{"id":14681,"date":"2021-07-22T15:55:23","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T13:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kanaga-at.com\/info-viaggi\/cameroon\/pygmies-in-the-dja-reserve\/"},"modified":"2022-05-13T16:45:28","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T14:45:28","slug":"pygmies-in-the-dja-reserve","status":"publish","type":"info_viaggi","link":"https:\/\/www.kanaga-at.com\/en\/trip-info\/cameroon\/pygmies-in-the-dja-reserve\/","title":{"rendered":"Pygmies in the Dja reserve"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

\u00a9 M. Bartolini<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

In the heart of Cameroon’s southern interior, some tracts of impenetrable forest have become a reserve inhabited by the pygmy Baka people. The region’s indigenous inhabitants, the sole custodians of the secrets of the primeval forest, now find themselves increasingly marginalised by a society that has partly excluded them from progress and partly rejected them, continuing to cultivate their ancestral way of life.<\/b><\/p>\r\n

A people of gatherers and hunters, <\/b>famous for their small size<\/b>, the origins of the Pygmies remain quite mysterious. They probably migrated during the time of the ancient Egyptian kingdoms <\/b>from the Nile Valley, settling on these lands in prehistoric times.<\/p>\r\n

While today the main town of Bertoua <\/b>is mainly inhabited by the Baya people <\/b>who belong to the traditional chefferie of <\/i>Aiba Ndiba, and the fertile fields bordering the savannahs and forests are cultivated by people of Bantu origin<\/b>, some small communities of settled Pygmies can <\/b>be found along the road axis leading to the Dja Nature Reserve<\/b>, in the villages of Mayos and Mbiang. <\/b><\/p>\r\n

But this is only a minority of Baka Pygmies <\/b>who have chosen to integrate with a more modern life. Most of them continue to practise the nomadic life of hunters and gatherers within the virgin forest, in <\/b>symbiosis with nature and finding in it the necessary subsistence. The pygmy healers are often <\/b>called upon by other peoples who do not have easy access to modern medicine, and are the true custodians of the secrets of plant properties <\/b>and perfect control of an environment that seems hostile to most.<\/p>\r\n

The Dja Reserve <\/b>was inscribed on the UNESCO <\/b>list in 1987 <\/b>for its exceptional environmental value, with around 90% of its territory covered by equatorial forests<\/b>, which have remained entirely virgin. Here, only the Baka communities have the right to practice traditional <\/b>subsistence hunting<\/b>, avoiding the protected species that inhabit this green lung, such as mandrills<\/b>, chimpanzees <\/b>and the last families of gorillas <\/b>and elephants<\/b>. There is a great wealth of birdlife in the reserve, as well as numerous endemic species of plants, whose <\/b>many culinary and medicinal properties are known to the Pygmies, including the hallucinogenic effects of some of them, used in initiation rituals.<\/p>\r\n

Very isolated from the rest of the country, its wild and intricate interior has remained suspended in a timeless dimension, where the Baka people are constantly on the move<\/b>, building makeshift shelters, weaving elaborate huts of palm and banana leaves<\/b>, feeding on berries and game <\/b>and still practising their ancestral rituals<\/b>, in perfect symbiosis with the natural elements and the spirits of the forest.<\/p>\r\n

A unique and moving experience in the deepest and most authentic Cameroon.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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