When our party of tourists finally arrived at the pygmy village, the headman split us into two groups, strictly according to gender. The women were to stay behind to help prepare the evening meal; the men were enlisted in a hunting expedition. Derisive snorts from some of the pygmy women, who had frankly appraised us-hands on hips -as we marched into their camp, indicated that some of us were not exactly what they would call men.
We of the all-male hunting option trooped through the deep cathedral silence of the rainforest in single file: a motley crew of six nude, nimble pygmies; five blundering tourists, heavily textiled and encumbered with photographic equipment; four grinning boys; and a small, mistreated dog. Our armaments consisted of a blowpipe, a long-net and an ineffectual-looking bow and arrow. After a considerable march we halted briefly while the grinning boys deftly erected the long-net through dense undergrowth.
After going deeper into the forest, we spread out-and at the first attempt managed to drive two tiny antelopes, dik-diks, into the net. The pygmies couldn't believe it. At first I thought we had caught three-but one turned out to be the dog. It had collapsed with exhaustion and lay inert while the bleating antelopes were carefully disentangled from the net. Relief and pride, as well as elation, were evident in the pygmies' shy glances as the animals' throats were cut.
Within five minutes, both antelopes had been dismembered, each joint and steaming organ wrapped in leaves and placed in a wicker basket. Even the intestines were unravelled, strained of faeces and reserved for later use-as a bow-string perhaps, or a condom or dental floss, or some other surprising but useful appliance. With unusual and possibly misplaced piety, those of us who had brought cameras forbore to take photographs for once.
It was getting dark when we returned to the pygmy village. When we had marched off two hours earlier, I had glanced back to see our women rooted to the spot with embarrassment, looking down uncertainly on the gathering crowd of pygmy women and their children. I sincerely hoped that in the interim they had mixed as easily with the women as we had with the men.
I needn't have worried. As we approached the smoky village, it was clear that our women had been peacefully absorbed and the village had reverted to its customary round of domesticity. Most of them were sitting or lying on the ground with their arms full of infant pygmies; they all looked happy and relaxed, as if they had been there for months. Several appeared to have gone bald, but closer inspection showed that their hair had been plaited by their hostesses and larded to their heads with animal fat. They were also stoned out of their heads on marijuana, which some of the smaller children were preparing in simple hubble-bubble pipes.
The evening meal was a great success. The pygmy women's respect for white men went up several notches when we produced a crate of Primus, the fabled lager brewed by Heineken and obtainable anywhere within 14 days march of the Zaire river. To reciprocate, the headman nipped into the bushes and reappeared with an uprooted marijuana tree. He then produced a six foot pipe which he primed and smoked with mock gravity, making the children shout with laughter.
With a stomach full of fresh antelope, home-made bread, roasted insect pupae and Primus, I leaned back and looked around. Firelight and marijuana imbued the scene with heightened significance. Outside the charmed circle was pitch-black nothingness. Inside was light, food, warmth, children, intimacy, kindness and a good deal of humour, largely of the self-deprecating sort. For a moment, it came into my head that the pygmies were more human than we were. This line of thought spiralled out of control-and I thought that the pygmies were the wisest, loveliest people I had ever met, and that I wanted to live with them in the forest for ever and ever.
When it was time to bed down for the night, our tourist party trooped off to where each had a tarpaulin and a sleeping bag to put between themselves and the Stone Age. The pygmies drifted away to their tree benders. I had brought nothing with me-not even a camera-and curled up on the bare earth next to the dying fire.
Presently someone prodded me. A wrinkled old pygmy man offered me a small round log. For the fire, I wondered? No-it was a pillow. I thanked him and inserted it between my head and the ground. The log wasn't merely uncomfortable: it hurt. The old pygmy lay down beside me with his head on his log, and we formed two intimate semicircles around the smouldering embers. During the night I awoke several times to find him conscientiously keeping the fire going with twigs.
But when our party reappeared the following morning they had remembered the wretched cameras and were snapping away at the pygmies, to whom this was a terrible betrayal of friendship. They were very bitter about it at first. Then they ignored us. When we departed after breakfast, not even the children waved goodbye.
