Mary Kingsley
Mary Henrietta Kingsley ( born October 13, 1862 in Islington, † June 3, 1900 in Simon 's Town, South Africa) had was a British explorer, ethnologist, travel writer and lecturer travelers, the lasting influence on British notions of West Africa and its people.
Life
Your domestic situation
Mary Kingsley was the daughter of the physician George Henry Kingsley and Mary Bailey of domestic workers as well as the niece of the writer Charles Kingsley. Kingsley's father accompanied as physician to the Earl of Pembroke these often, while Kingsley with her later of care mother and her younger brother remained at home on his trips abroad. A school they never attended; Instead, she acquired her knowledge from her father's library. For your reading included books on physics, chemistry, geography, anthropology and theology, travel and adventure literature as well as do-it -yourself magazines.
The family moved in 1886 to Cambridge, where Kingsley was frequently present at the tea parties and scholarly circles of her father.
At a distance of six weeks died in the spring of 1892 Kingsley's first father and then her mother. Kingsley, who was the first time both free of family responsibilities and without task, decided soon after to go on trips. Motivated by her reading, she decided to West Africa; a first sample trip, they still led in 1892 to the upstream Canary Islands.
Your Trips to Africa
Mary Kingsley started out in August 1893 by England with a cargo ship to Africa. She sailed on the coast through Freetown in Sierra Leone to Angola. In Cabinda, Old Calabar, on the island of Fernando Poo and the lower Congo they made their observations. She lived with locals, who taught her the necessary skills for survival in the African jungles. After this training, they could drive among other canoe and dominated the nodes of networks. Often she went alone into dangerous areas. As a Victorian Lady in black mourning clothes she impressed the people there who had never seen a white woman. The explorers loved her life in Africa, with all its ups and downs, its landscapes, its animals, its people. Their route led to Nigeria, from where they returned home in June 1894.
After careful preparations for a second trip and equipped by the British Museum authorities with collector equipment Mary Kingsley set out with the Batanga from Liverpool, England, from the next expedition on 23 December 1894. About Old Calabar and Gabon, she came in the French Congo. She drove only on the steamer, then by canoe up the river Ogooué, where they collected fish that were not yet cataloged partly in Europe. From this point of their journey they crossed partly by Europeans so far untrodden country. She experienced a long series of adventure and escape by a hair, one hand against the dangers at sea and on land, on the other hand in front of the tribe of cannibals in fishing. You had to deal with mangrove swamps, leeches, hippos, gorillas and crocodiles.
After the meeting with the people of the fishing, it took Mary Kingsley back to the coast, Corisco and in the former German colony of Cameroon. They climbed the 4,095 m high volcanic Mount Cameroon, West Africa's highest peak, on a route that had ever defeated none other Europeans. She was the first woman to hold the volcano. From the colony of Cameroon they took the journey home. To finance her second trip she acted on their tour British fabrics and metalware against rubber and ivory.
The experience gained on their journey species of insects, reptiles and fish she gave to the British Museum.
Lectures and Books
News of her adventures reached England. When she returned home in October 1895, it was therefore welcomed by journalists who were eager to interview her. Her book Travels in West Africa came a few months later with widespread interest. She was now famous in the UK. In the following three years, she traveled the country and lectured about life in Africa to its fauna, flora and folklore.
Kingsley wrote two books about her experiences: Travels in West Africa ( 1897) which was a best seller immediately, and West African Studies (1899 ). Your views are in the books were then lively debate, but it was opposed to the general European practice in Africa and cherished undisguised sympathy for the indigenous population. It was at that time not a popular position.
Mary Kingsley brought the Anglican Church against him, as she criticized missionaries for attempts to change a life for Africans to European ideal. She talked about many aspects of African life that shocked many Englishmen, including polygamy. She argued that a " black man is not an under-developed white man, than a rabbit is an undeveloped hare. " An of drinking alcohol ban for Africans, as it strove teetotaler, they refused to. They remained quite conservative in other respects and did not support the suffrage movement. She was a follower of the abolitionists, and entered against the slave trade and for the rights of African natives.
At the end of their life
Kingsley had planned a third trip to the west coast of Africa, this changed, however, after the outbreak of the Boer War. Mary Kingsley turned to South Africa and offered her services as a nurse. She died, not 38 years old, from typhoid fever in Simonstown, near Cape Town in a POW camp, where she treated interned Boers. In the city, a typhus epidemic had broken out. As she had wished, Mary Kingsley was given a burial at sea; was allowed to be given to their military honors.
Importance
The travel books contain much information about the lifestyle of the West African people in the 1890s. Your lectures contributed to another screen and better understanding of the Africans. She argued against the then prevalent in Europe and America idea, " Negroes " were " primitive " and that Europe needed to civilize Africa. Dealer, it was believed they could still best understand the mentality of the locals
Documentation
- Tropical fever - venture into the jungle. Mary Kingsley cannibals Soundtrack - Vangelis - Mutiny on the Bounty ZDF -Terra X, Germany 2007, 45 min
Publications in German language
- The green walls of my rivers, records from West Africa, excerpts and photographs from Travels in West Africa, London 1897, C. Bertelsmann, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-570-02655-8. as dtv Paperback, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-423-30315-8.