Mbuti Pygmy Film Study: Edited Version
odd: label: General
content: Local Numbers: HSFA 1991.13.4
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Towles, Joseph A.
label: Collection Creator
content: Turnbull, Colin M.
setName: label: See more items in
content: Colin Turnbull and Joseph Towles films
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 2 Film reels (70 minutes, color silent; 2,507 feet, 16mm)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1954
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Human Studies Film Archives
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Film reels
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Edited film shot among the Mbuti of the Ituri forest, Belgian Congo (Zaire), and the Bandaka (Bantu) villagers with whom they maintain economic and ritual relations. Documentation focuses primarily on the phases of the Nkumbi village initiation of young Pygmy and village boys. Nkumbi--meaning "to share the blood"--reflects one aspect of a flexible relationship between Mbuti and Bantu villagers whereby Pygmy bands experience periodic respite from the rigors of nomadic forest life. Film sequences detail the separation of boys in the Nkumbi camp, ritual flogging and hazing, and training in the keefa (raffia skirt) dances. Liminal status of the initiates is shown by their daily covering with white pemba clay, symbolic of their social death, and being led to the circumcision of initiates by a village "doctor." The burning of the Nkumbi camp is followed by the enclosure and rebirth of the initiates from a banana leaf "womb." During this phase the new public status of the initiates is recognized as they are danced through the Ndaka village of Epulu led by a ritual doctor in a leopard mask. Boys are shown being marked with the bengafi scars around chest and ribs which identify jural males who have "shared the blood." The final reincorporation of the initiates is marked as boys are washed in the river, covered with palm oil (a village symbol of wealth), and led in procession to the center of the village where they dance on stools to symbolize their adult and sexually active status. See also [Joseph Towles Zaire Film Study: Nkumbi and Elimina Initiations: Mbuti, Bandaka and BaBira, 1970-1972], [Mbuti Pygmy Film Study, 1971-1972], and [Mbuti Pygmy Footage: Forest Camp, Bira and Ngwana Villages, and Station de Chasse, 1954]. Cameraman: Chapman, Frances, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 

Legacy keywords: Initiation rites nkumbi Mbuti Pygmies Bandaka Belgian Congo ; Ordeals flogging initiation rites Mbuti Pygmies Belgian Congo ; Camps initiations Mbuti Pygmies Belgian Congo ; Scarification initiation rites Mbuti Pygmies Belgian Congo ; Liminality separation body paint pemba Mbuti Belgian Congo ; Doctors ritual specialists Mbuti Belgian Congo ; Circumcision initiation rites Mbuti Belgian Congo ; Rites of passage phases of Mbuti Belgian Congo