File:Congo first forest peoples statement in mus nat hist b.jpg

English: This is my photograph of a description of Forest Peoples in the Museum of Natural History. It was highly-influential to me, but is still a Western version of the forest reality. Text reads:

Africa's great tropical rain forest sweeps down the Guinea coast and across the broad central Congo region to the edge of the eastern Grasslands. Hunters and gatherers, its first people, lived in complete sympathy with the forest. But later waves of immigrants, used to open country, felt the forest to be filled with danger and evil. They cut it down as they went to get more light for their crops, and to ward off this evil.

Only in fringe areas did the great forest kingdoms arise; everywhere tribal organization fragmented. Forest farmers and fishermen all differ from hunters in degree of reliance on magic and witchcraft. Not only fear, but economic uncertainties help explain why: the hunting life, if more frugal, is much more secure. The newcomers often recognized this and even paid tribute to the shy, elusive hunters living, it seemed, in league with the forest spirits.