Ndiayai, King of the Fans
The Fang people, also known as Fãn or Pahouin, are an ethnic group that straddle the southern Bight of Biafra and northern Loango Coast regions. The speak a Southern Bantu language called Fang, Pahouin, Pamue or Pangwe. The Fang people likely arrived to this region to avoid violence emanating out of the formation of the Sokoto Caliphate after 1804. The image depicts a local ruler, Ndiayai, who is not easily identifiable. He was depicted wearing regalia and armed with lances, shield and sword. The king was also wearing an animal tooth necklace and amulet. Paul Belloni Du Chaillu (c. 1831–1903) was a French-American traveler, zoologist, and anthropologist. He became famous in the 1860s as the first European to confirm the existence of gorillas and the Pygmy people of Africa's Central Interior region.
Image Title
Ndiayai, King of the Fans
RegID
SI-OB-631
Date
1850s
Title
Ndiayai, King of the Fans
Source
Paul B. Du Chaillu, Explorations & adventures in equatorial Africa (London, 1861), facing p. 77. (Copy in Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library)
Language
English
Item sets
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Spatial Coverage
Africa--West Central North
Reproduced In
Paul B. Du Chaillu, Explorations & adventures in equatorial Africa (London, 1861), facing p. 77.
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Identifier
DuChaillu-77