70 mins., col., silent.
Source : NAFC, catalogue no. AF 91.13.4
[Notes based on NAFC catalogue entry]
This film concerns the nomadic hunting and gathering Mbuti ‘pygmies’ of the Ituri Forest, then still in the Eastern Province of the Belgian Congo (later to become Zaïre, and more recently the Democratic Republic of Congo), and their sedentary Ndaka (Bantu) village neighbours, with whom they maintain important economic and ritual relations, and with whom they even cohabit for certain periods. The film focuses primarily on the various different phases of the nkumbi male initiation ceremony which involves both Mbuti and Ndaka Bantu boys. Nkumbi means “to share the blood” and the ceremony reflects one aspect of the close ties between Mbuti and Ndaka villagers.
The film shows how the boys are first secluded in the nkumbi forest camp, where they are subjected to ritual whipping, and training in dancing wearing keefa (raffia skirts) The liminal status of the initiates at this point is signalled by their daily covering with white pempa clay, symbolizing their social death. After they have been initiated by a village “doctor”, the nkumbi camp is burnt, the initiates are enclosed in a banana leaf “womb” from which they are then “reborn”. The new public status of the initiates is then recognized as they dance through the Ndaka village of Epulu, led by a ritual “doctor” in a leopard mask. They are also marked with bengafi scars around chest and ribs which identify them are adult males who have “shared the blood.” Their final reincorporation into social life is achieved by washing in the river, being covered with palm oil (a Ndaka symbol of wealth), and going in procession to the centre of the village. Here they dance on stools to signal their status as sexually active adults.
This film was based on the field research of anthropologist Colin Turnbull and was shot by his cousin, Francis S. Chapman, a Canadian Broadcast Corporation cameraman. The NAFC also hold a longer set of colour rushes (AF 91.13.3, 108 mins.), from which this film appears to have been extracted, as well as a recording of Turnbull commenting on them. These rushes cover a wide range of topics, including subsistence activities and the female elima initiation ceremony.
Chapman and Turnbull also produced some black and white rushes including sequences in an Mbuti forest camp, nkumbi male initiation ceremonies at Bira and Ngwana villages, and the capturing of elephants and okapi at the colonial Station de Chasse. Further details here.
They also collaborated in making audio recordings of Mbuti music, released in 1992 in the Smithsonian Folkways series. For further details see here.
Texts : Turnbull (1962), Turnbull (1965), Grinker (2000)