On The Hunt With Central Africa’s ‘Lost’ Shark-Toothed Pygmy Tribe

Paula Froelich with one of her pygmy guides in the Sangha Tri-National Protected Area in the Central African Republic. Image: Paula Froelich via New York Post

BY PAULA FROELICH

In a small corner of the civil war-ravaged Central African Republic lives a tribe of strikingly small people struggling to keep their ancient culture intact.

The Ba’Aka, rarely seen by Westerners, stand between four and five feet tall and live a semi-nomadic life in the impenetrable jungles of the Dzangha-Sangha National Park, located in the Tri-National Protected Area that abuts Cameroon and the Republic of Congo.

Last year, I had the opportunity to go hunting with members of the tribe.

The Ba’Aka are legendary trackers with an encyclopedic knowledge of the forest, which has safeguarded them for thousands of years.

“Their knowledge helped them escape slave traders and evade conflicts [in the past],” explained Alon Cassidy, whose family runs the nearby Sangha Lodge and the Sangha Pangolin Project, which works to save the world’s most trafficked animal — the pangolin, a type of anteater — from extinction. “When people would attack or invade, they would just disappear back into the forest.”

The competition to hunt with outsiders is fierce, as it not only provides the Ba’Aka a ride into the dense jungle but added resources as visitors pay a fee for the “cultural activity”.

Only 100 people visited Dzangha-Sangha Park in 2019. When the trucks holding me and four others pulled into the small town of Mossapula, the fighting was fierce to get picked: Within seconds, our trucks were swarmed with Ba’Aka, all armed with a machete and a hunting net.

Christion Bangala, a Bantu guide and interpreter, chose around 20 of the Ba’aka hunters — as many as could fit on the trucks, including men, women and children — and we set off down the main dirt road. The roads are basic to say the least, and it was post-rainy season. After a mile or two, the lead truck blew a tire. It was fixed, but a little later our path was blocked by a downed tree, forcing us to walk part of the way.

After about a mile, the leader picked a spot and we entered the bush, trying to follow the Ba’Aka who easily disappeared into the foliage. At some points, we could only follow them by sound as, unlike Western hunters, the Ba’Aka make as much noise as possible, singing songs as they wield machetes through the thick, confusing growth.

“It scares the animals into being still and trying to hide,” Bangala explained as we ran to catch up.

Once a suitable spot was chosen, the Ba’aka unfurled their nets and wandered into the center of the large trap, yelling, beating bushes and stomping to flush out any hiding animals.

After several tries, no animals were caught so the Ba’Aka decided to call it a day.

“They will go out again tomorrow,” Cassidy explained. “They will hunt several times a week as needs dictate, and sometimes leave for up to six months to collect meat to sell in the bush markets.”

For almost 4,000 years, the isolated Ba’Aka pygmy tribe has led an autonomous life hunting and gathering in this area known as the “Lungs of Africa.” For those lucky enough to come across them, they are instantly recognizable, not just for their short stature, but their physical appearance.

A Ba’Aka leaf hut sits in the foreground of Bantu homes in the village of Mossepula, in the Central African Republic. Image: Paula Froelich via New York Post

While both genders have tattoos, only women mark their face by slicing their flesh with sharp knives in and rubbing a certain forest leaf on it that turns the skin blue, black or green on contact.

The men and women carve their top teeth into sharp, shark-like points. The procedure, which usually takes place when at nine or 10 years of age, involves them biting down on a stick while their teeth are chiseled into shape by a rock or a machete.

“It’s very painful,” said Bangala, 46. “When they are out hunting for long periods of time in the forest [the pointed teeth] help with biting into meat. It also is for beauty and it shows they can withstand great pain and are courageous. [Long ago,] if you didn’t have sharp teeth you couldn’t get married and were considered weak.”

The tribe subsists by hunting mostly small antelope called duiker and wild hogs but also small rodents, porcupines, birds, monkeys and almost anything that gets caught in their nets. But certain animals are more important than others.

“If you want to marry a girl, you have to bring her parents the meat of a red river hog,” Bangala said. “It is a delicacy.”

While some of the meat the Ba’Aka hunt is unpalatable to Western culture, “This type of hunting is sustainable.”

The tribe supplements their diet with honey, nuts, forest fruits and vegetables, and water found inside jungle vines that grow liberally in the forests.

These forests, full of old-growth, 1,000-year-old trees are now under threat due to illegal logging, meaning the Ba’Aka. way of life is also at risk. After the creation of the national park in 1990, many of them now live in semi-permanent homes along the road leading into the small town of Mossapula, albeit still in their traditional round, igloo-like huts made from twigs and leaves.

They have their own distinctive language, and their hypnotic polyphonic music has was recorded by the anthropologist Louis Sarno in the 2000 album “BOYOBI: Ritual Music of the Rainforest Pygmies.”

“Things are changing now,” Bangala said. “But for these people, like is almost the same as it has been for thousands of years, except they wear Western clothing instead of leaves and bark like they used to.”

While it might seem primitive, we could learn a lot from the Ba’Aka. In these times of #MeToo, the ancient Ba’Aka culture is one of the most gender-neutral cultures in the world, with almost no differentiation between male and female roles. Childcare is split almost evenly, with men feeding and watching young children as much as the women do. Men will often stay home with babies while women find work on nearby plantations.

Both sexes hunt, clean and gather necessities from the forest, and there is only one non-negotiable gender-specific task: house building.

“That is women’s work,” Bangala noted. “Men will not build the house.”

The Ba’Aka also have deep respect for their elders. “The family will all hunt together. If the children are school age, grandparents will take care of them while the parents hunt,” Bangala said.

“They are holding on to 70 to 80 percent of their culture right now,” he added. At least until the forest disappears.

SOURCE: NEW YORK POST

Lagos Jungle Blues, 1984

A party all around the city and we had partied hard
We walked through the army barracks, the signals
It had been all guarded by the juntas
Guns can be seen all around their shoulders
Waiting for orders and the last command
It breezed in when we all had gone to sleep
We had expected the president's new year message
It never came,
Martial music had filled the air waves
Up and in much anticipation, we had guessed
The possibilities of the military juntas
Wrestling power from the people, again
Civilians had begun to celebrate and,
Chants welcoming the juntas filled the air;
The president and the 2nd Republic
Had been toppled

The mood was one full of uncertainties
The juntas only wanted to make the people blue
The khaki boys announced why they took power
A widespread scandals of bribery and corruption
And a nation overwhelmed by disobedient
And reckless, bloody civilians
A one-star general had announced on the radio
Proclaiming dictatorship and absolute power
A new head of the juntas popped up
With chopped up measures and decrees
Which destroyed all aspects of civil liberties
And had become the order of the day and time
I was not really worried of Totalitarianism
Because I had not played any part in either
Of the military and civilian administration
To be charged for any wrongdoing

It was business as usual with no prohibition
Life was very normal and didn't make any difference
Only what I witnesed could differ
I saw a killing by firing squad for drug peddling
I saw an artist slammed for carrying alien money
I saw journalists ripped off their pants and caned
I saw people of the media sent to the gulag
And I had seen a slammed for the juntas' leaks
The decrees had been disturbing as
The juntas never stopped harassing the people
People started to disappear inexplicably
Which had made the place spooky
Without changes or any improvements
We could only see a change of hands
Between the military juntas,
And the thieving civilian politicians

They locked up all their subjects
And charged them with all sorts of crimes
Asserting the country had been ruined
By we they called 'bloody civilians'
Making all of us nervous as we panicked
While they duped the people
And raped the treasury empty, and
Institutionalized corruption
With a series of tricks and games
Pushed and shoved it in our face
As we carried the nation's burden
Which they tarnished while we looked bad
Bribery and corruption had continued apace
Even though the juntas said,
They came to set the priorities right
It was all a gimmick, in the long run


---------------------Ambrose Ehirim

I was raised by monkeys after being kidnapped and abandoned in jungle as a child, says Marina Chapman

FEW housewives could boast of a compelling and exotic life story to rival that of Marina Chapman.

BY HELEN WEATHERS/DAILY MAIL/ADELAIDE NOW

Marina Chapman claims she was raised by a troop of capuchin monkeys in the jungles of Colombia Source: Herald Sun

Born in Colombia, it is said she was kidnapped aged four and abandoned in the jungle, where for five extraordinary years she was raised by a colony of capuchin monkeys.

As their adopted daughter, she claims she learned to scale trees and catch birds and rabbits with her bare hands, her Tarzan-like existence coming to an end only when she was discovered by hunters.

Her story is the subject of a book called The Girl With No Name, due to be published in Britain next year. There are also plans for a TV documentary.

The PR blurb for the book, the rights to which have already been sold in seven countries, says breathlessly of her capuchin "family": "By following them and copying what they ate and drank, their social activities, their language, Marina gradually became part of the family for five extraordinary years.

"They fought, played and shared tender and terrifying experiences. Marina developed extraordinary super-human abilities such as tree-climbing, stealth and animal communication."

Compelling indeed, especially when set against the backdrop of her adopted home of Bradford, where she trained as a cook, worked at the National Media Museum, then switched careers to help troubled young children, after marrying a local bacteriologist in the 1970s.

Yesterday Marina — who believes herself to be in her 50s but cannot be certain of her birthdate — declined to elaborate further when she answered the door at her three-bedroomed semi in the middle-class suburb of Allerton. She politely explained that a publishing deal prevented her from speaking about her past.

An avid church-goer, she is popular with her neighbours, who speak of her caring nature - rather than her unusual childhood. In fact, the neighbours we spoke to had no idea of her time running with monkeys, for in Bradford she is better known for once cooking a quiche for the Duke of Kent, who apparently declared it "the best I’ve ever had".

Her 64-year-old husband John, a former church organist, spoke only to insist, good-humouredly, that they had not raised their children like monkeys. This was in response to their 28-year-old daughter Vanessa’s comment in one report at the weekend that: "When we wanted food, we’d have to make noises for it."

Certainly, Marina is not the only feral child believed to have been reared by animals, and experts say monkeys are known to accept young humans into their fold.

In 1991 a six-year-old Ugandan boy, John Ssebunya, was found hiding in a tree having spent three years in the wild, cared for to some extent by vervet monkeys. Now aged 27, he learned to speak and sing, touring with a choir.

In another famous case, in 1996, two-year-old Bello was found living with chimpanzees in northern Nigeria. He was believed to have been abandoned at six months old and when first discovered he walked like a chimp, dragging his arms on the ground. He died in 2005.

Other feral children have been raised by wolves, goats and dogs - but capuchin monkeys? This is the one aspect of Marina’s story which has left some primate experts well and truly baffled. Especially as the average height of a capuchin is between 30cm and 50cm.

One expert told us: "Chimpanzees, yes, I could imagine that. And possibly orangutans. But capuchins? That would be truly extraordinary.

"Capuchins are very sociable and intelligent animals, but they can also be highly aggressive, territorial and vicious. They have been known to kill each other in territorial disputes.

"An adult male capuchin monkey weighs around 6 or 7kg, about half the size of a three-year-old child. It wouldn’t be able to pick up a baby, let alone a small girl of four.

"They live in colonies of around 30 or 40 and roam the jungle, covering around 12-18km a day, so how a human would be able to follow them and become part of the colony I do not know.

"I could imagine a young child learning certain skills from capuchins, especially from those primates which have grown up in areas populated by humans, but it stretches the imagination to think of a child becoming a part of a capuchin family."

This, one can only suppose, makes Marina’s survival in the jungle all the more remarkable.

Indeed, the book publicity adds: "Surrounded by terrifying noises and trapped by its sheer suffocating deafness, half-drugged and starving, Marina tried to find her way home. She searched for food and water along the way, competing with big cats, poisonous spiders, giant pythons, extraordinary insects and huge bats."

How Marina integrated back into society after five years isolated from human company is not explained.

However, her account does detail how the hunters who found her in the jungle sold her into prostitution in exchange for a parrot, and how she managed to escape before having to see her first client - only to end up on the streets of Cucuta, reputedly one of Colombia’s most lawless cities, picking pockets to survive.

Eventually she led her own gang of thieves made up of orphans and homeless children.

In her mid-teens she found employment with a Colombian family as a maid. She lived with the family, but worked mainly for the neighbours, who were in the textile business.

When they went on a six-month trip to Bradford in the mid-Seventies, they took her along. It was here, in 1977, that Marina Luz - the name she gave herself - married John, whom she had met at a church meeting. They had two daughters, brought up, so this remarkable tale goes, in part as if they were monkeys.

As for who took her into the jungle in the first place, one of Marina’s daughters, composer and model Vanessa James, said her mother’s abduction was by unknown kidnappers, presumably seeking a ransom.

"It’s assumed that the kidnap went wrong," she said in an interview. "All she can remember is being chloroformed with a hand over her mouth. And all she can remember of her life before that is having a black doll as a toddler.

"Obviously she learned to fend for herself and only once got very ill when she ate something poisonous."

Vanessa said of her childhood, which involved creepy-crawlies and mammals being brought into the house: "All my school friends loved Mum because she was so unusual. She was childlike, too, in many ways.

"I got bedtime stories about the jungle, as did my sister. We didn’t think it odd — it was just Mum telling her life."

Mother and daughter returned to Colombia five years ago in a failed attempt to trace Marina’s parents, and decided to write her story - until now unknown outside her close family - to highlight the problems of child abduction and trafficking.

A share of the profits from the book will be donated to charities fighting human trafficking and child slavery in Colombia.

Marina was signed up by literary agent Andrew Lownie, who yesterday explained he too is unable to talk about her book until it is published.

However, a biography of Marina on his website describes her as ‘an exceptionally rare, arguably unique example of an abused, uneducated feral child who has somehow survived and conquered her misfortune.

"Part of the wild child is still very much in her; she has spent much of her time in England embarrassing her children by scaling trees in seconds, catching wild birds and rabbits with her bare hands, as well as milking the odd passing cow."

One thing’s for sure, this Bradford housewife’s story gets more and more curious with every detail.

Nigerian Jungle Blues and Sunday Cartoons

Vice President Goodluck Jonathan has warned key government officials who peddle rumour to be ready for the exit door. Talking tough yesterday, he said that government was aware of the presence of mischief makers within its fold and would soon decisively deal with them. MORE @ SUN NEWS ONLINE


Ogbonna Onovo, Inspector General of Police "Kidnappers Storm Presidency Abduct Son of Yar’adua’s Top Aide Demand N20 Million Ransom We’re on their Trail -Police" Kidnappers struck The Presidency yesterday when they abducted a four-month-old male baby of the Commander of the presidential aircraft fleet, Air Commodore Aminu Adamu. Sunday Trust gathered last night that the child, called Al-Amin, was kidnapped at the Apo Zone D residence of the Aminus, and that the kidnappers were asking for N20 million ransom from the baby’s parents. MORE @ SUNDAY TRUST


"How to cut down cost of fuel consumption." SOURCE: PUNCH


SOURCE: GUARDIAN


SOURCE: SUN NEWS ONLINE


SOURCE: SUNDAY TRUST

Nigerian Jungle Blues and Cartoons

ABUJA—A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, yesterday, declared that Vice President Jonathan Goodluck is empowered by the 1999 Constitution to exercise, in the absence of President Umaru Yar’Adua, all the powers vested in him, including signing of sensitive documents, so far such powers are delegated to him. The presiding high court judge, Justice Dan Abutu made the pronouncement while interpreting the meanings and intendments of sections 5(1) and 148 (1) of the 1999 constitution in a suit brought by a lawyer, Mr. Christopher Onwuekwe. Onwuekwe, in his suit, FHC/ABJ/CS/10/2010, had requested the high court to declare that in the absence of President Yar’Adua who is receiving treatment in Saudi Arabia, the Vice President, by virtue of the provisions of Section 5(1) and 148 (1) of the 1999 Constitution, could exercise all the powers vested in the President in the interest of peace, order and good governance pending when his boss, Yar’Adua, would resume office. He sued the Attorney General of the Federation and the Executive Council of the Federation. MORE @ VANGUARD



href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2HKPa9vj8GF-FPrxD4h8wQxpPj5KwlWcjGsebCfUA_4scQt0l6lYWTNDV6shpUJ3vhWXGy19ji6qjgVx8jTAJj0YVq5MrYLFpP2fOLcc4_UIEEH1ydMMZdAzz2-G-wsZdEV4H_1w_s3s/s1600-h/sunnews.gif">SOURCE: SUN NEWS ONLINE


SOURCE: NIGERIAN TRIBUNE


SOURCE: GUARDIAN


SOURCE: BLACK NEWS

Nigeria Jungle Blues and Thursday Cartoons

FIFTEEN new Federal permanent secretaries who were appointed by President Umaru Musa Yar’adua in October last year have been cooling their heels for nearly three months because his absence from the country has stalled their swearing-in ceremony and assignment of portfolios. One of them actually died last month while waiting to be sworn-in. MORE @ DAILY TRUST


"I Spoke With Yar'Adua Briefly - Jonathan." MEETING: From right; Osun State Governor, Chief Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Ebonyi State Governor, Chief Martin Elechi, Niger State Governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu and Governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo State, after the PDP Governors' meeting with Vice President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja, yesterday. MORE @ VANGUARD


"We Don't Know When Yar"Adua Will Return - PDP Govs" Nasarawa State Governor, Akwe Doma (left); Kwara State Governor, Bukola Saraki; Kaduna State Governor, Namadi Sambo; and Cross River State Governor, Liyel Imoke; after a meeting with Vice President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja on Wednesday. MORE @ DAILY INDEPENDENT


SOURCE: GUARDIAN


SOURCE: PUNCH


SOURCE: SUN NEWS ONLINE

Turmoil Christmas and Friday Cartoons

'People doing last minute shopping for Christmas yesterday in Lagos.' It’s Christmas again, but how many Nigerians know it as a fact in the true sense? How many people are really getting that special feeling which traditionally comes with the yuletide? How many are really sharing in the joy and goodwill the season has brought to the world? A cursory assessment of the local situation reveals that this year’s Christmas does not appear to be the best in recent times for the average Nigerian. Sola Ogundipe encounters persons who don’t know it’s Christmas and those who know but don’t give a care. MORE @ VANGUARD


There will be no Christmas and New Year holidays and celebration for some key members of the federal cabinet over the persistent fuel scarcity and epileptic power supply across the country. Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan who gave the directive in Abuja yesterday said the affected ministers should remain at their duty posts throughout the festivities until normalcy returns in the supply of fuel and power stabilizes a bit... Those affected are the Minister of Petroleum, Dr. Rilwanu Lukman, Minister of State, Mr. Odein Ajumogobia, the Minister of Power, Dr. Lanre Babalola and the Minister of State, Mr. Nuhu Wya. MORE @ SUN NEWS ONLINE


The News Cover Page


SOURCE: GUARDIAN


SOURCE: PUNCH


SOURCE: SUN NEWS ONLINE
SOURCE: BLACK NEWS

Nigerian Jungle Blues: Ghetto Life Images IV

Garbage lines the street in this Ajegunle slum in Lagos where an estimated 3 million people live. Photo by Stephanie Giry/Boston Globe


How far is Ajegunle from Ikoyi? Apparently not that far if there are good, accessible roads, It is obvious the political elite is breathtakingly rich, and very small. Remarkably little of it trickles down. Part of this is because the super rich keep their money and spend it overseas. Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Times


Holy Cow! A nation that is rich in oil reserves? Photo by Punch


"Home for all"? They must be kiddying me! A Punch photo


Afternoon jump in the Ajegunle jungle as the DJ spins. Photo courtesy of Out There.


Nosamu Street in the crime-ridden, densely populated Ajegunle of Lagos. Photo courtesy of Vanguard.


What a life! Photo courtesy of Punch


Yes oo! Na real rumble in the jungle. Image courtesy of African Photos.

Nigerian Jungle Blues and Monday Cartoons

“It is not just about NNPC, really, but how we manage the entire downstream sector of the petroleum industry because of the inefficiencies, which have led to the haemorrhage, not leakage, that we currently experience in that sector. Few days ago, I got an invoice from NNPC. I got this invoice with the amount of N1.15 trillion in relation to money owed NNPC, and about N880bn of that amount represents outstanding subsidy payments..." MORE @ VANGUARD


SOURCE: SUN NEWS ONLINE


SOURCE: GUARDIAN


SOURCE: NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

Nigerian Jungle Blues and Sunday Cartoons

The ailment is acute pericarditis. This is not the first time the president will be going to that country of late. Last October when the president was being expected in New York to address the United Nations’ General Assembly, he headed for Saudi Arabia ostensibly to attend the commissioning of a new university. That excuse later turned out to be a smokescreen. He actually went to the holy land to keep an appointment with his doctors. Two months earlier, he had equally kept a date with them. Thankfully, this time around, the nation did not resort to grapevine sources to learn the real reason for his latest visit. MORE @ TELL MAGAZINE


Nigeria’s oil production and revenue might nosedive again following the resumption of attack on oil pipelines in the Niger Delta. The main militia group in the region, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), yesterday, claimed responsibility for the attack on a Shell/Chevron crude oil pipeline in Abonnema, Rivers State.
The military Joint Task Force (JTF), however, denied knowledge of MEND’s claim, saying it was yet to be verified. MORE @ SUN NEWS ONLINE


SORCE: SUNDAY TRUST


SOURCE: PUNCH


SOURCE: THE PORT HARCOURT TELEGRAPH


SOURCE: GUARDIAN

Nigerian Jungle Blues and Saturday Cartoons

“The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) can confirm that a warning strike carried out by five boats involving thirty five of its fighters armed with assault rifles, rocket launchers and heavy caliber machine guns was carried out at about 0200Hrs today, December 19, 2009 on a major Shell/Chevron crude pipeline in Abonemma, Rivers state of Nigeria”. MORE @ VANGUARD


The EFCC said that Ibori was only discharged by the court and not acquitted, revealing that the former governor refused to take a plea in the case preferred against him in Kaduna, which later referred to Asaba, Delta State capital. The statement said: “In view of the attention the judgment of Justice Marcel Awokulehin of the Asaba Federal High Court has attracted globally, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC wishes to state the following facts regarding the decision of the court to quash all the 170 count charge against a former governor of Delta State, Mr. James Onanefe Ibori and others. MORE @ SUN NEWS ONLINE


SOURCE: SATURDAY TRUST


SOURCE: NIGERIAN TRIBUNE


SOURCE: GUARDIAN


SOURCE: BLACK NEWS