author
John H. Weeks
1860–1924
A British Baptist missionary, ethnologist, and folklorist, he spent decades in the Congo and turned close observation into vivid books about local life, belief, and storytelling. His writing offers both travel narrative and an early anthropological record of Central Africa.
2 Audiobooks
Among Congo cannibals
by John H. Weeks
Congo life and folklore
by John H. Weeks
About the author
Born in Camberwell and active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he is identified in library and reference sources as John Henry Weeks, a British missionary whose work in the Congo also made him known as an ethnologist and folklorist.
Weeks spent many years in the Congo mission field, and that long residence shaped the books readers still know him for, including Among Congo Cannibals and Congo Life and Folklore. These works combine memoir, travel writing, and detailed descriptions of customs, beliefs, and daily life as he observed them.
Today he is remembered less as a conventional literary figure than as a writer who recorded a large body of material about Central African societies for English-language readers of his time. Because his books were written from a missionary and colonial-era perspective, modern readers may also find it useful to read them as historical documents as well as narratives.