The Forest People
The Forest People (1961) is Colin Turnbull's ethnographic study of the Mbuti pygmies of the then-Belgian Congo (later Zaire and now Democratic Republic of Congo).
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| Author | Colin Turnbull |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Anthropology |
| Genre | Non-Fiction |
| Set in | Africa |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | 1961 |
| ISBN | 0671266500 |
In this widely popular book, the British-American anthropologist detailed his three years spent with the community in the late 1950s. The style is informal and accessible. Turnbull contrasts his forest-living subjects' lifestyle with that of nearby town-dwelling Africans and evaluates the interactions of the two groups.
The editor for the book was Michael Korda who attended Oxford with Turnbull.[1]
The Forest People was the popular version of Turnbull's academic thesis, which was published in an expanded, more technical form by Routledge in London as Wayward Servants: The Two Worlds of the African Pygmies (1965). Turnbull wrote about his experiences with the tribe from a first person perspective as he trove through many years with the African Pygmies. The Mbuti tribe respected him as a human, and attempted to show him their cultural prospects as a society until a drastic change in their lifestyles occurred.
References
External links
- Smithsonian listing of documentary footage of the area and communities described in the book
- BaMbuti Pygmies @ National Geographic Magazine National Geographic Feature in September 2005