By TODD PITMAN
Associated Press Writer
THE ITURI FOREST, Congo – They emerge from the stillness of the rainforest like a lost tribe of prehistoric warriors forgotten by time – a barefoot band of Mbuti Pygmies wielding iron-tipped spears.
The men come first, cloaked head to toe in coiled hunting nets shaved from the liana vine. Then the women, lugging hand-woven baskets filled with the same bloodstained antelope their ancestors survived on for thousands of years.
And waiting anxiously in the middle of their smoke-filled hunting camp: a horde of village traders who’ve come to buy as much bushmeat as the Mbuti can bring.