Funeral Ceremony at Annabon
This engraving shows a town with several inhabitants in front of thatched-roof houses with mountains in the background. Annobón is part of the volcanic island chain in the Gulf of Guinea. It lies to the south of St. Tomé and Principe. Allen wrote how he "witnessed part of a funeral ceremony for a woman who had died the evening before. . . All the people were found assembled in a semi-circle at the front of a house, singing. . . A man in the middle poised a cross at least twenty feet high" (Allen, p. 53). William Allen (1792–1864) was an English naval officer and explorer. Thomas Richard Heywood Thomson (1813–1876) was an English explorer and naturalist. They took part in the Niger expedition to map the course of the river.
Image Title
Funeral Ceremony at Annabon
RegID
SI-OB-856
Date
1848
Title
Funeral Ceremony at Annabon
Source
William Allen and Thomas Richard Heywood Thomson, A Narrative of the Expedition sent by Her Majesty's Government to the River Niger, in 1841, vol. 2 (London: R. Bentley, 1848), p. 64.
Language
English
Item sets
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Spatial Coverage
Africa--Gulf Islands--Annobón
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Last Updated
10-Feb-17; 27-Aug-19
Identifier
Allen07