The Baka pygmies are a group of people that inhabit the southeastern part of Cameroon. They have an extraordinary knowledge of nature and have adapted to it in a very sophisticated way. The Baka interact and socialize with men who come from a different "civilized" background than them. They are a semi-nomadic group that roams the rain forest taking up temporal residence in specific areas. These areas tend to offer rich games and natural resources, which benefit the hunting and gathering ways of the Baka. Their hunting, gathering, and harvesting ways are sociologically complex and form an integral part of their cosmologies.
While the women set camp in the forest, out of trees and leaves, the men would go and hunt. The women also gathered fruits for cooking purposes while the men killed termites and fish for food. Through the use of a plant known as the Milletia vine, the men would create a chemical, which would make the fish float to the surface of the water. They did this by macerating the vine, and rinsing the pulp from it into the water. Once the fish floated to the surface, they were easily caught and the river remained unharmed. Their history is told orally, and generally the eldest of the Baka shares myths with the rest of the group. They seem to be a polytheistic group. They believed in more than one god, including that of the forest. In the rainforest, illness and death can strike suddenly. The Baka have learned to deal with this by making medicine from plants. Though they are a primitive group, the Baka do have outside interactions. This is shown in the use of their highly advanced tools and pots. The forest is the basis for their culture, and although they may seem to be a total contrast of our civilization, the Baka and us have quite a lot in common. We"re both a group of human beings who are civilized in our own sense of the definition of the word. We both learn to adapt to our society and our environment in a way that we will surely be able to benefit from it.
