RouteBangui

Ba'Aka Forest People: Polyphonic Music & Forest Knowledge

The Ba'Aka (Pygmy) people of the CAR rainforest are the world's finest forest hunters and extraordinary musicians — their polyphonic hindewhu singing influenced Steve Reich and Peter Gabriel

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1
Ba'Aka Hindewhu Polyphony
Ba'Aka's complex polyphonic vocal music – in which multiple voices join together in patterns – was recorded by ethnomusicologists in the 1970s and influenced Western minimalist music and world music
2
Forest Hunting Knowledge
Ba'Aka hunters can track and call forest animals using knowledge accumulated over thousands of years — their understanding of animal behavior, plant medicine, and forest navigation is unmatched
3
Honey Collection Ceremony
The Ba'Aka honey collection involves climbing 30 meter tall trees with only a vine belt - the ceremony surrounding the honey find, smoking the bees and sharing the harvest is documented on film
4
Yelli Women's Dance
Yelli—a female dance and vocal ceremony—is performed when the forest spirit Jengi is present; the music is created collectively without a leader, a model of musical democracy
5
Ba'Aka Community near Bangui
Small Ba'Aka communities live in the forest around Bangui — visits arranged with cultural sensitivity reveal their settlement patterns, diet and challenges in their increasingly sedentary lives
6
Steve Reich and the Paul Simon Connection
Peter Gabriel's "Biko" and Steve Reich's compositions were directly influenced by Ba'Aka music recorded by ethnomusicologist Simha Arom — a remarkable cultural exchange story