Who lives down in Deepest, Darkest, Africa?
— First verse in the opening to Kimba the White Lion
" Then I saw the Congo, creeping through the black
Cutting through the jungle with a golden track...
Listen to the creepy proclamation
Blown past the lairs of the forest-nation
Blown past the white-ant's hill of clay
Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play
'Be careful what you do, or
Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo
And all of the other
Gods of the Congo
Mumbo-Jumbo will Hoo-Doo you
Mumbo-Jumbo will Hoo-Doo you
Mumbo-Jumbo will... Hoo...Doo... you...'"
— Vachel Lindsay, "The Congo, A Study of the Negro Race"
"Bongo bongo bongo I don't wanna leave the Congo oh nonononono! Bingo bango bungo I'm so hop-py in the jungle I refuse to go..."
— The Andrews Sisters featuring Danny Kaye, "Fallout Civilization"
Darkest Africa is only dark to those wearing blindfolds,
to him who cannot think
whose brain is hardened and dusty
to him who cannot think
whose brain is hardened and dusty
— Fokofpolisiekar, "Antibiotika
" [Afrikaans]
" [Afrikaans] Over weary wastes of veldt and jungle, the drums bring you a story of Africa.
Africa, that land of mystery and ritual, ebony bodies, witch doctors, and sudden death.
Africa, that land of mystery and ritual, ebony bodies, witch doctors, and sudden death.
— Intro to Moon Over Africa
There are of course no Africans in this movie. (The opening song promises us a paradise unspoiled by man.) This may be just as well. The Tarzan myth doesn't take place in Africa so much as in a kind of archetypal wilderness occupied only by its own characters.
— Roger Ebert, review of Disney's Tarzan
"In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don’t get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn’t care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular."
— Binyavanga Wainaina, How to Write About Africa
"The desert of Libya contains wild beasts that a man would not believe if he were told about them. Amongst these monsters are wild men and wild women."
— Pausanias, Description of Greece
