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Song from the Forest: My Life among the Pygmies
As a young man, American Louis Sarno heard a song on the radio that gripped his imagination. With some funding from musician Brian Eno, he followed the mysterious sounds all the way to the Central African rain forest and found their source with the Bayaka Pygmies, a tribe of hunters and gatherers. Nothing could have prepared him for life among the Pygmies, a people legendary for their short stature and musical wealth. Sarno never left.
Considered outwardly lazy by some, scrounging, and near alcoholic, the Pygmies Sarno met had seemingly lost all desire to hunt or make music. Only after he had lived with them for some time (on a diet of tadpoles) was he allowed to join them in the rain forest where they still in relative harmony with nature. There Sarno experienced the extraordinary beauty and spiritual sophistication of their culture and the supreme importance of music as the principal means by which they communicate with the rain forest and its magical spirits.
Over the decades Sarno has recorded more than 1,000 hours of unique Bayaka music. He is a fully accepted member of the Bayaka society and married a Bayaka woman. Permanently changed by his experience and captivated by a Bayaka culture, In Song from the Forest Sarno has chronicled his attempt to protect the fragile existence of the Pygmies in an increasingly destructive world.
Once, when his son, Samedi, became seriously ill and Sarno feared for his life, he held his son in his arms through a frightful night and made him a promise: “If you get through this, one day I’ll show you the world I come from.” Now the time has come to fulfill his promise.
In a new major documentary film, Sarno tells the story of the Bayaka as he travels with Samedi from the African rain forest to another jungle, one of concrete, glass, and asphalt: New York City. Together, they meet Louis’ family and old friends, including his closest friend from college, Jim Jarmusch. Carried by the contrasts between rainforest and urban America, and a fascinating soundtrack, Louis‘ and Samedi‘s stories are interwoven to form a touching portrait of an extraordinary man and his son. SONG FROM THE FOREST is a modern epic film set between rainforest and skyscrapers.
Considered outwardly lazy by some, scrounging, and near alcoholic, the Pygmies Sarno met had seemingly lost all desire to hunt or make music. Only after he had lived with them for some time (on a diet of tadpoles) was he allowed to join them in the rain forest where they still in relative harmony with nature. There Sarno experienced the extraordinary beauty and spiritual sophistication of their culture and the supreme importance of music as the principal means by which they communicate with the rain forest and its magical spirits.
Over the decades Sarno has recorded more than 1,000 hours of unique Bayaka music. He is a fully accepted member of the Bayaka society and married a Bayaka woman. Permanently changed by his experience and captivated by a Bayaka culture, In Song from the Forest Sarno has chronicled his attempt to protect the fragile existence of the Pygmies in an increasingly destructive world.
Once, when his son, Samedi, became seriously ill and Sarno feared for his life, he held his son in his arms through a frightful night and made him a promise: “If you get through this, one day I’ll show you the world I come from.” Now the time has come to fulfill his promise.
In a new major documentary film, Sarno tells the story of the Bayaka as he travels with Samedi from the African rain forest to another jungle, one of concrete, glass, and asphalt: New York City. Together, they meet Louis’ family and old friends, including his closest friend from college, Jim Jarmusch. Carried by the contrasts between rainforest and urban America, and a fascinating soundtrack, Louis‘ and Samedi‘s stories are interwoven to form a touching portrait of an extraordinary man and his son. SONG FROM THE FOREST is a modern epic film set between rainforest and skyscrapers.
320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 18, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 29, 2013
A master drummer gave me recordings of Pygmy music about 30 years ago, saying it was the "ultimate music of the world." I concurred - I found it to be far more sophisticated than anything coming out of either Western or Eastern classical traditions, and particularly amazing since it's created by an entire community rather than by a specialist elite.
Sarno comes off as a natural storyteller, and the first half of the book engaged me with evocations of a magical native melange of communal music/dance/theater/storytelling and ritual. Then the creepiness took over. Sarno, in his mid-30s at the time, unselfconsciously describes his pathetic, platonic love affair and "marriage" with a native teenager, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. The music takes a back seat to his disturbing obsession.
In that context, his continuing efforts to record the community's rituals also became creepy, and I began to wonder if there's any way to responsibly capture indigenous culture. Regardless of how the recording is done, how will it ultimately be used? I've studied music from all over the world, but primarily firsthand with native artists, or from commercial recordings produced by native artists. In an important sense, all ethnographic recording is theft and appropriation - the creators lose all control over their creation. Apparently Sarno stuck with his "marriage" aspirations and continues to live with the pygmies - but in what role?
Sarno comes off as a natural storyteller, and the first half of the book engaged me with evocations of a magical native melange of communal music/dance/theater/storytelling and ritual. Then the creepiness took over. Sarno, in his mid-30s at the time, unselfconsciously describes his pathetic, platonic love affair and "marriage" with a native teenager, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. The music takes a back seat to his disturbing obsession.
In that context, his continuing efforts to record the community's rituals also became creepy, and I began to wonder if there's any way to responsibly capture indigenous culture. Regardless of how the recording is done, how will it ultimately be used? I've studied music from all over the world, but primarily firsthand with native artists, or from commercial recordings produced by native artists. In an important sense, all ethnographic recording is theft and appropriation - the creators lose all control over their creation. Apparently Sarno stuck with his "marriage" aspirations and continues to live with the pygmies - but in what role?
August 1, 2008
This is a trashy "world music" book. Should someone tell you it was written by an ethnomusicologist, it wasn't. If someone tries to explain "this is what ethnomusicology should be," you can be quite confident in knowing that that person does not know what they're talking about. If you want to read about central African pygmy music, there are far, far better books.
October 23, 2020
The exploitative nature of amateur-in-the-field writing is sadly overshadowed by the author's excitement for almost taking a teenage bride; disgusting
August 18, 2019
This is a terrific book. I learned so much. And what an interesting person Louis Sarno was. A musicologist born in New Jersey who went to Africa to record, and hopefully earn recognition for, the songs of Pygmy people but whose life involvement with those people went way way beyond that. The book is a tribute to the wisdom, smarts, and musical genius of the Pygmy. But it's also a warning against deforestation as well as against seeing Africa through a Eurocentric, colonial-based gaze. Most of all it is a deeply personal and admirably honest account by Sarno of what he endured, not always with the best of grace, and what he learned, and what (and whom) he came to love, in his first years of living among the Pygmies. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone.
January 15, 2016
Louis Sarno was listening to the radio one day and heard a polyphonic tune that he had to find out more about it. He found that it was music made by the Pygmies of Central Africa. He went to the Central African Republic without knowing if he would find what he was looking for. He found the Bayaka people, and slowly heard their music. He planned on staying only 3 months to record their music, but he realized that he would never leave. He made trips back to America, but his heart belonged with the Bayaka.
He went on to write a book and a filmmaker produced a documentary about the life of the Bayaka.
He went on to write a book and a filmmaker produced a documentary about the life of the Bayaka.
February 20, 2019
I will say this for Louis Sarno: he is a wonderful storyteller. However, he's also a creepy person who spends much of the book pining over a teenage girl twenty years younger than him who he has barely talked to, and being upset that despite her "marriage" to him--which it is unclear the actual nature of--she doesn't want to sleep with him. He also seems to have a hard time grasping how awkwardly "white-saviory" his interaction with the people he lives with is.
April 1, 2015
I enjoyed the story of a man traveling across the world to find and record indigenous Pygmy music and the view it provided into this hidden world. However, his obsession with his young teen "wife" besides being perverted grows annoying as he talks about her non stop even after she rejects his advances.
September 27, 2020
Ew. So creepy. Don't bother
July 31, 2022
Deeply disturbing account of one man's mindless insistence on inserting himself into a lifestyle and culture completely foreign to him. Because he is enchanted by their music, he insists upon living amongst the Bayaka, though he cannot fully adopt himself to their lifestyle. (He is no kind of hunter, for example) They tolerate him because he can supply them with cigarettes, marijuana and alcohol. Especially disturbing is his obsession with a young native girl 20 years his junior, who, despite being called his "wife" wants nothing to do with him. The encampment or "village" where they live is riddled with pestilence and disease. Although he has a small supply of medicine he freely distributes, it barely makes a dent in the ongoing stream of illnesses and infectious diseases. The book ends abruptly, after more than half the population dies, but it is my understanding that except for brief necessary forays into the "civilized" world, (he runs out of money and has to procure more,) he continued to live there in the most remote part of central Africa for the rest of his life, until he was so weakened by malaria, leprosy and hepatitis he went back to the United States to die. It would have been good to read about the second half of his life there, (supposedly he took another wife, no idea if she rejected him as the first one did,) but a small glimpse of that may been seen in the documentary of the same title, which touches upon his life in the forest, but focuses predominantly on him bringing his adopted son for a visit to New York, which understandably, does not go well.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 14, 2010
Hearing the music of Pygmies tribes of the Congo, the author goes in search of them and falls in love. Not your usual love story.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews