I like when a colony displays through it’s stamps the local culture. Therefore I was excited to study up on the Ubangi tribe upon spotting this stamp. Except there is no Ubangi tribe. Well maybe the name changed. A little south a tribe has gone from being called hottentots to bushmen to sen. No, the tribe doesn’t exist and never has. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Belgium probably knew what tribes it was dealing with in their Congo colony. A hint into how this stamp happened may be the engravers note at the bottom. The American Bank Note Company. A farm out stamp, from the place the Ubangi myth began.
Todays stamp is issue A33, a 20 Centimes stamp issued by the Belgian Congo Colony in 1923. It was part of a 26 stamp issue in various denominations displaying the local culture, economy, and animals of the Congo. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused.
There is a tradition among some African women to have their lower lip pierced so then it can be stretched and an ornamental disc put in. This mainly happened among the Mursi tribe of Ethiopia. The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus imported a few of the women to the USA as part of their freak show of tall, short, and fat people. The circus wanted them to sound exotic. So after consulting an African map, they were named Ubangi. There is a river by that name.
W. C. Fields later used the term in movies he wrote to refer to Africans. He liked to use terms unknown that sounded vaguely dirty to get around or at least lampoon the strict sexual censorship of the time. He also invented mother of pearl.
I mentioned that Ubangi really is a river. It also now refers to a group of languages mainly spoken in the Central African Republic. Yes here too, the name came from whites.
Well my drink is empty and so I will have to wait till tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.