Travels in West Africa

Record summary

Mary Kingsley’s Travels in West Africa describes encounters with coastal and forest communities, ritual specialists, medicines, protective objects, witchcraft allegations, and ideas about spiritual danger. It is valuable for comparing a late Victorian traveler’s observations with missionary and administrative accounts of religious affliction. The book is a clearly identifiable 1897 publication, but Kingsley’s observations are selective and often shaped by humor, personal argument, and contemporary colonial discourse. Her use of terms such as fetish should be unpacked rather than read as indigenous self-description.