Anthropological images from the Belgian Congo, ca. 1900

Spotted on the tumblog of photographer Clayton Cubitt, a collection of more than 700 black and white photographs taken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the early 20th century.

Clayton says, "Click on this archive link, and then click to submit on the search button at the archive site without entering any search terms, and it should return 73 pages of amazing."

There are so many powerful portraits in this collection, like the one above. I've been reading a lot about the current, ongoing violence in the Congo (here is one recent story about sexual atrocities committed against men). Clicking through this archive, I found myself thinking about the legacy of violence and colonialism, and how one generation of brutalities begets another. There are many images here that document horrible acts committed more than a century ago, such as the cutting off of hands of rubber plantation workers who failed to meet their quotas, or whipping people to death with hippo-skin chicottes.

Image at the top of this post: Herbert Lang, 'SENSE, A MANGBETU CHIEF. PORTRAIT 3/4 VIEW. PLASTER CAST OF FACE TAKEN' Belgian Congo 1909-1915.

[#1 posted by nosehat, August 6, 2009 4:30 PM]

The horror, the horror.

[#2 posted by Anonymous, August 6, 2009 5:10 PM]

Best. Comb-over. Evar.

[#3 posted by Man On Pink Corner, August 6, 2009 5:21 PM]

A roaring, epic, rag-time tune
From the mouth of the Congo
To the Mountains of the Moon.
Death is an Elephant,
Torch-eyed and horrible,
Foam-flanked and terrible.
BOOM, steal the pygmies,
BOOM, kill the Arabs,
BOOM, kill the white men,
HOO, HOO, HOO.

/something tells me the schools don't teach much Vachel Lindsay anymore

[#4 posted by jfrancis, August 6, 2009 6:27 PM]

Guy in the photo reminds me of Feargal Sharkey

[#5 posted by Anonymous, August 6, 2009 6:46 PM]

King Leopold's Ghost is a great history of what the colonization of The Congo was all about.

[#6 posted by bklynchris, August 6, 2009 6:56 PM]

Thank you for the links....
Re: the NYT's article

I......just......can't.....wrap....my mind....around this.

It is more horrifying than the Russian psychotic killer kids, the wheelchair bound man who ate his son's eyes, and the rash of recent maternal infanticides that included an infant decapitation. Those were all isolated cases.

This is happening on a mass level.

I feel so powerless.

[#7 posted by noen, August 6, 2009 7:41 PM]

People forget, or never knew, about the brutality of Capitalism. People have to be made dependent, they have no inherent need of the factory or the plantation because they're self sufficient as they are. So their land must be taken from them, the plants and animals they need to survive killed. Their culture uprooted, their women raped, their children murdered and themselves in chains. Only then will they accept the plantation master.

But it's ok because their children will get to watch TV.

[#8 posted by Takuan, August 6, 2009 7:54 PM]

clicking through the archive... they were right, the camera does steal the soul.

[#9 posted by Anonymous, August 6, 2009 10:34 PM]

Powerful image, thanks. Will explore links later.

[#10 posted by Antinous / Moderator, August 6, 2009 10:37 PM]

That guy looks like Snoop Dogg in about thirty years.

[#11 posted by Anonymous, August 7, 2009 4:34 AM]

My Dad lived and worked in the Congo right after WWII. He loved the country and the people, and his office was filled with pictures and mementos of his time there. I wish he were alive to see this gallery and remember a wonderful time in his life, though I know he'd also be appalled at what is happening there still. Amazing stuff.

[#12 posted by Anonymous, August 7, 2009 6:37 AM]

One of the best books I've ever read is King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild. It mentions an estimate that 10 million Congolese were killed during the reign of Leopold. The Belgians would capture women in a village and hold them until the men returned with a quota of rubber.

Oh, and that genocide in Rwanda? When the Belgians colonized Rwanda, they used phrenology to decide that the Tutsis were smarter, and put them in power. They gave identity cards of different colors to Hutus and Tutsis, instantly magnifying what had been a benign difference in identity. And what did the Hutus do during the genocide? They asked for identity cards...

[#13 posted by arbitraryaardvark, August 7, 2009 11:35 PM]

Mark Twain wrote a book about King Leopold and the Congo. Here it is
http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/i2l/kls.html

[#14 posted by SalvoSensu, August 8, 2009 8:50 AM]

I wonder if anyone realizes that King Leopold perpetrated the world's first Holocaust. The Congolese were bureaucratically, systematically deprived of their land and worked to death for a profit. And 10 million dead is the conservative estimate - it may have been as high as 22 million.

A vine in the Congo that produced rubber was harvested to extinction while most of the worlds brand new rubber plantations were busy maturing - a 20 year process. To corner the market on rubber, King Leopold systematically, legally, worked millions of people to death - this is not a simple genocide, which is horrible enough - this is no pogrom. This was the world's first Holocaust according to the academic definition of what a Holocaust is.

The man in the photo has the same expression I have seen on the faces of Auchwitz survivors.

[#15 posted by Beverly Stayart, August 8, 2009 11:25 AM]

These are priceless photos that document the reality of the time.