Children of Africa

Filmed during the AMNH Martin Johnson African Expedition, 1924-1928. Children of Africa is comprised of outtakes from a Martin and Osa Johnson film made during the AMNH Martin Johnson African Expeditions, 1924-1928. Agnes G. Kelly Saunders, AMNH Department of Education, edited, titled, and distributed the film. The film consists of footage taken in east and central Africa, beginning with Cairo, Egypt, where children tend goats, fish, and make faces for the camera. The scene then shifts to the Belgian Congo (now Zaire) to study the clothing and dwellings of a group of villagers. In Kenya, Kikuyu villagers are featured. Special attention is given to the children who are seen dancing, eating, being bathed, and tending one another. A dance by a group of young people in the Sudan follows. Kikuyu, or perhaps Akamba (i.e. Kamba), children, dressed in skin wraps, clap their hands and move in place. A close-up of a young Kikuyu woman shows her ornamentation in great detail.