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medicines or knowledge but that he have a good back, or, in the case of the second mbolongo handler, that he be a child. |
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These features which differentiate mbolongo from the rest of Pagibeti divinatory practice illuminate characteristics of the ideology of practice in which mbolongo is situated, namely that of the hunt. Nondivinatory practices common to the context of the communal hunt show the same features and encourage us to draw the conclusion that there exists a certain ideology of the communal hunt centered on the goals of wukeye paye (opening the forest) and lekeye paye (waking up the forest). |
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First, the contrast between village, ngi, and forest, paye, is significant in Pagibeti thought. Numerous structuralist studies of African peoples have given the impression that the bush is associated with the disorder and danger of nature and that culture is associated with the order and safety of the village. To the Apagibeti, whose men dwell in the forest half of every year, this is clearly not the case. They say that paye awukise basu, "the forest saves us." It serves as a food source and as a source for the only cash crops they have: trapped meat and occasional tusks and skins from elephant, leopard, and okapi. It serves as a refuge. When I asked one of many local tax evaders what he planned to do, as the government tax collector was coming through that day, he smiled and replied, "The forest is large" (paye aliki edingi). Old men, despite the grumbling of fellow villagers, not infrequently flee their exhausting dry-season role of dispute hearer for their quiet forest shelters, thus using the forest as a refuge much as road dwellers use the cities. |
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Forest spirits are little feared. Even if they seize one, they are relatively easy to exorcise; village-origin cases of spirit possession, by contrast, are difficult to exorcise and are greatly feared. Again, regarding medicines, I was told that the dispensary medicines could cure any illness the forest could give, but that there were many illnesses given by the village which no dispensary medicine could combat. Misfortune in the village is never blamed on the forest, while misfortune in the forest is almost always blamed on the village. Oracles are not usually consulted regarding forest spirits. While forest spirits might tangle up one's trap lines or frighten one with sounds, village spirits can kill. |
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The forest is good, but only if it is kept open, only if it is awakened. A key contrast is between that which can open the forest, and that which can dikeye paye, "close the forest." Not only are forest oracles such as mbolongo said to open the forest but also the anomalous aspects of those features which distinguish forest oracles from other Pagibeti divinatory practices cease to be anomalous. Rather, they appear to be ideologically consonant with the goal of wukeye paye as manifested in other nondivinatory practices such as dreaming, talking, meat sharing, and various forest rites common to the context of the practice of the communal hunt. |
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The very practice of the communal hunt itself wakes up the forest. One kind of communal hunt is in fact named paye leka, "the forest wakening." It is performed on the morning following the burial of a deceased villager. Apagibeti hold that a death closes the forest to hunters; it will yield up no more of its bounty to hunters until it is opened or reawakened. Just before burial a boy is sent to |
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