Project Gutenberg 2025-05-30 Public domain in the USA. 282 Hilton-Simpson, M. W. (Melville William) 1881 1938 Hilton-Simpson, Melville William Hardy, Norman H. 1863 1914 12001745 Land and peoples of the Kasai : $b Being a narrative of a two years' journey among the cannibals of the equatorial forest and other savage tribes of the south-western Congo $aLondon :$bConstable and Company, $c1911. Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) "Land and peoples of the Kasai : Being a narrative of a two years' journey…." by M. W. Hilton-Simpson is a travel narrative and ethnographic account written in the early 20th century. It follows a two-year expedition across the Kasai and Sankuru basins of the Congo, documenting landscapes, river travel, and the lifeways of peoples such as the Batetela, Basonge, Bushongo, and Bankutu. Readers can expect close, first-hand observations of customs, music, material culture, and field methods, set against the realities of colonial transport, trade, and missions, with a declared focus on science rather than politics. The opening of the narrative explains how a planned Sahara journey was abandoned, leading to a Congo expedition organized with ethnographer Emil Torday (with museum backing and a painter in tow), logistical support from the Kasai Company, and cooperation from the colonial administration. The author outlines Torday’s research approach—learning languages, avoiding interpreters, and sourcing information from tribal insiders—then begins the voyage: a sober mail-boat to Matadi, formalities in Boma, the hot, rocky rail climb to Stanley Pool, and days measuring and photographing diverse peoples around Kinshasa and Leopoldville. The river journey up the Congo and into the Kasai is vivid with storms, telegraph posts, and wildlife-packed reaches like Wissman Pool, before arriving at Dima, the company’s headquarters, where staffing, pay in trade goods, provisioning, and health are sketched in detail and the plan is set to study Batetela and Bushongo communities. Subsequent chapters recount the slow steamer trip to Batempa, a Christmas marked by the mysterious “yuka/bembe” animal’s cry, Basonge music and dance (with notes on cannibalism’s decline and changing trade), the hiring and training of youthful “boys,” and the overland march through Batetela villages—culminating at Osodu, where a local succession dispute explains rumors of unrest, yet the travellers are welcomed and asked to intercede for an imprisoned chief. (This is an automatically generated summary.) https://archive.org/details/landpeoplesofkas00hiltrich 20221013105831hiltonsimp 1911 gb Reading ease score: 51.2 (10th to 12th grade). Somewhat difficult to read. en Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Description and travel Ethnology -- Congo (Democratic Republic) Kasai River (Angola and Congo) DT Text Category: Travel Writing Category: Archaeology & Anthropology 784207 2025-07-30T07:04:09.849801 text/html 734642 2025-05-30T18:01:21 text/html 4429361 2025-07-30T07:04:22.471777 application/epub+zip 4439123 2025-07-30T07:04:12.962889 application/epub+zip 480286 2025-07-30T07:04:11.127831 application/epub+zip 5119101 2025-07-30T07:04:28.848696 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 5050019 2025-07-30T07:04:20.843738 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 659896 2025-07-30T07:04:07.948860 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 639808 2025-05-30T18:01:21 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 14802 2025-07-30T07:04:29.026694 application/rdf+xml 26518 2025-07-30T07:04:11.515803 image/jpeg 4132 2025-07-30T07:04:11.315776 image/jpeg 4907392 2025-07-30T07:04:10.121803 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog