The Aka pygmies :an endangered freedom
Granted Intangible World Heritage status by UNESCO, the Aka pygmies are considered to be the very first inhabitants of the Central African Republic. Once, they roamed the vast equatorial forests in the southwest of the country, following the seasons in their hunt for game, edible fungi or roots.
Nowadays, globalisation is gradually encroaching upon them and this nomadic people is beginning to settle around towns and villages, adopting a more agricultural lifestyle. Thanks to their isolation from the rest of Central African society, the Aka are still little known and, whilst they are attempting to modernise and free themselves from the yoke of the Bantu villagers who still keep many pygmy families as slaves, they also try to preserve their traditional lifestyle. Caught between inequitable trade and pure exploitation working on villager’s plantations, these Aka pygmies also fall prey to all the converts of the great monotheistic religions: always to the detriment of their own values.
