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CANONIZATION BY REPETITION : PAUL DU CHAILLU IN HISTORIOGR APH Y

par HENR YH.B UCHER JR

Introduction

No other nineteenth-century explorer of Africa excited so much controversy as Paul Belloni Du Chaillu ; nor was any other's life and background so incorrect- ly perceived and so vaguely known even today. As one example, in the usually reliable work by Clarence Clendenen, Robert Collins, and Peter Duignan, it is affirmed as recently as 1966 that :

Probably most noteworthy of ail [explorers] was Paul Belloni du Chaillu, French born but a naturalized American citizen. In the mid part of the century, for purely scientific purposes, he explored vast areas in Central Africa. His announ- cement of the existence of a giant species of ape, the gorilla, was greeted with disbelief by European armchair savants, and his statements on geographical matters were denied by the same authorities. Du Chaillu happened to be right. His most astonishing discovery, however, was a race of pygmies, of whom the world had no previous knowledge1.

Other normally trustworthy sources, in citing older accounts that are incorrect, state among other things, that Du Chaillu's father was an agent of Oppenheim of Paris, that Paul knew several local African languages well, was sponsored on his fîrst journey (1856-1859) by the Academy of Natural Sciences ofPhiladelphia, was never accompanied in Africa by another white man, discovered the «Cannibal Fans» as well as many new species of plants and animais ; and fïnally, though maligned by the «cavil of armchair savants», Du Chaillu emerged vindicated after his antagonists were proven wrong2.

Rev. franc. d'Hist. d'Outre-Mer, t. LXVI (1979), nos 242-243.