Masters of the forest

Just back from the hunt with a choice selection of plants, Ebona feels at home in the endless forest where much Gabonese fear to tread. “Townsfolk paid me to find these leaves,” the Pygmy says, setting the heap down outside his wooden hut, 500 metres (yards) from the rest of Doumassi village in northern Gabon.

Ebona’s people, the Baka, are held in folklore to be Africa’s oldest inhabitants, living today in forests stretching from Gabon and Cameroon inland to the Congos and the Central African Republic. The dense woods where national borders cease to exist hold no mysteries for the Baka. “This is our first home,” says another villager, who introduces himself as Jean, declining, like the other Pygmies, to divulge their Baka names, used only within the community. 

“We sleep in it, we hunt in it, we live in it,” he adds. The ethnic Baka Pygmies often have a difficult relationship with their Fang neighbors, the main ethnic group in the area, who tend to treat them like children, leading to complaints by the Baka. They also struggle to have a legal existence in Gabon, as they find themselves without identity cards, which complicates their lives. “I am Gabonese, 100 percent, but I don’t have an identity card. They promised us that we would have it, but we’re still waiting...,” says villager Christian, who, like other Baka, wants the same rights as other Gabonese citizens.

“How will I send my children to school?” he asks, in frustration. “How will I vote? How do I get medical care?”