[Fieldwork] Working with BaYaka kids in Congo (6/7)

BaYaka adults rarely make children toys. Instead, children make toys themselves, and these toys reflect what they see around them. In the top video, you can see a forest spirit, named Ejengi, dancing. Ejengi is a men’s spirit that usually dances at funerals or special events. In the bottom video, children have made Ejengi spinning toys out of palm fronds. When younger children don’t have the dexterity to shred the leaves, older children make these toys for them. You can hear Sarah, in the second video, asking in Lingala: “what is this?” The children answer: “Ejengi“.

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Meet Jengi. There are many different Forest Spirits that come to dance…but Jengi….by far the coolest. I’ll post a video of the children playing with Jengi toys soon. #forestspirit #dance #congo #bayaka #explore #funeral #ceremony #fieldwork #crosscultural #research @sheinalew @adamhowellboyette @evolearnlab

A post shared by Dr. Sarah Pope (@sezdoesscience) on Oct 2, 2018 at 2:46pm PDT

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Jengi toys. (Sound on!) Calling out @sheinalew who tried to keep one of them…imagine a moldy spaghetti monster on a stick. The eco-guards who searched our things couldn’t stop laughing. #Bayaka #toys #congo #fieldwork #crosscultural #science #explore #dance #play #sing #create #saveamoldyspaghettimonster #evolearnlab

A post shared by Dr. Sarah Pope (@sezdoesscience) on Oct 5, 2018 at 6:19am PDT

[Fieldwork] Working with BaYaka kids in Congo (5/7)

In this picture, a 9-year-old boy takes care of his infant sister. And he’s not the only one who does. Among the BaYaka, both mothers and fathers, as well as siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles help take care of infants. This is what alloparenting looks like!

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Okay, as much as it pains me to admit…this baby was terrified of me. I tried making faces. Nope. I tried approaching slowly. Definitely not. Until her brother brought her over and sat next to me, made faces with me, laughed….and then poof, no more frantic waddling away when I approached. Fear gone. I don’t have children but I imagine this is fairly common between siblings? Anyway, alloparenting is nifty. #siblings #alloparenting #Bayaka #congo #baby #wooing #crosscultural #research #parenting @evolearnlab @insidenatgeo #explore #jungle #science

A post shared by Dr. Sarah Pope (@sezdoesscience) on Oct 1, 2018 at 7:11am PDT

[Fieldwork] Working with BaYaka kids in Congo (4/7)

Kids play with, and at, all sorts of things. Over the summer, one father decided to turn a subset of the forest near our camp into a garden. Once the trees were cut, the children went to play; the limbs of the tree were perfect fodder for a game of tag, or, in this case, eagles hunting monkeys. The bounce on the limps turned into a truck ride down a logging road. The long fruit from one of the trees made perfect cell phones.

Every once in a while, they would climb down from the fallen trees, and climb up an Ediki tree to get an ediki, a big sweet yellow fruit.

Which is work, and which is play?

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These little boogers. So, to create farmable area within the jungle, small sections of trees are decapitated. Leaving a sort of limb jungle-gym that will eventually decompose, providing a continuous source of nutrients. (I think that’s how that works!) This was a few days after a big chop and these little boogers started bouncing on the limbs I was standing on. 🤨 #junglegym #worklifebalance #just #balance #huntergatherer #congo #congobasin #research #fieldwork #evolearnlab @insidenatgeo @natgeoadventure @evolearnlab #explore #climb #danslajungle

A post shared by Dr. Sarah Pope (@sezdoesscience) on Sep 28, 2018 at 7:01am PDT