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A great example of community-based conservation. The villagers have traditionally venerated and protected the Geoffroy's Pied Colobus (Colobus vellerosus) and Mona monkeys (Cercopithecus campbelli), which live in the surrounding forest. The animals are accustomed to humans and often roam the streets of Boebeng village foraging for food from the villagers. A guided tour through the nearby forest will cost you 40,000 cedi’s (£2) and includes a walk around the village. Guides are knowledgeable about the tree species in the forest and close encounters with primates are frequent. What is great is that they do not encourage the feeding of monkeys and you get fantastic views of monkey troops behaving naturally, with little aggressive human-wildlife interaction. |
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Traditionally, the two villages had two distinct fettish god’s (Boebeng = the female god ‘Daworo’, Fiema = the male god ‘Abujo’) who married (hence the twinning of the villages). As folklore has it, in 1831 a hunter from Boebeng found a novel species of animal in the forest (the black-and-white colobus) sitting on the forest floor, on a white cloth. Upon returning to his village he consulted the community oracle to find out what the animal was. He was told that the monkeys were descendants of Daworo and Abujo, and would protect the village, bringing all inhabitants good fortune in their presence. It hence became taboo to harm the monkeys, and has remained in their culture ever since. |
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When travelling through the forest you come across a wondrous monkey graveyard, maintained by the villagers. If they find a monkey dead in the forest they bury it with full funeral rites (similar to humans), and the graves of the village’s oracles and medicine men are also scattered amongst them. |
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