Abstract
This essay discusses the use of hammocks as means of transport and as markers of social distinction in West Africa, especially in Dahomey (modern-day Benin). Around 1900, the image of Europeans being carried by black porters in hammocks became a popular theme in the visual culture of colonialism. The use of transport hammocks, however, is much older: it constituted a well-rooted practice in various sub-Saharan regions since precolonial times. In Dahomey, hammocks were a royal paraphernalia and, more generally, a status marker of the elites. Their use was gender-specific and regulated by strict sumptuary norms. Being a porter of the royal hammocks represented a prestigious position. These ‘traditions’ were themselves the result of an intercontinental transfer. Hammocks originated in the Americas, where several Amerindian peoples employed them in multiple functions, not least as sleeping devices. They were brought to Africa in the context of the slave trade. The fact that in Atlantic Africa hammocks were adopted exclusively as means of elite transport, this essay argues, is due to the region’s transport regime and to specifically sub-Saharan concepts of wealth.
Zaugg, Roberto