FEATURE
98
21) in 1898 that he now had to fi nance everything
himself, confi rming that his source of revenue was
elephant hunting,23 which he himself engaged in
and which he supplemented with the purchase of
ivory at indigenous markets. In his travel account
“Im Lande der Bangwa” (In the Land of the Bangwa),
which was published in 1899, Conrau mentions
his rifl es but not elephant hunting. In this
account he appears to have been the agent of a
plantation company.
Until the turn of the twentieth century, a longterm
German objective for the “Cameroon Protectorate”
had been to establish a safe connection
between the coast and the populated hinterlands
of the Grasslands in the interior. Conrau makes
this objective clear:
Since the future of our colony lies mainly in the
development of plantations there, and because
the shortage of workers is an increasingly pressing
problem, we must endeavor to break down the
borders that the coastal peoples, who by and large
show little interest in working, have established, and
obtain labor from the interior. I believe that it would
also be better for trade if the inland peoples had access
to the coast and the possibility of selling their
products there. Since there are also enmities and
divisions between coastal groups, trade goods are
currently only trickling through. If larger amounts
of people from inland were to work on the coast,
and reinvest their salaries in the production of goods
in their home territories, like the Bani an alternate
term for Bali do, trade would increase considerably.
This would, however, apply only to elephant ivory
and rubber, since palm oil and palm kernels cannot
be carried over large distances. Perhaps one day a
railroad will connect the coast with the interior. The
rivers unfortunately are navigable only very near the
coast.24
RETURN TO GERMANY
At the age of thirty-two, Conrau took a break
and returned to Germany from the spring of 1898
until the middle of August.25 One of his letters to
Hassert suggests that they met, perhaps in Tübingen,
during the course of this trip. Conrau was
also invited by Ferdinand Wohltmann,26 a specialist
in tropical agriculture, who had been an advisor
to the founders of the WAPV, Zintgraff among
them.27 Though the details are not known, at some
FIG. 7 (above):
Man Ray (1890–1976),
Helena’s Statue “The
Bangwa Queen,” 1937.
© Man Ray Trust - SABAM Belgium
2017.
FIG. 8 (right):
Walker Evans (1903–1975),
African Sculpture, 1935.
Gelatin silver print. 23 x 10.2 cm.
© Walker Evans Archive, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
he apparently had regular contact with the coast.20
Another source of income for him was hunting elephants.
He refl ects on this activity in two different
articles.21 He evidently also attempted to tame
a baby elephant that had lost its mother. Writing to
Hassert, he mentions that he hoped to get permission
to hunt elephants again, since ivory was his
main source of income at the time of writing, adding
that he was uncertain about when he would
have the means to return to Germany.22 He also
wrote to Berlin curator Felix von Luschan (fi g.