ポスト狩猟採集社会の文化変容--バカ社会における仮面儀礼の受容と転用 (特集 地域研究の前線)

Abstract

The Baka are hunter-gatherers living in the tropical rainforests in the western Congo Basin. In the 1950s, the Baka abandoned their nomadic life in the forest and settled, like their Bantu-speaking neighbors, along the roads, adopting cultivation of their own fi elds. They perform various mask rituals, some of which have probably been introduced from agriculturist societies. In this paper, I will fi rst describe a rite of passage to join the mask association called jengi, the most important and widespread mask performance distributed throughout the Baka region. I will make clear the expected roles of initiates and non-initiates in a jengi mask performance. Then, I will analyze the actual behavior of participants in a jengi mask performance, based on data obtained from video tapes recorded with an ethological sampling method, in order to show how the Baka fi ll the expected roles. Based on these descriptions and analyses, I will show that there is little social pressure, with negative or positive sanctions, to compel an individual to participate and play the expected roles in the performance. Flexibility and arbitrariness, regarded as characteristics of hunter-gatherer social relationships in previous studies, are also confi rmed in this study of behavior in the mask performance. I will fi nally discuss the acceptance, transformation and appropriation of the mask ritual by the Baka.