A Dance of Assassins

In the 1880s in the Congo, a Lubanda chief and slave trader named Lusinga was beheaded and his skull carried back to Belgium by Émile Storms, a disgruntled supporter of the brutal ruler King Leopold II. Today, the skull and a magnificent ancestral statue are housed in the Royal Museum of Central Africa. Allen F. Roberts tells the story of this grisly colonial encounter and its far-off repercussions. It is a tale of profound misunderstandings, bizarre behavior, theft, and the idiosyncrasies displayed by people caught up in the moment when European powers were establishing hegemony in Africa.