Pygmy Musicians Race to Save Dying Art – OZY

For the Aka Pygmies, music is a spiritual language, a means of communication and an essential element of traditional ceremonies accompanying marriage, death and hunting. In 2003, members of the tribe formed the musical group Ndima, which means forest. Over the past decade, they have performed throughout Europe and Latin America.

Ndima’s music makes fascinating use of what is known as polyphonic rhythm, or the combination of multiple distinct melodies. Two or three singers collaborate to modify their voices, producing a variety of pitches and sounds with the vocal technique known as yodeling.

“Our music is an important tool for many rituals that we use to channel the spirits of the forest,” Ngolou Emilliene, a singer and member of the Aka tribe, told OZY. “Every Aka child learns how to yodel sounds from a very young age.”

The vocalists are accompanied by the evocative sounds of handmade musical instruments, including the lenzeko harp and a single-string bow known as the mbela. Music can express deep joy as well as anger and sorrow.

“The Aka pygmies are currently in danger of extinction,” says ethnologist Sorel Okanango Eta, who has lived with the Aka people and studied their culture for the past 26 years and serves as Ndima’s manager.

In an interview with OZY, Eta explained that the Aka culture was unknown to many people before Ndima was created. Locally, most people knew little about the tribe, but today Aka music is broadcast on TV, radio and the Internet. Ndima has organized events focusing on the tribe’s traditional shamanic practices and master classes on the polyphonic sounds of Aka.

“Imagine if an epidemic were to wipe out this minority population? We can lose all this knowledge and culture in the blink of an eye and that is why it is important to spread Aka music”, says Eta.

Clearing the forests that are the Aka’s traditional turf has endangered animals such as antelope and wild boar, which were once abundant here and provided an essential food source for the tribe. Aka can no longer rely on hunting and fishing. Formerly a nomadic people, the many threats they face today have forced them into sedentarism, radically changing their culture. Now, in order to adapt to the modern way of life, they have to look for work elsewhere and buy food in the markets, like the people of the Bantu tribes around them.

“The Bantu tribes that were colonized by France are, in a way, colonizing the Aka pygmy tribes and expecting them to live by Bantu lifestyle choices,” Eta explained.

Emiliene says that among the younger Aka generation attending modern schools, she has noticed a lack of interest in learning about Aka culture and traditions.

“Since Aka children have attended school, they learn to speak French and not Aka languages. They even lose track of learning from the forest school,” she told OZY. Today, “most Aka children do not understand how to navigate the forest and some of the rituals that are important to do so.”

Music, however, is helping to keep the culture alive.

Ndima regularly collaborates with other musical artists from around the world in what Sorel Eta calls a “dialogue” of cultures.

“Pygmies represent an African culture and Europeans represent another culture. So, by collaborating with different artists we are creating a dialogue of cultures, so that people learn our culture and we learn theirs”, he says.

Eta has now written a book in French called “University of the Forest” and opened a music conservatory for learning and practicing pygmy music, which has hosted international tourists.

This year alone, Ndima has collaborated with music artists including Leilla Martial, Eric Perez and Remi Leclerc. On October 1, the group will hold a concert in Paris. You can find their latest updates at Ndima group Facebook page.