Author Archives: NF

Oral Literature in Africa: digitised texts in French, 1828-1930

Adapted from: FINNEGAN, Ruth. « Bibliography ». Oral Literature in Africa, Open Book Publishers, 2012, p. 509-542: https://books.openedition.org/obp/1210 (see also: https://www.ruthhfinnegan.com/oral-literature-in-africa)

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The author of this bibliography, Ruth Finnegan, recorded Limba stories and songs in the remote villages of Kakarima and Kamabai in Sierra Leone in 1961. Her recordings are available at: https://sms.cam.ac.uk/search?qt_type=sms&qt=finnegan. “The collection consists of stories and occasional songs on the topics of the beginning of the world, animals, and human adventures, with some work songs and songs to accompany rituals also included. The songs and stories are performed mainly by men; the leading performers being Karanke Dema and Niaka Dema, both middle-aged dwellers in Kakarima, the former a smith, drummer and singer.”

Date posted: September 21, 2024 | Author: | Comments Off on Oral Literature in Africa: digitised texts in French, 1828-1930

Old maps of Angola, Congo, and Zambia, from European repositories

Maps of Angola:
Alphabetica (Italy): word Angola
E-rara (Switzerland): word Angola
Gallica (France): subject Angola, word Angola, Angola maps by Lannoy de Bissy
Kartenportal (Switzerland): search on map
Navigae (France): word Angola
Old maps online (Switzerland): search on map
Registo nacional de objetos digitais (Portugal): word Angola

Maps of Congo:
Alphabetica (Italy): word Congo
E-rara (Switzerland): word Congo, word Kongo
Gallica (France): subject Congo, word Congo, Congo maps by Lannoy de Bissy
Kartenportal (Switzerland): search on map
Navigae (France): word Congo
Old maps online (Switzerland): search on map
Registo nacional de objetos digitais (Portugal): word Congo

Maps of Zambia:
Alphabetica (Italy): word Zambia
Gallica (France): word Zambie, word Zambezie, word Rhodesie, Zambia maps by Lannoy de Bissy
Kartenportal (Switzerland): search on map
Old maps online (Switzerland): search on map

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To find other repositories: Chronoscope supported GLAMs, Lexilogos Africa, Lexilogos Maps.

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Another way to find maps is to search by “Text-on-Maps” in the David Rumsey map collection: search for a place name that should be written on it, for example Mporokoso, Fungurume… If you have no idea of what to search, look for the most unique place names you can find on a previous map, like for example this German map of Central Africa in 1914 (source).

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See also: BASSETT, Thomas J. “Indigenous Mapmaking in Intertropical Africa”. The History of Cartography. Volume Two, Book Three (https://press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/HOC_V2_B3/Volume2_Book3.html), Chapter 3, p. 24-48: https://press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/HOC_V2_B3/HOC_VOLUME2_Book3_chapter3.pdf

Date posted: July 31, 2024 | Author: | Comments Off on Old maps of Angola, Congo, and Zambia, from European repositories

Outtakes from “First World Festival of Negro Arts, 1966”, a film by William Greaves

Scenes recorded for the film but not included in the final version. The final version is here: http://www.williamgreaves.com/first-world-festival-negro-arts/.

To watch the silent outakes from that film, click on the images below. Outakes archived on https://archive.org/details/306-7725x-7. Public Domain material, from United States Information Agency [USIA] collection at National Archives and Records Administration [NARA]. Movie stills from Internet Archive.
In order to find out who and what is shown in these pictures, here is the calendar of events, 1st-24 April 1966: https://fman.huma-num.fr/s/dictionnaire/page/calendrier.

Outtake 1
















Outtake 2






Outtake 3
















Outtake 4





















Outtake 5



















Outtake 6






















Outtake 7
























Outtake 8












Outtake 9















Outtake 10


















Date posted: January 21, 2024 | Author: | Comments Off on Outtakes from “First World Festival of Negro Arts, 1966”, a film by William Greaves

Some IIIF images about the 1966 first World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar



Factory printed cloth (cotton, dye) with a repeating pattern of two vertical rows of abstract figures on yellow backgrounds with the text “DAKAR” written above and below. Orange text on the top right border reads “DU 1er AU 24 AVRIL 1966″ and on the bottom and top left border reads “1er FESTIVAL MONDIAL DES ARTS NEGRES.” The Wil and Irene Petty Collection, National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved.


Gazette de Lausanne et Journal suisse, Lausanne, 169e année, n° 84 (12 avril 1966), p. 1. [Digitised by Le Temps, https://www.letempsarchives.ch/page/GDL_1966_04_12/1]. All rights reserved.


Luxemburger Wort, 119. Jg., n° 106/107 (16.04.1966), p. 4. [Digitised by the National Library of Luxembourg, https://persist.lu/ark:70795/w98048xw2/pages/4/articles/DIVL502]. All rights reserved.


At the Festival of Negro Arts held in Dakar, the National Dance Ensemble of Côte d’Ivoire performed a knife dance.
Revue, 22. Jg., n° 22 (23.04.1966), p. 5. [Digitised by the National Library of Luxembourg, https://persist.lu/ark:70795/fb8w18qh3p/pages/5/articles/DIVL46]. All rights reserved.


Detail from “North Win X-O Games”, by Robert Dennis Reid, 1965. Anacostia Community Museum, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved.
In 1966, Reid was one of ten African American artists selected for an exhibition at the First World Festival of Negro Arts held in Dakar.


Geoffrey Clements [photographer]. [Portrait of] Robert [Dennis] Reid, 1966. American Federation of Arts records, 1895-1993. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. All rights reserved.


Gazette de Lausanne. La Gazette littéraire, Lausanne, 169e année, n° 106 (7/8 mai 1966), p. 13. [Digitised by Le Temps, https://www.letempsarchives.ch/page/GDL_1966_05_07/13]. All rights reserved.


L’Action : quotidien catholique, Québec, 59e année, n° 17673 (31 mai 1966), p. 10. [Digitised by the National Library of Quebec, https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/3492527]. All rights reserved.


Construire, Zurich, 1st June 1966, p. 5. [Digitised by the National Library of Switzerland, https://www.e-newspaperarchives.ch/?a=d&d=MIG19660601-01.2.15]. All rights reserved.


Rogalands Avis, p. 6 (also in Bergens Arbeiderblad, p. 4), Norway, 18 October 1966. [Digitised by the National Library of Norway, http://urn.nb.no/URN:NBN:no-nb_digavis_rogalandsavis_null_null_19661018_68_242_1]. All rights reserved.


Boubou made in 1966 by a local tailor in Dakar, commissioned by the English feminist educator Lalage Bown to wear at the opening of the Second International Congress of Africanists, in Dakar, December 1967. “I simply asked the tailor to make me an outfit in the then-current style.” Given by Professor Lalage Bown. Victoria and Albert Museum (London), Textiles and Fashion Collection, T.2422:1to4-2021. All rights reserved.


Luxemburger Wort, 123. Jg., n° 106 (16.04.1970), p. 17. [Digitised by the National Library of Luxembourg, https://persist.lu/ark:70795/3jhznzs3d/pages/17/]. All rights reserved.

Date posted: January 10, 2024 | Author: | Comments Off on Some IIIF images about the 1966 first World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar

Images and sounds of African weddings from digitized archives


Zulu wedding dance. November 1937. Wellcome Trust Corporate Archive. WT/D/1/20/1/43/50.
In copyright. Source: Wellcome Collection. M0005319. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/c6ae9tbf

Nondel ‘ekhaya. Wedding at home. South Africa, Ngqoko, Lumko district. Xhosa people. 1983.
Centre de Recherche en Ethnomusicologie, Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative, unité mixte de recherche du CNRS et de l’université Paris Nanterre (UMR 7186). Free listening. https://archives.crem-cnrs.fr/archives/items/CNRSMH_E_1996_013_001_002_035/
“Playing upon on the musical bow by Jofirsti Lungisa, performance on the instrument of the song entitled Nandel’ekhaye, “Married at home”.
The musician grips the wood of the bow between the teeth and scrapes the string with a small stick. She obtains two fundamental sounds, a major second apart, by letting the string vibrate freely or by placing the big finger of her left hand at a precise position, to shorten its vibrating part and simultaneously increase its tension.
While altering the volume of the buccal cavity by the position of the tongue and the lips, she selects harmonies 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12 of the fundamental on B, and the harmonies 6 and 8 of the fundamental on C#.”


All indigenous society is based on the family, which in turn is based on marriage. Marriage does not create a separate home as it does with us, but enlarges and strengthens the extended family. This is the most important aspect of the custom, but the least known to Europeans. Native marriage is a contract by which a family acquires for one of its members the right to use a woman from another family. It is a contract: like a sale, a loan, a pledge, etc., but with certain specific characteristics which are difficult to define and which make it possible to confuse it with these different contracts. Marriage is a typical contract that gives rise to numerous and complicated conflicts that show the native in his true light. […]
This chapter required a great deal of development. Because, I repeat, the subject is extremely important and delicate. It must be understood. The fate of many peoples depends on it.

“Le mariage”, in Le droit coutumier des Boulous, monographie d’une tribu du Sud-Cameroun : thèse pour le doctorat
présentée par Maurice Bertaut [born on Réunion Island ], Université de Paris, Faculté de droit. Paris : F. Loviton, 1935, p. 169, 222.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Droit, économie, politique, 8-F-38293. Gallica. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9806512j/f171

Zogohoum: wedding song. Dahomey (Benin). Hounsou, solo singer (man); men’s choir; iron bell and drum accompaniment.
Song in Gun language, spoken by the Ogu people in Benin. Musée de la parole et du geste. Exposition coloniale internationale, Paris, 1931.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Audiovisuel, AP-2650. Gallica. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k128510r/f2.media

Set of 10 Nesting Wedding Baskets. Western Sudan, Burkina Faso, Lobi, 20th century (?). Plant fiber and leather.
https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1975.1011-set-of-nesting-weddi
The Harold T. Clark Educational Extension Fund. The Cleveland Museum of Art.
Creative Commons (CC0 1.0). https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1975.1011

Bubakari sidiki. Wedding song. Sung voices: solo and women’s choir; Struck container (calabash); Clapping hands. Mali, Twara. Marka people. 1956.
Centre de Recherche en Ethnomusicologie, Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative, unité mixte de recherche du CNRS et de l’université Paris Nanterre (UMR 7186). Free listening. https://archives.crem-cnrs.fr/archives/items/CNRSMH_I_1970_012_017_02/

Date posted: October 31, 2023 | Author: | Comments Off on Images and sounds of African weddings from digitized archives

Digitized African music from ethnographic phonotheques

Here are some French digitized archives of sounds and traditional music from Africa.

Virtual exhibition by Europeana about a music collecting mission in Africa: Sur les Traces de la Mission Ogooué-Congo (On the Tracks of the Ogooué-Congo Mission): https://www.europeana.eu/fr/exhibitions/1946-ogooue-congo-mission

Date posted: October 29, 2023 | Author: | Comments Off on Digitized African music from ethnographic phonotheques

African arts in museums: the major IIIF image collections

You can already display on your blog/website any image that you find on the web. To find the URL of the image you like, right-click on the image. Then, the HTML code for your blog/website is : <img src=”URLofTheImageYouLike”>
But with IIIF (pronounced triple-eye-eff) images, you can go further: you can crop and resize the image (without downloading it), discover details and show it in your personal way.
Here are some rich IIIF image collections.

OTHER IIIF IMAGES FROM AFRICA (not artworks in museums)

Date posted: October 27, 2023 | Author: | Comments Off on African arts in museums: the major IIIF image collections

The patrimonialization of francophone African arts: the beginnings

“An authentic African piece is by definition a sculpture executed by an artist of a primitive tribe
and destined for the use of this tribe in a ritual or functional way, never lucrative.”
KAMER, Henri. “De l’authenticité des sculptures africaines”.
Arts d’Afrique noire, Villiers-le-Bel, décembre 1974, n° 12, p. 19. ISSN 0337-1603.


In one of the huts of this commercial station [Bel-Air, Boké, Guinea], I saw one of the most beautiful specimens of negro art, a doll carved from a piece of ebony. Two copper nails stuck in the middle of the head replaced the statue’s eyes. two enormous protuberances on the chest indicated that the artist had intended to represent a woman. I asked a beautiful chocolate-colored negress, the owner of this work of art, to kindly relinquish it to me; she gestured emphatically that she refused: the statue was a fetish!

NOIROT, Ernest. À travers le Fouta-Diallon et le Bambouc (Soudan occidental).
Paris : Marpon et Flammarion, 1893, p. 27 [or p. 37-38 in the first ed., Paris : Dreyfous, 1885].
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Littérature et art, 8-Y2-40971 (242), Gallica.


“Féticheurs et féticheuses à Abomey. Les populations dahoméennes sont à peu près exclusivement fétichistes.”
Cliché Fortier, in SONOLET, Louis. L’Afrique occidentale française. Paris : Hachette, 1912, pl. 30, p. 224.
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.


Mr. Cholet, our resident in Loango, has sent the Musée ethnographique du Trocadéro four very voluminous crates containing a collection of carved wooden fetishes, covered with old nails, masks, whistles, native defroques and so on. Dr. Hamy points out that these fetishes are in fact deportees: powerless to put an end to the terrible drought that has afflicted Loango for several years, the fetishist has lost all credit, and his former clients have abandoned all their gods to Mr. Cholet.

“Société de géographie. Séance du 20 mai 1892”. Revue de géographie, Paris, janvier-juin 1892, 15e année, t. 30, p. 472. ISSN 1967-4333.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Philosophie, histoire, sciences de l’homme, 8-G-361, Gallica.


Photograph taken by Rose-Marie Westling during work on the exhibition
Magasinet, an ethnographic treasury, Statens museer för världskultur – Etnografiska museet, Stockholm, 2011. Carlotta database.


From the artistic point of view, first of all, we can’t protest too much against the deep-rooted prejudice that depicts the negro as a brute, capable at best of chopping a piece of wood or playing terribly barbaric music. Negro art. The negro may have only the feeling of the primitive, but he nevertheless has a highly developed artistic sense: in him the artist always accompanies the worker, and each of his productions, even the most common domestic object, takes on a very special individual stamp. It’s worth noting that negro art is mostly utilitarian: the worker chisels the hilt of a sword, decorates a cup, weaves the colorful cloth of a hat, and in all these objects an art – perhaps rudimentary, but a true art – is created. And how could it be otherwise? The workman has before his eyes the model of such a marvelous nature! But if the negro can find a way to put an artistic stamp on even the most ordinary objects, he will truly surpass himself when it comes to religious art. There he is no longer after convenience; he has an idea, a symbol to express, and he’ll create a true work of art. This is how he builds truly remarkable temples and jewel-like fetishes.

HESS, Jean. “L’art chez les nègres : notes d’un voyageur retour d’Afrique”.
La Fraternité : organe des intérêts d’Haïti et de la race noire. Paris, 20 mars 1894, p. 1. ISSN 2425-5858.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Droit, économie, politique, JOA-816, Gallica.
First published in L’Éclair : journal politique quotidien absolument indépendant. Paris, 15 mars 1894, p. 2. ISSN 1168-4224.


“Modern men and women. XXI, Jean Hess”. The American register, Paris, October 26, 1901, p. 3.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Droit, économie, politique, JO-9066, Gallica.




Fig. 142. – Moriba often joined the two children on their walks.
– “You can see,” he told them, “that the people of Djenné are not clumsy. They know how to build beautiful houses, make elegant clothes and produce delicate handicrafts. This proves that Blacks are capable of making art. Do you understand this word: art?
– I’m not quite sure, Captain,” replied Moussa frankly. As for Gi-gla, it was the first time he’d heard the word.

Quiz. – 1. What is special about the houses in Djenné, in terms of their appearance and construction?
– 2. Why was Moriba happy? – 3. What did Moussa and Gi-gla notice at the Djenné market?
– 4. How does a man make art? – 5. Are there any artists among the natives of French West Africa?
– 6. What great progress must Black people make in art?

SONOLET, Louis, PÉRES, Auguste. Moussa et Gi-gla : histoire de deux petits noirs : livre de lecture courante.
Paris : Armand Colin, 1915, p. 229 & 231.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Littérature et art, Z BARRES-30122, Gallica.

“The only possible means by which these objects could have arrived in Paris was in the hands of colonial civil servants, missionaries, businesspeople, and soldiers returning from Africa. They might not necessarily have been aware that any African trophies or souvenirs obtained during their service could potentially be valuable. The point where these African objects entered the market of the metropolis was often the brocante  or marché aux puces  rather than the Hôtel Drouot.”

Saint-Raymond, L., & Vaudry, E. (2020). The vanishing paths of African artefacts: Mapping the Parisian auction market for “primitive” objects in the interwar period. Journal for Art Market Studies, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.23690/jams.v4i1.96


Marché aux puces [de Saint-Ouen qui a acquis droit de cité, chalands et chiffonniers] :
[photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]. Septembre 1922.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, EI-13 (941), Gallica.



Galerie Devambez. Première exposition d’art nègre et d’art océanien :
organisée par M. Paul Guillaume du 10 au 31 mai 1919 : catalogue, couv. & p. 9.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Sciences et techniques, 8-V PIECE-30599, Gallica.



CLOUZOT, Henri, LEVEL, André. L’art nègre et l’art océanien. Paris : Devambez, 1919, p. 85 & pl. XXXVII.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Sciences et techniques, 8-V-47348, Gallica.

Date posted: October 15, 2023 | Author: | Comments Off on The patrimonialization of francophone African arts: the beginnings