This study will provide a summary of Colin M. Turnbull's The Forest People: A Study of the Pygmies of the Congo. Turnbull has a deep respect for the Pygmies of the Ituri Forest in the Congo after living with them for years, and his emphasis in the book is on life as seen, experienced and loved by the Pygmies themselves:
This book tries to convey something of the lives and feelings of a people who live in a forest world, something of their intense love for that world and their trust in it. It is a world that will soon be gone forever, and with it the people (5).
Turnbull wants to show the reader how the people themselves feel about their world, the forest, the sounds, the animal and plant life, their culture, their practices, social system and beliefs. Outsiders---even villagers who live near the forest---do not understand the forest or the forest people. To such outsiders, the forest is a "gloomy" and even "evil place (12-13), but to the Pygmies "it is their world, and in return for their affection and trust it supplies them with all their needs" (14).
Turnbull writes that most of what has been written by outsiders about the Pygmies is wildly inaccurate. He himself discovered this when circumstances led to his presence at a nkumbi, where Pygmy and Negro boys from the nearby village are initiated into manhood. It was a halfway-house experience for Turnbull, the first step in his journey of living with and coming to understand the Pygmies.
Above all, Turnbull emphasizes that what makes the Pygmies unique is their relationship with the forest. He says they "are no more perfect than any other people" but "there was something about the relationship between these simple, unaffected people and their forest home that was captivating" (23). The Pygmies became captivated by Turnbull as well, cutting his forehead in a ceremonial pre-marriage ritual and allowing him to hear the "molimo" a beautifully singing creature who appears t...