The Forest People (Touchstone Books (Paperback))

New
Illustrated
1989
$13.38

- Colin M. Turnbull's best-selling, classic work - describes the author's experiences while living with the BaMbuti Pygmies, not as a clinical observer, but as their friend learning their customs and sharing their daily life.Turnbill conveys the lives and feelings of the BaMbuti whose existence centers on their intense love for their forest world, which, in return for their affection and trust, provides their every need. We witness their hunting parties and nomadic camps; their love affairs and ancient ceremonies - the molimo, in which they praise the forest as provider, protector, and deity; the elima, in which the young girls come of age; and the nkumbi circumcision rites, in which the villagers of the surrounding non-Pygmy tribes attempt to impose their culture on the Pygmies, whose forest home they dare not enter. The Forest People eloquently shows us a people who have found in the forest something that makes their life more than just living - a life that, with all its hardships and problems and tragedies, is a wonderful thing of happiness and joy.

Synopsis

- Colin M. Turnbull's best-selling, classic work - describes the author's experiences while living with the BaMbuti Pygmies, not as a clinical observer, but as their friend learning their customs and sharing their daily life.Turnbill conveys the lives and feelings of the BaMbuti whose existence centers on their intense love for their forest world, which, in return for their affection and trust, provides their every need. We witness their hunting parties and nomadic camps; their love affairs and ancient ceremonies - the "molimo," in which they praise the forest as provider, protector, and deity; the "elima," in which the young girls come of age; and the "nkumbi" circumcision rites, in which the villagers of the surrounding non-Pygmy tribes attempt to impose their culture on the Pygmies, whose forest home they dare not enter. "The Forest People" eloquently shows us a people who have found in the forest something that makes their life more than just living - a life that, with all its hardships and problems and tragedies, is a wonderful thing of happiness and joy.

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More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 14
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 01 Jan 1989
ISBN 10: 0671640992
ISBN 13: 9780671640996

Media Reviews

From the Foreword by Harry L. Shapiro Department of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History The book is exceptional....The reader can enter into...the exhilaration of participating in a culture other than his own....Reading The Forest People is an unusual and satisfying experience.

Author Bio

Colin M. Turnbull was born in London, and now lives in Connecticut. He was educated at Westminster School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied philosophy and politics. After serving in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during World War II, he held a research grant for two years in the Department of Indian Religion and Philosophy at Banaras Hindu University, in India, and then returned to Oxford, where he studied anthropology, specializing in the African field.

He has made five extended field trips to Africa, the last of which was spent mainly in the Republic of Za re. From these trips he drew the material for his first book, The Forest People, an account of the three years he spent with the Pygmies of Za re.

Mr. Turnbull was a Professor of Anthropology at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He is a Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and a Corresponding Member of Le Mus e Royal d'Afrique Centrale.