1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910779366603321

Autore

Roberts Allen F. <1945->

Titolo

A dance of assassins [[electronic resource] ] : performing early colonial hegemony in the Congo / / Allen F. Roberts

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Bloomington, : Indiana University Press, 2013

ISBN

1-283-86994-2

0-253-00759-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (326 p.)

Collana

African expressive cultures

Disciplina

325.3493096751

Soggetti

Belgians - Congo (Democratic Republic) - History - 19th century

Hegemony - Congo (Democratic Republic) - History - 19th century

Ethnological museums and collections - Belgium

Congo (Democratic Republic) Colonization

Congo (Democratic Republic) History To 1908

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

The "emperor" strikes back. Invitation to a beheading -- A conflict of memories -- Histories made by bodies -- Tropical gothic -- Storms the headhunter. Remembering the dismembered. The rise of a colonial macabre -- Art évo on the Chaussée d'Ixelles -- Lusinga's lasting laughs -- Composing decomposition -- Defiances of the dead.

Sommario/riassunto

A Dance of Assassins presents the competing histories of how Congolese Chief Lusinga and Belgian Lieutenant Storms engaged in a deadly clash while striving to establish hegemony along the southwestern shores of Lake Tanganyika in the 1880's. While Lusinga participated in the east African slave trade, Storms' secret mandate was to meet Henry Stanley's eastward march and trace ""a white line across the Dark Continent"" to legitimize King Leopold's audacious claim to the Congo. Confrontation was inevitable, and Lusinga lost his head. His skull became the subject of a sinister evolutionary treat