Sometimes, the story of the creators of the content on Aluka is just as interesting as the content itself. For example, while looking for information on the Talbot collection in African Plants, I assumed that I had hit an impasse: Dorothy Amaury Talbot had died after only a few years of research with her husband, a British District officer, in Nigeria at the turn of the 20^th century. Little information was available about her-not even a cause or full date of death. I found it sad, and also a bit frustrating, that a prominent British woman’s story could disappear into the dusty hallways of history.

I began looking for the text of books written by her husband, Percy Amaury Talbot, and when I saw her name abbreviated (D. Amaury Talbot), I decided to try a search. Low and behold, Mrs. Talbot was a published author herself! By browsing obituaries through research resources, I was able to discern her cause of death (malaria, after a trip into rural Nigeria), some details of her contributions to botany, and the title of her book. Mrs. Talbot also illustrated hundreds of plants discovered by her and her husband on their travels in the Oban district of Southern Nigeria. Many of the specimens they found were unknown to scientists at the time. These findings were published by the British Museum in 1913. Her 1915 volume, Woman’s Mysteries of a Primitive People, was the first ethnography of the women of the Ibibio tribe in Nigeria. Slowly but surely, Mrs. Talbot’s story came to light.

On Aluka, you can look at Talbot’s watercolors and line drawings of Nigerian plants. The collection, owned by the Natural History Museum, London, is a beautiful group of true-to-size illustrations, some with handwritten notes by Mrs. Talbot. Both artistically and scientifically impressive, they are well worth a look.

You can view the text of her ethnography Woman’s Mysteries of a Primitive People here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/wmp/index.htm