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The Pygmies Were Our Compass: Bantu and Batwa in the History of West Central Africa, Early Times to c. 1900 C.E.
Covering more than 2,000 years this important region's history, this book is a groundbreaking contribution to the knowledge of pre-colonial Africa. It is the first historical work to reconstruct a Batwa or "Pygmy" past, thereby questioning Western epistemologies that have long portrayed the Batwa as a quintessential people without history.
288 pages, Paperback
First published December 19, 2003
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October 9, 2017
The linguistic work is fascinating (but far beyond my capabilities to fully comprehend/critique), and the theoretical innovations are novel: the Pygmy paradigm, her analysis of the first-comer and frontier thesis vis-a-vis Bantu/Batwa relations, and her positing the Batwa as "forest specialists" as opposed to hunter/gatherers. So far outside of my field both chronologically and temporally that it's difficult for me to comment beyond that.
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