The Efe and the Lese

1
The Efe and the Lese

• What does ethnicity mean in this context?

2
Lese Farmers

• The Lese are Bantu-speaking peoples who moved to
  the forest area as part of the great Bantu
  migration southward
• They are farmers with more stable autonomous
  villages and houses
• They brought tools and weapons

3
Lese Village in the Evening
4
Efe Hunter-Gatherers and Lese Farmers

• A system of interdependency in which each side
  considers the other to be grossly inferior
• Efe give the Lese forest crops (meat, honey, bark
  for cloth) and labor
• The Lese give Efe farm crops (starches) and metal
  (pots, iron for weapons)
• Each Lese family has an Efe trading partner, a
  relationship that is inherited from father to son

5
Lese clearing the forest with Mbuti help
6
Ritual Life

• Rituals happen within the village domain (nkumbi,
  funerals) to bring Mbuti into the domain of
  village spirits
• Mbuti provide music and dance at farmer rituals,
  serve as chief mourners at their funerals, and
  protect the farmers from their own evil spirits,
  conceptualized which the Mbuti do not think exist
• Mbuti have lost their language and taken on that
  of the Lese

7
Colin Turnbull film

• Mbuti fishermen using village ritual to purify
  their hunting nets

8
The construction of ethnic boundaries goes hand
in hand with the construction of
inequality.---Grinker, p. 229

• How are the Efe and Lese constructing ethnic
  boundaries?
• What does this statement mean?

9
How do the Lese conceptualize their relationship
with the Efe?

• How is dependency conceptualized?

10
Does ethnic stereotyping lead to ethnic conflict
in this situation?