In 1954-55 two Swiss women-Elsy Leuzinger later director of the Museum Rietberg in Zurich
and aviation pioneer Jolantha Tschudi-undertook anthropological field research in the hills of
northern Nigeria among an ethnic group still practicing a traditional way of life. These
remote Afo now called Eloyi had never seen white women before. The women from Zurich lived
in four different villages investigating the traditional customs subsistence economy and
ritual festivals through participant observation and interviews and recording their findings in
photographs and films. Their research results were published in German in 1956 and 1966 as well
as in two newspaper articles which also included a small portion of the photographic material.
By chance a large volume of visual material was found in the estate of Jolantha Tschudi in
2019. It is published here for the first time together with recovered color slides by Elsy
Leuzinger. The aim is to make these historical visual documents and research results available
in English to the Eloyi people as well as to the general public along with historical evidence
of the first explorations of this region of the Benue and documents from the British colonial
occupation.
