Decapitation Scene at Goumbi
This image from the Loango Coast region depicts the decapitation of a witch. Goumbi likely referred to the Mpongwe people. Du Chaillu wrote that "the suspected witches were placed in a large canoe with the executioners, the witch doctor, and a number of other armed people. Each suspect was given mboundou, a drink of a poison. If the suspect died, that proved his/her guilt, and decapitation followed. If the suspect was innocent let the mboundou go out" (Du Chaillu, p. 398). 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
Decapitation Scene at Goumbi
RegID
SI-OB-635
Date
1850s
Title
Decapitation Scene at Goumbi
Source
Paul B. Du Chaillu, Explorations & adventures in equatorial Africa (London, 1861), facing p. 398. 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. 398.
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Identifier
DuChaillu-398