Not well known where the Pygimies people in Uganda originated from, The questions remains in our minds, Did the pygimies people , were they created by God within the forest of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park in Uganda?
Where did they come from to occupy the forest of Bwindi National Park ?? Were they brought and put them there ? Then who was that person ?? Those are the questions the conservationists still ask them selves , untill in 1992 when Uganda Government together with UNESCO announced Bwindi Impenetrable Forest a National Park and UNESCO declaring it a WORLD HELITAGE SITE.
Pygimies had no solution but to be told to vacate the forest of Bwindi, a place they lived in for many many years as there home! It was not the Pygimies wish to leave their long living home and the government decided to vacant them in order to save the endangered Mountain Gorillas, the rare animals which were living with the Pygimies.
In the same year when Government of Uganda decided them to leave the Forest, it located them in different locations , built them houses, provided them food, all for free. According to the Pygimies, life was so hard to live in a built foot by Iron sheets, and houses with doors!
They claimed that according to their culture, they cannot live in a house roofed with Iron sheets, that Iron sheets make lot of noise when it rains, houses closed by doors and windows that they are not safe, anything can come and harm them while in that house closed by doors and windows.
The food which they used to give them could not be eaten, because they were not used to them. During thei time in forests, they could largely eat;
- Fruits, Roots of different plants , wild meat ( including a meat for Mountain Gorillas ) ,
- They could eat Insects , and they were fee to do a lot of their rituals and practices, now that they are limited in one area. They used to hunt animals, that now they were restricted to do all thier activities.
In forests, Pygimies were estremely enjoying life, they started to put holes in the mad houses the government had built for them, created holes in new roofed houses the government had roofed, they could not even put on clothes nor associate with the community they found. The game rangers who protected the animals had first to scare them not to go back to forest.
As time went on, Pygimies are happy to live with the other communities, they associate together in diging, market work, and other communal related work. They work hard now in looking for income, through their cultural dances to weeding parties, to visitors and other groups . They all do this to look for income, just avoid un productive jobs they used to do in forests e.g huting !
The Pygimies belived to be the shortest people in the world, and this attracts different people from different world to see them. They have unique dancing style, story telling , cultural clothes , and they rarely intermarry with other tribes. Apart from the few now days who do it.
When it comes to religion, Pygimies do not have churches and they rarely go for any church for services. They used not dress up, but now they do, we hope such will come with time.
Different Organizations have come up to aid the Pygimies, set up schools for them so that they can adapt school culture so that they go for studies and look for other formal jobs or vocational skills.
For more information about the history of the Pygimies, log in www.gorillatrusttours.com.
Cheers,
Inno Omunyakigezi.
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