DOCSLIB.ORG

Karisoke Revisited a Study of Dian Fossey

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Karisoke Revisited a Study of Dian Fossey Karisoke Revisited A Study of Dian Fossey Born in 1932 of an alcoholic father near San Francisco, Dian Fossey's parents divorced when she was 6 years old. Her mother remarried 1 year later. Her stepfather was very strict and she was raised by the househelp, eating with her parents only on Sundays and holidays. After not succeeding in a pre-veterinarian course at San Jose State University, she graduated with a degree in Occupational Therapy. In 1955, Dian Fosse ws employed at Kosair Crippled Children Hospital in Louisville on Eastern Parkway. She lived on Judge George Long's estate off of Bardstown Road in the servants quarters. She was very happy in this sylvan environment. It is now Glenmary Subdivision. Dian Fossey became a good friend with Dr. Michael J. Henry's family on Summit Avenue, and while in Louisville visited there many times. In 1963, after using Mrs. Gaynee Henry's collateral Dian Fossey borrowed $8000.00 (1 year's salary) and went on a 7 week visit to Africa. There she: 1) Met actor William Holden who owned the popular Treetops Hotel in Nairobi and he introduced her to the white hunter John Alexander who guided her on her 7 week odyssey. Thereafter referred to as (white hunter) in her diary. 2) She met Louis Leakey, noted paleontologist at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. 3) She also met Alan and Jo Ann Root who were photographing the mountain gorillas. This first exposure to the gorillas left an indelible impression on her. Between 1963 and 1965, Dian Fossey wrote three articles on her Aftrican experience for the Sunday Magazine section of The Louisville Courier Journal. In 1966, Dian Fossey attended a Louis Leakey lecture at the University of Louisville on the origin of man and Leakey stressed that someone should study the most humanoid animal "The Great Ape". Louis Leakey agreed to let Dian Fossey be his protégé and get her research funds, but stressed her need for a prophylactic appendectomy. Dr. Orville Clark (still living in Louisville) gave her anesthetic and Dr. Bourbon Canfield (deceased) did her appendectomy at the old Methodist Evangelical Hospital now Norton Hospital Pavilion. She woke up in the recovery room hollering "I hope the gorillas are worth this". During this time Mrs. Gaynee Henry introduced Dian Fossey to Father M. Raymond, a Trappist monk who wrote the best seller The Man Who Got Even With God. Dian Fossey called him the most exciting and stimulating man she ever met. They became intimate friends. Father Raymond encouraged her to go to Africa and study the gorillas. Also at the time, Alexea Forrester, scion of a family she met in Africa, came to Louisville and fell in lover with her. He wanted to marry her, but Dian opted for Africa and the great apes. Dian would later comment "I left my appendix and fiancé in the states". Fossey arrived in the Congo in 1966 amid a fierce civil war and was captured, abused and threatened with death. She escaped and fled to nearby but more stable Rwanda. There at 10,000 feet between Mount Karasimbia and Mount Visoke, Dian set up her mountain gorilla research station and called it Karasoke. The high mountain camp was constantly fogged or misted, cold---freezing cold at night, wet and surrounded by unfriendly thorny nettles. Karisoke camp was shrouded in a canopy of the great Hygenia trees. There were six buildings constructed with corrugated metal, 3 feet off of the ground and all within a soccer field area. The site was both inspiring and forbidding. Using trackers, Dian would follow the different groups of gorilla and detail her observations nightly on her Olivetti typewriter. It would take 8 years for each gorilla group to become habituated to her presence and that of other humans. In 1969, noted National Geographic Magazine photographer Bob Campbell visited Karasoke to film and photograph the gorillas. Campbell was shy, quiet, nice looking, married, very English, and a good listener. Fossey was volatile, passionate and strong willed. After a stormy beginning, they became lovers. In 1970, Fossey went to Cambridge to get her Ph.D. She discovered she was pregnant and got an abortion. She would later say "you can't be a cover girl for National Geographic Magazine and be pregnant". Campbell recorded the first pictures of a mountain gorilla in the wild touching a human (Dian Fossey). After a 2nd abortion, during which she hemorrhaged severely, Dr. Pete Weiss treated her from the nearby (1 hour away) town of Ruhengeri. Dr. Weiss became a regular nightly visitor to her camp high on the mountain. When the courtship became serious, Dian refused to trade the mountains and her gorillas for the town of Ruhengeri. When photographer Robert Campbell left in 1972 Dian became depressed and began to drink heavily. Ultimately she returned to her study and protection of the mountain gorillas. The gorillas' very existence (perhaps 280 left) was threatened. The ever expanding population of Rwanda, the constantly decreasing habitat and the poachers threatened to make the mountain gorillas like the Do Do Bird and the Passenger Pigeon. Dian Fossey nursed back to health the captured baby gorillas that were dying. Ultimately she had to return the gorillas to the government officials. They gave them back to the original trappers who then shipped them to the zoo at Cologne, Germany. To capture one baby gorilla, six to eight adult protecting gorillas would be killed. Becoming depressed and looking for support and encouragement, Dian Fossey visited Louis Leaky at Olduvai Gorge where they spent a week together on an elegant safari and Dr. Leakey fell madly in love with Dian. Again she returned to the gorillas. Dian returned to her Karisoke camp. There she tried to protect her gorillas. Her most beloved gorilla "Digit" was killed by poachers. On February 3, 1978, Walter Cronkite in the lead story on the CBS evening news announced that "Digit is dead". Instantly Dian Fossey was world famous. Fossey grieved and became more intense in protecting the gorillas. She would frighten, capture and beat the poachers, hold their cattle for ransom, burn their crops and even their house. Dian also angered and constantly challenged the local officials to enforce the law and assist her. About this time Kelly Steward (daughter of actor Jimmy Stewart) came to study with Dian. They became great friends, until a handsome Scottish student, Sandy Harcourt came to study. Fossey became jealous of their friendship. During these times, Fossey would lecture around the world, telling endearing stories about "her" gorillas on her Virunga Mountains in Rwanda. Funds were raised to support Karisoke Research Center. While traveling Fossey worried that the direction and future of the Karisoke Research Center was changing in her absence. She accused Kelly Stewart and Sandy Harcourt of making changes. Fossey, despite reassurances, remained unconvinced. While Dian was visiting actor Jimmy Stewart, Alfred Hitchcock approached her about doing a thriller chiller movie about the large, fearsome mountain gorillas. Dian said they were about as aggressive as a pet lambs. Hitchcock shuffled off and the movie was never made. Fossey took a professorship at Cornell University for 3 years. In 1985, fossey returned to Karisoke. She became a recluse, drank heavily, was frequently argumentative, paranoid, and treated the workers, fellow researchers and local officials with disdain and abuse. Karisoke Research Center declined. The camp was poorly managed and equipment not repaired. The library of tapes and information stored in Dian's tent would be available only when Dian permitted. Only 5 Ph.D. theses were completed in 16 years. Her behavior was unpredictable and morose. The camp occupants feared Fossey. She would not hire the local natives to help with research and did not use local veterinarians or physicians when the animals sickened. Her health declined as she drank and smoked excessively. On the early morning of December 26, 1985, Dian was found by her househelp lying on the floor in her pajamas dead from a machete wounds across the face and the top of her skull. The cabin had a hole cut in the corrugated tin wall in the only place it could have been done as furniture had been built into wall everyplace else. This suggested that an insider was the murderer. The room was ransacked and in complete disarray, but nothing was taken. The killer was probably an insider African either alone or as part of a conspiracy. Suspects included disgruntled staff, unhappy researchers, many local officials and poachers. All of the camp people were jailed and released one by one as their alibi was substantiated. The tracker Rwelekana who had been recently fired remained jailed. McGuire was the only white person in the camp at the time of her death and on the advice of the local American Consul, fled the country. One year after her death, the local court found Rwelekana and McQuire guilty. The punishment was death by the firing squad. Nine months after the trail Rwelekana was reported to have hung himself in his cell. McQuire has always denied the killing. Dian Fossey never developed the enduring, loving relationship that she so craved. At every marriage opportunity the gorillas were always the winners. Failure to develop healthy relationships with peoples in nearby towns, lack of respect for the local population, constant worries about money, and the ultimate survival of the gorillas all contributed to he constant depression and volatile mood swings. Communication, via mail, with the outside world was delayed or non-existent. Fosseys messages were never received or never answered enhancing her paranoia. Dian suffered, but the gorilla's existence changed from barely surviving to thriving.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Homo Habilis
    COMMENT SUSTAINABILITY Citizens and POLICY End the bureaucracy THEATRE Shakespeare’s ENVIRONMENT James Lovelock businesses must track that is holding back science world was steeped in on surprisingly optimistic governments’ progress p.33 in India p.36 practical discovery p.39 form p.41 The foot of the apeman that palaeo­ ‘handy man’, anthropologists had been Homo habilis. recovering in southern Africa since the 1920s. This, the thinking went, was replaced by the taller, larger-brained Homo erectus from Asia, which spread to Europe and evolved into Nean­ derthals, which evolved into Homo sapiens. But what lay between the australopiths and H. erectus, the first known human? BETTING ON AFRICA Until the 1960s, H. erectus had been found only in Asia. But when primitive stone-chop­ LIBRARY PICTURE EVANS MUSEUM/MARY HISTORY NATURAL ping tools were uncovered at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, Leakey became convinced that this is where he would find the earliest stone- tool makers, who he assumed would belong to our genus. Maybe, like the australopiths, our human ancestors also originated in Africa. In 1931, Leakey began intensive prospect­ ing and excavation at Olduvai Gorge, 33 years before he announced the new human species. Now tourists travel to Olduvai on paved roads in air-conditioned buses; in the 1930s in the rainy season, the journey from Nairobi could take weeks. The ravines at Olduvai offered unparalleled access to ancient strata, but field­ work was no picnic in the park. Water was often scarce. Leakey and his team had to learn to share Olduvai with all of the wild animals that lived there, lions included.
    [Show full text]
  • Hands-On Human Evolution: a Laboratory Based Approach
    Hands-on Human Evolution: A Laboratory Based Approach Developed by Margarita Hernandez Center for Precollegiate Education and Training Author: Margarita Hernandez Curriculum Team: Julie Bokor, Sven Engling A huge thank you to….. Contents: 4. Author’s note 5. Introduction 6. Tips about the curriculum 8. Lesson Summaries 9. Lesson Sequencing Guide 10. Vocabulary 11. Next Generation Sunshine State Standards- Science 12. Background information 13. Lessons 122. Resources 123. Content Assessment 129. Content Area Expert Evaluation 131. Teacher Feedback Form 134. Student Feedback Form Lesson 1: Hominid Evolution Lab 19. Lesson 1 . Student Lab Pages . Student Lab Key . Human Evolution Phylogeny . Lab Station Numbers . Skeletal Pictures Lesson 2: Chromosomal Comparison Lab 48. Lesson 2 . Student Activity Pages . Student Lab Key Lesson 3: Naledi Jigsaw 77. Lesson 3 Author’s note Introduction Page The validity and importance of the theory of biological evolution runs strong throughout the topic of biology. Evolution serves as a foundation to many biological concepts by tying together the different tenants of biology, like ecology, anatomy, genetics, zoology, and taxonomy. It is for this reason that evolution plays a prominent role in the state and national standards and deserves thorough coverage in a classroom. A prime example of evolution can be seen in our own ancestral history, and this unit provides students with an excellent opportunity to consider the multiple lines of evidence that support hominid evolution. By allowing students the chance to uncover the supporting evidence for evolution themselves, they discover the ways the theory of evolution is supported by multiple sources. It is our hope that the opportunity to handle our ancestors’ bone casts and examine real molecular data, in an inquiry based environment, will pique the interest of students, ultimately leading them to conclude that the evidence they have gathered thoroughly supports the theory of evolution.
    [Show full text]
  • NEWS February 10, 2010
    Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology NEWS February 10, 2010 Mountain Gorilla Census to Provide Current Status of Highly Endangered Species The current status of the critically endangered mountain gorilla will soon be revealed through a census to determine its population size in the Virunga Volcanoes area that straddles the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda in Eastern and Central Africa. The Virunga Volcanoes is one of only two locations where mountain gorillas live, whose total numbers are currently estimated at 680 individuals. Though the area is now relatively calm, recent conflict in the Mikeno sector of Virunga National Park in the DRC has left the gorillas there vulnerable. The last Virunga Volcanoes census in 2003 resulted in an estimate of 380 individuals, with the remaining individuals living in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park Uganda. The Wildlife and National Park Authorities of Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC will collaborate on the census, which is planned for March and April 2010. The census is an opportunity to make an accurate count of the total gorilla population in the Virunga Volcanoes. Fecal samples will also be collected for genetic analysis to confirm the population size and for better understanding the genetic variability and health status of the population. Such monitoring is vitally important in understanding the long-term viability and measuring the effects of recent history in the region on such a small population of critically endangered animals. Launching on March 1st, it will involve 80 team members. Team members, which will be drawn from the staff of the various protected area authorities and their partners, will traverse the entire Virunga gorilla habitat range over a period of approximately eight weeks.
    [Show full text]
  • Jane Goodall: a Timeline 3
    Discussion Guide Table of Contents The Life of Jane Goodall: A Timeline 3 Growing Up: Jane Goodall’s Mission Starts Early 5 Louis Leakey and the ‘Trimates’ 7 Getting Started at Gombe 9 The Gombe Community 10 A Family of Her Own 12 A Lifelong Mission 14 Women in the Biological Sciences Today 17 Jane Goodall, in Her Own Words 18 Additional Resources for Further Study 19 © 2017 NGC Network US, LLC and NGC Network International, LLC. All rights reserved. 2 Journeys in Film : JANE The Life of Jane Goodall: A Timeline April 3, 1934 Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall is born in London, England. 1952 Jane graduates from secondary school, attends secretarial school, and gets a job at Oxford University. 1957 At the invitation of a school friend, Jane sails to Kenya, meets Dr. Louis Leakey, and takes a job as his secretary. 1960 Jane begins her observations of the chimpanzees at what was then Gombe Stream Game Reserve, taking careful notes. Her mother is her companion from July to November. 1961 The chimpanzee Jane has named David Greybeard accepts her, leading to her acceptance by the other chimpanzees. 1962 Jane goes to Cambridge University to pursue a doctorate, despite not having any undergraduate college degree. After the first term, she returns to Africa to continue her study of the chimpanzees. She continues to travel back and forth between Cambridge and Gombe for several years. Baron Hugo van Lawick, a photographer for National Geographic, begins taking photos and films at Gombe. 1964 Jane and Hugo marry in England and return to Gombe.
    [Show full text]
  • Teddy Roosevelt's Trophy: History and Nostalgia
    Proceedings Master_FINAL.qxp 7/06/2005 10:19 AM Page 89 THE AUSTRALIAN ACADEMY OF THE HUMANITIES § Annual Lecture 2004 TEDDY ROOSEVELT’S TROPHY: HISTORY AND NOSTALGIA Iain McCalman President, Australian Academy of the Humanities Delivered at Dechaineaux Theatre (School of Art), University of Tasmania, Hobart 19 November 2004 Australian Academy of the Humanities, Proceedings 29, 2004 Proceedings Master_FINAL.qxp 7/06/2005 10:19 AM Page 90 Australian Academy of the Humanities, Proceedings 29, 2004 Proceedings Master_FINAL.qxp 7/06/2005 10:19 AM Page 91 t the end of every Christmas dinner during my boyhood in Central Africa my A mother used to bring out from the sideboard what she called bon bon dishes containing lollies and nuts. These dishes, beautiful in their way, looked to be made of lacquered tortoiseshell with silver rims and silver ball feet. But their special status in the family had nothing to do with aesthetics. Scratched crudely on their honey- coloured sides were the initials ‘LJT from TR’, and they were actually the toenails of the first bull elephant shot by ex-President Theodore Roosevelt on his famous Kenya safari of 1909–10. He had given them as a commemorative trophy to my Australian great-uncle Leslie Jefferies Tarlton in gratitude for organising and leading the safari. I like to think that as soon as my sister and I learnt that these delicate objets d’art had been hacked from a stately wild elephant they became grotesque in our eyes, but this would be to read back from later adult perspectives. In fact, for some years after our migration to Australia in the mid-1960s the dishes were magnets for multiple secret nostalgias – they reminded my father of his Kenyan boyhood, my mother of being a white Dona in the Central African Raj, and my sister and me of African Christmases past.
    [Show full text]
  • Kenyan Stone Age: the Louis Leakey Collection
    World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum: A Characterization edited by Dan Hicks and Alice Stevenson, Archaeopress 2013, pages 35-21 3 Kenyan Stone Age: the Louis Leakey Collection Ceri Shipton Access 3.1 Introduction Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey is considered to be the founding father of palaeoanthropology, and his donation of some 6,747 artefacts from several Kenyan sites to the Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM) make his one of the largest collections in the Museum. Leakey was passionate aboutopen human evolution and Africa, and was able to prove that the deep roots of human ancestry lay in his native east Africa. At Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania he excavated an extraordinary sequence of Pleistocene human evolution, discovering several hominin species and naming the earliest known human culture: the Oldowan. At Olorgesailie, Kenya, he excavated an Acheulean site that is still influential in our understanding of Lower Pleistocene human behaviour. On Rusinga Island in Lake Victoria, Kenya he found the Miocene ape ancestor Proconsul. He obtained funding to establish three of the most influential primatologists in their field, dubbed Leakey’s ‘ape women’; Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas, who pioneered the study of chimpanzee, gorilla and orangutan behaviour respectively. His second wife Mary Leakey, whom he first hired as an artefact illustrator, went on to be a great researcher in her own right, surpassing Louis’ work with her own excavations at Olduvai Gorge. Mary and Louis’ son Richard followed his parents’ career path initially, discovering many of the most important hominin fossils including KNM WT 15000 (the Nariokotome boy, a near complete Homo ergaster skeleton), KNM WT 17000 (the type specimen for Paranthropus aethiopicus), and KNM ER 1470 (the type specimen for Homo rudolfensis with an extremely well preserved Archaeopressendocranium).
    [Show full text]
  • Life of Frederick Courtenay Selous, D.S.O. Capt
    LIFE OF FREDERICK COURTENAY SELOUS, D.S.O. CAPT. 25TH ROYAL FUSILIERS Chapter XI - XV BY J. G. MILLAIS, F.Z.S. CHAPTER XI 1906-1907 In April, 1906, Selous went all the way to Bosnia just to take the nest and eggs of the Nutcracker, and those who are not naturalists can scarcely understand such excessive enthusiasm. This little piece of wandering, however, seemed only an incentive to further restlessness, which he himself admits, and he was off again on July 12th to Western America for another hunt in the forests, this time on the South Fork of the MacMillan river. On August 5th he started from Whitehorse on the Yukon on his long canoe-journey down the river, for he wished to save the expense of taking the steamer to the mouth of the Pelly. He was accompanied by Charles Coghlan, who had been with him the previous year, and Roderick Thomas, a hard-bitten old traveller of the North- West. Selous found no difficulty in shooting the rapids on the Yukon, and had a pleasant trip in fine weather to Fort Selkirk, where he entered the Pelly on August 9th. Here he was lucky enough to kill a cow moose, and thus had an abundance of meat to take him on the long up-stream journey to the MacMillan mountains, which could only be effected by poling and towing. On August 18th he killed a lynx. At last, on August 28th, he reached a point on the South Fork of the MacMillan, where it became necessary to leave the canoe and pack provisions and outfit up to timber-line.
    [Show full text]
  • Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest REVISED and ENLARGED in BOTH KNOWLEDGE and WISDOM J. FRANK DOBIE DALLAS . 1952
    Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest REVISED AND ENLARGED IN BOTH KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM J. FRANK DOBIE DALLAS . 1952 SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY PRESS _Not copyright in 1942 Again not copyright in 1952_ Anybody is welcome to help himself to any of it in any way LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 52-11834 S.M.U. PRESS Contents A Preface with Some Revised Ideas 1. A Declaration 2. Interpreters of the Land 3. General Helps 4. Indian Culture; Pueblos and Navajos 5. Apaches, Comanches, and Other Plains Indians 6. Spanish-Mexican Strains 7. Flavor of France 8. Backwoods Life and Humor 9. How the Early Settlers Lived 10. Fighting Texians 11. Texas Rangers 12. Women Pioneers 13. Circuit Riders and Missionaries 14. Lawyers, Politicians, J.P.'s 15. Pioneer Doctors 16. Mountain Men 17. Santa Fe and the Santa Fe Trail 18. Stagecoaches, Freighting 19. Pony Express 20. Surge of Life in the West 21. Range Life: Cowboys, Cattle, Sheep 22. Cowboy Songs and Other Ballads 23. Horses: Mustangs and Cow Ponies 24. The Bad Man Tradition 25. Mining and Oil 26. Nature; Wild Life; Naturalists 27. Buffaloes and Buffalo Hunters 28. Bears and Bear Hunters 29. Coyotes, Lobos, and Panthers 30. Birds and Wild Flowers 31. Negro Folk Songs and Tales 32. Fiction-Including Folk Tales 33. Poetry and Drama 34. Miscellaneous Interpreters and Institutions 35. Subjects for Themes Index to Authors and Titles Illustrations Indian Head by Tom Lea, from _A Texas Cowboy_ by Charles A. Siringo (1950 edition) Comanche Horsemen by George Catlin, from _North American Indians_ Vaquero by Tom Lea, from _A Texas Cowboy_ by Charles A.
    [Show full text]
  • Energetic Responses to Variation in Food Availability in the Two Mountain Gorilla Populations (Gorilla Beringei Beringei)
    AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 158:487–500 (2015) Energetic Responses to Variation in Food Availability in the Two Mountain Gorilla Populations (Gorilla beringei beringei) Edward Wright,1* Cyril C. Grueter,2 Nicole Seiler,1 Didier Abavandimwe,3 Tara S. Stoinski,4 Sylvia Ortmann,5 and Martha M. Robbins1 1Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig 04103, Germany 2School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia,Crawley, Perth, WA 6009, Australia 3Karisoke Research Center, The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, Musanze, North Province, Rwanda 4The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, Atlanta, GA 30315, USA 5Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany KEY WORDS food availability; energy intake rate; daily travel distance ABSTRACT Objective: Here, we compare food availability and relate this to differences in energy intake rates, time spent feeding, and daily travel distance of gorillas in the two populations. Comparative intraspecific studies investigating spatiotemporal variation in food availability can help us under- stand the complex relationships between ecology, behavior, and life history in primates and are relevant to under- standing hominin evolution. Differences in several variables have been documented between the two mountain gorilla populations in the Virunga Massif and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, but few direct comparisons that link ecological conditions to feeding behavior have been made. Materials and Methods: Using similar data collection protocols we conducted vegetation sampling and nutri- tional analysis on important foods to estimate food availability. Detailed observations of feeding behavior were used to compute energy intake rates and daily travel distance was estimated through GPS readings. Results: Food availability was overall lower and had greater temporal variability in Bwindi than in the Virungas.
    [Show full text]
  • White Man's Country: the Image of Africa in the American Century By
    White Man’s Country: The Image of Africa in the American Century By Aaron John Bady A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Bryan Wagner, Chair Professor Donna Jones Professor Scott Saul Professor Michael Watts Fall 2013 Abstract White Men’s Country: The Image of Africa in the American Century By Aaron John Bady Doctor of Philosophy in English University of California, Berkeley Professor Bryan Wagner, Chair It is often taken for granted that “the West’s image of Africa” is a dark and savage jungle, the “white man’s grave” which formed the backdrop for Joseph Conrad’s hyper-canonical Heart of Darkness. In the wake of decolonization and independence, African writers like Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong’o provided alternate accounts of the continent, at a moment when doing so was rightly seen to be “The Empire Writes Back.” Yet in the years since then, “going beyond the clichés” has itself become a kind of cliché. In the last decade in particular, the global investment class has taken up the appeal to “Re-brand Africa” with a vengeance. Providing positive images of Africa is not necessarily a radical critique of empire’s enduring legacies, in other words; it can also be an effort to brand and market “Africa” as a product for capital speculation. In White Men’s Country: The Image of Africa in the American Century, I describe how American literary investments in Africa grew, alongside the slow decline of European cultural imperialism.
    [Show full text]
  • Big-Game Hunting in German East Africa in the Period Between 1891
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Universität Paderborn - Digitale Sammlungen Big-game hunting in German East Africa in the period between 1891 and 1916: an analysis from the perspective of social sciences / Großwildjagd in Deutsch-Ostafrika im Zeitraum 1891-1916: Eine Untersuchung aus sozialwissenschaftlicher Perspektive Abstract of the dissertation by Udo E. O. Riedel OBJECTIVES: In the context of a reflection of social sciences former big-game hunting should be described elaborately. Motives and attitudes of involved people should be identified. Methods: Methods mainly consisted in interpreting documents like (auto-)biographies, travelogue and travel diaries. Results: ’Heroic’ features of the ’White Hunter’ were often assigned to professional hunters of German East Africa and not always, but often denied to be attributable to hunting natives. This attitude was predominantly based on the belief in a cultural superiority of white men. A development from ’pioneer hunters’ to ’settler hunters’ like in British Kenya could be at least to some extent verified for German East Africa. The statement that the experiences and actions of colonial big game hunters were determined by an extreme form of ’masculinity’ could not be sufficiently substantiated. Thus, the sources also gave detailed desriptions of colonial ’hunting heroines’. The main motives in big-game hunting were the desire to appear ’athletic’ or skillful and the yearning for venturesomeness; the frustration from civilization also played a certain role. Conclusions: The hunters of big game in German East Africa were a rather heterogeneous group: there was, for example, a feeling of devotion to hunting in some characters, but there were also those whose main concern was the protection of their settlements and plantations from wildlife..
    [Show full text]
  • Reconstructing Human Evolution: Achievements, Challenges, and Opportunities
    Reconstructing human evolution: Achievements, challenges, and opportunities Bernard Wood1 George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052 This contribution reviews the evidence that has resolved the can then be used as the equivalent of a null hypothesis when branching structure of the higher primate part of the tree of life considering where to place newly discovered fossil great ape taxa. and the substantial body of fossil evidence for human evolution. It considers some of the problems faced by those who try to interpret The Human Fossil Record. The fossil record of the human clade the taxonomy and systematics of the human fossil record. How do consists of fossil evidence for modern humans plus that of all ex- you to tell an early human taxon from one in a closely related clade? tinct taxa that are hypothesized to be more closely related to How do you determine the number of taxa represented in the modern humans than to any other living taxon. Not so long ago human clade? How can homoplasy be recognized and factored into nearly all researchers were comfortable with according the human attempts to recover phylogeny? clade the status of a family, the Hominidae, with the nonhuman extant great apes (i.e., chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and history | hominin orangutans) placed in a separate family, the Pongidae. But given the abundant evidence for a closer relationship between Pan and his contribution begins by considering two achievements rele- Homo than between Pan and Gorilla (see above), many research- Tvant to reconstructing human evolution: resolving the branch- ers have concluded that the human clade should be distinguished ing structure of the higher primate part of the tree of life and the beneath the level of the family in the Linnaean hierarchy.
    [Show full text]