Woman Grinding
This image depicts a woman kneeling over grinding stone from the Great Lakes region. Livingstone described how "the mill consists of a block [of stone]. . . with a piece of quartz or other hard rock about the size of a half brick, one side of which has a convex surface, and fits into a concave hollow in the larger and stationary stone. The workwoman kneeling, grasps this upper millstone with both hands, and works it backwards and forwards in the hollow of the lower millstone" (Livingstone, pp. 543-44). David Livingstone (1813–1873) was a famous Scottish physician, Christian missionary, explorer and abolitionist. His interest was to locate the source of the Nile River. His missionary work also reinforced the European “Scramble for Africa” and the colonization of the continent. The same image, albeit reversed, is printed in Frank Leslie's Boy's and Girl's Weekly (1869), vol. 5, no. 122, p. 285.
Image Title
Woman Grinding
RegID
SI-OB-627
Date
1858-1864
Title
Woman Grinding
Source
David and Charles Livingstone, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries; and of the Discovery of the Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864 (London, 1865; reprinted New York, 1866), facing p. 543.
Language
English
Item sets
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Spatial Coverage
Africa--Great Lakes
Reproduced In
David and Charles Livingstone, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries; and of the Discovery of the Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864 (London, 1865; reprinted New York, 1866), facing p. 543.
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Last Updated
10-Feb-17
Identifier
Livingstone-543