The Incredibly Elongated Head Culture of the Mangbetu People

Mangbetu people live in Central Africa, in northeastern Congo. The name Mangbetu refers, strictly speaking, only to the aristocracy, which in the 19th century established a number of powerful kingdoms; in looser usage it denotes the whole amalgam of people they ruled.The Mangbetu impressed early travelers with their political institutions and their arts, especially their remarkable skill as builders, potters, and sculptors. They became renowned also for their supposed cannibalism and for their practice of deforming the heads of babies.

‘Lipombo’, the custom of skull elongation, which was a status symbol among the Mangbetu ruling classes at the beginning of the century and was later emulated by neighboring groups, evolved into a common ideal of beauty among the peoples of the northeastern Congo. The tradition survived until the middle of this century, when it was outlawed by the Belgian government.

The Mangbetu had a distinctive look and this was partly due to their elongated heads. At birth the heads of babies’ were tightly wrapped with cloth in order to give their heads the streamlined look. The practice began dying out in the 1950s with the arrival of more Europeans and westernization. Because of this distinctive look, it is easy to recognize Mangbetu figures in African art.

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The Lost Tribes of Tierra del Fuego: Rare and Haunting Photos of Selk'nam People Posing With Their Traditional Body-Painting

The Selk’nam, a stone-age hunting culture inhabited the Tierra del Fuego area of southern Argentina and Chile for 7,000 years. During those times the tribes lived nomadically and in tune with the land—hunting, gathering and fishing.

The Selk’nam had no chiefs, but were instead led by wise men (‘fathers of the world’) who were believed to possess spiritual power over people, weather and events. The tribe’s most sacred ceremony was the coming-of-age, or the ‘hain’. Adult male members of the tribe would be painted with red, black and white paint and don fur, down and bark costumes, impersonating much feared spirits. Over a period of days or weeks they would conduct a complex initiation to transition boys into manhood.

One of the last such ceremonies was performed in 1920 and recorded by the missionary, Martin Gusinde. When Gusinde was ordained as a priest in Germany in 1911, he hoped to travel to New Guinea to work as a missionary among exotic tribes. Instead, his superiors sent him to Chile to teach at the German school in Santiago. Within a few years, however, he found his calling at Chile’s Museum of Ethnology and Anthropology, carrying out expeditions to Tierra del Fuego in the far south of Chile and Argentina.

Gusinde first went to Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego in December of 1918, filled with (in his own words) “indescribable enthusiasm” and “youthful dreams” of an encounter with archaic tribes. Gusinde’s haunting photographs of the Selk’nam, Yamana, and Kawésqar peoples present a way of life that was already on the brink of extinction when he visited the region in 1918–1924 and that has since ceased to exist.

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The Secret Museum of Mankind: A Collection of Strange and Secret Photographs of Tribes From Across the Continents

Published in 1935, The Secret Museum of Mankind is a mystery book. It has no author or credits, no copyright, no date, no page numbers, no index. Published by "Manhattan House" and sold by "Metro Publications", both of New York, its "Five Volumes in One" was pure hype: it had never been released in any other form.

Advertised as "World's Greatest Collection of Strange & Secret Photographs" and marketed mainly to overheated adolescents, it consists of nothing but photos and captions with no further exposition. This was not a book published to educate, but to titillate (literally)— it's emphasis was on the female form and fashion, and it featured as many National-Geographic-style native breasts as possible. But anything lurid, weird, or just plain unusual is fair game.

The tone of the commentary is dated, and uniformly racist in the extreme, often hilariously so. It reads like the patter of a carnival sideshow barker, from a time when the world was divided between "modern" Europeans and "savages". The photos were taken from the 1890s through the early 1930s, with period commentary to match. This was the era of eugenics before it acquired a terminal taint thanks to Nazi Germany.

See below for a selection of images that show "the magic and mystery in queer lands where the foot of a white man has rarely tread..."

1. IN THE FANTASTIC DRESS OF THE NOTORIOUS STRAW BOYS

During the early years of the nineteenth century sections of Ireland were overrun by one of the many terrorist gangs that have from time to time existed there, known, from their peculiar but effective grass masks, as the Straw Boys. Through these masks they could see without being recognized, and their habit of dressing as women added to their grotesque appearance.


2. EMU MAN PERFORMS THE TOTEM

With a head-dress representing the sacred totem of his group, this man is working magic that is to make emus abundant for the hunters of his tribe.


3. AMAZONIAN HUNTER PROUD OF HIS METAL SPEAR

Besides bows and arrows, most of the forest Indians use the spear as a weapon of the chase. The shaft is of stout wood and the point or blade is usually of chonta palm, which is almost as hard as metal. A few spears are found with metal blades, probably taken centuries ago from the Spanish pioneers, and naturally are highly prized by their fortunate possessors.


4. BURLESQUE DISGUISE OF BASUTO GIRL-BRIDES

Initiation ceremonies are generally held before any young people can be admitted as members to adult tribal society; likewise before marriage the girls of Basutoland carefully observe a period of initiation. After receiving a new name each neophyte is whitewashed, blanketed, and masked, and in this guise undergoes many rites.


5. FLORAL MASKS HIDE THE BLUSHES OF SOME BULGARIAN BRIDES

All the bride's artistic taste is centred in her head dress; be she poor or rich, she endeavours to make it as gorgeously ponderous as the strength of her head will allow. Fortunately, this gigantic floral burden and cap of coins are not worn for long but are soon replaced by the popular, and certainly more effective headdress — the simple wreath of flowers and leaves.

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A Beauty to Give the Thrill: 20 Vintage Portraits of Ainu Women From Northern Japan With Their Traditional Tattooed Lips

Ainu means human. The Ainu people regard things useful to them or beyond their control as kamuy (gods). In daily life, they prayed to and performed various ceremonies for the gods. These gods include: "nature" gods, such as of fire, water, wind and thunder; "animal" gods, such as of bears, foxes, spotted owls and gram-puses; "plant" gods, such as of aconite, mush-room and mugwort; "object" gods, such as of boats and pots; and gods which protect houses, gods of mountains and gods of lakes. The word Ainu refers to the opposite of these gods.

Ainu are shorter than the Japanese people, with lighter skin, robust body and short limbs. Unlike typical Mongoloids, their hair is wavy and the body hair is abundant; men wear large beards and mustaches, considered a sign of beauty, to the point that married women tattoo their lower face to mimic a beard. Ainu have not such pronounced almond-shaped eyes and lack the Mongoloid fold of the eye; the nose is large and straight. All these point to their origin in Polynesia or southeastern Asia.

Women were largely independent until marrying. After that, they were under men's will. But women went to war and could manifest their opinions during the councils of the village. Ainu women adorned their hands, forehead, arms and mouth outline with blue tattoos (as said, for mimicking mustaches).

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29 Rare Vintage Autochrome Photos of Native Americans in the Early 20th Century

Here are amazing vintage photos of Native Americans taken in the beginning of Autochrome photography time. It showed a part of their lives in the early 20th century.

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23 Amazing Vintage Portrait Photos of Khalkha Women in Their Mongolian Traditional Costumes in the Early 1900s

The Khalkha is the largest subgroup of Mongol people in Mongolia since the 15th century. The Khalkha, together with Chahars, Ordos and Tumed, were directly ruled by Borjigin khans until the 20th century; unlike the Oirats, who were ruled by Dzungar nobles, or the Khorchins, who were ruled by Qasar's descendants.

The most impressive, perhaps, was the head ornament of the married Khalkha women. The main element of their headdress is a special hairstyle, designed to mimic cow's horns. A cow for the Mongols has been the symbol of freedom and nomadic life. According to another version, the hairstyle does not imitate horns, but the wings of some mythical bird.

As you can imagine, the structure of this hairstyle is very complicated. The basis of it is a small silver cap with filigree, to which numerous silver, coral or turquoise ornaments are attached. The combed back hair is divided into two parts and formed into the "horns" with the help of several silver or bamboo pins. The lower part of the strands is braided in plaits. Rich women allow themselves to further decorate this part of the hair: the plaits are put into embroidered brocade covers with rows of coral and silver bands. For special events or for traveling a pointed hat (malagay) which looks like a crown is worn over the small cap. The hat is usually made of velvet and has colourful ribbons attached at the back. The top is sometimes decorated with a big coral or other stone.

Here, below is a collection of rare and amazing portrait photos of Khalkha women in their traditional costumes in the early 1900s.

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50 Incredible Pictures Show Everyday Life of Native American People From Between the 1900s and 1930s

Beginning in 1900 and continuing over the next thirty years, Edward Sheriff Curtis, or the “Shadow Catcher” as he was later called by some of the tribes, took over 40,000 images and recorded rare ethnographic information from over eighty American Indian tribal groups, ranging from the Eskimo or Inuit people of the far north to the Hopi people of the Southwest.

For thirty years, with the backing of men like J. Pierpont Morgan and former president Theodore Roosevelt, but at great expense to his family life and his health, Curtis lived among dozens of native tribes, devoting his life to his calling until he produced a definitive and unparalleled work, The North American Indian. The New York Herald hailed as “the most ambitious enterprise in publishing since the production of the King James Bible.”

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Kayan People: Incredible Vintage Photos of “Giraffe Women” in the 1950s

The Kayan Lahwi people, also known as Padaung, are an ethnic group with populations in Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand. Women of the Kayan tribes identify themselves by their forms of dress. Women of the Kayan Lahwi tribe are well known for wearing neck rings, brass coils that are placed around the neck, appearing to lengthen it. The women wearing these coils are known as "giraffe women" to tourists.

Girls first start to wear rings when they are around 5 years old. Over the years, the coil is replaced by a longer one and more turns are added. The weight of the brass pushes the collar bone down and compresses the rib cage. The neck itself is not lengthened; the appearance of a stretched neck is created by the deformation of the clavicle.

Many ideas regarding why the coils are worn have been suggested, often formed by visiting anthropologists, who have hypothesized that the rings protected women from becoming slaves by making them less attractive to other tribes. It has also been theorised that the coils originate from the desire to look more attractive by exaggerating sexual dimorphism, as women have more slender necks than men. It has also been suggested that the coils give the women resemblance to a dragon, an important figure in Kayan folklore. The coils might be meant to protect from tiger bites, perhaps literally, but probably symbolically.

Kayan women, when asked, acknowledge these ideas, and often say that their purpose for wearing the rings is cultural identity (one associated with beauty). Some amazing vintage photos of them below taken in the middle 1950s will give you a better idea.

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40 Rare Photos of Indigenous Sami People of the Nordic Areas and North Western Russia From the Early 20th Century

The Sami people (also Sámi or Saami) are an indigenous Finno-Ugric people inhabiting the Arctic area of Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sami are the only indigenous people of Scandinavia recognized and protected under the international conventions of indigenous peoples, and are hence the northernmost indigenous people of Europe.

Sami ancestral lands span an area of approximately 388,350 km2 (150,000 sq. mi.), which is approximately the size of Norway, in the Nordic countries. Their traditional languages are the Sami languages and are classified as a branch of the Uralic language family.

Traditionally, the Sami have pursued a variety of livelihoods, including coastal fishing, fur trapping, and sheep herding. Their best-known means of livelihood is semi-nomadic reindeer herding. For traditional, environmental, cultural, and political reasons, reindeer herding is legally reserved only for Sami people in certain regions of the Nordic countries.

Sami group early 1900 eds and Lavvo tents in Tromsdalen

Sami man on Reindeer sledge in Lappland Sweden

Sami mother and children. Grotli, Oppland, Norway

A semi-nomad Sami Children Northern Sweden Norway late 1800 (likely from 1884, Bonaparte).

Mountain Saami group in Lyngen Norway. 1928

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24 Incredible Color Photos of Ethnic Exotic From Around the World in the Early 20th Century

In 1909, at the very dawn of color photography, the French banker Albert Kahn set out to visually document every culture of the global human family. With the fortune he had amassed selling securities from South African diamond mines and illegal war bonds to the Japanese, Kahn financed a team of photographers to spread across the world taking pictures. Over the next two decades, these artists and ethnographers produced over 70,000 photos across 50 countries, from Ireland to India and everywhere in-between.

Indian chief, Crow Indian Reservation, Montana, photographer Edwin Wisherd, 1927.

A guy in a cowboy outfit, California, 1920.

Leader Naxi people in Tibet, photographer Joseph Rock, about 1927.

Ethiopian veterans in traditional attire, photographer Robert Moore, 1930.

Dutch photographer Stephane Passet, 1910.

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