The Cha-Cha of the Dahomey August 31, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
While reading up on the Amazons of the Dahomey kingdom (Benin) a long month ago, Beach came across a fascinating if little known figure, Francisco Felix De Souza (obit 1849). De Souza was a Brazilian merchant who came to the West Coast of Africa in the early nineteenth century and set up a huge slave […]
An Ecclesiastical Harem from Eighteenth-Century Spain August 21, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
The Inquisition it can’t have been that easy. Mass in the morning, torture in the afternoon and, yet another blasted auto da fe in the evening… Who can blame the good men with the blood red cloth if sometimes they decided to create, let’s call it, ‘recreational space’ for themselves. This extraordinary – and apparently […]
