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Pygmy Kitabu: A revealing account of the origin and legends of the African Pygmies
A revealing account of the origin and legends of the African Pygmies, possibly the ancestors of all human races.
- GenresAfricaAnthropology
434 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
3 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Jean-Pierre Hallet
11 books5 followersJean-Pierre Hallet was a man more intimately connected to Africa than perhaps any other westerner. His feats were legendary-what one expects of fiction and adventure movies. About his mission to save the vanishing Bambuti pygmy tribe in the Ituri Forest in Northeast Zaire, the newspapers and magazines of three decades reported it in various ways. He Saves Little People; A Giant Comes To The Rescue; He's The Biggest Of The Little People of Zaire; Humanitarian Sows Seeds of Hope and Pygmies Have A Friend in Hallet.
A friend, indeed. In 1955 he lost his right hand, in an explosion, while dynamiting Lake Tanganyika for fish to feed a Pygmy tribe. In 1957 he was successful in obtaining, from the colonial government, official acceptance of his "Declaration of Emancipation" for the endangered pygmies. He lived with the Bambuti pygmies for eighteen months and learned six aboriginal languages and seventeen dialects.His extensive knowledge of the pygmy language resulted in a dictionary of more than 18,000 terms, which remains unpublished. He founded The Pygmy Fund in 1974, the only organization devoted to the preservation of the lives and culture of surviving forest dwelling Efe pygmies.
Born in 1927 in Louvain, Belgium, Jean-Pierre Hallet was the son of Andre Hallet, the famed Belgian post-impressionist painter, who lived in the Congo. Jean-Pierre played with pygmy children, north of Lake Kivu, in the northeastern part of the former Belgian Congo. At six, he left his playmates to go to school in Europe. He was already the height of an average adult pygmy in the forest. He returned in 1948 with a Sorbonne education. He was now an agronomist and a sociologist. Jean-Pierre was twenty-one. He was six feet five inches tall and 225 pounds. His incredible life was about to unfold and his reputation as "father to the pygmies" and the "Abe Lincoln of the Congo" was just beginning.
Jean-Pierre Hallet would become a heroic figure. He would become an authority on African culture and a blood brother to many tribes. He was an internationally renowned africanist, ethnologist, naturalist, author, lecturer, explorer, cinematographer, artist, African art authority and collector as well as a death-defying adventurer. He delivered more than 500 African babies, pygmy and non-pygmy. It would be difficult to find another man with such a resume.
He would author three books, the Kitabu trilogy. (Kitabu is roughly translated in Swahili as book.) Congo Kitabu, the first of the trilogy was autobiographical. It would be translated into twenty-one languages including Chinese and Russian. His own words say it best. "I grew up among the pygmies, learning everything that is their world,....making my first bow and arrow.....identifying birds and animals."
A friend, indeed. In 1955 he lost his right hand, in an explosion, while dynamiting Lake Tanganyika for fish to feed a Pygmy tribe. In 1957 he was successful in obtaining, from the colonial government, official acceptance of his "Declaration of Emancipation" for the endangered pygmies. He lived with the Bambuti pygmies for eighteen months and learned six aboriginal languages and seventeen dialects.His extensive knowledge of the pygmy language resulted in a dictionary of more than 18,000 terms, which remains unpublished. He founded The Pygmy Fund in 1974, the only organization devoted to the preservation of the lives and culture of surviving forest dwelling Efe pygmies.
Born in 1927 in Louvain, Belgium, Jean-Pierre Hallet was the son of Andre Hallet, the famed Belgian post-impressionist painter, who lived in the Congo. Jean-Pierre played with pygmy children, north of Lake Kivu, in the northeastern part of the former Belgian Congo. At six, he left his playmates to go to school in Europe. He was already the height of an average adult pygmy in the forest. He returned in 1948 with a Sorbonne education. He was now an agronomist and a sociologist. Jean-Pierre was twenty-one. He was six feet five inches tall and 225 pounds. His incredible life was about to unfold and his reputation as "father to the pygmies" and the "Abe Lincoln of the Congo" was just beginning.
Jean-Pierre Hallet would become a heroic figure. He would become an authority on African culture and a blood brother to many tribes. He was an internationally renowned africanist, ethnologist, naturalist, author, lecturer, explorer, cinematographer, artist, African art authority and collector as well as a death-defying adventurer. He delivered more than 500 African babies, pygmy and non-pygmy. It would be difficult to find another man with such a resume.
He would author three books, the Kitabu trilogy. (Kitabu is roughly translated in Swahili as book.) Congo Kitabu, the first of the trilogy was autobiographical. It would be translated into twenty-one languages including Chinese and Russian. His own words say it best. "I grew up among the pygmies, learning everything that is their world,....making my first bow and arrow.....identifying birds and animals."
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 20, 2014
I am reading this book as slow as possible. It is an older book rife with the Hamitic Hypothesis ideology. So I have to "sift" through it to separate the wheat from the chaff, "smelt" through it to separate the gold from the dross, and "discern" through it to separate the good from the evil. A lot of "separating" to get through this book, a lot of it. Though it is disappointing to have to go through this process, it is turning out to be a personal exercise of extra critical reading.
May 22, 2017
This is what I get for reading a book from 70's. This is the most incredibly racist book in the guise of science! It's a mixture of bad science, mythology and religion. Thank GOODNESS for DNA! DNA doesn't lie. People can go say and write the racist crap they want but DNA will always shed light. WE ALL CAME FROM AFRICA...white, black, brown and yellow. This book really illuminates the garbage people in power disseminated to the world before genetic analysis proved otherwise. They had a really hard time believing that non-blacks could come from blacks. They even had the audacity to postulate that "negroes" didn't come from Africa. That there was an "Old White Africa"...LOL!!! As for the pre genesis stories...that's interesting but it's really hard to get past the blatant racism that was perpetuated by Europe for hundreds of years and written as fact. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
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February 28, 2020Currently reading.. interesting theories on the connection between creation stories but to be honest I'm only continuing to read in the hope I'll learn where us negroes really come from! Lol if the author is going to repeatedly say we are not from Africa at least give us a hint where we come from. I'll let you know if I ever find Jean-pierres answer! Very disappointed.
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April 30, 2008One of my favorite non-fiction books as a child. Like reading an epic National Geographic special in the comfort of my own sofa.
January 24, 2011
I agree that the Efe or Bambuti Pygmies COULD be our proto-human ancestors, however, I do NOT agree they are the basis for the entire world's religion. Which seems to be ALL this book is about. I found it to be disjointed and rambling. Nothing all all like the first two books, Congo Kitabu and Animal Kitabu, both of which I loved.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews