Elders at Bongandango, Congo, ca. 1920-1930

Black and white lantern slide showing three community elders at Bongandango, on the Lopori River. The elder standing at the centre of the image has a beard and braided hair. He wears a cloth wrap around his head and a loincloth around his waist. He holds a tall wooden pole as a cane. The younger men on each side of him wear Western attire of suits and jackets, although one man does not wear a shirt. These men have shorter, more Western hairstyles. Bongandanga station was opened up by Edward Algernon Ruskin of the Congo Balolo Mission in 1891. Ruskin and his wife Lily were to live at Bondinga for fourty-four years, from where they established a printing press and carried out their translation work. 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.