Entry Fifteen

Chapter 14

Context

·         Kenge kept muttering, “Not a tree. . . not a single tree . . . this is a very bad country.” This quote reflects how our context shapes what we value and how we interpret things. For Kenge his whole world was surrounded by trees, so naturally the absence of all he knows elicits a reaction. Also animals on reserves made no sense: because of the influence of his context, “Kenge could not understand this, because to his mind game is meant to be hunted.”

Influence of biology, experience and culture on visual perception

When Kenge saw buffalo he thought they were insects because he had no tree to give him a basis for comparison. To have accurate perception, one needs to change the conception. J

“This is a good place, though I don’t like it; it must be good, because there are so many animals. There is no noise of fighting. It is good because the sky is clear and the ground is clean. It is good because I feel good; I feel as though I and the whole world were sleeping and dreaming. Why do people always make so much noise?” And then he added, with infinite wistfulness, “If only there were more trees...”

This reflects many Pygmy values: animals, the peace of nature, and people making a lot of noise. This is like all the conceptions of what is good!

The fact that the Pygmies will just say “yes” to a villager and tell them what they want to hear even though they are not thinking that is an example of their expression and how it is different with villagers than amongst themselves.

“His entire code of behavior and thought is geared to his nomadic forest life: to bring him to a settled life in a village is to ask him overnight to abandon one way of life, a way he has lived for thousands of years, and adopt another.”

“The Forest is our home; when we leave the forest, or when the forest dies, we shall die. We are people of the forest.”

Brief Paragraph:

This chapter can be analyzed using the theoretical framework of Structuralism. The chapter gives a number of cultural categories, such as “good” and “bad” places, and “we are people of the forest”. These cultural categories make it easier for an outsider to understand the culture, and it is these categories that organize the world for the individual (in this case, for Kenge).