Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • Mbuti boys during a puberty ritual where a medicine man watches over the ceremony.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976453.TIF
  • Mbuti boys endure whippings during a puberty ritual ending the manhood ceremony.<br />
Women carry whips to meet the men halfway through the village, and a melee ensures where they beat each other. Women try to control the destiny the child but the men traditionally win, and each boy is paraded through the village for the scarification ritual.
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  • Mbuti boys endure whippings during a puberty ritual.<br />
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After several months in the Ituri Forest, Pygmy boys learn skills to survive on their own. They hunt, fish and learn to read the forest. On the last day of the nKumbi, whipping is more severe and includes a ceremony where the boys are secluded within a phalanx of men. They are met halfway thru the village with women carrying whips and a melee ensues–the intent is to control the destiny of the child. <br />
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The women want the boy to stay a boy and the men want the boy to be acknowledged as a man.
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  • A Mbuti boy displays welts from being whipped during a puberty ritual. The belief is that the harsh treatment makes them stronger to survive the challenges of life in the Ituri Forest.
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  • Mbuti Pygmy boys apply body paint during manhood initiation rites. Gray color is commonly used to mean security, authority, maturity and stability.
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  • Mbuti Pygmy boys are cut to make scars during nKumbi manhood initiation rites.
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  • Mbuti Pygmy boys view the whip from behind grass screen during manhood initiation rites.
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  • Mbuti Pygmy boys paint each others bodies with clay while participating in manhood initiation rites.
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  • Mbuti Pygmy boys pass time during the endure rites of manhood alongside their peers.
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  • A Mbuti Pygmy boy grimaces after receiving cuts to scar his body during the nKumbi manhood initiation rites.
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  • Mbuti Pygmy boys painted with clay symbols on their bodies and faces participate in manhood initiation rites.
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  • Mbuti Pygmy girls in body paint during boys' manhood initiation rites.
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  • Though blind, an Mbuti boy (in foreground) endures rites of manhood alongside peers.
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  • Mbuti Pygmy boys painted with clay decorations participate in manhood initiation rites.
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  • Mbuti boys sit on a log in the Ituri forest and endure rites of manhood alongside their peers.
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  • Mbuti Pygmy boy painted with clay symbols wears a grass skirt during manhood initiation rites.
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  • Though blind, an Mbute boy endures rites of manhood alongside peers. He learns survival skills in the forest and takes part in all the rituals over a five month period until the group is initiated and boys become men. When the boys run along the trails he does also, with his hands on the back of the boy in front of him. All boys are whipped each morning which is believed to help make them tough to survive in the Ituri Forest. <br />
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Pygmies are semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who rely on a healthy forest for their livelihood.
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  • A boy awaits circumcision, a Muslim rite of passage
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  • Mbuti boys wear grass skirts during their circumcision ceremony.
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  • Pygmy boys dance wear leaves on their mouths for silence as they go through a manhood initiation called nKumbi.  They wear ceremonial skirts for their circumcision ceremonies, and when the ritual is completed, the skirts will hang in the trees at the entrance to their village in the Democratic Republic of Congo.<br />
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Pygmies are nomadic hunter-gatherers who rely on a healthy forest to survive. They have no claim to their own home territory, however, because the colonial Belgians assigned land rights only to sedentary groups
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  • A Hamar woman prepares for a bull jumping initiation ritual.
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  • Masai milk ceremony. First step in warrior becoming a man.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7314_1023459.JPG
  • Pygmy boys tie dried grasses together to make ceremonial skirts they will wear for their circumcision ceremonies.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976413.TIF
  • An Mbuti boy catches fish as part of his initiation into manhood. Pygmy boys learn survival skills in the Ituri Forest.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_972261.TIF
  • Masai milk ceremony. First step in warrior becoming a man.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7314_1023456.JPG
  • A Mbuti boy endures a ritual scarification by razor blade. It is the last of the manhood ceremony that follows months of training to learn skills and live independently.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976452.TIF
  • Mbuti Pygmy boys learn to fish and other survival skills at their hunting camp in the Ituri Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo.<br />
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Boys go through the circumcision ceremony called nKumbi. They are whipped every morning to make them tough, and then they sent off into the forest to hunt or fish. The boys pull a small hook out of their skirts and get a vine and a stick—they know where to dig for worms.  They catch five or six 2inch long fish and eat them raw for lunch.
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  • Mbuti boys wear grass skirts and leaf mouthpieces to stay silent during their circumcision ceremony. Pgymies are of the Congo's few remaining traditional tribes in the rainforests of the world. They are threatened by logging companies and growing modern culture.
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  • Pygmy Boys in a nKumbi Manhood Ritual wear a leaf mouthpiece to keep them silent. Forest Pygmies near Epulu, Democratic Republic of Congo are indigenous, semi-nomadic, hunter-gatherers in the rainforest of the Congo Basin. The BaMbuti Pygmies perform a  nKumbi or initiation that lasts five months where the boys live at a camp in the forest and daily learn survival skills.
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  • Mbuti boys sit together, painted for the nKumbi manhood ritual ceremonies in the Ituri forest.
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  • A Banna man prepares to whip a woman during an initiation ritual.
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  • A Hamar male becomes a man during a bull jumping initiation ritual.
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  • Mbuti boys wear grass skirts that swish when they dance during their circumcision ceremony. The leaf plates keep them silent from speaking.
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  • A Banna man prepares to whip a woman during an initiation ritual.
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  • Masai milk ceremony. First step in warrior becoming a man.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7314_1023452.JPG
  • The mask of a medicine man at the door where  Pygmy boys are secluded before the rituals signifying their manhood.
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  • Mbuti boys with photographer Randy Olson.
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  • Boys wearing ceremonial skirts trail their elders to a hunting camp.
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  • Masai milk ceremony. First step in warrior becoming a man.
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  • Mbuti boys wait to be whipped during an initiation into manhood. The Salate is at the end of the nKumbi Pygmy manhood ritual.  The men watch over Pygmy boys who have been secluded for 5 months preparing for this ritual.
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  • The Chief of Salate makes his way through the Ituri Forest to a secluded camp for the nkumbi manhood ritual.
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  • The thin whisper of skirts dissolves into the Ituri rain forest as boys trail their elders on their way to a hunting camp. The Mbyte are one of several Pygmy groups still following semi-Nomadic traditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Part of the nKumbi manhood ritual involves young Pygmy boys learning survival skills. They walk single file on a path to meet net hunters wearing grass skirts while they train for five months before their initiation into manhood. At that time, they will be on on their own and will share adult responsibilities and feed their families.
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