Girl of Topoki Tribe, Congo, ca. 1920-1930

Black and white lantern slide showing an image of a girl of the Topoki (commonly known as Topoke) tribe, a people living in the Isangi territory south of the Congo River. The caption for the slide reads, "Girl of Topoke Tribe- Hole Through Nose. The Fashion." The Topoke were reasonably isolated from missionary activity until the 1930s. The girl wears a white smock, and sits on a wooden chair. A hole can be seen through her nose, and there are also scarification marks on her cheeks, forming lines to her eyes and nose. Scarification is the process of marking the skin by cutting it, either to enhance beauty or to mark certain events and life stages. This slide comes from a collection generated by missionaries working for the Congo Balolo Mission, a mission begun in 1889 under the supervision of the East London Training Institute for Home and Foreign Missions that developed into the interdenominational evangelical mission Regions Beyond Missionary Union after 1900.