Chrissy Jaeger - Forest People, Outside reading

The Forest people is a book about an anthropologist who goes into the Congo to study a group of people called the Pygmy people or the Forest people. These people live in the bush, out in the forests of the Congo. They have adapted to society outside the bush and they now make exchanges with those communities but majority of their time and their love is for the forest.
The Forest people are an oral people, which is really is interesting considering how they view spirituality and reality. Even though they are oral they have a more literate perspective. And oral culture tends to fully believe and accept the traditions they have grown up with. But these people have traditions that htye have kept orally, but they don’t even necessarily believe to be real – atleast to the extend the traditions suggest.
The tradition is called ‘calling on the Forest God’ with the ‘molimo.’ The Molimo is supposed to be a sacred instrument that only the men of the tribe can see, this instrument sings to the Forest God. But the instrument is really a tube of plastic that the men make to be something supernatural. So, the meaning isn’t in the sacredness of the object but of the desire to communicate with their God. So, the men know their ritual isn’t sacred by the supernaturalness of the Molimo, but it is sacred because the tradition considers it as sacred, and because it is tradition they continue it.