Músgu Chief
This village scene shows a Musgu chief in regalia with his horse in the foreground. Other villagers cook and pound grain with mortar and pestle in the background. Musgu are located to the south of Lake Chad in the Central Savanna. Barth described his arrival there in late 1851 (p. 264). Heinrich Barth (1821–1865) was a German explorer and scholar of North Africa. He spoke Arabic, Fulani, Hausa and Kanuri, meaning he carefully documented the details of the cultures he visited. He traveled through the Western and Central Savana region between 1850 and 1855, which he published in a three-volume account in both English and German. In 1853, Barth and Ali Babba bin Bello, the Sultan of Sokoto, negotiated an extensive trade agreement.
Image Title
Músgu Chief
RegID
SI-OB-901
Date
1857
Title
Músgu Chief
Source
Henry [Heinrich] Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa : Being a Journal of an Expedition, Undertaken under the Auspices of H. B. M'.s Government, in the Years 1849-1855, vol. 2 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1857), facing title page.
Language
English
Item sets
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Spatial Coverage
Africa--Central Savanna
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Identifier
Barth001