Zaire
Tag archives for Zaire
What a Difference a Century Can Make
Posted by Greg Laden on March 1, 2013 At the beginning of the 20th century, a traveler in Central Africa made mention of some strange people that he had come across. He was traveling among regular, run-of-the-mill natives…probably Bantu-speaking people living in scattered villages and farming for their food. But along the way, strange people came out of the forest. These strange people…
King Leopold’s Soliloquy
Posted by Greg Laden on February 28, 2013 This is the book: King Leopold’s Soliloquy: A Defense of His Congo Rule. If you prefer, this is the on line version. I first became aware of, and read, King Leopold’s Soliloquy, which is not his soliloquy but a parody of what he might say according to Samuel Clemens, while doing fieldwork in the ex-Belgian…
Is it appropriate to use the term “Pygmy” when speaking of…Pygmies?
Posted by Greg Laden on August 5, 2012 Some of the people who live in the rain forest of Central Africa are known widely as “Pgymies.” That word…Pygmy…is considered problematic for a few different reasons. It refers to a person’s physical appearance, because it means “small.” The word is sometimes used in biology to refer to the smaller species among a group of…
Camps
Posted by Greg Laden on July 21, 2011 An Efe forest camp is usually dark and depending on the time of day, dripping from current or recent rain. The Efe live in dome shaped huts which may be more or less complete. A half dome might be a hut that was built quickly, or it might be a hut that was built more…
The good book
Posted by Greg Laden on June 28, 2009 Whenever I sat at Joseph and Mary’s dinner table, Mary showed a great deal of interest in my work. In between her frequent forays away from the dining room table to get this or that food item, or to issue instructions to a servant, or whatever, she would sit at the table across from me…
Don’t be a Jew
Posted by Greg Laden on June 27, 2009 Joseph and Mary, and Little Joe and Mary, and Grinker and I, sat around the table where most of the dinner had been laid out. Additional bits and pieces of the dinner would be brought out as needed shortly, but now it was time to pray. So we held hands and bowed our heads, and…
Dirty poor people living in slime: Missionaries and American Idol
Posted by Greg Laden on June 26, 2009 Actual missionaries As you may have noticed, I have written a series of posts about missionaries in eastern Zaire in the 1980s and early 1990s, focusing on my own personal experiences. These seven posts represent only a small number of these experiences, but they are more or less representative. They are meant to underscore the…
Michael Jackson Thrilled The Kids in Zaire
Posted by Greg Laden on June 25, 2009 I have only one Michael Jackson story.
The Great White Missionary
Posted by Greg Laden on June 25, 2009 It was a rare day that I was at the Ngodingodi research station at all … usually I was off in the forest with the Efe Pygmies, up the road excavating an archaeological site. It was also rare that Grinker, my cultural anthropologist colleague, was at the research station. He was spending most of his…
On a Mission from God
Posted by Greg Laden on June 22, 2009 Lately I’ve been reading the 19th and early 20th century traveler’s accounts of what is now known as the Western Rift Valley and the Ituri Forest, Congo. Some are written by the famous ‘explorers’ such as H.M. Stanley, others written by scientists on expeditions in the area, and still others by missionaries. Reading these accounts…
The Storm
Posted by Greg Laden on April 26, 2009 This is the final Congo Memoir. The penultimate installment is here. The final installment is below the fold …. If you are interested in issues pertaining to the Congo that are quite current, consider having a look at Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (recently made quite well known by being…
The Lion, The Tent, and the Anthropologist
Posted by Greg Laden on March 8, 2009 … continued form the previous Congo Memoir … I’ve mentioned lions before. There was the first time I encountered one in the wild when a lioness came within a couple of feet of me one dark night while we were lost in the savanna. There was the time Biker and I nearly walked into a…
On Edge
Posted by Greg Laden on February 23, 2009 … continued … A routine had settled in. Every morning, Joan would go off with Zorba and the crew and look for bones. I would go off by myself and track the lions and antelope. Biker’s routine was a bit more difficult then ours. His research on fire required that go every four hours, night…
If You Build It, They Will Fly Away
Posted by Greg Laden on February 18, 2009 … continued … In a couple of more days, a DC-3 would be landing at the old airstrip near Ishango, loaded up with equipment and people, including all three principal investigators, and then fly away. Biker, Joan and I would be the only bazungu (foreigners) left behind, and Zorba and his crew and Kununzu, one…
The Mountain Giveth, The Mountain Taketh Away
Posted by Greg Laden on February 14, 2009 ( … continued … ) It was near the end of the major field season in the Upper Semliki Valley, where dozens of Zairois workers (mostly off duty school teachers) and a dozen or so Zairois, Ethiopian, Tanzanian, Kenyan, Belgian, British and American scientists (including faculty and graduate students) were working side by side on…
, which is now available for the 
