Batwa women with traditional pottery
Artisanal pottery, which enabled some Batwa to earn a bit of income or barter with other communities, is no longer viable because the basic raw material is now being used to produce bricks. People who used to buy their pots now use plastic containers. Unable to access their ancestral lands and practice traditional cultural and economic activities, the Batwa now perceive their pottery as an expression of their present day identity; however, since cheap industrialized products are now readily available, pottery has become a lossmaking activity.
Having once enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the rainforest environment, most Batwa today have been squeezed out of their hunter-gatherer existence and work as casual labourers on other peoples land. Some are engaged in menial domestic labour, for which they are paid in food, never wages. They are powerless and poor, and discriminated against because they are an ethnic minority.
Batwa (pygmies)
Total population: 80,000
Regions with significant populations: Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Tanzania, Uganda
Languages: Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Rukiga
Religion: 7% Christian
The Twa, also known as Batwa, are a pygmy people who were the oldest recorded inhabitants of the Great Lakes region of central Africa. Current populations are found in the states of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2000, they numbered approximately 80,000 people, making them a significant minority group in these countries. There are also a number of southern Twa populations in Angola, Namibia, Zambia, and Botswana living in swamps and deserts far from the forest.
Traditionally, the Twa have been a semi-nomadic "hunter-gatherer" people group of the mountain forests. Due to clearing of the forests for agriculture, logging, development projects, or creation of conservation areas, the Twa have been forced to leave these areas and establish new homes. As they seek to develop new means of sustaining their communities (such as agriculture and livestock development) most are currently landless and live in poverty. The ancestral land rights of the Twa have never been recognized by their governments and no compensation has been made for lands lost.
Twa children have little access to education and their communities have limited representation in local and national government. Due to their pygmy ancestry, they continue to suffer ethnic prejudice, discrimination, violence, and general exclusion from society. Batwa men struggle with alcoholism, known to occur in communities facing cultural collapse as men can no longer carry out traditional roles and provide for families. While the Batwa adapted to the changes in their environment by adopting new economic activities and thus traditions and identities, they continue to face challenges to their survival. Today much of the available land, apart from areas reserved for wildlife conservation and environmental protection, is now under cultivation.
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Meeting the Batwa Peopleby Noragric656 views
damn that is serious kirundi, bavanga n'igikiga aha!
yele009 1 month ago