Babongo

The Babongo are a forest people of Gabon on the west coast of equatorial Africa. They are originators of the Bwiti religion, based on consumption of the intoxicating hallucinogenic iboga plant. For comparison of its spiritual and cultural roles, see ayahuasca aka yage, also botanical alkaloid based, and marijuana in Rastafarianism. Other peoples in Gabon have combined traditional Bwiti practices with animism and Christian concepts to produce a very different modern form of Bwiti.

The Babongo have recently changed from being nomadic hunter-gatherers to settled villagers with subsistence agriculture supplemented by hunting. They have radio but not television in their small village communities and the few metal implements they possess come from the outside world. They are otherwise self-sufficient in their villages. The Babongo are largely illiterate in the official French language with little political influence in Gabon and are in danger of dispossession and displacement from their ancestral forest lands.

References

* Tribe (TV series)

External link

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/tribe/tribes/babongo/index.shtml BBC: Babongo Tribe]