ABSTRACT
Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc begins with the gods that were worshipped and auguries. Peiresc was pursuing an inquiry into the practices of the "Imbes Gallus Imbongalleus," or as he calls them elsewhere, equally uncertainly, the "Imbri Galli," using both of the sources on sub-Saharan Africa at his disposal. Peiresc lamented the defects of the drawing from which he was working—in ruing the artist's inability to distinguish between the gold and black of the original by using black ink—and left it up to Pignoria to decide if the artist could do better. Peiresc's intellectual career after he returned to Provence for good in the autumn of 1623, provides ample additional material for studying the evolving relationship between history of religions and the study of peoples. Colombin's reponse to Peiresc's questions about funerary rites was extremely detailed, as he had actually been able to attend the funeral of a respected matriarch.
