Local translator completing ritual for elderly man who died of smallpox (Cameroon)
Photo by: Arlan Rosenbloom
Date of photo: 1966-1970
The picture was taken in the northern part of Cameroon during an investigation of an introduction of smallpox from Nigeria. The man in the photograph was the local translator (the are 149 languages in Cameroon). An elderly man had died of smallpox and the translator was freeing his soul by arranging stones and saying an incantation.
