|
Jean-Pierre Hallet
was a man more intimately connected to Africa than perhaps any other westerner. His feats were legendary-what one expects
of fiction and adventure movies. About his mission to save the vanishing Bambuti pygmy tribe in the Ituri Forest in Northeast
Zaire, the newspapers and magazines of three decades reported it in various ways. He Saves Little People; A Giant Comes To
The Rescue; He's The Biggest Of The Little People of Zaire; Humanitarian Sows Seeds of Hope and Pygmies Have A Friend in Hallet.
A friend, indeed. In 1955 he lost his right hand, in an explosion, while dynamiting Lake Tanganyika for fish to feed
a Pygmy tribe. In 1957 he was successful in obtaining, from the colonial government, official acceptance of his "Declaration
of Emancipation" for the endangered pygmies. He lived with the Bambuti pygmies for eighteen months and learned six aboriginal
languages and seventeen dialects.His extensive knowledge of the pygmy language resulted in a dictionary of more than 18,000
terms, which remains unpublished. He founded The Pygmy Fund in 1974, the only organization devoted to the preservation of
the lives and culture of surviving forest dwelling Efe pygmies.
Born in 1927 in Louvain, Belgium, Jean-Pierre
Hallet was the son of Andre Hallet, the famed Belgian post-impressionist painter, who lived in the Congo. Jean-Pierre played
with pygmy children, north of Lake Kivu, in the northeastern part of the former Belgian Congo. At six, he left his playmates
to go to school in Europe. He was already the height of an average adult pygmy in the forest. He returned in 1948 with a Sorbonne
education. He was now an agronomist and a sociologist. Jean-Pierre was twenty-one. He was six feet five inches tall and 225
pounds. His incredible life was about to unfold and his reputation as "father to the pygmies" and the "Abe
Lincoln of the Congo" was just beginning.
Jean-Pierre Hallet would become a heroic figure. He would become
an authority on African culture and a blood brother to many tribes. He was an internationally renowned africanist, ethnologist,
naturalist, author, lecturer, explorer, cinematographer, artist, African art authority and collector as well as a death-defying
adventurer. He delivered more than 500 African babies, pygmy and non-pygmy. It would be difficult to find another man with
such a resume.
He would author three books, the Kitabu trilogy. (Kitabu is roughly translated in Swahili as book.)
Congo Kitabu, the first of the trilogy was autobiographical. It would be translated into twenty-one languages including Chinese
and Russian. His own words say it best. "I grew up among the pygmies, learning everything that is their world,....making
my first bow and arrow.....identifying birds and animals."
In Animal Kitabu, he explained the odd double life
of the hippopotamus, aquatic by day and terrestrial by night. "At the Rwindi Camp in the Congo's Albert National Park,
the hippos used to come on moonlit nights, walking a full mile from the Rwindi River, just to stand outside the restaurant
and watch the tourists eating, drinking, chattering and playing cards. During the day, tourists went to the river to watch
the hippos."
In Pygmy Kitabu, his descriptions of the pygmies had palpable charm -"They are very amiable,
warmhearted, fun-loving, sometimes mischievous but wholly non-aggressive characters, who behave more like the elves of European
legend than the awful killer apes of modern myth." He also wrote "They love to dance, sing, play the harp and flute,
tell jokes, compose tongue twisters, and engage in thrilling sports like the grand old game of archery-ball."
Human Potential, a magazine published by The Ambassador International Cultural Foundation, featured a cover story in the
September 1975 issue entitled" To Save A People". The cover photograph was a charming portrayal of a moment of tenderness
between a pygmy father and child. The man behind the lens was Jean-Pierre Hallet who captured the warmth and the sensitivity
of that moment. "To Save a People" was comprised of a series of conversations by M. Hallet as told to Senior Editor
Herman L. Hoeh. Following is some of what he said.
About the pygmies: "The pygmies of the Ituri Forest must
be saved. They still represent the true human potential for love, peace and harmony, without crime or greed. If people are
judged by the quality of their hearts and minds, the ancestral pygmies are giants of mankind. Yet, our often blind, "civilization"
is now responsible for the imminent extinction of those people by systematically destroying their forest. Sophisticated technology
is self-destructive. Our ultimate survival can only be inspired by saving a simple people such as the pygmies..."
On the pygmy belief about death: "God willed it. If God willed it thus, it is because He had his reasons. One
does not judge God."
On his documentary, Pygmies: "In the fall of 1972, I made a full length documentary
on the Efe pygmies wanting to raise funds to help them in their struggle for survival. The Zaire government was about to rule
that the pygmies could not be photographed, since they felt that because of their "primitive" appearance they "are
bad public relations for the new nation.".....I managed to produce this graphic documentary incorporating into 90 minutes
the essence of a lifetime of observation and understanding-the first and last ever made. In September 1973 the film was shown,
at a press preview, at The Academy Award Theatre in Los Angeles. It was a great success: standing ovation and excellent trade
reviews."
Jean-Pierre Hallet was appealing and charismatic. He charmed Tonight Show viewers appearing as
a guest of Johnny Carson. He was photographed with Dwight Eisenhower. Writing his eulogy, following his death on New Years
Day of 2004, family friend, Donald Heyneman, Ph.D., wrote "...he could not enter a room without arresting all attention.
He could commandeer any conversation usually redirecting it towards his worthy objectives. Strong opinions, strongly-and fully
delivered were a trademark. He was indeed larger than life, a powerful presence. One who led a full, unrestrained unconventional
independent and important life, Jean Pierre Hallet was, and remains, a significant force in the lives of all who were privileged
to have known him."
This auction is as much about the man and his endeavors as it is about "the things."
To honor the spirit of Jean-Pierre Hallet and the way in which he lived, enjoy your time at this exhibition and auction and
"in the spirit" of the man, make a contribution to The Pygmy Fund, P.O. Box 277, Malibu, California 90265.
Joanne C. Grant
Cornwall, New York
February 2006
|
|
Photo by Jean-Pierre
Hallet
|
"PEOPLE
OF LOVE" POEM by Jean-Pierre Hallet
Here stands the Forest, Ituri,
Unsullied and wildly beautiful!
Rich in gauzy orchids, velvet poinsettias and maidenhair ferns.
Fields of moist shade, trembling shadows and shafts
of golden sunlight peering through tangled vines and gnarled trees.
A vast garden, an Edenic land,
Free to stand,
to bless, to shelter.
Free from screeching sounds, no hot sidewalks and dusty streets
But friendly trees stand with
open arms, faithful, loyal.
A solemn mystery, enduring strength.
Like God Himself, they stand, timeless, endless.
This is home for my Pygmy friends.
There are no cathedrals, plush carpets golden alters, nor mammoth organs and
choirs.
Worship ascends from greening, moss carpeted aisles of tender, lace-like foliage.
There is no book but Nature's
Holy writ, no score to follow
But with grace and poise the Harpist strums his prayer.
I have shared with them
their song of life, their laughter and their tears.
We have philosophized in the splendor of the night and nestled by
the soft warm fire to count the stars together.
I've rejoiced in their blessings of a brand new life and heard a lullaby.
I have sorrowed as I covered tenderly, with warm brown earth, a beloved and shared a broken heart.
An old man
stood alone.
We wept. God was there.
I felt a bond, a mystic bond, stronger than blood itself.
I have carried
them in my arms and loved them.
I became to them as one who eases the yoke.
And I have learned as from Solomon or
Confucius,
Great wisdom and gained a view, an extraordinary view, of the depth, the height and breadth of Osani, the
Pygmy word for Love.
|
