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On Noel Lobley, vinyl, the rainforest, and civil war Emiko Jozuka is a journalist at VICE as well as CNN. Asia, anthropology, photography, digital culture, Latin America, Kurds, Turkey, and tech.
FALL 2016 X VOLUME 3
EMIKO JOZUKA
In the Rainforest Preserving the Music of the Bayaka In 2005, Noel Lobley—then a DJ and
Lobley is now an assistant professor in
anthropology graduate from Oxford
ethnomusicology at the University of Virginia.
University—made an astonishing discovery.
For the past 11 years, he has sought to open up
By sheer fluke, he stumbled across a neglected
the archive of Bayaka recordings to the public
collection of over 1,000 hours worth of sound
by digitizing and curating it. The digitization
recordings of the Bayaka—a hunter-gatherer
is mostly complete, and Lobley is currently
community in the rainforests of the Central
exploring how cultural programs involving
African Republic.
both researchers and members of the Bayaka
“I found a load of tapes and notes wrapped in a bad jumper in a battered old suitcase in a storeroom in the Pitt Rivers Museum,” Lobley told me. “If anyone had dropped that suitcase, the contents would’ve been unusable forever;
community could help keep the archive relevant in the contemporary day. He hopes, along with Sarno—whose documentation efforts span over 30 years—that one day it can be used to help the Bayaka retain, reconnect with, and promote their culture to the world.
we would never have known which note
The music of the Bayaka has been recognized as
referred to what tape, and it could’ve all
an important heritage artifact, but it’s at risk of
just resulted in a random mess.”
disappearing.
Lobley consulted with Hélène La Rue, a music
The Bayaka live in the southwestern rainforests
curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, about his
of the Central African Republic (CAR) and
findings. He learned that the collection had
the northern Democratic Republic of the
been accumulating for two decades, as Louis
Congo (DRC). They are hunter-gatherers also
Sarno, a writer from New Jersey, travelled back
sometimes known as “forest people,” or, in the
from the Central African Republic to Oxford
past, “pygmies,” an old colonial academic label.
every few years to donate his recordings to the
They lack a structured social hierarchy, with
Pitt Rivers Museum for safe-keeping. Lobley
men and women considered equal, and are
recognized Sarno’s name within the field of
renowned for their ancient polyphonic chorus,
African sound ethnography; Sarno was not an
which is both borne of and a reflection of the
ethnographer, but had devoted much of his life
forests they inhabit.
to documenting Bayaka music and even ended up living permanently with a community in the Central African Republic. Excited by the find, Lobley immediately crafted a PhD proposal focused on understanding and preserving the collection.
“This style of music is probably over 30,000 years old, since those still singing in this style have been separated for over 20,000 years,” Jerome Lewis, a social anthropologist specialising in hunter-gatherer societies at
THE MUSIC OF THE BAYAKA HAS BEEN RECOGNIZED AS AN IMPORTANT HERITAGE ARTIFACT, BUT IT’S AT RISK OF DISAPPEARING
Limbombo, Lundi, Mimanga, Ndumbé, Johnnie (Mowanja’s son), drumming the trunk of a large tree, Boungingi, Republic of Congo, 1994.
University College London, told me. “The Bayaka and Mbuti (huntergatherers who live in eastern DRC) both sing in this style, and genetic studies show that they last shared a mother around 27,000 years ago, suggesting the almost identical musical practices date
Venant, a local coordinator in Cameroon at
out more about the Bayaka. His interest grew
Forest People’s Programme (FPP), an NGO
until he eventually decided he wanted to
dedicated to supporting indigenous rights.
listen to the music in its rainforest context
Venant, who is Baka (a term used to refer to the
and record it himself. Sarno wrote to British-
Bayaka community in Cameroon), added that
American anthropologist Colin Turnbull, who’d
the Bayaka in CAR were also subject to extreme
chronicled his experiences of recording the
racism.
music of the Mbuti hunter-gatherers in Zaire in
from at least this period. I don’t think
Sarno, who has lived with a Bayaka community
there’s any musical tradition that can
in CAR for over 30 years, corroborated this.
claim to have that continuity over time.”
“The other Africans tend to think of them
In 2003, UNESCO categorized the Bayaka’s
as subhuman, or belonging to the animal
oral tradition as a “masterpiece of the oral and
rather than the human world. There’s a
intangible heritage of humanity” in a bid to
lot of inbred prejudice against them,” he
encourage the CAR government to safeguard
said to me as we sat in a café in Oxford.
these invisible yet precious artifacts of human life.
In 2013, I met Sarno at a screening of the film Song from the Forest—a documentary that
Yet at present, the Bayaka’s unique culture and
explores his unconventional lifestyle—at
traditions are disappearing. In the past few
the Pitt Rivers Museum. His decision to live
decades, conservation programs have restricted
permanently with the Bayaka in CAR, in the
their access to certain areas of the Dzanga-
face of health scares including Hepatitis and
Sangha rainforest. Deforestation and civil war
malaria as well as civil conflict, made me
have uprooted them, and their community
curious about his story.
struggles with drug addiction and alcoholism. As minorities within the countries that they live in, they are ostracized from society, deemed second-class citizens, and have access to few rights and opportunities.
A gentle, soft-spoken American, Sarno first learned of the Bayaka’s existence through a song he heard on the radio while living in Amsterdam in the early 1980s. Entranced by their polyphonic music—which featured a
The Forest People: A Study of the Pygmies of the Congo, to request advice. Months passed without a response. But one day, as Sarno hitched a ride from a friend he was living with in Scotland, he spotted an envelope sticking out of the car’s side compartment and discovered a letter addressed to him from Turnbull. It advised him to apply to the Swan Fund for the “studies of the small peoples of Africa” at the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University. Sarno applied, received £700 ($900), and spent the winter preparing his trip. It was 1984. “My friends thought I was kind of crazy,” said Sarno. “It did seem weird—I was living in a caravan in Scotland surrounded by snow, and I was making an itinerary to go to Central Africa. “I filled a 90-minute cassette, and I took it out and said, ‘Thank you very much, that was very beautiful,’ and one of the men said, ‘Do you have any more cassettes?”
“The Bayaka in CAR live in extreme poverty
chorus of voices overlaid with instruments—
and they have to resort to begging. The children
Sarno listened to vinyl records and trawled
During the first few days, Sarno rented a small
are also exposed to many illnesses,” said Messe
through books at the public library to find
house and made excursions into villages in
OVER THE DECADES, SARNO HAS ASSUMED MULTIPLE IDENTITIES WITHIN THE BAYAKA COMMUNITY. HE HAD A SON WITH A BAYAKA WOMAN (WHO IS NOW HIS EXWIFE), HAS OUTLIVED MANY OF HIS FRIENDS, AND EVEN ACTED AS A MEDIATOR FOR THE BAYAKA IN TIMES OF DIFFICULTY. HIS LIFE WITH THEM INSPIRED OKA!, A FEATURE FILM, AND MORE RECENTLY, SONG FROM THE FOREST. search of sounds to record. He finally found one particular Bayaka community living relatively near the small town of Bayanga. But his efforts to gain friends and record authentic Bayaka melodies were initially rebuffed. He met with disappointment and frustration as the people whose music he’d idealized didn’t seem so keen to perform for him. “The Bayaka wanted someone to party with and someone who could buy them alcohol and tobacco—they weren’t showing me anything; they were just having their parties,” said Sarno.
impromptu performance lasted till dawn. “It’s like you can hear the forest in their music,” said Sarno. “My relationship with them changed that night. I knew I could never leave when I heard that, or that if I couldn’t stay, I would have to come back.” At first, Sarno travelled between the Central African Republic and Europe to renew his visa, stock up on new cassettes, and deposit his most recent recordings at the museum. But when he received a contract to write a book about his experiences of living with the Bayaka, he applied for a CAR
According to John Nelson, the FPP’s former
residency permit,
Africa Regional Coordinator—who has
and stayed
undertaken fieldwork with various indigenous groups in the region—the Bayaka have always interacted eagerly with outsiders as it is customary for them to trade and barter. But when Sarno first rocked up in CAR he didn’t know much about local customs, and after a few weeks, his reserves and patience dried up. “That’s when I remember saying, ‘You guys aren’t so great, and your music isn’t so good either,’” Sarno added. He recalled being ready to leave the camp the next day. But as night fell, a group of children offset a polyphonic chorus joined in by the adults. “The melodies were different to what I’d heard before. I filled a 90-minute cassette, and I took it out and said, ‘Thank you very much, that was very beautiful,’ and one of the men said, ‘Do you have any more cassettes? Put in another one because we’re not finished yet,’” recalled Sarno. The chorus culminated in a Boyobi ceremony, when women sing to spirits that bless forthcoming hunts in the rainforest. It was unlike anything Sarno had heard before. The
permanently with the community from 1988
Sarno’s best recordings. It is, as Lobley puts
onwards. In 2005, he was granted Central
it, “accessible soundbites and user-friendly
African Republic citizenship.
playlists that draw people into the sheer wealth
Over the decades, Sarno has assumed multiple
of the material.”
identities within the Bayaka community. He
The project focused on storing Sarno’s master
had a son with a Bayaka woman (who is now
tapes and digitizing them to create a searchable
his ex-wife), has outlived many of his friends,
collection. In April 2012, Lobley invited Sarno
and even acted as a mediator for the Bayaka in
to the museum and the pair spent weekends
times of difficulty. His life with them inspired
playing the records so that Sarno could
Oka!, a feature film, and more recently, Song
help Lobley correctly identify the different
from the Forest.
soundscapes.
These days, Sarno is critical of his first
Sarno and Lobley’s ongoing project to preserve
years with the Bayaka and has disowned the
the Bayaka’s indigenous languages and oral
autobiography that he wrote in the late 1980s,
tradition is similar to the efforts of Alan Lomax,
calling it naive and shallow. Sarno’s presence as
an ethnomusicologist and folklorist who
a tall white westerner living among the Bayaka
recorded thousands of songs and interviews for
may seem incongruous to skeptical outsiders.
the Archive of American Folk Song and Hugh
However, Nelson from the FPP, who has
Tracey, an ethnomusicologist who archived
conducted research on the Bayaka’s situation
music from Southern and Central Africa.
in CAR, explained that Sarno sees himself as
But whereas Lomas and Tracey went out on
their equal. “Louis doesn’t want to be an advocate [for the Bayaka], he’s just living his life. Bayaka culture is very egalitarian, and he’s adopted it in a sense that he doesn’t put himself above anyone else,” explained Nelson. “Sometimes I’m surprised when I hear that Louis is still alive— he’s suffered terrible health problems. To be fair, not many people from America end up living in a Bayaka community for over 30 years. He’s just part of the family and landscape, he’s just one of their gang.” Sarno, too, is adamant that his place is with his Bayaka friends and family. “I’m definitely part of their community—
SARNO AND LOBLEY’S ONGOING PROJECT TO PRESERVE THE BAYAKA’S INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES AND ORAL TRADITION IS SIMILAR TO THE EFFORTS OF ALAN LOMAX, AN ETHNOMUSICOLOGIST AND FOLKLORIST WHO RECORDED THOUSANDS OF SONGS AND INTERVIEWS FOR THE ARCHIVE OF AMERICAN FOLK SONG
whether they like it or not, that’s how it is,” Sarno said softly. “Though I always feel a little bit of an outsider still.” It was his outsider status, however, that earned Sarno notoriety far beyond the rainforest of CAR. As a student, Lobley had encountered Sarno’s name in a few overproduced commercial recordings of Bayaka music. He even read Sarno’s book, Song from the Forest: My Life Among the Ba-Benjelle Pygmies, all without realizing how strongly connected Sarno was to Oxford. In 2005, after he found Sarno’s jumbled cache of over 1,000 hours of forgotten, nearly-discarded Bayaka recordings in the storeroom at the Pitt Rivers, Lobley excitedly fired off an email to Sarno, explaining how he wanted to curate and revive 20-years-worth of diligent sound documentation. Despite their frequent email exchanges, it took Lobley and Sarno four years to finally meet. In 2011, Lobley and Sarno’s joint efforts became part of the Reel
short field trips and focused on recording the best examples of sound and song within the communities they researched, Sarno— who never trained as an anthropologist or musicologist—is more comparable to a soundscape artist, who immerses himself in a new environment, capturing the broader environmental soundscape as well as individual songs and sounds. What makes Sarno’s collection unique is that he ended up staying permanently with the Bayaka, capturing their evolving soundscape over an entire generation. In recent years, Lobley has looked for innovative ways of drawing on the archive’s materials. For example, he set up a livestream between Sarno and his Bayaka friends and family from CAR and audiences at the Pitt Rivers as they experienced the music reverberating amidst the museum’s different collections. And since the release of the documentary Song from the Forest, Lobley has also hosted a screening, inviting Sarno back to Oxford in 2013 to answer questions on his life’s work, and his sound collection. Then came a brutal civil war.
2 Reel project—an open
In December 2012, civil war broke out between
online platform at the
the Séléka rebel forces and the government in
Pitt Rivers Museum
CAR. The conflict spilled over into Yadoumbé—
that charted some of
a Bayaka settlement that Sarno had helped found over the years—forcing around 600 Bayaka to seek shelter deep within the rainforest.
Photographs of Ubangi and Chari River, which flow along the borders between Central African Republic, Chad, and the Democreatic Republic of Congo.
Bayaka men in a makeshift refugee camp in the rainforest.
At the time, Lobley was still digitizing Sarno’s
illegal poaching of smaller mammals that the
sound collection as well as receiving new
Bayaka depend on for food have all impacted
recordings from him. He lost contact with Sarno
their rainforest home and ancient ways of life.
for three months as the civil war intensified. Deep in the rainforest, the Bayaka had split up into smaller groups of 20 as they sat out the war in makeshift encampments. The conflict even infiltrated their songs. “During the Boyobi ceremony, there would be some spirits who were like the Séléka. They wore these shoulder pads and had guns, and we’d get a laugh out of them, but it was the spirit Séléka—they were just one of the spirits in the music,” said Sarno. By 2013, the conflict died down in the area where Sarno lived with the Bayaka, allowing them to make their way back to Yadoumbé. Though they escaped the physical violence, Sarno lost material possessions with sentimental value. As the Séléka rampaged through towns and villages, they’d overturned
“Their traditions are being lost because of the degradation of the forest,” added Sarno. Nelson corroborated Sarno’s view regarding the repercussions of the civil war and conservation. He asserted that Sarno’s presence had helped the Bayaka in Yadoumbé keep some of their ancient practices alive. “Yadoumbé is the Bayaka community which has retained the most of their forest traditions,” said Nelson. “Louis spends his whole time trying to build up the Bayaka’s traditions so that they feel proud of them.” Venant said Sarno was a “rare example” of someone who immersed himself fully in the Bayaka’s culture, helping them to preserve their heritage. “I hope Sarno continues doing what
his home, destroying a hard drive containing
he does,” he said.
photographs of his trips to Congo, the books
Both Nelson and UCL anthropologist Jerome
that he’d been writing for four years, and a
Lewis explained that the CAR government
collection of notes that the Bayaka had sent him
had granted certain logging companies and
over the decades. Poignantly, the Séléka had
conservation organisations such as the WWF
crushed a flute that had belonged to the last
rights to occupy areas of the rainforests, while
Bayaka who had known how to play and make
banning the Bayaka from key hunting and
it.When things fall apart, it is often the feeling
gathering lands. One of the WWF’s goals is to
of irreversible damage that is the hardest to
protect elephants and gorillas from poaching,
overcome. And according to Sarno, since the
but Lewis said that the loss of forest access
conflict’s inception, things haven’t been the
made it more difficult for young Bayaka
same in CAR.
community members to learn forest skills.
“The whole country is a mess now,” he
“That’s why I talk of conservation as resulting
lamented. “The Bayaka don’t feel as
in a kind of cultural genocide by forbidding
safe as they used to. The forest was their
people access to the landscapes that they
world, they were the kings and queens
require to pass on the extraordinary knowledge
of that domain, but now they’re living
that they have of the forest,” he said. “You’re
on edge.”
killing off one of the most ancient cultures on
The Bayaka face challenges on all fronts. While
the Earth.”
the civil war has destabilised the peace in CAR,
Johannes Kirchgatter, the World Wide Fund for
the presence of logging companies and the
Nature’s Africa Program officer, recognized that
relevance in the modern age. But above all, the
I FILLED A 90-MINUTE CASSETTE, AND I TOOK IT OUT AND SAID, ‘THANK YOU VERY MUCH, THAT WAS VERY BEAUTIFUL,’ AND ONE OF THE MEN SAID, ‘DO YOU HAVE ANY MORE CASSETTES?
pair want to revitalise how sound collections can help maintain symbiotic relations with the museums that house them and the source communities that entrust them with their heritage. “In some ways, the Reel 2 Reel project only began to scratch the surface of what delivery was possible. I strongly believe that it’s what can be done to this resource which makes it so world-class as well,” said Lobley.
restricting the Bayaka’s access to the rainforest
Lobley is currently collaborating with
didn’t help their situation. He said, however,
videographers and other anthropologists who
that in recent years, the WWF had started to
work with Bayaka communities with a view to
focus equally on working with indigenous
designing longer-term projects with Sarno.
communities and conserving wildlife and
“We’re thinking of how to go beyond just
nature. Kirchgatter asserted that failure to protect areas of the rainforest affected not just the Bayaka, but other communities too.
providing an audio record. What matters is what you can do with it,” he said. He added that this would entail developing more
“If you opened up all of the protected
cultural programs and finding sponsors who
areas for hunting, it would not only be
would support the Bayaka in playing a more
the Bayaka who move in—that wouldn’t
active role in their archive’s preservation
be a problem because they know how to
and use into the future. This could include
use the forest sustainably—but others
distributing equipment that would allow the
could go hunting there too, and within
Bayaka to listen to their own music, or listen to
a very short time the forest would be
reinterpretations of their music made by other
completely empty and the Bayaka would
people. Another example, said Lobley, would
be in a much worse situation than they
be to teach the Bayaka to use video cameras so
are right now,” said Kirchgatter.
that they could self-represent social problems
“You need to balance that and find lasting solutions to make sure that the Bayaka can find
such as alcoholism or other concerns that are affecting their communities. “Distributing iPods just so that the
all the resources they need in the long run.”
Bayaka can listen to their archive in the
Since 2012, numerous health scares have forced
camps and villages would be an effective
Sarno to leave the Bayaka temporarily and
way of reminding them of their rich
return to the US for check-ups and treatment.
cultural heritage, but without access
With his health in decline, he seems to err
to good forest, their way of life will not
between wanting to stay with his beloved
survive,” said Lewis.
community and moving back to a small place in New Jersey where he would have better access
Back home in CAR, Sarno—who still can only
to medical services.
access the internet at the offices of the World
Yet his reservations never last long. In 2015, I received an email from Sarno, telling me that he’d finally managed to procure the wood to finish building his new home in the rainforest for him, his son Samedi, and the rest of his Bayaka family. These days, I occasionally see photographs of Sarno in his new house, or a gigantic bug that he has photographed, appear on my Facebook feed. The posts indicate he has no intention of leaving behind his jungle home. Sarno, however, is realistic about his age and deteriorating health. “I can’t take on the responsibility of the community anymore. I don’t have the same kind of energy that I had before, and I’m very concerned about the Bayaka,” he told me. Baka FPP coordinator Venant, who has never met Sarno but heard of his legacy from Bayaka friends in CAR, echoed Sarno’s concerns. “I would like Louis to keep doing what he is doing for the Bayaka who he lives with. My concern is that he trains others so that they can keep his work going,” said Venant. Sarno adamantly wants the preservation of his sound archive to continue so that it can be accessible to all for posterity. Both he and Lobley want the collection to retain its
Wide Fund for Nature—insists that along with improving the Bayaka’s access to the rainforest, education, and healthcare, he wants to bridge the digital divide. He hopes to raise the funds to install wifi in the Bayaka village so that they can have a wider exchange with the outside world. He wants people to see the different characters in the village, hear some of their music, and help the Bayaka retain an awareness of the richness of their past. “We have to preserve as much of our past as we can as that’s how we know who we are,” said Sarno. “I love them [the Bayaka] so much. I just don’t want them to disappear without a trace.”