2008 Woodie Awards
The elephant in the room
Gina Pusateri - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 3/24/08 Section: Arts/mp3s
A community in West Africa that believes all human beings are a balance of human and animal characteristics is closer than you think. Tonight, Lyombe Eko, a UI associate professor of journalism, will present his documentary Elephant People: An African Secret Society and Globalization in the Iowa City Public Library Room A at 4:30 p.m.
The Bakweri people of Cameroon, or those Eko calls in his documentary title the "Elephant People," are a secret society formed when the Catholic Church threatened their culture in the 1850s. The Bakweri believe all human beings contain animalistic and human tendencies and vice versa.
"If you're a man living in the village, there is also an elephant living in the jungle that also represents you," Eko said. "So if that elephant gets shot, then your human form will become ill and die."
His documentary also covers the maybe not-so-coincidental portrayal of Africans in the mass media and the effect globalization had on the secret society.
"African politicians in the [African] papers seem to be portrayed as animalistic," Eko said. "So these totalitarian leaders are too animalistic - allowing the animal part to take over their human side. Too human is also not good. There must be a balance."
The Bakweri people, although secret with some of their rituals, have been affected by globalization - but in a good way. While they are aware of what's going on in the world around them (some carry cell phones and wear political T-shirts), it has not affected the way they practice their rituals. Alternately, they use new ways of communication and knowledge from the press to open new doors to the world around them.
Elephant People was filmed by Eko with editing help from UI students, and it was screened at the Africa World Documentary Film Festival in 2007. It will also be shown at the French Museé de L'Homme in May alongside other world documentaries. Elephant People is being shown as a part of the African Studies' Baraza lectures, which occur each Monday.
The Bakweri people of Cameroon, or those Eko calls in his documentary title the "Elephant People," are a secret society formed when the Catholic Church threatened their culture in the 1850s. The Bakweri believe all human beings contain animalistic and human tendencies and vice versa.
"If you're a man living in the village, there is also an elephant living in the jungle that also represents you," Eko said. "So if that elephant gets shot, then your human form will become ill and die."
His documentary also covers the maybe not-so-coincidental portrayal of Africans in the mass media and the effect globalization had on the secret society.
"African politicians in the [African] papers seem to be portrayed as animalistic," Eko said. "So these totalitarian leaders are too animalistic - allowing the animal part to take over their human side. Too human is also not good. There must be a balance."
The Bakweri people, although secret with some of their rituals, have been affected by globalization - but in a good way. While they are aware of what's going on in the world around them (some carry cell phones and wear political T-shirts), it has not affected the way they practice their rituals. Alternately, they use new ways of communication and knowledge from the press to open new doors to the world around them.
Elephant People was filmed by Eko with editing help from UI students, and it was screened at the Africa World Documentary Film Festival in 2007. It will also be shown at the French Museé de L'Homme in May alongside other world documentaries. Elephant People is being shown as a part of the African Studies' Baraza lectures, which occur each Monday.
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Kevin
posted 3/24/08 @ 5:27 PM CST
This elephant belief is also common among the Manyu people in SW Cameroon. In the grasslands, the chiefs (Fons) keep totems in the sacred forests which are also strongly believed to control the lives of these people. (Continued…)
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