Gentlemen,

We need to be respectful of the practices of other cultures.

As I have maintained for years, this proves that there is such a thing as too much diversity.

quote:

Originally posted by 500grains:
Gentlemen,

We need to be respectful of the practices of other cultures.

Mr Grains,

Very droll.

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:
[QUOTE]

I am sure I have seen another photo with a human skull in the ashes.

If believing this is a baboon makes it easier to look at it, go ahead. But it bears no resemblance to baboon to me .

BTW In the Congo, hungry Congolese soldiers were reported to be killing pygmies as meat only a year or two ago. I mentioned it on these forums at the time.

John,

You are right, here is the pic with a view of the skull.

Definitely right, mostly the guys from Belgian Congo love that.
3 years ago the former president Ange Felix Patassé failed in tempting a coup with soldiers from next door, DCR soldiers (from former Belgian Congo, the other side of the Oubangui river which separatates Bangui in the CAR from the Dem Congo Rep). This Congoleses killed and ate quite a lot of RCA guys before to be rejected beyond the Oubangui river. People from RCA and Zaire put smoked meat (biltong) far above fried meat.

Sorry You cannot share the odor.

Yes 500grains, it's and remains their culture.

Rich, nothing wrong with leopard meat. I tried it last month, sirloin, like lion's meat, tastes like veal.

yet here in North America I can take you places that you won't see sign of anyone ever being there and you can spend the summer without hearing a motorized vehicle. No plastic, cans, or AK47's. god I love this continent.

Last April I did a game survey of the old Maika Penge hunting block on the Bomakandi River in North Eastern Congo (DCR). I stayed in Isiro for a while. While I was there about 1,500 pygmies held a rally to protest the fact that they were being eaten by some of General Bemba's troops. I attended the rally. The names of the soldiers are on the internet. They are under house arrest.

One of my companions was related to one of the soldiers who ate the pygmies. He said they sent the pygmies out to shoot monkies for them but that when the pygmies returned empty handed they decided to eat the pygmies instead.

Cannibalism does not seem to be frowned on in that part of the world. But murder is and to be a successful cannibal you first of all have to be a murderer or grave digger.

I am told but cannot confirm that along some stretches of the Congo River the tribes try to accost river boats at night and using devices like sheppards crooks pull sleeping passengers off the deck to kill and eat for food. The poorer passengers cannot afford cabins and so sleep on the deck.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline






I met the oldest white settler a Mr Rosier, 79, left in Isiro. His cook was a cannibal. The prisons have no money for food or wardens so they lease the prisoners out as casual labourers. He got a good deal on her but of course he made sure to keep plenty of food in the house.

Well, I must say that the smoked limbs pictured here definitely Do NOT look human, but looks to belong to antoher species of large primate, probably a baboon as somebody else already pointed out.

Having grown up, fished, hunted and worked with chimpanzees for the last 10yrs in many of the absolutely most "remote" forrests of the DRC...I must also add that cannibalism is by far the last thing I worry about when working in these parts.
I would say the traffic in our western cultures is by far mush more dangerous for your health than any threats in an african forrest.

To get back to the original topic about remote areas the part of the Congo basin referred to as "The Great Forest" has got to be the most remote part of Africa. It is 468,000 square miles in size and uninhabited. There are no roads, logging nor mining companies once you get away from the river. There are and estimated 160,000 to 300,000 pygmies around the edge who go into the forest to get game to bring out and trade for vegetables but I think really nobody right in the heart of the forest.

It is heavily leached by tropical rains and thus pretty sterile country. The rivers don 't hold fish in the same numbers as the savannah rivers. But who knows what is in there. A spokesman for the ICCN, the Congo nature Conservatzion organization told me, "the great forest has yet to give up its secrets."

In Isiro Mr Rosier told me about an animal locally called the "animal of the rainbow" or "father of the rainbow".

He saw the tracks. He says he thinks they were the tracks of a 7 meter long crocodile crossing open country between rivers. It is not in the great forest but rather in Azandeland. Gotz von Wild told me that tribesmen there kept him out of certain areas to avoid meeting, "the animal of the rainbow."

He showed me a big swamp on the map where no white man has ever been.

And just recently Karl Amman, a Swiss photographer re-discovered a giant chimpanzee in much the same area near Bili. They were found a century ago by elephant hunters and recently re-discovered by the NGS. Local Belgium settlers shot a few of them over the years. There are some skulls in museums.

John Valk measured the tracks and told me they are about size 14 in human shoe size terms. They are almost 6 feet tall with a conical rather than round head. In size, head shape, and weight they look about what a Sasquatch is supposed to look like. The males are too heavy to climb trees. they sleep in ground nests more than 6 feet long. And they are for real.

Look up lion killing apes or Bili Apes or Karl Annan on the internet and you can get all the dope.

John Valk baby sat a bunch of American scientists like Geohge Schaller who tried to find them but failed to do so. But a lady anthropologist saw one, one was photographed with a remote camera, and an Afriacn shot a big male which has been photographed.

If anyone was serious about making an expedition there I could organize it.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

quote:

And just recently Karl Amman, a Swiss photographer re-discovered a giant chimpanzee in much the same area near Bili. They were found a century ago by elephant hunters and recently re-discovered by the NGS. Local Belgium settlers shot a few of them over the years. There are some skulls in museums.

John Valk measured the tracks and told me they are about size 14 in human shoe size terms. They are almost 6 feet tall with a conical rather than round head. In size, head shape, and weight they look about what a Sasquatch is supposed to look like. The males are too heavy to climb trees. they sleep in ground nests more than 6 feet long. And they are for real.

Look up lion killing apes or Bili Apes or Karl Annan on the internet and you can get all the dope.

I've also seen this, its very interesting to think that there is an undocumented animal this big that no modern "white man" has seen. Its very possible that, as you suggested, this is the MOST REMOTE section of Africa. Not that I could go, but how would you arrange such a trip? That would certainly be an adventure.

The area I have wanted to explore is the interior of Gabon.

The NGS financed a trek through this area about 4 years ago, and they kept running photo's (up linked by satellite phone) of the animals seen there.

Many, many bongo, and small forest elephent with supposedly pink/rose tinted ivory.

This region is unspoiled by market hunting, and begging for better exploration.

That's where I'd go.

Garrett

Mike Fay, who led the Central Africa Expedition well publicized by National Geographic, was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Central African Republic during the late 70's, as was I. In those days PCV's lived in the bush and I met Mike on a couple of occasions but we weren't on the same projects and not based in the same part of the country. He does know what he is talking about when he talks about the Congo Basin. Read his description:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/08/0809_mikefayinterview.html

His description of 100 pound a side FOREST elephants makes one want to make a trip there, just to see that they still exist.

There is a French Professional hunter whose last name is Masson who works for Gerrard Pasenisis in the Selous. He is an excellent elephant hunter and he has hunted the remote parts of Gabon for many years. If my memory serves me correctly, and these days it seldom does, he said he had seen many elephants in the 70 pound range.

Many years ago I met another Frenchman from Mali doing a helicopter survey of Gabon. He had pictures of a huge elphant miles out in a papyrus swamp. He said it would have been impossible to reach this animal either on foot because of the water or by canoe because it was too thick to pole through. Its tusks seemed very straight and went right the ground. He also said there are about 30,000 Gorillas in Gabon. He said there are a great many very large venemous snakes there and he said whenever he went into the jungle there he always had the feeling it would have been very easy for something to go wrong and to never get out again.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

Dear Gibson,

If you want to go to DRC I would wait until the elections are over in April. No one knows what is going to happen.

The UN is there in large numbers now and more troops are going there in preparation for the election. Germany, for example is sending 1,500 paratoopers to Kinshsha.

After that you will have to get in touch with the security people and get invitations for everywhere you go. They have to know you are coming and they are with you all the time.

I hear some people have been coming in from Kenya without visas or anything and getting away with it but it would be a mistake to try that.

Then you need the contacts who have the vehicles and infrastructure to get you to where the big apes are and to hire the best local trackers.

And you need money for all the above. I hear there are some people who just back pack around and get away with it but I would not recommend it.

If you arrive in Kinshasa Airport without contacts people are liable to steal your passport or plant drugs in your luggage.

And in many places where there has been much killing the people are paranoid. When I was in Isiro two Belgiums arrived to look at a hunting block near Garamba Park. They were only there a few days when a rumour started that they were there to steal the white rhinos in the Park. Silly rumour. But they were run out of town by a mob. They had to flee.


VBR,


Ted Gorsline

"Today in Africa, in the People's Republic of the Congo, there lays a vast, hot and humid area covered with thick forests and dotted with streams and swamps. Of these swamps, there exists one that is undisputedly the largest in the entire world . . . the Likouala Swamp. Approximately 55,000 square miles, larger than the entire state of Florida, the government has officially declared it 80% unexplored. To the scientific community, this area is as foreign as an entirely new planet."