Unfortunately, the prevailing method of agriculture is "slash and burn." New fields are prepared in the dry season. Cutting and burning the new field is one of the chief contributions the men make towards the families subsistence.
This rather destructive method allows field preparation using very simple tools but requires that fresh areas be brought under cultivation about every 2-3 years as the shallow rainforest soils are quickly depleted.
Once the forest is burned, the women take over with hoeing, planting crops and harvesting.
Women's responsibilities are very labor intensive. Girls from a young age are able to carry incredible weights (sometimes up steep mountain slopes), perfectly balanced on their heads. These women are carrying water back from the spring in locally made clay jugs. The girl in the middle is wearing a western style dress and not the typical cotton wrap-around skirt indicating that she is unmarried.
These women have hiked approximately 15 kilometers (9 miles) to find firewood; the distance one must now travel to find forest outside the regional capital of Kikwit. The haze you see in the background is from fires set to prepare the new seasons fields.
A traditional, specialized skill which isn't known to all people is the manufacture of cooking pots and water jugs out of clay. Most villages have one person who's job it is to prepare these vessels.
In our area, women rarely smoked tobacco. Instead they prefered a more traditional "snuff" which was prepared by fire drying fresh tobacco leaves and grinding it to a fine powder in specialized mortars. The tobacco's potency was enhanced by combining it with highly alkaline ashes made from the burned flowers of the palm tree.
Girls assume a lot of domestic responsibility at a very early age. A girl of this age is already hauling firewood and water and babysitting the children while her mother is in the field tending crops.
One of the few paying occupations available to men is cutting palm nuts for the local palm oil monopoly. Long hours are required to fill the quota necessary to receive payment. The pay is not much and certainly doesn't keep up with inflation, making this less of a living wage and more of a supplementary income.
Certain types of simple baskets are made by everyone, but more durable and complicated baskets are typically made by someone specializing in this profession.
Prior to colonization in the 1800's, the traditional clothing for both men and women throughout central Congo consisted of a wrap-around skirt of woven rafia (palm leaf fiber) cloth. The knowledge of how to weave rafia has been largely forgotten and people are dependent on purchasing imported clothing and cotton cloth manufactured in larger cities.
People in this part of Africa were forging iron tools from a very ancient time. Although the knowledge of forging techniques are mostly forgotten, evidence of it's influence can still be seen. Relics such as this bellows (foreground) and stone anvil (behind) are treated with an almost sacred reverence and are maintained by the chief of the clan.
Palm wine making is a profession which many men have a rudimentary knowledge of, but only devoted palm tappers make the really good stuff. Depending on who you buy from, the time of the day, age of the tree, rainfall and many other factors you can get wine ranging in taste from effervescent sweet champagne to sour wine not too far from vinegar.
Palm wine is made by fermenting sap which is tapped from the male flowers of the oil palm (a weaker, less tasty, wine is also made from the rafia palm). A good producing tree will fill an average calabash (gourd) twice a day per tapped flower. Residual yeast in the gourd rapidly ferments the juice which is ready for consumption, immediately upon collection in the morning and again in the evening.
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