ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the context and nature of responses to loss among two culturally distinct adolescent groups in central Africa-Aka foragers and Ngandu farmers. Cross-cultural research on grief among adolescents has seldom been conducted. Adolescents were selected for study because they can cognitively fully understand death, according to Piaget and others. The male adolescents said that men did not cry very often, that "crying was for women and children." A few of the adolescents expressed fear at the thought of their own, or a loved one's death, but the majority did not fear death. Twenty Aka and twenty Ngandu adolescents were asked to free list the names of adults and children, family, or friends who had died during their lifetime. The 20 Ngandu and 20 Aka adolescents were asked to name the two or three deceased individuals who caused them the greatest sense of loss and grief.
