Classic ethnographic study of Mbuti pygmies
The Forest People  |
| Author | Colin Turnbull |
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| Language | English |
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| Subject | Anthropology |
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| Genre | Non-fiction |
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| Set in | Africa |
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| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
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Publication date | 1961 |
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| ISBN | 0671266500 |
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The Forest People (1961) is Colin Turnbull's ethnographic study of the Mbuti pygmies of the Uturi Forest in then-Belgian Congo.
In this book, the British-American anthropologist detailed his three years spent with the community in the late 1950s. The style is informal and accessible. Turnbull contrasts his forest-living subjects' lifestyle with that of nearby town-dwelling Africans and evaluates the interactions of the two groups.
The editor for the book was Michael Korda who attended Oxford University with Turnbull.[1]
The Forest People was the version for a general readership of Turnbull's academic thesis, which was published in an expanded, more technical form by Routledge in London as Wayward Servants: The Two Worlds of the African Pygmies (1965). Turnbull wrote about his experiences with the tribe from a first person perspective. The Mbuti tribe respected him, and attempted to show him their cultural prospects as a society until a drastic change in their lifestyles occurred.[further explanation needed]
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