Meet the Batwa Tribe of Bwindi
Experience the rich cultural heritage of the Batwa tribe on your visit to Bwindi.
Important details
- 3 hours
- Batwa Trail
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Additional information
The Batwa are one of the few tribes in the world that mastered the skills of surviving in the jungle – with treehouses made of grass, excellent hunting skills and amazing medicinal knowledge. If you are doing gorilla trekking in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, make sure to add a visit to this fascinating tribe to your day. It is an important way to support a tribe that is slowly disappearing and at the same time a wondrous and special visit to make.
Have you ever heard the story of an African boy who was exhibited in a New York Zoo at the beginning of the 20th century? Treated like an animal for years, he killed himself after ten years. The boy’s name was Ota Benga, and he was a pygmy – one of Uganda’s short forest dwellers. Officially called the Batwa, they are a tribe of hunter-gatherers who lived in the montane rainforest of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park for thousands of years. Here, they lived in harmony with nature and the mountain gorillas, only using what they needed for their daily survival. When Bwindi became an official national park in the 90s, they were driven out of the forest.
Walk the Batwa Trail
Today, they have less than 3000 members in Uganda, and surviving outside the forest has been hard for them. Supported by foreign NGOs and the Ugandan Wildlife Authority they have, however, set up the Batwa Trail as a way of telling both their children and visitors about their ancient ways to survive in the forest. During a 3-hour visit, they take you over a special trail and show you how they make a fire in the jungle, find herbal medicine, create a trap with twigs and leaves or clean their teeth with bark. They also show how they used to live in huts of grass, treehouses and caves. The visit becomes interactive when you join in the drumming and dancing or learn how to shoot your bow and arrow. All in all an amazing experience that most importantly supports this unique tribe!
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
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