In this article, I look selectively at the field experiences and ethnographic writings of US Amer... more In this article, I look selectively at the field experiences and ethnographic writings of US American Presbyterian, Robert Hamill Nassau (1835-1920), who worked in Spanish Guinea, Gabon, and coastal Cameroon from 1861 to 1906. I examine multiple ethnographic approaches in Nassau’s "Fetichism in West Africa" (1904): Nassau’s claims to ethnographic authority, his partly successful efforts to see beyond “mere superstition” in African religious practices, his confrontations with men’s initiation societies, his descriptions of everyday “fetish” use, and his recording of folktales. The folktale discussed here evokes a volatile imagined landscape that nonetheless resembles that of Central Africa’s late nineteenth century hinterland characterized by new forms of violence, power, accumulation, and mobility. I then turn to Nassau’s long-term relationship with the mission-educated Mpongwe woman, Anyentyuwe Fando, who helped to raise Nassau’s motherless daughter and who also served as his key informant for a number of published works. Nassau’s later years at the mission were marred by conflicts with his colleagues, in part over their accusations that he had had an affair with Anyentyuwe. In "Tales out of School," Nassau appropriated Anyentyuwe’s voice to paint an ethnographic portrait of everyday power relations in a girl’s mission school in colonial Libreville, while leveling a thinly veiled critique of fellow missionaries’ treatment of Africans. It is perhaps here rather than in his conventional railings against “traditional” African religious practices that Nassau’s ethnography is most insightful.
... Such move-ment and knowledge of shifting social landscapes were crucial to what Jane Guyer an... more ... Such move-ment and knowledge of shifting social landscapes were crucial to what Jane Guyer and Samuel Eno-Belinga (1995: 118) have called processes ... with migration, and then turns to the foundation of a set of related clans: Abale Ngue came from the lower Nyong [a river ...
Missionary ethnographers provided expert knowledge during the formative years of nineteenth- and ... more Missionary ethnographers provided expert knowledge during the formative years of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century anthropology, but are generally relegated to the footnotes of academic anthropology. Colonial missionaries were, nevertheless, crucial producers of cultural practices, knowledge, and texts in the particular locations where they worked. Missionary linguists, for example, contributed to the standardization of regional variations through the production of writing systems and the teaching of reading in mission schools. Missionaries also interacted with literate Africans in mission stations to produce cultural descriptions that then filtered back into local practices or auto-ethnographic representations, to be discovered anew by later anthropologists. At the same time, of course, as many missionaries themselves recognized, there was inherent tension between the scientific study of African cultural practices and the evangelizing project that sought to induce radical cul...
... decided to engage his services in order to free himself from the evil spell (mauvais sort) th... more ... decided to engage his services in order to free himself from the evil spell (mauvais sort) that he feared certain Fang have cast on him following the death at Oyem of his ... The 1955 report heaped generous praise of Emane and noted his remarkable success in the villages. ...
... Narrating Equatorial African Landscapes: Conservation, Histories, and Endangered Forests in N... more ... Narrating Equatorial African Landscapes: Conservation, Histories, and Endangered Forests in Northern Gabon 1 John Cinnamon ... These French and German maps from the early colonial period present a stark contrast to a 1994 Gabonese Tourist and Road Map (Map 3) 5 . Here ...
ABSTRACTThrough narratives of an anti-‘fetish’ movement that swept through north-eastern Gabon in... more ABSTRACTThrough narratives of an anti-‘fetish’ movement that swept through north-eastern Gabon in the mid-1950s, the present article traces the contours of converging political and religious imaginations in that country in the years preceding independence. Fang speakers in the region make explicit connections between the arrival of post-Second World War electoral politics, the anti-fetish movements, and perceptions of political weakening and marginalization of their region on the eve of independence. Rival politicians and the colonial administration played key roles in the movement, which brought in a Congolese ritual expert, Emane Boncoeur, and his two powerful spirits, Mademoiselle and Mimbare. These spirits, later recuperated in a wide range of healing practices, continue to operate today throughout northern Gabon and Rio Muni. In local imaginaries, these spirits played central roles in the birth of both regional and national politics, paradoxically strengthening the colonial adm...
In this article, I look selectively at the field experiences and ethnographic writings of US Amer... more In this article, I look selectively at the field experiences and ethnographic writings of US American Presbyterian, Robert Hamill Nassau (1835-1920), who worked in Spanish Guinea, Gabon, and coastal Cameroon from 1861 to 1906. I examine multiple ethnographic approaches in Nassau’s "Fetichism in West Africa" (1904): Nassau’s claims to ethnographic authority, his partly successful efforts to see beyond “mere superstition” in African religious practices, his confrontations with men’s initiation societies, his descriptions of everyday “fetish” use, and his recording of folktales. The folktale discussed here evokes a volatile imagined landscape that nonetheless resembles that of Central Africa’s late nineteenth century hinterland characterized by new forms of violence, power, accumulation, and mobility.
I then turn to Nassau’s long-term relationship with the mission-educated Mpongwe woman, Anyentyuwe Fando, who helped to raise Nassau’s motherless daughter and who also served as his key informant for a number of published works. Nassau’s later years at the mission were marred by conflicts with his colleagues, in part over their accusations that he had had an affair with Anyentyuwe. In "Tales out of School," Nassau appropriated Anyentyuwe’s voice to paint an ethnographic portrait of everyday power relations in a girl’s mission school in colonial Libreville, while leveling a thinly veiled critique of fellow missionaries’ treatment of Africans. It is perhaps here rather than in his conventional railings against “traditional” African religious practices that Nassau’s ethnography is most insightful.
In this article, I look selectively at the field experiences and ethnographic writings of US Amer... more In this article, I look selectively at the field experiences and ethnographic writings of US American Presbyterian, Robert Hamill Nassau (1835-1920), who worked in Spanish Guinea, Gabon, and coastal Cameroon from 1861 to 1906. I examine multiple ethnographic approaches in Nassau’s "Fetichism in West Africa" (1904): Nassau’s claims to ethnographic authority, his partly successful efforts to see beyond “mere superstition” in African religious practices, his confrontations with men’s initiation societies, his descriptions of everyday “fetish” use, and his recording of folktales. The folktale discussed here evokes a volatile imagined landscape that nonetheless resembles that of Central Africa’s late nineteenth century hinterland characterized by new forms of violence, power, accumulation, and mobility. I then turn to Nassau’s long-term relationship with the mission-educated Mpongwe woman, Anyentyuwe Fando, who helped to raise Nassau’s motherless daughter and who also served as his key informant for a number of published works. Nassau’s later years at the mission were marred by conflicts with his colleagues, in part over their accusations that he had had an affair with Anyentyuwe. In "Tales out of School," Nassau appropriated Anyentyuwe’s voice to paint an ethnographic portrait of everyday power relations in a girl’s mission school in colonial Libreville, while leveling a thinly veiled critique of fellow missionaries’ treatment of Africans. It is perhaps here rather than in his conventional railings against “traditional” African religious practices that Nassau’s ethnography is most insightful.
... Such move-ment and knowledge of shifting social landscapes were crucial to what Jane Guyer an... more ... Such move-ment and knowledge of shifting social landscapes were crucial to what Jane Guyer and Samuel Eno-Belinga (1995: 118) have called processes ... with migration, and then turns to the foundation of a set of related clans: Abale Ngue came from the lower Nyong [a river ...
Missionary ethnographers provided expert knowledge during the formative years of nineteenth- and ... more Missionary ethnographers provided expert knowledge during the formative years of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century anthropology, but are generally relegated to the footnotes of academic anthropology. Colonial missionaries were, nevertheless, crucial producers of cultural practices, knowledge, and texts in the particular locations where they worked. Missionary linguists, for example, contributed to the standardization of regional variations through the production of writing systems and the teaching of reading in mission schools. Missionaries also interacted with literate Africans in mission stations to produce cultural descriptions that then filtered back into local practices or auto-ethnographic representations, to be discovered anew by later anthropologists. At the same time, of course, as many missionaries themselves recognized, there was inherent tension between the scientific study of African cultural practices and the evangelizing project that sought to induce radical cul...
... decided to engage his services in order to free himself from the evil spell (mauvais sort) th... more ... decided to engage his services in order to free himself from the evil spell (mauvais sort) that he feared certain Fang have cast on him following the death at Oyem of his ... The 1955 report heaped generous praise of Emane and noted his remarkable success in the villages. ...
... Narrating Equatorial African Landscapes: Conservation, Histories, and Endangered Forests in N... more ... Narrating Equatorial African Landscapes: Conservation, Histories, and Endangered Forests in Northern Gabon 1 John Cinnamon ... These French and German maps from the early colonial period present a stark contrast to a 1994 Gabonese Tourist and Road Map (Map 3) 5 . Here ...
ABSTRACTThrough narratives of an anti-‘fetish’ movement that swept through north-eastern Gabon in... more ABSTRACTThrough narratives of an anti-‘fetish’ movement that swept through north-eastern Gabon in the mid-1950s, the present article traces the contours of converging political and religious imaginations in that country in the years preceding independence. Fang speakers in the region make explicit connections between the arrival of post-Second World War electoral politics, the anti-fetish movements, and perceptions of political weakening and marginalization of their region on the eve of independence. Rival politicians and the colonial administration played key roles in the movement, which brought in a Congolese ritual expert, Emane Boncoeur, and his two powerful spirits, Mademoiselle and Mimbare. These spirits, later recuperated in a wide range of healing practices, continue to operate today throughout northern Gabon and Rio Muni. In local imaginaries, these spirits played central roles in the birth of both regional and national politics, paradoxically strengthening the colonial adm...
In this article, I look selectively at the field experiences and ethnographic writings of US Amer... more In this article, I look selectively at the field experiences and ethnographic writings of US American Presbyterian, Robert Hamill Nassau (1835-1920), who worked in Spanish Guinea, Gabon, and coastal Cameroon from 1861 to 1906. I examine multiple ethnographic approaches in Nassau’s "Fetichism in West Africa" (1904): Nassau’s claims to ethnographic authority, his partly successful efforts to see beyond “mere superstition” in African religious practices, his confrontations with men’s initiation societies, his descriptions of everyday “fetish” use, and his recording of folktales. The folktale discussed here evokes a volatile imagined landscape that nonetheless resembles that of Central Africa’s late nineteenth century hinterland characterized by new forms of violence, power, accumulation, and mobility.
I then turn to Nassau’s long-term relationship with the mission-educated Mpongwe woman, Anyentyuwe Fando, who helped to raise Nassau’s motherless daughter and who also served as his key informant for a number of published works. Nassau’s later years at the mission were marred by conflicts with his colleagues, in part over their accusations that he had had an affair with Anyentyuwe. In "Tales out of School," Nassau appropriated Anyentyuwe’s voice to paint an ethnographic portrait of everyday power relations in a girl’s mission school in colonial Libreville, while leveling a thinly veiled critique of fellow missionaries’ treatment of Africans. It is perhaps here rather than in his conventional railings against “traditional” African religious practices that Nassau’s ethnography is most insightful.
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I then turn to Nassau’s long-term relationship with the mission-educated Mpongwe woman, Anyentyuwe Fando, who helped to raise Nassau’s motherless daughter and who also served as his key informant for a number of published works. Nassau’s later years at the mission were marred by conflicts with his colleagues, in part over their accusations that he had had an affair with Anyentyuwe. In "Tales out of School," Nassau appropriated Anyentyuwe’s voice to paint an ethnographic portrait of everyday power relations in a girl’s mission school in colonial Libreville, while leveling a thinly veiled critique of fellow missionaries’ treatment of Africans. It is perhaps here rather than in his conventional railings against “traditional” African religious practices that Nassau’s ethnography is most insightful.
I then turn to Nassau’s long-term relationship with the mission-educated Mpongwe woman, Anyentyuwe Fando, who helped to raise Nassau’s motherless daughter and who also served as his key informant for a number of published works. Nassau’s later years at the mission were marred by conflicts with his colleagues, in part over their accusations that he had had an affair with Anyentyuwe. In "Tales out of School," Nassau appropriated Anyentyuwe’s voice to paint an ethnographic portrait of everyday power relations in a girl’s mission school in colonial Libreville, while leveling a thinly veiled critique of fellow missionaries’ treatment of Africans. It is perhaps here rather than in his conventional railings against “traditional” African religious practices that Nassau’s ethnography is most insightful.