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Congo Tales: Told by the People of Mbomo
The Congo Basin in Central Africa harbors approximately one quarter of the world's rainforest. In the heart of this forest is Odzala-Kokoua National Park, an ecological wonderland that is home to untold numbers of rare gorillas, forest elephants, and birds. It is also home to people who have lives vastly different from much of the rest of the world. In this stunning photographic series, Pieter Henket presents images of the children of Odzala- Kokoua telling the oral history of the Congo in enchanting and creative ways. Shot over the course of a month, Henket documented the children of this remote region as they designed, planned, created costumes for, and acted out a series of myths- about their tribes, their landscape, and the animals and plants that they live among. Their stories will educate others unfamiliar with a way of life that is so completely in harmony with nature. Filled with vibrant images that highlight the area's magnificent flora and fauna, this photographic project, which was three years in the planning and execution, offers an exciting opportunity to learn about nature and the environment and it delivers an optimistic message about trust, cooperation, and conservation for the next generation of policy makers.
176 pages, Hardcover
Published September 18, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 3, 2021
First coffee table edition of the year did not disappoint me ...
Myths and stories from a very distant Congo, illustrated by the narrators themselves and come to life through a camera lens.
A fine example of preserving oral tradition for the future.
Myths and stories from a very distant Congo, illustrated by the narrators themselves and come to life through a camera lens.
A fine example of preserving oral tradition for the future.
December 21, 2020
Pure art!
August 2, 2019
THE WHOLE HUMANITY WAS BORN IN BLACK AFRICA
First of all, let’s say the pictures are absolutely marvelous and beautiful. Of course, they are all staged in order to fit the stories they are attached to, but they are really deep in colors and in showing how beautiful black people and black bodies can be. It is not a question of age, sex, or even the way the people are dressed or at times costumed that is important. It is a question of color. Black people have an appeal that goes beyond the simple color of their skin or even the expressivity of their faces. They represent the darker side of our human nature and by darker, I mean mysterious, fascinating, mesmerizing even. Some of the most pregnant months in my life were spent in Kinshasa, on the other side of the Congo River, living, working and being the guest of young black people in a popular parish of Kinshasa, eating, dancing, listening to music, drinking, sleeping totally grafted into a group of about twenty young people, mostly teenagers who wanted to know, learn, do things that could make them look on life, and on their faith since they were Catholics, differently, more constructively, more open and maybe also fascinated by the white man, the mondele I was.
That was a long time ago but the pictures in this book, the people in this book, and the stories in this book are still what I remember of these months of 1968.
The second element that is important in this book is, of course, the stories. They are not the traditional stories you can hear and read coming from traditional Africa. I have read so many, I have published so many too. African stories in the good old animist line concern animals mostly and they are some kind of fables about the shortcomings, the defaults, the mistakes of animals clearly seen as representatives of types of individuals that could also be humans. Not in any totem-oriented way, but simply because there is a continuity between humans and animals, between all living beings, I would even say living individuals, and nature which is the living environment of these individuals.
The stories in this book mostly have humans as characters. Some stories are in the animal tradition, but most of them concern humans. The stories are always moralistic in a way or another, not in the moralistic way some people are in the west, along with the ten commandments and all the rules that have to be respected. The moral dimension is more existential. This story is what happened, and the conclusion is not so much a morality lesson, but the obvious idea that there is some logic in life, in existence, in events. Nothing happens without following some naturalistic line, even human beings follow such naturalistic lines, at times without knowing it. In other words, these stories are illustrations of this deeper natural force that is at work in our life. That’s why animals can represent us because they are alive just as much as we are.
The last element that is important is that these stories have been rewritten, from old traditions, in the light and style of today. There is no radio, no TV, no cars, not even bicycles, but there is communication and it is typical of our modern world. That means these stories are not primeval – some would have said primitive in the old days, shame on us – but they are obviously in contact somewhere with the modern world, the way the people of a small village or community far away from the bigger cities can experience it from a distance. The stories are in a way a certain distance from modern life and I will say probably just some time before this modern world reaches the village, the community. So, in a way, it is nostalgic because it is this simple naturalistic and animist vision that is going to disappear within ten or twenty years.
This world is built around three dimensions. The forest on one hand and the river on the other hand and between the two the village where people go to the river to fish, go to the forest to hunt and gather what they can find and in the cleared space around the village where they grow things and raise some animals. This ternary vision is everywhere? The great Rainbow Python is a multiple animal because it is composed of seven colors, but it is also multiple because it joins the river, the earth, and the sky, because Mbumba, as it is called, is both female and male and the seven colors are connected to the seven stars and those seven stars are power.
The village itself is multiple with the common space called kandza of mboongi which is the meeting place for all villagers to come together for any collective action or discussion, and then the private spaces which are the houses, huts or whatever the dwellings can be called, and then beyond, the cleared earth which is the space of work and of growing food and raising animals. That makes three spaces but beyond these three spaces, you have the forest and the river building another ternary structure with the village as a whole. But there is even one more space you must not forget, it is the parallel world called Nyimbi. The concept of this parallel world is the place where spirits rest and live, the spirits we can invoke and call for help. It is not a religion with a god or whatever supernatural beings. These spirits in this parallel world are in fact nothing but dematerialized people we have known, we should know, we can meet in some situations, who can speak to us when it is needed. This is a universal human dimension and the religions that have been derived from this human dimension are most of the time abstract constructions that have little to do with this animist tradition. You will only find one mention of the creator of the world called Njambé, but at the same time this Njambé in story #15 is a simple man who has several wives and decides to marry another younger one, has a child from her but one day she exchanges the child for some honey. So, is this creator of the world really a God or just another a human being who – collectively with his community – developed the social life of the group, band, tribe?
If you really want to feel how different and yet so human these Africans from Mbomo are, just get the book and read the stories and look at the pictures. It might be the door that may lead you to the parallel world Nyimbi.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
First of all, let’s say the pictures are absolutely marvelous and beautiful. Of course, they are all staged in order to fit the stories they are attached to, but they are really deep in colors and in showing how beautiful black people and black bodies can be. It is not a question of age, sex, or even the way the people are dressed or at times costumed that is important. It is a question of color. Black people have an appeal that goes beyond the simple color of their skin or even the expressivity of their faces. They represent the darker side of our human nature and by darker, I mean mysterious, fascinating, mesmerizing even. Some of the most pregnant months in my life were spent in Kinshasa, on the other side of the Congo River, living, working and being the guest of young black people in a popular parish of Kinshasa, eating, dancing, listening to music, drinking, sleeping totally grafted into a group of about twenty young people, mostly teenagers who wanted to know, learn, do things that could make them look on life, and on their faith since they were Catholics, differently, more constructively, more open and maybe also fascinated by the white man, the mondele I was.
That was a long time ago but the pictures in this book, the people in this book, and the stories in this book are still what I remember of these months of 1968.
The second element that is important in this book is, of course, the stories. They are not the traditional stories you can hear and read coming from traditional Africa. I have read so many, I have published so many too. African stories in the good old animist line concern animals mostly and they are some kind of fables about the shortcomings, the defaults, the mistakes of animals clearly seen as representatives of types of individuals that could also be humans. Not in any totem-oriented way, but simply because there is a continuity between humans and animals, between all living beings, I would even say living individuals, and nature which is the living environment of these individuals.
The stories in this book mostly have humans as characters. Some stories are in the animal tradition, but most of them concern humans. The stories are always moralistic in a way or another, not in the moralistic way some people are in the west, along with the ten commandments and all the rules that have to be respected. The moral dimension is more existential. This story is what happened, and the conclusion is not so much a morality lesson, but the obvious idea that there is some logic in life, in existence, in events. Nothing happens without following some naturalistic line, even human beings follow such naturalistic lines, at times without knowing it. In other words, these stories are illustrations of this deeper natural force that is at work in our life. That’s why animals can represent us because they are alive just as much as we are.
The last element that is important is that these stories have been rewritten, from old traditions, in the light and style of today. There is no radio, no TV, no cars, not even bicycles, but there is communication and it is typical of our modern world. That means these stories are not primeval – some would have said primitive in the old days, shame on us – but they are obviously in contact somewhere with the modern world, the way the people of a small village or community far away from the bigger cities can experience it from a distance. The stories are in a way a certain distance from modern life and I will say probably just some time before this modern world reaches the village, the community. So, in a way, it is nostalgic because it is this simple naturalistic and animist vision that is going to disappear within ten or twenty years.
This world is built around three dimensions. The forest on one hand and the river on the other hand and between the two the village where people go to the river to fish, go to the forest to hunt and gather what they can find and in the cleared space around the village where they grow things and raise some animals. This ternary vision is everywhere? The great Rainbow Python is a multiple animal because it is composed of seven colors, but it is also multiple because it joins the river, the earth, and the sky, because Mbumba, as it is called, is both female and male and the seven colors are connected to the seven stars and those seven stars are power.
The village itself is multiple with the common space called kandza of mboongi which is the meeting place for all villagers to come together for any collective action or discussion, and then the private spaces which are the houses, huts or whatever the dwellings can be called, and then beyond, the cleared earth which is the space of work and of growing food and raising animals. That makes three spaces but beyond these three spaces, you have the forest and the river building another ternary structure with the village as a whole. But there is even one more space you must not forget, it is the parallel world called Nyimbi. The concept of this parallel world is the place where spirits rest and live, the spirits we can invoke and call for help. It is not a religion with a god or whatever supernatural beings. These spirits in this parallel world are in fact nothing but dematerialized people we have known, we should know, we can meet in some situations, who can speak to us when it is needed. This is a universal human dimension and the religions that have been derived from this human dimension are most of the time abstract constructions that have little to do with this animist tradition. You will only find one mention of the creator of the world called Njambé, but at the same time this Njambé in story #15 is a simple man who has several wives and decides to marry another younger one, has a child from her but one day she exchanges the child for some honey. So, is this creator of the world really a God or just another a human being who – collectively with his community – developed the social life of the group, band, tribe?
If you really want to feel how different and yet so human these Africans from Mbomo are, just get the book and read the stories and look at the pictures. It might be the door that may lead you to the parallel world Nyimbi.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
March 21, 2020
This is such a fantastic book! The photos were spectacular and I love how the stories varied in style; you could sense that they were told by different people. I was not familiar with tales from the Congo Basin region and I appreciated the complexity and wisdom in them. Often tales throughout the world are pretty black and white with straight forward moral lessons, which we did occasionally see here, but I liked that often the “good” were punished as well and sometimes the endings were less nicely wrapped up. A fantastic book that now has a permanent spot on my side table for all to enjoy!
February 3, 2020
Amazing stories, illustrated by even more amazing pictures!
February 9, 2021
This is an interesting book and I like how it involves the community from which the stories it contains were collected, both in sourcing the stories, and in the accompanying photography. I do wish that there was a bit more information about the sources of the stories, as sometimes it seems like there would be even more cultural insight contained in the stories behind the stories. The only source given real detail in the credits is the most prolific one, S. R. Kovo N'Sonde; but he's a European of African descent, not really a member of the community in question, and all of the citations for his contributions are something like "Story told by S. R. Kovo N'Sonde based on ethnological and traditional sources." Which is to say, that they aren't really stories from the community but some sort of construct. At least one such story is clearly formatted in a style reminiscent of an archetypical fairy tale, with a protagonist gaining the help of magical animals to overcome various challenges; that the conclusion then undercuts the expected conclusion reads more as a deliberate bait-and-switch for the expected Euro-centric audience rather than a faithful rendition of a native story pattern.
Likewise, I have some issue with the photography. The creators explain the logic behind it, and there is some merit to the idea. But it is also clear that the style and design were informed by Westerners for a primarily Western audience, and particularly bearing the marks of modern, minimalist, art-gallery sensibilities; I really wonder how the community, with access to sufficient resources and talent, would choose to visually portray these stories. There's also this slight disconnect between some of the stories and the accompanying pictures; I suspect that the photos were taken with only slight knowledge of the connected stories, or even that various photos were taken with certain themes and only joined to stories in editing (this is only a few cases; in many, it is very clear that the photos were illustrating key scenes from the accompanying stories).
Likewise, I have some issue with the photography. The creators explain the logic behind it, and there is some merit to the idea. But it is also clear that the style and design were informed by Westerners for a primarily Western audience, and particularly bearing the marks of modern, minimalist, art-gallery sensibilities; I really wonder how the community, with access to sufficient resources and talent, would choose to visually portray these stories. There's also this slight disconnect between some of the stories and the accompanying pictures; I suspect that the photos were taken with only slight knowledge of the connected stories, or even that various photos were taken with certain themes and only joined to stories in editing (this is only a few cases; in many, it is very clear that the photos were illustrating key scenes from the accompanying stories).
May 14, 2019
Beautiful photography
April 14, 2021
Beautiful photos and interesting culture in the stories.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews