Created by Ronold E. Shanin, who became well known for the African wildlife epics Rivers of Fire and Ice (1968) and Touch the Sky (1974), “Camera Thrills in Wildest Africa” shows Victoria Falls, and the rich wilderness of the interior savannah including elephants, hippos, gazelle, dingos, lions, and more. At the 2:30 mark is a visit to the Ituri Forest near the Mountains of the Moon, where the Bambuti (aka Mbuti) pygmy tribe is seen. An expedition to the Mountains of the Moon is then seen, with porters carrying supplies up the same trails where Lord Stanley once walked. The film ends on the roof of Africa, with frozen Mount Stanley shown and the erupting volcano Mt. Nyamuragira in the Virunga Mountains located 100 miles away.
The Mbuti population lives in the Ituri Forest, a tropical rainforest covering about 70,000 km2 of the north/northeast portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Bambuti are pygmy hunter-gatherers, and are one of the oldest indigenous people of the Congo region of Africa. The Bambuti are composed of bands which are relatively small in size, ranging from 15 to 60 people. The Bambuti population totals about 30,000 to 40,000 people. There are four distinct cultures within the Bambuti. These are
The Efé, who speak the language of a neighboring Sudanic people, Lese.
The Sua AKA Kango AKA Mbuti, who speak a dialect (or perhaps two) of the language of a neighboring Bantu people, Bila.
The Asua, the only Mbuti people with their own language, which is closely related to that of the neighboring Sudanic Mangbetu.
The term BaMbuti (Mbuti) is therefore confusing, as it has been used to refer to all the pygmy peoples in the Ituri region in general, as well as to a single subgroup in the center of the Ituri forest.
Around 2500 BCE, the Ancient Egyptians made reference to a “people of the trees” that could have been the Mbuti
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