Canal-U

Forest camp cooking : a meal of porcupine. Baka chronicles. Messok district, East Cameroon, June 2013

Camera, sound, editing : Romain Duda

The brush-tailed porcupine (Atherurus africanus) is one of the most appreciated and hunted game species in Central Africa. Abundant near the villages, this porcupine is hunted by smoking its burrow or hideout, or using snare traps made with metal wire.

That day, a porcupine is brought back to the camp of Zumlo (place of punctual or seasonal forest life of the lineage of Sanga Timothée), located in two hours of walk of the village. The catch of this game, so small is it, delighted the whole camp because everyone will benefit from a part of meat. If this game had been brought back to the village (the space along dirt roads, which brings together several lineages), it would inevitably have given rise to jealousies linked to a sharing circumscribed to the hunter's family circle.

The animal is first boiled by the sister of Sanga to remove the thorns. The skin is scratched, then the animal is cut by Sanga with the help of the anthropologist's knife. Sharing begins at the cut; children receive organs and pieces of skin. Consuming these nutritionally rich foods is also the opportunity for the child to learn to recognize and name the different parts of the animal. Each part received by the child is wrapped in a marantaceae leaf and cooked en papillotte in the embers by themselves. While butchering is a male activity, the woman will usually take over the cooking of the animal. It will be cooked in pot-au-feu with more or less water, salt, a little pepper, sometimes crushed oleaginous kernels (or more and more some bouillon cubes) and accompanied by a starch (cassava or plantain).