StapleCentral African Republic
Gozo
Cassava flour cooked into a stiff paste, the daily starch of the Central African Republic. Rolled in the palm and dipped in whatever sauce there is.
Serves 6 · 30 minutes
Aka (BaAka)
The forest hunters of the Sangha basin — whose yodelled polyphony, sung by everyone at once in overlapping parts, is inscribed by UNESCO, and whose elephant-hunting and net-hunting knowledge is disappearing with the forest.
Identity
Population: Estimated 30,000–50,000 in the western Congo basin
Location: The Sangha and Lobaye forests of the south-western Central African Republic and northern Congo
Language: Diaka (Aka), with widespread use of neighbours' languages
Language family: Niger-Congo → Bantu (with a substrate from an earlier unrelated language)
Traditional governance: Egalitarian camp organisation with no chiefs; decisions by discussion and by leaving; relations with settled farming neighbours structured by long-standing but unequal exchange partnerships.
Clans, Sections & Sub-groups (3)
Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups (clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes), each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.
Lobaye camps
Communities of the Central African Republic's south-west.
Sangha camps
Communities in and around the Congo basin's protected areas.
Settled roadside communities
Families now living permanently near villages and plantations.
Culture
Clothing: Barkcloth pounded from ficus and painted with geometric designs; today mostly cloth, with barkcloth retained for ceremony.
Food: Honey, game taken with nets and spears, caterpillars, yams and forest fruit, exchanged with farming neighbours for cassava and iron.
Ceremonies: Polyphonic singing and dancing for hunting, mourning and healing; the mokondi masked spirit performances; boyobi and other ceremonies for hunting success.
Marriage customs: Bride service, in which a young man hunts for his wife's family for a period; camps form and dissolve around kinship; divorce is easy and carries no penalty.
Initiation rites: No formal male initiation; competence in tracking, net-hunting and honey-gathering marks adulthood; participation in the polyphony is universal from childhood.
Food & Recipes
Every dish the Atlas publishes for Central African Republic and Republic of the Congo, at national rather than community level — 20 in all: the staple a household eats daily, the dish the country names as its own, street food, what is cooked for a wedding or Eid, regional specialities and a drink. Quantities and method are given for every one, so these are recipes rather than descriptions, and each has a photograph from Wikimedia Commons. The Food page carries the whole continent, searchable by country and by ingredient.
Central African Republic
10 dishes
StapleCentral African Republic
Boule de Manioc
also Gozo ball, Cassava fufu
Cassava flour worked into a smooth dense ball, the Central African staple, torn off and used to lift sauce. Made in every household daily.
Serves 6 · 30 minutes
National dishCentral African Republic
Kanda ti Nyma
Meatballs of beef and ground squash seeds cooked in a tomato and groundnut sauce, wrapped in leaves in the traditional version. A dish of the Ubangi river country.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes
National dishCentral African Republic
Sauce Arachide
also Groundnut sauce, Kanda ti nyma
Groundnut paste cooked with meat, tomato and chilli into a thick red-brown sauce, the dish that turns up at every Central African table.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes
Street foodCentral African Republic
Makara
Fried dough balls sold at markets and roadsides with sweet tea, eaten at breakfast or bought by the handful for a journey.
Serves Makes 20 · 2 hours 15 minutes
Street foodCentral African Republic
Kanya
also Peanut brittle bar, Kanyah
Roasted peanuts pounded with sugar and a little rice flour and pressed into bars, sold at markets and bus stops across the Central African Republic.
Serves Makes about 20 bars · 40 minutes
Festival & feastCentral African Republic
Poulet à la Moambé
Chicken cooked in palm nut pulp with chilli and garlic, made for guests and celebrations across the Congo basin. Orange, rich and served over cassava.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes
Regional specialityCentral African Republic
Koko
Forest vine leaves shredded very fine and cooked with palm oil, smoked fish and groundnut. The same plant as Cameroonian eru, gathered from the same forest.
Serves 6 · 1 hour
Regional specialityCentral African Republic
Poisson Fumé aux Feuilles
also Smoked fish with greens
Smoked river fish cooked with cassava or gnetum leaves and palm oil, the standard meal along the Ubangi and its tributaries.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes
Drink & sweetCentral African Republic
Ngbako
Maize or cassava beer fermented in villages and drunk from a shared vessel at gatherings and funerals. Cloudy, sour and drunk young.
Serves Makes about 5 litres · 3 days
Republic of the Congo
10 dishes
StapleRepublic of the Congo
Chikwangue
Fermented cassava steamed in leaves into a dense sour loaf, sliced and eaten with every sauce. Keeps for days without refrigeration, which is the point.
Serves 6 · 2 hours, plus 3 days fermenting
StapleRepublic of the Congo
Saka Madesu
also Beans with cassava leaves
Beans and cassava leaves cooked together with palm oil, the cheapest full meal in the Congo and among the most nutritionally complete.
Serves 6 · 2 hours 15 minutes, plus soaking
National dishRepublic of the Congo
Poulet à la Moambé
Chicken in palm nut sauce, claimed as national dish on both banks of the river. In Brazzaville it is served with chikwangue and a bowl of pili pili.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes
National dishRepublic of the Congo
Poulet aux Feuilles de Manioc
also Chicken with cassava leaves
Chicken cooked into pounded cassava leaves with palm oil until the leaves darken and the meat falls apart, the Brazzaville Sunday dish.
Serves 6 · 2 hours
Street foodRepublic of the Congo
Makayabu
Salt cod soaked, fried and served in tomato sauce with plantain, sold from lunch stalls in Brazzaville. Imported salt fish became a Congolese staple a century ago.
Serves 6 · 45 minutes, plus 24 hours soaking
Street foodRepublic of the Congo
Mbala Pinda
also Peanut sticks, Pinda
Ground peanuts and maize flour steamed in leaf into firm sticks, sold at Brazzaville markets and eaten as a snack or a light meal.
Serves Makes about 12 · 1 hour 30 minutes
Festival & feastRepublic of the Congo
Liboke ya Ntaba
Goat steamed in banana leaf parcels with onion, chilli and herbs, made for celebrations and opened at the table.
Serves 6 · 2 hours
Regional specialityRepublic of the Congo
Saka Saka
Pounded cassava leaves cooked with palm oil and smoked fish, eaten several times a week across the country. The pounding is done in a tall wooden mortar.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes
Regional specialityRepublic of the Congo
Maboke
also Fish in leaves, Liboke ya mbisi
River fish seasoned and wrapped in marantaceae leaves and steamed or grilled in the parcel, so the fish cooks in its own juice. The purest Congo basin cooking there is.
Serves 4 · 50 minutes
Drink & sweetRepublic of the Congo
Malafu
Palm wine, drunk fresh from the gourd or left to sour, and the drink poured at every gathering and libation on both banks of the Congo.
Serves Varies · Tapped daily
Stories & Oral Literature
Everyone Sings a Different PartMusic tradition
Aka polyphony has no leader and no fixed parts: each singer improvises within a shared framework, yodelling across register breaks, and the resulting texture is dense contrapuntal music produced collectively without direction. It has been studied intensively since the 1970s and inscribed by UNESCO, and it is sung in camp by children as readily as by elders.
The Forest That Is Being SoldContemporary account
Logging concessions, conservation areas and plantation agriculture have all reduced Aka access to the forest, sometimes in the name of protecting it. Aka people are frequently employed as trackers by the same operations that exclude them, and reports of abuse by eco-guards have been documented by human rights organisations.
Proverbs
“The forest feeds those who listen to it.”
Knowledge as subsistence.
“A camp with one voice is a camp that has left.”
Polyphony as social ideal.
“Honey is worth the sting and the climb.”
Effort proportionate to value.
Mythology & Spiritual Beliefs
Creation: The forest itself, Komba, is the source and the provider; spirit beings of the forest are addressed in song and through mokondi performances.
Beliefs: Forest spirits (mokondi) called through singing and masked appearance; the forest as a benevolent parent; healing through song and through plant knowledge; some Christian influence in roadside communities.
Ancestors: The dead remain in the forest; mourning ceremonies involve extended communal singing rather than shrines or graves that are returned to.
Gods, Goddesses & Spirits
Komba
The creator associated with the forest
Mokondi
Forest spirits summoned by song and appearing in raffia costume
Djengi
The great forest spirit, central to hunting ceremony
Architecture
Traditional settlements: Temporary camps of dome-shaped leaf huts built in a day by women, arranged in a circle facing inward; abandoned when the camp moves.
Building techniques: Sapling frames covered with large leaves; net and spear manufacture; barkcloth beating.
Village layout: Huts in a circle with the central space for singing and dancing; the forest immediately beyond in all directions.
Artifacts
Hunting nets
Craft
Long nets used in the communal drive that is the core hunting technique.
Painted barkcloth
Textile
Ficus bark beaten and painted with geometric designs.
Mokondi raffia costume
Performance
Full-body costume of the forest spirits.
Recorded polyphony
Music heritage
The corpus of recordings that made Aka singing internationally known.
Historical Timeline
Long-established
Aka communities occupy the western Congo basin forests, in exchange relations with farming neighbours.
1900s
Colonial rubber and ivory extraction disrupts forest life; Aka are conscripted as labour and trackers.
1970s–2000s
Aka music is recorded and studied intensively; logging concessions expand.
2003
Aka polyphony proclaimed a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage, later inscribed by UNESCO.
Present
Forest access declines; documented abuses by anti-poaching forces; sedentarisation increases.
Sources & Further Reading
Open sources
- UNESCO: Polyphonic singing of the Aka PygmiesUNESCO ICH
- Survival International: Baka and Aka reportingSurvival International
Premium & scholarly sources