Description
This photograph, taken in 1942 in Messabé in the Congo, is the result of a collaboration between Germaine Krull, Ellebé and Robert Carmet during the photographic mission of the Free French Forces in Africa.
Aimed at young nubile girls, the tchikumbi is an initiation rite for the Vili people of the Loango region. They are adorned by their elders with bracelets and other jewelry and covered with a "red wood powder mixed with palm oil" according to the testimony of Bernard Lefebvre dit Ellebé.
Part of the archives of this report is kept at the Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer.
1950s print run.