Untitled Images (Clothing Styles, Loango Coast Region)
From the Loango kingdom in the Loango Coast region, this image depicts men in full dress, some with spears, bows, swords, etc. . . Some of the women carry children on their backs. Dapper provided a detailed description of clothing materials and styles. He wrote "all the clothes of Louango are made from materials of palm leaves. . . Men wear long robes from the waist to their feet, the body above is uncovered (p. 324). In an informed discussion of Dapper as an historical source, Adam Jones writes "there is virtually no evidence that Dapper took much interest in what sort of visual material was to accompany his text, and that it was the publisher, Van Meurs, who probably did all the engraving himself." With respect to the plates, in particular, Jones concludes that "for those interested in seventeenth-century black Africa rather than in the history of European perceptions, few of the plates showing human beings and artefacts are of any value. . . [and] originated solely from Van Meurs' imagination. . . [although] they have been used as historical evidence in modern works." See Jones, "Decompiling Dapper: A Preliminary Search for Evidence" History in Africa, 17 (1990), pp. 187-190.
Image Title
Untitled Images (Clothing Styles, Loango Coast Region)
RegID
SI-OB-637
Date
Late-1600s
Title
Untitled Images (Clothing Styles, Loango Coast Region)
Source
D. O. Dapper, Description de l'Afrique. . . Traduite du Flamand (Amsterdam, 1686; 1st ed., 1668), p. 324. Copy in the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.
Language
French
Item sets
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Spatial Coverage
Africa--West Central North
Reproduced In
D. O. Dapper, Description de l'Afrique . . . Traduite du Flamand (Amsterdam,1686; 1st ed., 1668), p. 324.
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Identifier
DAP7