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Abstract. This article ocuses on the ritual perormance o rela-tions twn Baongo Pygmis and thir nighours in Gaon.Whereas the Babongo occupy socially subordinate positions vis--vis neighbouring populations, the bwiti initiation ritual inversesthis rlational orm y plaing Pygmis at its mythial point oorigin. The Babongo, while perorming at rituals, embody thePygmy as he is construed by his neighbours. However, the pro-ound hangs o th bwiti ritual during th 20th ntury havailitatd th manipation o th Baongo. In oming ull-lown ritual ators, thy nat bwitis origin myth or thir ownsak. Thus sualtrn ators mrg as ntral partiipants on thritual scene. [Gabon, Babongo Pygmies, ritual, myth, interethnicrelations, social change]

Julien Bonhomme, Assoiat Prossor in Anthropology at thUniversity o Lyon (France) and Deputy Director o the Researchand Teaching Department o the Muse du quai Branly in Pa-ris. H onduts rsarh on rituals, withrat, and rumoursin Gaon, oth in rural and in uran sttings. His puliationsinlud: Ls volurs d sx. Anthropologi dun rumur ari-ain (Paris 2009); s also Rrns Citd.

Magali De Ruyter, Teaching Assistant in Ethnomusicology atth Univrsit Paris-Oust Nantrr (Fran). Sh is urrntlywriting up hr PhD thsis in Ethnomusiology on rlations -tween the Babongo Pygmies and their neighbours in southernGaon. Puliation: s Rrns Citd.

Guy-Max Moussavou, Graduate Student in Anthropology atth Univrsit Omar-Bongo (Lirvill, Gaon). H is urrntlywriting up his PhD thsis on Gaons Pygmis.

W tak our rvng on our mastrs using tishs,y making thm drink our saliva in hral inusions

and othr potions(a Congols Baongo Pygmy,

itd in Gamg t al. 2006: 137)

On the 30th o June 1865, whilst exploring the

mountain rang in Gaon that now ars his nam,Paul Du Chaillu visitd an nampmnt o Oon-gos, or dwared wild negroes (1867: 315). Hewas the rst European to come into contact withPygmies and to give a precise description o theirway o lie.1 Although they were the rst to havecontact with Europeans, Gabonese Pygmies arethe least well known o the Central Arican Pyg-my groups, doutlss aus thy ail to onormto the stereotype o orest-dwelling hunter-gather-rs. Th santy litratur dvotd to thm inludsa ew linguistic texts (Raponda-Walker 1996; Mayer

1987), some rather unreliable work by ethnologi-cally-minded missionaries (Le Roy 1928; Trilles1932 or a critique, see Mary 2010) and a ewshort introdutory artils writtn y spialists onothr Pygmy groups (Joiris 1997; Bahuht 2007).Th rst work that stands out is y Eraim Andrs-

1 Du Chaillu dos not us th trm Pygmy in his travl writ-ings, published in 1867. It is only in his 1872 opus TheCountry o th Dwars, a prttid vrsion or hildrn, thathe uses it, ollowing the example o Georg Schweinurth,who had nountrd an Akka Pygmy at th ourt o thMangbetu king in 1870. There, he also makes the connectionto Grao-Roman lgnds aout Pygmis.

Blurring the Lines

Ritual and Rlationships twn Baongo Pygmisand Thir Nighours (Gaon)

Julin Bonhomm, Magali D Ruytr, and Guy-Max Moussavou

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2 Julin Bonhomm, Magali D Ruytr, and Guy-Max Moussavou

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son (1983), a Swdish missionary and anthropolo-gist who spnt tim with Congols and GaonsPygmis in th 1930s and 1940s. Only rntly hasmor ddiatd work on Gaons Pygmis gunto appar.2

As Du Chaillu remarked, relations with neigh-ouring populations ar an ssntial aspt o Pyg-mies social lie. In this article, we ocus on rela-tions between Babongo Pygmies (Du ChaillusOongos) and thir nighours, highlighting thamivaln o suh tis. This amivaln, w ar-gu, is a qustion o diring prsptivs in that itrsults rom th two partis asymmtri points oview regarding the relationship. The article then ex-amins th ways in whih intrthni rlations arprormd in initiation rits. Rlations twn thBabongo and their neighbours emerge in ritual con-txts as singularly omplx phnomna. This is, in

part, aus mythial rprsntations o Pygmisplay an important role in the neighbours ritualsand, in part, aus th Baongo also partiipatin thm. Th larst xampl o this imriation isan initiation rit known as bwiti, whos origins arsometimes attributed to the Babongo and sometimesto thir nighours.

This ethnographic puzzle in turn allows us to ad-drss thr qustions o widr anthropologial im-port: th rlationship twn ritual and soial or-ganisation; that between myth and ritual or, to beprecise, between representations and action in rit-

ual contexts; and the dynamics o change in thesphr o initiation. I, as w laim, th rlationshiptwn ritual and soial organisation an on-strud nithr as mattr o simpl rtion nor ason o radial disonntion, thn how dos ritualr-nat rlations ormd outsid its domain? Thisquestion is still made more complex by the Pyg-mies dual presence within these initiation rituals,whr thy ar prsnt oth as mythial rprsn-tations and as pratial partiipants. Far rom ovr-lapping, ths two orms o prsn produ a tn-sion twn th rspt aordd to th Pygmis

in loal myths and thir pratial ritual suordina-tion. Dynamis o hang in th sphr o initiationrongur this tnsion, as th Baongo nat thirnighours myth via thir ativ partiipation in anew branch o the initiation rite. This transorma-tion in th Baongos ritual status ours thanks toan alteration in the balance o power between thepolitial, rligious, and thraputial dimnsions oth sphr o initiation. In ordr to situat th Ba-ongo as within widr pattrns o ritual logi and

2 Knight (2003), Matsuura (2006, 2007, 2009, 2010); Songas(2009).

dynamics o ritual change within the region, ouranalysis xtnsivly draws on omparativ matri-als rom othr Pygmy groups. This artil not onlyonstituts a signiant ontriution to th thnog-raphy o Central Arican Pygmies (Bahuchet 1991),but also engages with anthropological approaches toth omplx rlational dynamis o ritual ation.3

1 A Question o Perspective:Relations between Babongo Pygmiesand Their Neighbours

Numbering several thousand people in total, Ga-bons Pygmy population is broken up into vari-ous small groups sattrd throughout th ountry(Knight 2003). The Baka Pygmies rom the Minvoulrgion (in th northast o th ountry) rntly ar-

rived rom Cameroon and are distinguished by theirmore mobile liestyle, their yodelled and contrapun-tal polyphonis, and y thir us o an Ouangianlanguag in an xlusivly Bantu nvironmnt. Thothr Pygmy groups hav longr-standing rlation-ships with thir nighours and liv in nary vil-lags or in mixd ommunitis. In th arly twn-tieth century, the now all but vanished Akoa livedamong th Myn in th oastal rgions, rom thGaon Estuary to th Frnan Vaz Lagoon. Th Ba-koya, who ar also to ound in th Congo, livin th Mkamo rgion in th ast o th ountry.

The Babongo are distributed between the Chaillumountains, whr thy liv alongsid th Mitsogo,in the intermediary zone between Ikobey and Eteke,and alongsid th Masango twn Mimongo andKoulamoutou (s map).4 In th sam rgion, thyalso have contacts with the Bavove, Simba, and Ap-indji, who long to th sam thnolinguisti lus-tr as th Mitsogo. Furthr south, thy an oundtowards Mbigou and Pana, among the Banzebi,and vn on th othr sid o th Congols ordr.Thy ar prsnt in smallr numrs as ar ast asLastoursvill and Franvill. In th vry south o

the country, the Barimba o the Tchibanga region(who liv alongsid th Bapunu and th Bavungu)and th Bagama o th Mayuma rgion (who livwith the Balumbu and the Bavili) should perhaps beconsidered part o the wider Babongo population(Andrsson 1983: 2). Indd, as Pygmy groups livin los assoiation with thir nighours, it is not

3 Kaprr (1979); Handlman (1990); Housman and Svri(1998); Gll (1998); Housman (2006); Bonhomm (2006).

4 GPS oordinats o sttlmnts asd on prsonal rsarh,cross-checked with data by Knight (2003) and Matsuura(2006).



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always lar whthr thir dirnt nams ar au-tonyms or htronyms.

As well as these various ethnonyms, the termPygm has n rappropriatd y thos it d-sris and is widly mployd in th loal Gao-nese dialect o French.5 Though the term is ladenwith ngativ strotyps and has n aordingly

ritiisd in th litratur, w hav hosn to kpit as a local category, as a means o emphasisingth Baongos singular position in th loal thnimosai. Th tis that ind Pygmis and thir nigh-ours ar sn y th lattr not as somthing on-tingent, but as a orm o relationality that is bothgeneralised and systemic: as we were repeated-ly inormed, Every race has its Pygmies.6 EvenWhits ar sn as having Pygmis o thir own,

5 For a discussion o the Western invention o Pygmies, seeBahuht (1993).

6 In loal Frnh, th word ra signis thni group.

whih two o our intrloutors glossd as Jws andEskimos. From th viwpoint o th popl thm-selves, the distinction between the Babongo andtheir neighbours is o a dierent order to the distinc-tion between other ethnic groups. This is why weannot limit ourslvs to thnonyms, whih mightreinorce the idea o identity as something both sel-

sucient and substantive (Bazin 1985). The termPygmy has th signal advantag o mphasisingthe perspective logic at the heart o relations be-tween the Babongo and their neighbours. Indeed,ths intrthni rlations annot onsidrd inisolation rom the two parties representations otheir respective identities and o the undamentalnature o their relations (Bahuchet et Guillaume1979: 111). Thus, th trm Pygmis dnots thBaongo as they are perceived by their neighbours,

just as the French word noirs (Blacks) symmetri-ally dnots nighouring populations as they are

perceived by the Babongo.

Map: Main loations o Baongo villags in th Chaillu mountains.



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Local perceptions o Pygmies are structuredby both physical and sociocultural stereotypes: theyar short o statur and light-skinnd and thy livrom hunting in th orst. This distintion twnPygmis and thir nighours has its roots ar akin history. Rnt studis in population gntis sit-uat th point o sparation twn Pygmis an-stors and thir nighours at last 60,000 yarsago);7 whih is not to suggst that Pygmis onsti-tute a homogeneous population: Central and WestArican Pygmies separated o more than 20,000years ago. And a second separation occurred rough-ly 3,000 years ago, probably sparked o by the Neo-lithi Rvolution and Bantu xpansion into CntralAria. This ld to th mrgn o ontmporaryPygmy groups, as a wave o migration by agricultur-al populations pushd huntr-gathrrs into th or-sts. Th introdution o mtallurgy (a. 500 b.c.e

in Gaon) and ananas nshrind th onomi anddemographic superiority o agriculturalists (Klie-man 2003). Pygmy hunter-gatherer communitiesam isolatd rom on anothr, ut at th samtime began to maintain steady relations with theiragriultural nighours, as attstd to y gn owindicating intermarriage. Thus, western Pygmies aretoday gntially losr to thir agriultural nigh-bours than to eastern Pygmies. Among western Pyg-mis, th Baongo stand out as th group most g-netically proximate to its neighbours (Verdu et al.2009). Though such long-term historical reconstruc-

tions ar prolmati, thy hav th signal virtu osituating Pygmis rmly within history, rathr thanassigning thm th rol o ahistorial huntr-gath-rrs somhow mrging straight out o th Palo-lithi ra (Hadland and Rid 1989; Blnh 1999).Thy allow us to strss th importan and histori-cal depth o relations between Pygmies and theirnighours, who ar ttr thought o as two di-rnt thni groups within a singl soity, rathrthan as two separate societies (Grinker 1990: 112).The ethnic boundary that separates them does notxist in spit o thir soial intrations, ut y vir-

tue o them.8 The two groups interactions are basedon a orm o omplmntary spialisation that di-rts thir listyls: Pygmis spialisation in or-st produts nds its ountrpart in th inrasingagriultural spialisation o thir nighours. Thisinterdependence relies on a system o exchanges:

7 Quintana-Murci et al. (2008); Verdu et al. (2009); Patin et al.(2009). Though soial anthropologists must, o ours, prudent in their use o such data (as culture cannot be mappedonto genes), this work nonetheless opens up a window on A-rias distant past.

8 For a disussion o th notion o thni oundary, s Barth(1969).

agricultural and crat products are traded or theproduce o hunting and gathering. The most pres-tigious orm o xhang ss iron tradd or gam.

It is impossil to say or sur whthr th ag-riulturalists onomi and dmographi suprior-ity was always aompanid y politial asndn-y, or whthr rlations twn Pygmis and thirnighours rmaind rlativly galitarian. What islar is that ontat with Europans shitd thingsin avour o the agriculturalists, as Pygmies are nowalso dpndnt on thir nighours ontrol o thlong-distan trad ntworks that ring thm Euro-pan onsumr itms. Pygmis also provid hapivory that thir nighours sll on to Europans at aprot.9 The villagers economic domination leads toth soial marginalisation o th Pygmis, who arrelegated to an inerior and dependent class. The vil-lagrs prsptiv is thn lgitimisd y idologi-

cal representations wherein they portray themselvesas th Pygmis mastrs or patrons, dsriingthem as slaves and thus reproducing relationalschemas born out o colonialism and the slave trade.Th Mitsogo vn laim that until rntly th Ba-bongo were used as a backup source o sacricialvictims or certain rituals. These are not, howev-r, pris rprsntations o th rality o thir r-lations. Pygmis hav nvr n th agriultural-ists slavs strictu sensu, and in any as, th statuso dpndnts in th rgion is o a ar mor varidand porous natur than th Wstrn notion o slav-

ry would lad us to xpt (Ry 1971). Morovr,Gaons Pygmis position in th intrthni sys-tm at th hart o th slav trad rmains unlar.For instance, many Mitsogo were enslaved and soldrom group to group until they reached the coast.The same is perhaps true o the Babongo (Raponda-Walker 2002; Knight 2003) and is likely the case thatso-called Akoa Pygmies are in act descendants oPygmy populations rom the interior who arrived onth oast y way o slavry. That said, th Baon-gos limited numbers, relative isolation in the or-est, and more nomadic liestyle make it unlikely that

thy wr signiantly involvd in th slav trad.This representation o the Pygmy as slave co-

xists alongsid an qually drogatory rprsnta-tion o thm as animals: rlgatd to th margins ohumanity, they are depicted as closer to monkeysthan mn. On Fang synrti myth attriuts thirorigins to Cains miscegenation with a chimpan-z (widrski 1979: 194). This ida o Pygmis assomhow stial is rmarkaly los to th Wstrn

9 As arly as 1686, Olrt Dappr rmarkd that th kingdomo Loango procured ivory rom dwarves called Back-aks.



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myth o the missing link, which played an importantpart in racial and evolutionist visions o Pygmieswithin anthropology, although it is unlar whthror not thr is a dirt link twn th two.10 Thisstigmatisation is aided by the attribution o a dis-tinctive ethos to Pygmies one which underlinesthir proximity to th animal kingdom. Aordingto one Bapunu woman rom Libreville, Pygmiesgo around nakd. Thy smll ad. And thy spakpoorly. This drogatory rprsntation is also usdto justiy mor rutal haviour, as on man romIkobey put it, Pygmies are almost human. You haveto rutal with thm or thyll mss you around.I you dont scare them, they wont tell you any-thing. The real state o relations between GabonesePygmies and their neighbours varies, however, romgroup to group: the Babongo are, or instance, treat-d lss adly than th Baka, who ar violntly stig-

matised by their Fang neighbours (Cheyssial 2000).Asymmetrical relations between Pygmies andtheir neighbours are reected in group names. Mosto th tim, th Baongo ar alld (and all thm-selves) the Mitsogos Babongo (Abongo a Mitso-go) or th Masangos Baongo (Baongu a Ma-sangu), which is as much as it was when Du Chailluremarked that the Obongos [Babongo] who livewithin th Ashango [Masango] trritory do not goout o that trritory thy ar alld th Oongoso th Ashangos thos who liv among th Njavi[Banzi] ar alld Oongo-Njavi and th sam

with othr tris (1867: 323). This appllation di-rntiats twn sugroups y rsidn, ut thparticle a or ba is also a possessive one. Indeed,some Mitsogo and Masango consider themselves to th ownrs o th Baongo amilis that thirancestors brought out o the orest and seden-tarisd at thir sids in roadsid villags. Suh am-ilis must prorm rtain hors (hunting, agriul-tural labour) or their owners, who oer, in return, amore or less unspecied orm o protection and whotake responsibility or liecycle rituals (marriage, in-itiation, unerals). Owners may even act as adminis-

trativ guardians or thir Baongo. As on Mit-sogo man rom Mimongo said to us, Whn thrar ltions, I draw up th list o my popl.

This asymmtry rsults in a ultur o dpnd-ny: th Baongos is a ultur asd on orrow-ings. Bringing th Baongo out o th orst wasa civilizing act. Villagers claim that they intro-dud th Baongo to lan xogamy: Th Baon-go adoptd th lan aliation o th Mitsogo whobrought them out o the orest. Beore, the Babongo

just got marrid to whomvr, athrs with daugh-

10 S Bahuht (1993) or a disussion o this trnd.

ters. The Babongo have the same social organi-sation as their neighbours and belong to the samelans. Many Mitsogo vn laim that th Baongohave no culture o their own and that they learnt eve-rything rom thir nighours. Languag is a goodindicator o this tenuous cultural demarcation, es-pecially as the vernacular terms usually translatedas thni group atually dsignat th spokn id-iom rst and ormost (suh as eongo, in Gtsogo,the language o the Mitsogo). All Central AricanPygmy languags ar rlatd to th languags spo-ken by their neighbours, past or present, and the lin-gua franca is always the neighbours. In the ChailluMountains, the Babongo speak Getsogo or Yisan-gu (th Masango languag), ut among thmslvsthy also spak Eongw, whih th Mitsogo laimthey do not really understand. It is, however, lin-guistially vry los to Gtsogo, Gvov (th Ba-

vove language) and Gehimbaka (the Simba lan-guage), although it diers in its system o classes, intrms o intonation, and also y virtu o a numro unique expressions. Du Chaillu remarked that theBabongo language was a mixture o what was theirown original language and the languages o the vari-ous tris among whom thy hav rsidd or manyyars past (1867: 323). Although th xistn oa Pygmy protolanguag has nvr n vrid, thidea that Babongo is a linguistic hybrid is supportedby Andr Raponda-Walker (1996: 7), who wrote theonly Eongw grammar to appar to dat.

It thus appars that th opposition twn Ban-tu and Pygmies deended by numerous authors allsdown in th Baongo as, as thy spak a Bantulanguage. Nor is the classical distinction betweennomadic hunter-gatherers and sedentary agricul-turalists o much relevance to the present-day sit-uation. The policy o resettlement in roadside vil-lages, carried out in Gabon since the 1940s, hasbrought the Babongo out o their orests and sed-ntarisd thm (Knight 2003). Th most w an sayis that thy maintain a mor moil way o li thantheir neighbours and spend more time in the or-

est encampments, where they sometimes preservetheir traditional huts. Their sedentarisation hasbeen accompanied by a shit towards agriculture.Du Chaillu ommntd on th asn o Baongoplantations in the mid-nineteenth century, but slash-and-urn agriultur mrgd y th 1940s (whihis to say, quit arly in omparison to othr Pygmygroups), as attested to by Andersson (1983: 2224).Th prodution o asi oodstus or whih thyhad prviously n dpndnt on thir nighoursaordd th Pygmis a gratr dgr o autonomyvis--vis ths lattr (Altha 1965; Guill-Esurt1998). They are, however, rarely sel-sucient in



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ood crops. As one Masango rom Mukandi com-plained to us, The Babongos plantations are toosmall. When theyve eaten everything, they comeand stal rom ours. W mak thm lar our nwplantations as punishmnt, ut it nvr stops thm.This ausation o tht rom plantations onstant-ly rurs in nighours disourss on Pygmis andimplicitly reveals the Babongos decision not to givethmslvs ovr ntirly to agriultur, ut to lingon to a orest way o lie in short to remain special-ised hunter-gatherers in the world o agriculturaliststo whih thy now long (Bahuht 1993a: 153).

Depending on ones point o view, the Babongosshit towards sedentary agriculture can be construedas a orm o ultural alination signalling inrasddependence upon their neighbours or, on the con-trary, as a step towards equality with them. Thisunrtainty spaks to th amivaln o rlations

twn Pygmis and thir nighours, whih n-compass interdependence, latent hostility, and mu-tual attraction (Arom et Thomas 1974: 90). Thisambivalent is evident in intermarriages, which in-variably see Black men marrying Pygmy women.This hyprgamy rprodus thni suordination as one Bakoya rom Ogoou-Ivindo man put it,You will never see Pygmy [men] marrying [womenrom] othr ras, aus thy dont lik us. Thy

just want to make children in Pygmy [womens] bel-lies. They say we have tails [like monkeys], but theymarry our women. Have you ever seen a man marry

a monky? In suh intrmarriags, th wis am-ily is habitually cut o in avour o her husband.Th Baongo ar notal among Pygmy groups orth numr and proaly th historial dpth o in-trmarriags with thir nighours, and somtimsPygmy men even marry Mitsogo or Masango wom-n, whih would unthinkal or Baka Pygmisliving alongside the Fang and most other Pygmygroups. Although the Babongos neighbours tend tohush up such unions, the act remains that mixedmarriags do rat a sort o intrthni solidarity.

The existence o such orms o solidarity be-

twn Pygmis and thir nighours has ld somauthors to hallng th prvailing paradigm o in-terethnic domination. So Jean-Michel Delobeau(1989) speaks o an association between AkaPygmis and th Monzomo in th Cntral ArianRpuli, whilst Hidaki Trashima (1998) gos soar as to describe relations between Ee Pygmiesand th Ls (DR Congo) as symioti. Pygmisand thir nighours otn ormalis thir rlationsin symmetrical partnerships that go ar beyond mereonomi xhangs: ritual rindship, lood pat,ctive kinship, and participation in initiation rites(Rupp 2003). The rst three orms o partnership

do not rally xist among th Baongo, ut partii-pation in initiation rits plays, as w shall s, a kyrole in interethnic relations. Naoki Matsuura (2006)suggests that relations between the Babongo andthir nighours ttr ts a solidarity modl than adomination on and might vn onptualisdas assimilation. He urther claims that the Babon-go and the Masango have developed more or lessequal relations which tend to erase their dierences.Thy liv togthr in villags, ooprat in agriul-tural tasks, marry one another, and participate in thesam rituals. And yt, dspit all this, th Baongoand th Masango maintain th thni oundary thatdivids thm.

Pygmy ethnography thus oscillates both betweenan ideology o domination and an ideology osolidarity (Joiris 2003), and between an ideology odpndn and an idology o autonomy. Th di-

ring prsptivs o various anthropologists play,o course, their part in this, but such ambivalenceis also part and parl o th loal ontxt, as Col-in Turnbull and Paul Schebestas seminal debatesabout the Mbuti make clear. Schebesta described theE-Muti as vassals tid into a mor or lss ty-rannical relation o submission to their village pa-trons (1940: 59 .). Turnbull (1965), on the otherhand, insisted on the Mbutis autonomy. The lat-ter switch back and orth between two opposingworlds, th villag world and th orst world.Though villagers may try to control the Mbuti, when

thy ar prsnt in th villag, this ontrol is alwayscontingent; the Mbuti retain the initiative and can al-ways go ak to th orst i thy ar unhappy withthe situation. Once away rom the noise o thevillag, th Muti rgain thir autonomy. In truth,th ontrovrsy twn Turnull and Shsta isa mattr o prsptiv. Th ormr am into on-tat with th Pygmis via th villagrs and so sawPygmy soity rom th point o viw o villag so-ity (Musur 1969: 157). Turnulls prsptiv,on th othr hand, is onditiond y having livd inth orst with th Muti and rts th Pygmis

view o themselves (157). Schebesta describesPygmy-villagr rlations rom th lattrs point oviw, whras Turnull approahs thm rom thormrs. This is not to suggst that Shsta waswrong and that Turnbull described the Mbuti asthy rally ar. Turnulls vision o th Pygmisharmonious li in th orst is th produt o a ro-mantic ascination that has marked the literatureto a considerable extent (Frankland 1999). Whatis more, one cannot argue that only the Pygmiespoint o viw is aptal, as thir rlations withtheir neighbours is part and parcel o their identi-ty. Pygmy thnography has to tak into aount not



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only Pygmy-villagr rlations ut also thir dir-nt prsptivs on ths rlations.

As the Babongo case clearly shows, this per-sptivist logi is not symmtrial. Th Baongospoint o view introduces a urther layer o complex-ity that o thir nighours lak. Th Baongo arpast mastrs in th art o sing thmslvs as oth-rs s thm and playing on this. This rxiv a-paity to adopt th othrs prsptiv is partiularto thm (th Mitsogo would nvr try to s thm-slvs rom th Pygmis point o viw) and it is aproduct o the asymmetry o their relations: Pyg-mis priv thmslvs in trms o th dominantgroups categories. One oten hears the Babongomokingly rr to on anothr as Pygmis. Thispropensity to see themselves as Pygmies is lessa symptom o their alienation than an ironic sub-version o existing stereotypes that aords them

a degree o liberty.11

In ront o their neighbours,the Babongo requently adopt the latters point oview, living up as much as possible to the stereo-typ o th Pygmy. This stratgy o dissimulationis a tru wapon o th wak and maks th thnog-raphrs work signiantly mor ompliatd. Ev-rything oms a qustion o intrloutory situa-tions: Who is speaking? In what context? In ront owhom? This suvrsiv play with othrs prsp-tives means that one can never tell where the Ba-ongo rally stand, i indd on an assign thma xd pla at all. Th Pygmis rputation as slip-

pery customers is exactly parallelled by their per-ormance o evasion. As one Mitsogo man rom Mi-mongo said to us, th Pygmis ar vry unning,thy lov to lur th lins.12

2 The Mythical Figure o the Pygmyin Their Neighbours Rites

Relations between Pygmies and their neighboursom still mor ompliatd in th ritual sphr.The oremost reason or this is the important role

that Pygmies play in their neighbours rituals.Among the Ngbaka o the Central Arican Republic,hunters use songs to propitiate trapper spirits knownas mmb. These spirits, who are meant to guide

11 Much as with the use o the word nigger in North America,th trm Pygmy has n rapproriatd y th stigmatisdgroup. It is otn usd in an ironi ashion, ut is somtimsinvokd as part o an assrtion o thni idntity whih ssits drogatory qualitis invrtd.

12 The French expression used by our inormant was brouil-ler les pistes. It ould translatd as lurring th lins orcovering ones tracks. The word piste also alludes to theootpaths usd y Pygmis in th orst.

game towards the traps, are in act representations onighouring Aka Pygmy spirits (Arom and Thom-as 1974). The Bahemba o Lake Tanganyika alsohave a cynegetic rite called mhng, where theymploy small sulpturs rprsnting th spirits oBatswa Pygmy hunters (Kazadi 1981). The Bahem-a ar also susptil to possssion y th spiritso dad Pygmis who rturn to tak rvng on thdsndants o thir ormr mastrs. Initiation intothe btmb possession cult allows them to stabilisetheir relationship to these spirits whilst putting themto work or the benet o the community. As the dis-rpany twn atual Pygmis and ritual rpr-sntations o thm maks lar, rits ar a mans oplaying out intrthni rlations on anothr lvl.

Ritual relations between Pygmies and theirnighours ar urthr ompliatd y thir shardpartiipation in numrous rituals. This mutual par-

ticipation in the other groups rituals sometimesleads to such an overlap that it is no longer clearwhos thy originally wr. So Shsta aptly r-marks that it is diult to distinguish twn thBamuti and Blaks in th rligio-spiritual sphr(1940: 89). Turnbull, on the other hand, tries to dem-onstrat that th Muti hav thir own rituals quitdistinct rom those o their neighbours, althoughsom o his own osrvations appar to undrminthis laim. In an artil pulishd in 1957, h looksat th mal initiation among th Muti. This initia-tion rit, whih h alls lusumba and whih is ar-

rid out whn a young man maks his rst ig kill,signals the culmination o his integration into theommunity o huntrs. Crmonis ar also organ-isd in situations o amin, illnss, or dath in or-dr to awakn th orst spirit and ring down hisnvoln. In Wayward Srvants (1965), how-ever, Turnbull disavows his use o the term lusumba,stating that this is the villagers word or one o theirown rituals and that th tru Muti nam is molimo(1965: 25). H also suggsts that som molimo rit-ual hants ar in at drivd rom th nighoursnkumbi male initiation rites, in which the Mbuti also

take part (7780). From the villagers point o view,the molimo is nothing more than a clumsy imita-tion o thir own songs. Although, that said, in thpresence o outsiders, the Mbuti will only perorm aak molimo in whih thy parody th villagrs lu-sumba rite by imitating their inelegant and elephan-tin dmanour (Turnull 1960: 39). Th situationis urther conused by the act that villagers havethir own unrary rit alld molimo.13

13 Th situation is no lss ompliatd whn it oms to th eli-ma, a mal Muti initiation rit, that ars th sam namas that o nighouring villagrs.



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This omplx tangl o dirnt rituals is qual-ly prsnt in th Chaillu mountains, whih oast adozn distint initiation soitis (s Tal). Thsinitiations encompass both coming-o-age rites(whih ar oligatory, olltiv, and sxually sg-rgatd) and rits o afition (whih ar ontxtu-ally dpndnt, individual, and somtims mixd).Som rituals (bwiti, mwiri, nyembe) ar widspradthroughout the region, whilst others are restrictedto particular populations. Thus, the Babongo jeal-ously guard their mudimu, which they consider theirprincipal ritual (even though it seems that some sub-

groups do not prorm it anymor). Although it hasno partiular distinguishing haratristis in trmso its musical structure, nobody contests the ritu-als specically Pygmy origin which is some-what reminiscent o the relationship between thePygmys Eongw languag and th nighouringGtsogo (D Ruytr 2003). Th Baongo ar quitopen-minded about participating in their neigh-ours rits, ut out o onrn or thir idntity arnotably more taciturn when it comes to the mudimu:as one Babongo man rom Mimongo put it, Weant show vrything. Thats just not possil. W

can give away the leaves, but the yam stays with us.When aced with outsiders (including anthropolo-gists), they sometimes even try to pass o one otheir neighbours rituals as the mudimu, thus screen-ing their own ritual with another (just like the Mbutido with th molimo). This ousation is typial oth Baongos tndny to lur th lins and ovrthir traks.Mudimu initiation rquirs a wild yam,game, and honey, all o which invoke the Babongosdistinctive activities: hunting and gathering. The rit-ual is a rite o passage organised when a young mankills his rst bushpig with a spear. The animalsheart is then mixed with particular leaves and the

young man has to at it raw, i.., with this mdi-cine being presented to him on the tip o a spear byan initiatd man. Th ritual also ss th transmis-sion o a symbolic knowledge linked to hunting and,mor gnrally, to th Pygmis origins. Th initia-tion is normally described as catching the mudimuor athing th nyama [gam]. Th word mudimusignis th gams spirit mastr.Mudimu rmo-nies may also be organised in the event o a bad huntin order to propitiate the master o the game. TheBaongos mudimu is a lassi xampl o what wknow o Pygmy rituals.14 These rituals are close-

ly linked to hunting, and most notably to huntingwith spears a specically Pygmy activity. Theyar rquntly onrnd with propitiating mastrso gam. Most o thm an also hld in th vnto crisis, illness, or death and are oten combinedwith rits o passag onntd with a huntrs rstig gam kill. Ths ar losr to ing simpl ritso passage (which consecrate an event external tothe ritual) than ull-blown initiations (which create anew identity sui generis). This marks Pygmy ritualsout rom those o their neighbours (Boyer 1989/90).

Rituals ar not symmtrially shard y th Ba-

ongo and thir nighours. Though th mudimu isnormally rstritd to th Baongo, ths lattr arinitiatd into most o thir nighours rituals. Thtwo groups otn organis olltiv initiation rits(mwiri or mn and nyembe or womn) and ths

14 S Turnull (1965); Bahuht (1992); Joiris (1993); Tsuru(1998). Th similaritis twn mudimu and th Mutismolimo ar striking. In oth ass, it is oth a rit o passagand a rit o propitiation. What is mor, th two words arognat, whih is vn mor rmarkal whn w onsidrthat the term, which means spirit, is absent rom neigh-ouring Gaons languags. That said, th two rituals ardirnt in orm.

Table: Initiation Rituals in th Chaillu Mountains.



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ar oligatory or th Baongo, just as thy ar orthir nighours. Whihvr thni group thy -long to, all young men are equally subject to ini-tiatory hazing during th mwiri. Ths shard ritu-als, aording to Matsuura (2007), ar proo o thquality o rlations twn th Baongo and thirneighbours. However, such equality as there may dos not run vry dp. It is mainly th Mitsogoand th Masango who ontrol th initiation soi-ties and act as cult leaders. For their neighbours, theBabongos participation in initiation ceremonies is asign o their dependence. Whereas or the Babongo,it is a mans o attaining initiatd adult status in theyes o their neighbours.15 This ambivalence sur-rounding the Babongos participation in their neigh-ours rits is a qustion o prsptiv: what lookslik quality rom on point o viw an look likdomination rom another. The diverging points o

view between Matsuura and us regarding the Ba-ongos pla in thir nighours initiations partlydriv rom our rsptiv ld sits: th somwhatgalitarian rlations twn th Baongo and thMasango stand in contrast with the more unequalrelations between the Babongo and the Mitsogo. Yetwe argue that, behind the public aade, the ritualrelations between the Babongo and the Masango areasymmtrial as wll.

Among the rites shared by the Babongo and theirneighbours, it is in the bwiti (or bwete) ritual that therlational situation is most ntangld. Its prinipal

branch, the bwiti disumba, is an obligatory male ini-tiation ritual. It is less an initiatory rite o passage toadulthood (like the mwiri) than a religious initiationthat aords partiular importan to visions and tothe transmission o secret knowledge. The initiationcentres around the ingestion o a plant-based hal-lucinogen called eboga (Tabernanthe iboga). Theinitiats visionary journy taks him to th ans-tors mythical village. The bwiti is based aroundan ancestor cult and the central cult objects, alsoalld bwiti, ar rliquaris ontaining th skulls othe oreathers. Although the Babongo are normally

initiatd into th bwiti disumba in th sam mannras their neighbours, the rituals origins are a sub-

jt o ontrovrsy. In 1910, Andr Raponda-Walk-

15 According to Turnbull (1957), the Mbutis decision to be ini-tiatd into thir nighours rit o passag is only indiativo a suprial adhrn to th rit. For thm, nkumbi is ap-parntly a rathr grotsqu thatr in whih thy partiipatwithout rally living in it. And indd, th initiation dosnot altr th soial status o young Muti mn ak hom.Whatvr th as may , this radial intrprtation, whihexalts the Pygmies pragmatism whilst ridiculing their neigh-ours rdulity, dos not apply to th Baongos initiationinto mwiri.

r rmarkd that th Bouiti [si] apparntly omsrom the Akoa, the Pygmies. It is also sometimesattributed to the Apindji and the Ashango (1998[1910]: 14). This question surrounding its origins isalso o ky importan to th initiats thmslvs,as the knowledge transmitted during the bwiti isdon so in gnalogial trms: to know is to rahak to th origin (go ebando), all th way to thvery rst links in the initiatory chain o transmission(Bonhomme 2007). It is, however, difcult to distin-guish twn thos parts that dal with bwitis a-tual transmission rom on loal population to an-other and those that concern its mythical origins.Both th Mitsogo and th Apindji (who ar loslyrlatd) laim that thy ratd th bwiti and thirneighbours oten attribute it to them. This is alsoth most anthropologially onvining hypothsis.Howvr, many initiats laim that th bwitis ori-

gins lie with the Pygmies. According to one Bapunuinitiator rom Lirvill, bwiti is a rligion ratdy our Pygmy anstors in th virgin orst. Andaccording to another Bapunu initiate, it was thePygmies who rst practised the bwiti. The bwiti wasprormd in th ush, in th orst. Thn th Mit-sogo brought it back to the village. Yet another ver-sion attriuts th bwiti to Pygmy hal-loods orto those attached to their neighbours. As one Bavoveinitiator rom Koulamoutou put it, All th dirntbranches obwiti come rom the Pygmies. Whenpopl say it oms rom th Mitsogo, that mans

it oms rom th Mitsogos Pygmis. Evn thosMitsogo most hostil to th Baongo rognis thatthy playd som part in its mythial ration: a-ording to a Mitsogo initiat in Ikoy, Komi, thMitsogo man who created the bwiti, supposedlyhad a Pygmy brother, called Motsoyi, who cre-atd th Pygmy vrsion o th ritual. Hr again,the bwitis origins are all a matter o perspective.City dwllrs ar mor likly to attriut th bwitito the Babongo than are those who live alongsidethm,16 and th Mitsogo ar lss likly than othrsto do so. As or th Baongo thmslvs, thir dis-

course varies. When asked, some claim that theycreated the bwiti, but others say they took it romthir nighours. This is a lar xampl o th Ba-ongos dual prsptiv, whry thy may rpr-snt thmslvs as ithr Pygmis or as Baongo.Thir rspons dpnds on th ontxt o uttran.Thus, during on intrviw with a Baongo man inMukandi, a nearby Masango man commandeeredth onvrsation and rplid in th ormrs stad:

16 For som ity dwllrs, th trm Pygmy indisriminatlydsris all ush popl,, nompassing Pygmis propras wll as thir villag nighours.



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Guy-Max: Did th Baongo tak th nyembe (mal ini-tiation ritual) rom th Masango?

Babongo man: Our grandparents learned the nyembe withth Masango.

Masango man (interrupting): All those sorts o things, theba-misoko (a ranh o th bwiti), its th Pygmis who

ar th autohthons thr. Evn with th mwiri, th ny-embe, all o that, its thm th autohthons. Thy ganit all. Us Masango, w dvlopd it dirntly.

It is then the Masango man who attributes all the in-itiation rits to th Pygmis, and th Baongo mandoes not contradict him. The interview continuesin the same vein and the Babongo man requent-ly modls his rspons on his nighours point oviw. Th attriution o th bwiti to th Pygmis is,thn, mor thir nighours doing than thir own.In any vnt, th ida that th bwiti originats with

th Pygmis sits unhappily with what w know oPygmy soitis i.., th asn o anstor ults(with th dad oming anonymous spirits roam-ing th orsts) and a ortiori o ults asd aroundrlis (limitd importan is givn to th onsrva-tion and transmission o cult objects). The bwitisinitiatory logi, just lik its rstrition to mn, alsot poorly with what we know o Pygmy rituals,whih ar normally mor xil and haratrisdy lss rigorous gndr sgrgation.

Th attriution o th bwiti to Pygmis partaksthn o th mythial ordr. Th gur o th Pyg-

my eatures heavily in bwiti myths. This is the casein th origin myth o th musial ow (mongongo),one o the two main instruments used during thebwiti (th othr ing th ngombi harp).

In th orst, a Pygmy alls rom a tr and dis. His wid-ow nds his body and inorms the men back at the en-ampmnt. Thy us th dad mans innards to mak thmusical bows vibrating string, his spine to orm the bodyo th ow, and his tiia and radius to mak stiks withwhih to strik th string and hang th pith.

Th ebogas origin myth rlis on a similar narra-

tiv shma:In the orest, a Pygmy alls rom a tree and dies. Anebogaplant grows on the spot where he died. Later, the dead manappars to his widow in a dram and asks hr to vnturinto the orest and eat the ebogas root. She does so and herhusband appears beore her. This is the origin o thebwiti.

The initiates also say that their oreathers learntabout eboga rom the Pygmies. They sometimes addthat the Pygmies only used the eboga so as to be ableto beat their drums without tiring. They made use oth plants stimulating proprtis (whn ingstd insmall doss), rathr than its halluinogni propr-

tis (at highr dosags). Th Pygmis nighourssupposedly took the eboga and put its visionaryproperties to use in their own rituals. In the words oone Vili initiate in Mimongo, The bwiti comes romth Pygmis. Or rathr, Pygmis disovrd ebogay wathing animals at it. Thn thy gav it to thMitsogo who built the bwiti around it. This versionsituats th origins obwiti with th Pygmis, utstops short o giving thm all th rdit or it.

Pygmies, as they appear in bwiti myths, havelittl in ommon with th atual Baongo as thirneighbours know them. These mythical Pygmiesorrspond to an idalisd gur, who appars not

just in bwiti, but in the oral traditions o populationsthroughout Gaon as wll as lswhr in CntralAria.17 This mythial gur taks shap aord-ing to th imag o th primordial Pygmy (Kli-man 2003). The Pygmy is rst and oremost seen

as autochthonous and thus as the lands originalownr (Vansina 1990: 56 .). Most migration narra-tives in Gabon describe meetings with Pygmies, therst inhabitants o the area, who guide the newcom-rs through th orst: thy wr th ompass, ason Bapunu man put it (Dshamps 1962: 25). Orin th words o a Mitsogo man, W ollowd thPygmis and thy showd us th rivrs, th paks,and th ruit trs. Bak thn, w wr on amily(Sall 1985: 236). Fang oral tradition tlls that thPygmis savd thm y piring a hol in a gigan-ti adzap tr (Mimusops djave) that lokd thir

path at th dg o th orst (Frnandz 1982: 57).Th Pygmy qua orst-spialist ats as a nssaryintrmdiary twn th nwomrs and this nvi-ronmnt, whih th villagrs dm hostil and dan-gerous. He is seen as a mediator with the orest spir-its, and is sometimes even identied with them. ThePygmies power is seen as proportional to how deepin th orst thy liv: th mor invisil thy ar,the more powerul they are supposed to be. Peo-pl also say that yond th Baongo (now mainlysdntarisd in roadsid sttlmnts), hiddn in thorest, there are still true Pygmies to be ound.

This legend is based around the opposition betweenral Pygmis, visil to all, and th mythial Pyg-my, who is y dnition invisil. Indd, Pygmis

17 Dspit th urrnt (and prhaps historial) asn o Pyg-my groups in Wst Aria, similar rprsntations ar oundthroughout th rgion, mntioning small, pal-skinnd mnwho spialis in hunting (Klaus Hamrgr, prsonal om-munication). This contrast between Central Arica, wheresymoli rprsntations rr ak to ral populations, andWst Aria, whr ths sam rprsntations xist in a r-rntial vauum, only srvs to highlight th qustion o thtru distan twn th mythial Pygmy gur and atualBaongo.



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have a reputation or being slippery or ungraspa-l. This is linkd to svral haratristi asptso their behaviour as orest dwellers: they live apart,mov quikly and disrtly, ovr thir traks, anddecamp when strangers arrive. But their neighboursalso attriut to thm magial powrs o invisiilityand vn o animal mtamorphosis.

The mythical Pygmy also represents the ancestoro humanity, a sort o Ur-ancestor who preexists lin-ag, lan, and vn thni notions o kinship. Forone Bapunu woman, Pygmies are the rst men.Mitsogo oral tradition has it that the original an-cestor, the trailblazer who came down rom thevillage above to explore this world, was a Pygmynamd Motsoyi (Golln hor t Sillans 1997: 122).H rought with him th ntirty o th human raor, in som vrsions, h ngndrd thm with hiswi Madom, thus giving ris to all th dirnt

races. This Pygmy ancestor is also the bringero civilization. The Pygmies neighbours oten at-tribute to them the rst use o re and o cookedoods, o hunting dogs and trapping thniqus, oweaving and pottery, and even o sedentary lie-styls, mtallurgy, and agriultur. As on Bavovinitiat rom Koulamoutou put it, th Pygmis in-vntd vrything. And so Blaks rdit Pygmiswith rating vn thos things thy do not possssand whih srv prisly to distinguish th ormrrom the latter (sedentarity, metallurgy, and agricul-tur). This is th mythial ontxt in whih w hav

to pla th loal laims that bwiti originats withPygmies: the Pygmies neighbours credit them withinvnting thir own rits. This imag o th iviliz-ing Pygmy is widsprad in Cntral Aria (Bahu-chet et Guillaume 1979; Klieman 2003) and rests onan invrsion o popls livd rality. Anothr mythhelps us to measure the true distance between theoriginal Pygmy and th ontmporary Baongo. Ittlls o th sparation o th thr ras that makup humanity: Pygmis, Blaks, and Whits (Golln-hor t Sillans 1997: 145147).18 Thir athr pr-snts thm with thr hsts and says that ah o

thm must hoos on. Th Blak man hooss thlargst hst, ull o axs and mahts h is on-dmnd to manual laour. Th Whit man hoossthe smallest chest, containing paper and pencils hewill mastr writing and so is dstind to tak om-mand. Th Pygmy manwhil ignors th hst andheads back into the orest to look or honey. ThePygmy hr is no longr prsntd as a hroi ivi-

18 This is a trnary variant o an origin myth o dirns -twn Blaks and Whits that is widsprad throughout A-rica (Grg 1968) and which draws on Biblical narrativessuh as th urs o Canaan and th rivalry twn Isaashildrn.

lizing gur ut via his traditional, ivilization-r-nouning listyl: rom th point o viw o thirneighbours, who consider themselves to be moreevolved, the Pygmies have chosen to remain sav-ages. This myth explains how Pygmies can be con-sidered the Blacks original ancestors, whilst simul-tanously diring y virtu o thir prrn ororst li. As on uran Bapunu woman lgantlyput it, th Pygmis ar our rothrs who rmaindin th ush. In short, th Pygmis nighours rp-resent them in strikingly ambivalent ways: on theone hand, the image o the Pygmy as despicablesavage (used to justiy his subjection), and on theothr, th xaltation o th primordial Pygmy in rit-ual and in myth. As on bwiti initiator rom Lir-ville succinctly put it, the Pygmies are both ourGods and our slavs.

Following Igor Kopyto (1987), Kairn Kliman

(2003) suggests that the relational dynamic betweenallochthones and autochthones that produces the g-ur o th primordial Pygmy in Cntral Aria is tobe ound throughout the whole Niger-Congo region.The incoming Bantu populations needed the (atlast symoli) support o th Pygmis, whom thyonsidrd to th lands autohthonous inhait-ants, in ordr to stalish thir domination. And sothy inorporatd rprsntations o thm into thirrites so as to arrogate their power to themselves.This prhaps xplains why Pygmis today oupyminnt rols in th Mitsogos bwiti. This ritual in-

orporation is asd on a rlational logi that dosnot apply only to Pygmies. Indeed, their place intheir neighbours initiation rites is equivalent to thato women vis--vis male initiates. Outside the ritualcontext, both women and the Babongo are placed ina subordinate position within a relationship o com-plementary hierarchy (sexual hierarchy or wom-n and onomi hirarhy or Pygmis). Th rla-tionship is invrtd in initiation rits origin myths,with initiates attributing the origins o their rituals toPygmis and womn (Bonhomm 2006: 177190).

Mwiri was supposedly discovered by women during

a shing party, beore being expropriated by men(a similar narrativ shma also appars in bwiti).This act o expropriation enacts mens appropria-tion o mal rtility: through th ritual, initiatsclaim to re-engender novices and make men o themwithout th nd or womn. In th sam way, thmyth obwitis Pygmy origins can be seen as a ritu-al appropriation o powers associated with the orestworld.19 Mal initiation rits nat th apturing o

19 The Babongos reluctance to initiate their neighbours intomudimu is nonthlss sn y th lattr as vidn o thirailur to ntirly appropriat th Pygmis powr.



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womns and Pygmis powrs ollowing th samlogi o rlationality.20

This ritual appropriation oprats via a prosso idntiation with th primordial Pygmy. In thwords o on Eshira initiat rom Lirvill, Dur-ing bwiti, w om lik our parnts wr, whnthey were like Pygmies in the orest. Initiatessometimes claim imaginary Pygmy ancestors, es-pecially in urban contexts (the urther away the Pyg-mis ar, th asir it is to idntiy with thm). Thisidntiation is natd during rmonis and sig-nals oth a rturn to ons origins and an appropria-tion o th savag world o th orst. Initiats drssin lavs and animal hids and transorm into orstspirits, whih orrspond to thir antasisd vrsiono Pygmies. One ritual sequence evokes this primor-dial Pygmy gure. Two initiates grasp each other byth waist and gin to spin rntially. This is ol-

lowed by a strange song limited to glottal grunts.Initiates claim that these represent the bwitis origi-nal songs and dans, whn th anstral Pygmishad not yt mastrd singing and rhythmi dan.

The Pygmy gure occupies a central place inbwiti epistemology. The transmission o initiatoryknowldg is surroundd y sry. Initiats gainaccess to dierent inormation according to theirstatus and thir bwiti ag. A junior mmr willhav ass to a srt, ut thr will always aurthr lvl o xplanation availal only to his l-ders. Initiatory knowledge has a layered structure

organisd around a pair o gnalogial and spatialmtaphors dpning ons initiation knowldgis a matter o simultaneously reaching back towardsthe ancestors and heading urther into the orest. Themythial Pygmy gur xists whr ths two mt-aphors meet and is, thereore, associated with themost srt lvl o knowldg. Initiation tahingtaks pla in th orst, in a st-asid pla alldnzimbe or bwenze. Whn thy spak o th dp-st srts, initiats do not hsitat to rmov thirclothing, thus enacting the return to their savage ori-gins. The Pygmy gure is also present in representa-

tions o the initiation language. Initiates use a secretlanguage to speak bwiti, transorming ordinarylanguage by dint o metaphorical transpositions andloanwords rom nighouring languags.21 Among

20 Bwiti also prorms th apturing o th Whit mans pow-r, although outsid th ritual ontxt Whit mn oupy thopposit nd o th soial sptrum to womn and Pygmis(Bonhomm 2010).

21 Baus o th importan o lxial loanwords, th initia-tion languag is otn thought o a pidgin, whih mixs uplmnts rom th languags o all th dirnt populationsthat the bwiti ritual has passed through. This recalls that otherlinguisti admixtur Eongw, th Baongos languag.

the Bavove (also known as Puvi), this secret lan-guag is known as mitimbo and is symolially as-soiatd with Pygmis.

Mitimbo thats bwiti language. Puvi mitimbo. Puvi,youll get to see him. But you cant see mitimbo. Theold Puvi man, th on who knows, th doyn, you ant

s him. Hs a Pygmy. I h wants to xplain ral bwitito you, h will. I h dosnt, hll xplain you lis. Eahrace has its Pygmies. The true Puvi are the ones in theorst, th Pygmis. Th Puvi, thats us villagrs. But youannot undrstand bwiti until you go to th Pygmis. Thtru ons ar hiddn.

For this Bavove initiator, the gure o the Pygmyhiddn in th orst voks th dissimulation that isat th root o th transmission o initiatory knowl-dg. Initiats, just lik Pygmis, lik to ovr thirtraks: thy li, twist, and stall so as to kp som

srts ak rom thir juniors, in ordr to maintaintheir authority over them. bwitis nal secret is asungraspal as th Pygmis thmslvs.

3 The Myth Made Reality: BabongoParticipation in Their Neighbours Rites

Mythial rprsntations o Pygmis play an ssn-tial role in bwiti, but the Babongo also oten partici-pat in th rmonis. In villags whr Baongolive nearby, bwiti organisers requisition their Pyg-

mis to tak part in th all-night-long rmonis.Th prsn o Pygmis is not stritly nssary,ut it is highly wlom, as it provids a ritual in-stantiation o th mythial Pygmy. As on Masan-go rom Ogoou-Lolo put it, Whn a Pygmy takspart in bwiti, his rol is lik a Whit man. Hs thoss, aus hs got all th powr that w took.H an rally usul.Bwiti isnt or Pygmis, utthey are present. Thus or one night, real and myth-ical Pygmies coincide. In a similar way, in one bwitisequence, two women known asyombo are called tomody a mythial matrnal gur, alld Disum-

a, y grating rd padouk wood (whih is a rtil-ity symol). Howvr, th Baongo rmain suor-dinate ritual auxiliaries and their neighbours keepontrol o th initiation soity (just as th yombormain suordinat). Thy ar not tratd with anyparticular reverence and are sent home once theceremony is complete, sometimes without havingn ord ithr ood or lodging. On Baongoinormant rom Makoko complained that Whenthr is a bwiti, thy always say Com along!, utits not so asy to nd somody wholl or you apla to slp, or vn ood and win.

Th Baongo ar also in harg o th ntrtain-



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mnt at thir nighours rmonis. Pygmis arrenowned or their skill as dancers, singers, and mu-siians and ar highly rgardd as mastrs o r-monies throughout Central Arica. The Babongo liveup to this rputation. Thus, th musial ow playris normally a Baongo suh a situation ralls thinstrumnts origin myth (Sal l 1985: 267). Thrwas even a branch o bwiti based on their role asmasters o ceremonies. This branch, called bwitiakoa (literally Pygmy bwiti), was popular untilth mid-twntith ntury on th Gaons oast. Itwas a dance o rejoicing during which dancers com-peted in perorming acrobatic tumbles (Mboumba1988). Bwiti akoa was a proane version o bwitidisumba, whih rtaind th rituals sptaular l-mnts whilst losing its initiatory rol. No us wasmad oeboga and thr wr no rligious visionsor transmission o initiatory knowledge. The only

initiatory aspt o th ritual was th administrationo a vain that hlpd partiipants aquir thiracrobatic prowess. Most dancers were Akoa Pyg-mies who perormed the ritual or the entertainmento thir Myn nighours. Alongsid th Mitso-go and Apindji, Pygmy slavs wr also rnowndbwiti dancers. One o them, a man called Koubarom th Point Dnis, was amous or a long timthroughout the Estuary region or his pirouettes,somersaults, ips, sleight o hand and or hishaoti movmnts whn th xitmnt rahd apitch. He died around the time o the First World

War (Raponda-Walkr t Sillans 1962: 210).Though they are normally conned to a subor-dinat position, th Baongo play a ky rol in r-gional dynamics o ritual circulation and innova-tion. Famed or their song-writing skill, they alsohlp sprad ths songs and do not hsitat to adaptmusial pis rom on ritual to anothr. Thir g-ographic situation also helps them in their role astransmittrs o ritual. Th Chaillu Mountains orma vast ensemble o dense, hilly, and quite isolatedorst, with w inhaitants. Thr ar, or instan,no dirt roads twn th small towns o Ikoy,

Eteke, and Iboundji. This triangle o orest, known asDiboa, constitutes the historical heartland obwiti aswll as th Baongos prinipal zon o sttlmnt.The latter serve as linchpins connecting the dierentloal populations, who all pratis bwiti. Th Pyg-mis rol as ritual innovators an also attriutdto thir listyl and soial organisation, whih arrsptivly mor moil and mor uid than thoso thir nighours (Tsuru 2001). Thy ar lss d-pndnt on ult ladrs, who nsur a rtain ritualorthodoxy in neighbouring populations. The Babon-go, in contrast, are characterised by a creative indis-cipline that their neighbours condemn as disorderly.

Th Baongo play an spially important rolin bwiti misoko. I loal mtaphor dsris disum-ba as the trunk obwiti, then misoko is a side branch(Bonhomm 2006). In Gaon, th sphr o initia-tion is traditionally struturd y an opposition -twn mal rligious visions and mal thrapu-ti possssion (Mary 1983). In th southrn hal othe country, bwiti disumba marks a contrast with thedierent local variants o emale possession cults(ombudi, mabanzi, elombo, t.).Bwiti misoko, onthe other hand, is a hybrid ritual as, though it re-mains centred around visions, these are less reli-gious than divinatory. It is a rite o afiction: it ismisortune that leads people to join the cult andtheir initiatory visions are principally concernedwith identiying the witch at the root o the problem.Initiators, alld nganga-a-misoko, also at as hal-rs and divinrs.Misoko an urthr rokn up

into suranhs. Th arlist o ths oms romth Mitsogo and is alld myobe.Ngonde is a morrnt and mor sptaular ranh, whih spial-ises in divination and comes rom the Bavove.Bwitimisoko ngonde proaly mrgd in th rst hal othe 20th century and has, since the 1980s, spreadthroughout the country, displacing myobe and di-sumba ceremonies. It is rmly established in thesouthrn hal o th ountry as wll as in most ur-an ntrs. Its suss is down to a w grat initi-ates, who have undertaken ull-scale initiation tourso th ountry, proslytising as thy go and rating

nw tmpls (mbandja), whih thy thn ntrustto thir bwiti hildrn. In th Chaillu Mountains,the rise omisoko has shited the centre o initiatoryativity astwards. Th rangs wstrn rahs arpopulated by the Mitsogo and Apindji, who special-is in disumba, whras misoko is assoiatd withthe Masango, Bavove, and Simba urther to the east.The Babongo, who live on the border between thesetwo zones, play a key role in the ritual dynamicsthat have led to misokos emergence out odisumba.

Indd, bwiti misoko is th produt o a prosso regional ritual synthesis that incorporates Pygmy

lmnts. For instan, buluma is a propitiatory in-voation mployd y th Baongo or hunting andis doubtless linked to mudimu, though it has nowallen into disuse. This invocation has been trans-planted into the misoko ritual. Thus, a Pygmy ritehas n mddd in on o thir nighours ritu-als as a susidiary squn. This link twn mu-dimu, buluma, and misoko was onrmd y a Ba-bongo nganga rom Mimongo: Old man Dumu andold man Manuma [amd misoko initiators] wntto th Baongo to initiatd into buluma. Atr-wards, whn thy invokd thir bwiti, popl wrshakn y spirits. You ant a ral nganga until



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youre initiated into mudimu. The idea that bulumahas n transposd into bwiti is urthr onrmdy th prsn o two sparat invoations (mwa-go and buluma) in misoko, whereas originally di-sumba only had mwago (a long prayr addrssd toth anstors).Buluma, in ontrast, is muh rirand is linkd to hunting and divination. It spaks ospar hunting, hounds, traking and gam. Aord-ing to initiats intrprtations, it is a onsultationdon or th hunt so that th bwiti will indiatthe path leading to good bush. There is a strongsymbolic association between hunting and divina-tion. Diviners are compared to a hunter and his dog:they sni out witchcrat like a hunting dog snisout gam (on o thir thniqus onsists o smll-ing th patints hand). On its way rom th Baon-go to thir nighours, buluma wnt rom ing anact o cynegetic propitiation to one o therapeutic

divination, with its hunting symbolism being adapt-d to th nw rgistr. This kind o transposition isommon in Cntral Aria: rituals usd y Pygmisor hunting are used by their neighbours or heal-ing (Andersson 1983: 107). Pygmies, unlike theirnighours, ar mor intrstd in hunting than inwithrat.

Bwiti misoko ngonde inorporats Baongo l-mnts, ut dos this man that it originats with thPygmis? Th Masango and Baongo who oha-it in villags twn Mimongo and Koulamoutouoth otn say that, though disumba wnt rom th

Mitsogo to th Masango and rom thr to th Ba-bongo, misoko went rom the Babongo to the Ba-vov and thn to th Masango. This, howvr, iscontradicted by individual initiatory genealogies.Most Babongo misoko practitioners were initiatedy thir nighours, rathr than y othr Baongo.In the eastern part o the Chaillu Mountains, the Ba-bongo were oten initiated by Bavove and Simba. Toth wst, th hains o initiation ar yt mor on-voluted. Babongo rom villages around Ikobey werenot initiated by their immediate neighbours (theMitsogo, who generally practise disumba), but by

a Bapunu man called Desayo, renowned through-out th ountry. This lattr, on o th ritual ntr-prnurs who hlpd popularis misoko, has initiat-d hundrds o popl sin th 1970s. Though thmythical Pygmy is held to be the rst bwiti initi-at, th Baongo ar in at quit otn th vry lastlinks in th hain o transmission.

Nowadays, however, there are many Babongobwiti misoko initiators. The Babongo mainly spe-cialise in misoko rather than disumba, into whichthy may initiatd ut ar rarly initiators. It isnotable that in a mixed village like Mukandi, thedisumba mbandja (tmpl or mns hous) is Ma-

sango, whilst the misoko temple is Babongo. Foreveryone except the Babongo, the bwiti disumbais on o th ornrstons o thni idntity in thChaillu Mountains. Bing a ral Mitsogo or Ap-indji mans ing an initiat. An unitiatd man an-not enter the mens house and take part in collec-tive decision-making. The institution o initiationplays an ssntial rol in th rprodution o loalsoial organisation. Proppd up y th loal ans-tor ult, disumba srvs to rinor and lgitimismal ldrs domination o womn, juniors, and d-pndnts. It is, in Ioan Lwiss (1971) trms, a n-tral ult, whos rligious and politial untions arintrinsially intrtwind. As thy ar dominatd ytheir neighbours, the Babongo are conned to a sub-ordinat rol in bwiti disumba.Bwiti misoko, on thother hand, is not associated with any particular eth-nic identity and has a more individual dimension.

This ranh o th ult is ngagd in a pross opriphralisation, whry bwiti oms dtahdrom the traditional ancestor cult, loses its politi-al ntrality and taks on a thraputi and divina-tory rol.22 Th assrtion and lgitimation o malelders authority is no longer really central to theult.Bwiti Misoko is mor dtahd rom loal so-cial organisation and, thereore, presents the Babon-go with an opportunity to emancipate themselvesrom thir nighours ritual suprvision it is as-ir or thm to hold important positions.23Misoko,thn, startd to appal to th Baongo just as it was

oming to widr national attntion. It is no oini-dn that around this tim som misoko ommuni-tis gan to admit mal initiats, known as ma-bundi. Bwiti misoko allowed or the simultaneousmanipation o th Baongo and o womn, otho whom had up until thn n aught up in a rla-tionship o initiatory domination.

Th Pygmis ar amd throughout Cntral A-ria or thir knowldg o th haling proprtis oplants and otn spialis in nganga halr-divinrativitis. Th Baka, or instan, trat thir nigh-bours the same neighbours rom whom they learnt

all their nganga rituals (Tsuru 1998). In Gabon,where initiation rites are still very common, a ngan-ga career is doubly attractive because it connotesmmrship o a prstigious and widly implantdritual orporation. Nowadays, th Baongo ar a-

22 For a disussion o prosss o ntralisation and priphr-alisation o ults, s also Brgr (2010).

23 S. Frniss (2008) describes a similar situation among theBaka Pygmis o Camroon. Whras Eastrn Baka rmainsuordinat ators in th irumision ritual o thir Kwland Bangando neighbours, Western Baka have borrowed thisritual rom the Bangando and have now become specialists inharg o thir own nighours irumision.



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mous in th whol o Gaon as xllnt nganga-a-misoko and popl om rom aar to tratdor initiated by them (Matsuura 2010). Some Babon-go villages have even developed a proper trade inrligious haling. Uran initiats prorm pilgrim-ages to Pygmy villages to acquire ritual prestige.Baongo nganga ar in dmand as ar ald as Li-rvill. Th Baongo who liv nar Butumi vnbenet rom a brand new mobile phone tower in thesurrounding area that enables them to directly getin touch with potential clients in town, hence by-passing thir Masango nighours (Matsuura, prs.omm.). It is not unknown or politial lits to askPygmis to ulltproo thm against thir rivals.Thanks to the misoko, bwiti may have lost its lo-al politial ntrality, ut it has om a ritual r-sour that an dployd in politial omptitionat th national lvl. Spialisd as it is in th man-

agmnt o ortun and misortun, misoko is wlladaptd to politial modrnity, to its risks, and to itsunprditaility.

Pygmies new ritual prestige even extends toWhite men. The last ten years have seen themrgn o initiation tourism in Gaon (Chaloz2009). Most tourists go no urthr than Lirvill,ut som rav souls visit th Baongo to initi-ated. These Westerners oten share a primitivist con-ception o Pygmies which partially overlaps with lo-al rprsntations o thm. Considrd to rstpopl, thy ar thought to pratis a mor authn-

ti orm obwiti than thir nighours. This tradin religious healing generates more revenue than thesale o orest produce. Bwiti misoko, then, allowsPygmis to attain dsiral soial status and som-tims vn to tak a wi rom among thir nigh-bours women. For the neighbours, and especiallyor the Mitsogo, this is highly unwelcome. Theyhav troul oming to trms with thir Pygmising manipatd and ar unhappy aout th or-eigners who come to be initiated by the Babongorathr than y thmslvs, whom thy onsidr thoriginal practitioners obwiti. In short, bwiti misoko

is th Pygmis rvng on thir nighours. By -coming specialists in their neighbours rites, theyhave ironically transormed the bwiti myth o theprimordial Pygmy into rality (just as mabundi an sn as somhow nating th myth o th ritu-als emale origin). Thus the Babongo have nal-ly assimilated the gure o the Pygmy createdor thm y thir nighours, and in so doing thyhave urther blurred the lines between myth andrality.

4 Conclusion

In this artil w hav oussd on th ritual pror-man o rlations twn Baongo Pygmis andthir nighours, looking at th ways in whih ini-tiation rits allow or th rngotiation o soial tiscontracted outside the ritual context. To this end,w hav ndavourd not to onstrit th as studywith rstritiv thnography, trying instad to situ-at it within widr pattrns o ritual logi and dy-namis o ritual hang within th rgion. Th Ba-bongo are to their neighbours as women are to men.Outsid th ontxt o initiation, oth womn andthe Babongo occupy subordinate positions in the re-lationships o complementary hierarchy that respec-tively link them to men and to neighbouring popula-tions.Bwiti invrss this rlational orm y plaingwomn and Pygmis at th starting point o th rit-

ual and o its power. This dual mythical origin isenacted via their actual participation in ceremonies,howvr, thir prsn rmains suordinat to thmythial rprsntations ontrolld y ult ladrs.Th Baongo who prorm at bwiti disumba r-monis ar supposd to mody th Pygmy as his onstrud y thir nighours. In similar ashion,th two womn who grat padouk during on ritualsqun ar supposd to mody woman as shis construed by men (indeed, they can also be re-placed by initiates dressed as women). Both the Ba-ongo and womn ar prsnt not aus o what

thy ar, ut aus o what thy rprsnt in a rit-ual organisd ntirly rom th prsptiv o malelders. The relationship between myth and ritualor, mor prisly, twn rprsntations and a-tion in th ritual ontxt, rmains stritly ontrolldy ult ladrs. Connd to sualtrn rols, nithrwomen nor the Babongo have any scope or innova-tion.Bwiti disumba plays a central role in the repro-dution o mal ldrs domination o thir juniors,womn, and dpndnts in th villag ommunity.

Th Baongos status has also n atd yth proound hangs undrgon y bwiti ovr th

ours o th 20th ntury and th national xpan-sion obwiti misoko since the 1980s constitutes asigniant turning point. Th shit rom disumba tomisoko has seen the cult taking a therapeutic turnand becoming increasingly peripheralised: as thelinks to th anstor ult and th dominan o l-dr mn hav n gradually waknd, bwiti haslost its politial ntrality. This doupling o ritualrom local social organisation has allowed or theemancipation o subordinate social actors. Juniormn ood th initiatory sphr (partiularly in ur-an aras), ypassing thir ldrs and orging a a-rr as athr-initiator. Womn, too, ar mor and



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more present and no longer hesitate to challengemens initiatory authority, asserting the independ-n omabundi, thir own ranh obwiti. As orBabongo Pygmies, they are no longer mere ritualntrtainrs srving thir nighours and hav -come renowned nganga in competition with theirormer initiators. This initiatory emancipation re-negotiates the relationship between ritual and myth,whih had until rntly n ontrolld y th ultladrs. In oming ull-lown ritual ators, oththe Babongo and the women enact the bwitis originmyth on their own account. Th shit in Pygmisinitiatory status is part o a widr pross o rom-position o th ld o rligious haling, whih hassn sualtrn ators mrg as ntral partiipantson th ritual sn.

Th artil was writtn y J. Bonhomm and M. D Ruy-tr. Th thnography on whih it is asd is drivd romeldwork conducted by J. Bonhomme, M. De Ruyter, andG.-M. Moussavou. Th artil has n translatd romFrnh y Matthw Cary.

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