The Pigmy Family

In the Pygmy family, parents are full of love and attention for their children but are concerned to a very limited degree for the rearing and education of their children which is made more collectively.

The family is really recognizable within the band; the parents' hut represents the family unit. and there is no sex differentiation except at parental level:

Grandparents are called "tata", the father is called "ePa", the mother is called "ema", the sibling "afua'l" and the child "miki". One interesting feature is that the children call each adult from the generation of their parents "father" or "mother" and so forth for the grand parents and siblings.

The parental authority is almost inexistent as explained by Matthew Hodes "There is very little parental authority as we know it, because punishment of wife or child quickly becomes a matter for communal discussion"

The teaching of a child is made within his age group by older children and consists mostly to acquire necessary skills such as fishing, hunting etcÐ'...

Young boys are circumcised and puberty is a period of initiation for both boys and girls, this period is the death of the children and the birth of the adult, under the protection of the supreme spirit Jengi . In many aspects, family hasn't a great role in the kid's education which is more a matter of the community; everybody treats each child as their own. Nevertheless, parent's love for their children is exceptionally strong in pigmy society.

A children have much contacts with every member of the community, adults (with the multiple parenting) and others children (while teachings) which is something we can find in a lot of gathering societies and completely different of our occidental typical family.

The Pigmies are very peaceful and hate violence (in words or behavioral attitudes), if two people don't agree, they will just not speech to each others, try to avoid each other or in worst cases one of them leaves the village. This logic is to be applied to couple as well, who can separate easily if needed. In that sense, marriage isn't really complicated in pigmy's culture but is also crucial as being single