Voice from the Congo: Comprising Stories, Anecdotes, and Descriptive Notes

A Voice from the Congo is British adventurer Herbert Ward's equally sensational follow-up to his earlier Five Years with the Congo Cannibals. It is a more complete account of his experiences in the Congo in the late nineteenth century, and was published in response to the success of his earlier work. After joining Sir Henry M. Stanley's expedition to the Congo in 1884, the author organized transport services, going far into the interior to set up stations and recruit carriers. There, deep in Africa's interior where he was often the first white men the locals had ever seen, Ward recorded in detail the culture he found, providing one of the first complete anthropological surveys of African life before the advent of colonialism. This work provides many fascinating insights into how Congo basin African society was ordered: the chieftain system, the lives of ordinary villagers, and the dreadful fate of slaves, women, the elderly, and the sick-all of whom were regarded as of little value and often disposed of in the most brutal fashion. Topics in this book include the African witchdoctor and his power over the natives; the involvement of Arabs in the African slave trade; the languages, culture, and weapons of the different tribes, and the rampant cannibalism which was a defining feature of many of the tribes he encountered.