Excerpt from Collection 480, Tape T3. Interview with Margaret Clapper
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Transcript of this excerpt
Note: Comments in brackets [] are added by the transcriber.
ERICKSEN: So what....were there conversions among the pygmies?
CLAPPER: Yes, there are a lot of them that accept the Lord, but the problem we have is their growth. Because we don't have too many pygmies...you know, I've had...I've had have three pygmies now that we've trained to play wind instruments. And this one especially– he's a real evangelist now. He goes with our evangelistic teams. His name is Baloi Epaineto. He... is excellent. He can play most any wind instrument that you give him to play. By the way, Nicolau trained him in it and so he can play that. And [clears throat] while the other tribes...the other village people look down on the pygmies they just can't believe they would have a pygmy that would be able to play a wind instrument. And so when they see him, they argue amoung themselves. I was in a conference one time where there were a lot of Nandis and this pygmy was in there with the group that were there playing their wind instruments, and I would hear them say, "Why he looks like a pygmy, but could a pygmy play a...a horn? Could he play a horn?" Well, someone else would say, "yes, he's a pygmy, all right." And finally they really have to admit that a pygmy can. And he's taught others: the Nandis, the Babila [?], and all of them. He's had music classes where he has taught them, and he still has classes for them if he can get horns enough. Right now, they've...he has a church of his own (he's the pastor of a church and I've just had a letter from him recently). And he said now he has a church of his own, but he's still going with the team. And when he went to Kenya [pauses] the team took him on...the evangelistic team took him along. And when he went to Kenya, he..ah...he was amazed. He said, "Those cars, there we so many cars, and everybody's dressed up here." He [laughs] he just couldn't get over that. Nicolau had that same problem. He went to Kenya, too, with the team one time, and he couldn't believe it. He...he said, "I felt like a shenzy[?]" (a "shenzy"[?] is someone who's just a nobody) And he said...he was always someone who was always very neat about himself and had fairly nice clothes. But when he got to Kenya and saw all the...the way people dress there, then he felt that we in Zaire were pretty...[laughs] shenzy [?] [laughs] there. And so Baloi, he just couldn't get over all this when he went.... But I had a letter, too, from one of our missionaries that's working in Keysen[?], Ghani[?] now. She said that the team had been there and that Baloi had given one of the best messages that she'd ever heard. He's very good at..um...weaving a story into his message. They're just....They're good storytellers, Pygmies
ERICKSEN: The Pygmies are.
CLAPPER: Yeah.. And they love jokes, they love to play jokes on each other. And, they'll play, too. If they have a vine on a tree that's hanging down, they'll test it out to be sure it's firm and they'll swing back and forth, you know, jump on just like kids. The same way, too, when they sing. I remember the first time I went in Mr. Bell said I had to ride a tupoi[?, a kind or riding chair or sling carried by two or four people] part of the way. And the pygmies were carrying me on the tapoi, and they were singing, you know. And they sing...they have a leader, and he makes up the words as he goes along and then they all follow in and repeat them. And so, what he was saying was that "This missionary is too heavy, we've got to get her off." [laughs] but... they were singing...I didn't...I couldn't understand the language they were singing [Ericksen laughs] but they were going over this. And what they had done between them, they had made a pact that they were sure they could get the missionary off the tupoi[?] because they...even though they were being paid to carry you, they still wanted to get you off that tupoi[?] and they wanted to see who could get you off first by their singing. So they'd sing about, and this and that, and "This is just killing me" and "I can't take it any longer." And you'd hear them doing this and that, and then you would take pity on them and get off, but [laughs] then they would laugh about it afterwards, and the missionary would come along and ask, "Well, why are you walking?" Well, I said, "I know I'm heavy. I was heavy for them to carry in." He said, "But they were paid to carry you! Don't you know that they made a pact before you got in that they'd get you off and make you walk?" [laughs] And then they'd laugh. So he called them on it, and they laughed and apologized and said they didn't really mean for me to walk. But I did walk most of the way anyhow, rather than to go they way they were going, because they would get to running, and you'd swing back and forth and you weren't sure whether you'd stay in the tupoi[?] or not. [laughs] And it was a lot of fun.
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