Paul Belloni Du Chaillu
Paul Belloni Du Chaillu (born July 31, 1835 in Paris , † April 29, 1903 in Saint Petersburg ) was a French anthropologist and Africa researcher .
Life
Du Chaillu was the son of a Paris merchant who traded at the mouth of the Gabon in West Africa. The son was raised for a time by missionaries and quickly acquired knowledge of the country and people of those regions, the Mpongwe language and the basics of natural history. He made trips inland near Gabon as early as 1851 and then went to North America in 1855 .
Du Chaillu was commissioned by the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia to expand his botanical and zoological studies deeper into the interior of Africa. During his four-year wanderings, he managed to explore the Ogowe on its lower reaches and to gain valuable natural history, including some gorillas , which he was probably the first European to see. His travel report Explorations and adventures in Equatorial Africa (London 1861, German Berlin 1862) attracted extraordinary attention. Since the veracity of his reports was initially contested, in particular by George Robert Gray and Heinrich Barth , he undertook a second expedition in 1863.
As a result of the loss of his astronomical instruments at the mouth of the Fernand-Vaz , he was delayed for a whole year and did not begin his journey into the interior until October 1864. He visited the waterfalls of the Ngunie, which flows into the Ogowe, and then came eastwards through endless forests to the Aschango (Abongo) beyond the 12th degree of longitude east of Greenwich. Here he met the pygmies, which were legendary at the time . In 1865 he was forced to return when an epidemic broke out . During this journey Du Chaillu made a number of valuable determinations of places and heights. He reported on his second journey in the work A journey to Ashango-Land and further penetration into Equatorial Africa (London 1867).
He spent the years 1871 to 1878 in Sweden , Lapland and Northern Finland and reported on them in The land of the midnight sun (2 volumes, London 1900) and in the Land of the long night (London 1900).
Works
- Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa . J. Murray, London 1861 online (German Berlin 1862)
- A journey to Ashango-Land and further penetration into Equatorial Africa . John Murray, London 1867 online
- My Apingi kingdom: with life in the great Sahara . London 1870
- The country of the dwarfs . London 1872
- World of the great forest . London 1902
reception
- The American draftsman and graphic artist Walton Ford describes in one of his large-format works from 2009 ( An Encounter with Du Chaillu ) the encounter between a gorilla and the researcher.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Du Chaillu, Paul Belloni |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French anthropologist and Africa explorer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 31, 1835 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 29, 1903 |
| Place of death | St. Petersburg |