Different disciplines of science measure Africa in different ways. Geographers point to a climate that ranges from the burning Sahara to the steamy rain forests of Zaire to the dry savannas of Kenya. Biologists note the astonishing abundance and variety of the continent's wildlife. Epidemiologists speak with horror and fascination of deadly viruses like HIV and Ebola that have come out of the jungle, and of countless undiscovered microbes waiting to emerge.
For anthropologists, however, Africa's most impressive statistics are the ones that measure the enormous diversity of its people. Some 1,300 languages are spoken on the continent, about a third of the world's total. Each represents a distinct ethnic group with its own beliefs and its own rituals and ceremonies--some of which have been performed for hundreds of years.
Yet within a few decades many of these traditions will vanish, or at least change beyond recognition. In many African nations, minority tribes are being culturally assimilated--if not physically wiped out--by the ruling majority; in others, rural villagers are migrating to the melting pots of the cities. Even those who stay behind are finding the lure of Western music, culture and clothing irresistible. Nobody believes the trend can be stopped, or that it is necessarily a bad thing--for example, in the case of female circumcision. But scientists do want to document Africa's existing cultures before it's too late.
That's where photographers Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher come in. For 25 years, working separately and then together, the two women have crisscrossed the continent from Senegal to Ethiopia, from Morocco to South Africa, observing and documenting traditional native ceremonies. Although not working scientists (Fisher was trained as a sociologist before she switched to photography; Beckwith came to the field from a background in art), they have studied their subjects with the thoroughness of professional researchers, visiting all but seven of Africa's 53 nations and capturing on film most of the rituals that are still practiced on the continent. In some cases, Beckwith and Fisher are the first Westerners the tribes have ever seen.
The result is an unparalleled collection of tens of thousands of photographs, many of them strikingly beautiful, that has been distilled into four books (a fifth will be published in 1998, along with a CD-ROM and a documentary film) and several major articles in National Geographic (another will appear in the October issue). Most important to scholars, though, is the fact that Beckwith and Fisher are making the collection available to researchers--a priceless ethnographic archive that will endure no matter what happens to the tribes. Beckwith and Fisher, says art historian Christine Mullen Kreamer of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, "are making valuable contributions to the visual anthropology of Africa."