and purchase food in markets, like the people of the bantu tribes all around them.

“The bantu tribes that were colonized by France are, in a way, colonizing the Aka pygmy tribes and expecting them to live according to the bantu lifestyle choices,” Eta explained.

Emilliene says that among the younger Aka generation who attend modern schools, she has noticed a lack of interest in learning about Aka culture and traditions.

“Since the Aka children have been attending school they learn how to speak French and not the Aka languages. They also lose track of learning from the school of the forest,” she told OZY. Today, “most Aka children do not have an understanding of how to navigate the forest and certain rituals that are important in order to do that.”

Music, however, is helping to keep the culture alive.

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Ndima regularly collaborates with other musical artists from around the world in what Sorel Eta calls a “dialogue” of cultures.

“The pygmies represent an African culture and Europeans represent another culture. So by collaborating with different artists we are creating a dialogue of cultures, so that people can learn our culture and we can learn theirs,” he says.

Eta has now penned a book in French called “The University of the Forest,” and has launched a music conservatory for the teaching and practice of the pygmies’ music, which has hosted international tourists.

This year alone, Ndima has collaborated with musical artists including Leilla Martial, Eric Perez and Remi Leclerc. On Oct. 1, the group will play a concert in Paris. You can find their latest updates on the Group Ndima Facebook page.

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