The Efé are a group of part-time hunter-gatherer people living in the Ituri Rainforest of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Dr. Jean-Pierre Hallet was very involved with the Efé, from raising awareness to the plight of the tribe, to the introduction of new foods and methods previously unknown (such as a legume called the "winged bean" of New Guinea).
[2] The Semliki harpoon, 90,000 years old, is one of the oldest known human tools and was found in the current range of the Efé pygmies.
Jean-Pierre Hallet promoted the establishment of a sanctuary for the Efé along the Semliki River near Virunga National Park,[3] and also lobbied heavily for the rights of the semi-nomadic pygmies to continue living in the protected Okapi Wildlife Reserve in the Ituri Forest.
The Efe are one of three groups of pygmies, collectively named BaMbuti, of the Ituri forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Efé, who differ from other pygmy groups in that they hunt with bows and arrows instead of nets, are associated with the Lese people.
[6] His analyses suggest that hunter-gathering is not a sufficient source of caloric intake alone, so that some form of agricultural pursuits were likely and that the civilization probably developed at the border of the savannah and the rainforest, rather than in the forest itself.
[8] Some suggestions as to the evolutionary benefit of the pygmy short stature was the ability to navigate the dense jungle, with its low hanging branches, more easily.
Trade routes were opened up, and a common dialect called Kingwana (a Congo variant of Kiswahili, also known as Copperbelt Swahili) was introduced.
These supervised the work projects of the colonial administration: primarily the construction of three main roads in the Ituri region.
[10] In 1997 he died of prostate cancer and the rebel army of Laurent Kabila took control of the country in the First Congo War.
Group hunts, which are called mota, take place with between 4 and 30 men who use either spears for large animals (like forest buffalo and elephants) or iron-tipped arrows for duikers, other species of antelope, and water chevrotain.
Gathering forest foods, namely fruits, nuts, tubers, mushrooms, caterpillars, and termites takes up a lot of their time, as does labouring in the villages.
[6]: 44–48 One interesting feature of the family life of the Efé is the degree of cooperation involved in caring for children, particularly babies.
[6]: 19 Important goods that the Lese villagers provide for the Efé are tobacco and marijuana, which about half of men and a third of women smoke.
[6]: 56–57 In addition to trading meat and honey with the villagers, Efé men and women also provide their labour in exchange for foods, tobacco, marijuana, iron, cloth or other material goods.
[6]: 50 Efé men, on the other hand, mostly perform work related to clearing fields in December, and spend about 3.5% of their time doing it.
[16] Even some religious ceremonies are held in common, such as the ima celebration in which girls who have reached menarche and been secluded in a hut together are carried back out into the village.
[6]: 152 Bailey describes the period of seclusion as being three months, but Grinker states that it is more like six months to a year and that the girls’ feet are not allowed to touch the ground without being wrapped in palm leaves and that whenever they have to use the bathroom, they must be carried to an outhouse wrapped in palm leaves so that the sun does not touch them.
They also have a relationship with other farming peoples in the region: the Mamvu and Mvuba (close relatives of Lese) and the Bantu Bira, Nyali, and Nande.