ABSTRACT

Apes and monkeys are central elements in constructions of central Africa in the Western imagination. From Paul Du Chaillu’s tales of gorilla ram-pages in the mid-nineteenth century to the monkeys and apes displayed on the July and August 2008 covers of National Geographic, these animals have become objects of Western knowledge and pleasure. Tamara Giles-Vernick and Stephanie Rupp have forcefully noted how stories of these animals in equatorial African communities articulate “claims about control over human productive and reproductive labor; access to forest resources, spaces, and wealth; racial and ethnic relations; and the boundary between life and death.” 1 Debates over land rights and conservation agencies often hinge on presentations of apes and monkeys as symbols of nature in need of protection. Like many other stories of animals in colonized settings, the genealogy of attitudes towards monkeys and apes within Europeans and African communities alike has long remained obscure.