The author lived seven years in the Congo as a servant of the Belgian government. He fostered deep bonds with the primitive Sonde tribe and gained the full confidence of Kianza, their illiterate tribal chirf, who inspired this book.The deep knowledge of the earliest African life is lost forever because those who knew it could not write and those who had learned to write never knew it. Primitive African life is now overshadowed by a brand new "Africa in transition." This development took less than 75 years. Original tribal life in Africa is covered with a handful of stories as told by the...

The author lived seven years in the Congo as a servant of the Belgian government. He fostered deep bonds with the primitive Sonde tribe and gained the full confidence of Kianza, their illiterate tribal chirf, who inspired this book.The deep knowledge of the earliest African life is lost forever because those who knew it could not write and those who had learned to write never knew it. Primitive African life is now overshadowed by a brand new "Africa in transition." This development took less than 75 years. Original tribal life in Africa is covered with a handful of stories as told by the...