Beschreibung
8vo (217 x 145mm), pp. 349, [1 (imprint)]; one lithographic folding map on tissue paper, half-tone frontispiece retaining tissue guard, and a further 30 half-tone illustrations on 15 plates; original light blue cloth gilt, upper board with double blind-ruled border, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, top edges stained grey, others untrimmed; extremities lightly rubbed, bumped and marked, spine a little darkened, generally a good copy; provenance: Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (bookplate on front pastedown, ink stamp on front free endpaper and blind-stamps on A3, D1, G2, K3, R2, and T6).First edition. Charles Dundas (1884-1956), son of the 6th Viscount Melville of Melville, was an influential figure in the British East African territories in the early twentieth century: he held the office of District Commissioner of British East African Protectorate (1908-1915), was then Political Officer as Major in the German East African Campaign (1915-1918) and Senior Commissioner of Tanganyika Territory between 1921 and 1925, when he composed Kilimanjaro and Its People, and was also being invested as an OBE (1922). Later he held offices in the Bahamas (Colonial Secretary, 1929; Governor and Commander-in-Chief, 1937-1940), Northern Rhodesia (Colonial Secretary, 1934-1937) and Uganda Protectorate (Governor and Commander-in-Chief, 1940-1944); and was made both a Knight Commander, Order of St. Michael and St. George (1938) and Knight, Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem.Kilimanjaro and Its People is engagingly written, and attractively illustrated with photographs, and first describes the mountain's structure and character a chapter that 'will be specially attractive to climbers', as A. Werner's review in the 1924 Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (pp. 563-565) asserts before praising Dundas' extensive, first-hand knowledge and sensitive approach to positioning the Kilimanjaro into its historical and socio-cultural context: 'Some early travellers no doubt unacquainted with the language, and staying too short a time to have any real intercourse with the people have asserted that there are no myths or legends connected with Kilimanjaro, and that it does not seem in any way to have impressed the Chaga imagination […][;] Mr Dundas shows clearly what an important factor in tribal life it is. The highest peak, Kibo, "is the great landmark and focus of the Chaga people… The dead are buried with the face turned towards Kibo; the side of the village facing Kibo is the honourable side, where the house-master is buried, and the villagers assemble for feasts and councils"' (ibid.).The individual chapters cover the history of the region and the Chaga people (from the 'clan period' to the 'European period'), their religion, magical beliefs (including witchcraft, medicine men and curses), burial rituals, the stages of life prior to death (essentially, childhood and youth, matrimony), the occupations of the locals (hut building, agriculture, stock breeding, arts and crafts, and, intriguingly, bee keeping), the people's legal system, and finally, its legends and proverbs. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers T4204
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