An Apingi Village
This image shows rectangular thatched-roof houses lined up on each side of a wide clearing or avenue. A group in the foreground was under a thatched, open-walled structure with a burning fire; it is uncertain what this depicts. The Apindjis (or Apingi, Apinzi, Apindje, Pinji) are part of the Okande-Tsogho ethnic group from the Loango Coast region. According to Du Chaillu, "the houses are made of bark and large leaves cover the roofs. There is generally one larger house in the village, which belongs to the chief" (p. 502). 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. See also image UVA03 for a similar village layout in the same broad cultural region.
Image Title
An Apingi Village
RegID
SI-OB-632
Date
1850s
Title
An Apingi Village
Source
Paul B. Du Chaillu, Explorations & adventures in equatorial Africa (London, 1861), facing p. 450. 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. 450.
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Last Updated
27-Jan-11
Identifier
DuChaillu-450