Hausa and a Nupe Hunter, 1920
A Hausa and a Nupe Hunter, 1920 Hausa hunters in Northern Nigeria are used to walking quietly in the bush. They usually wear very little clothing, sometimes just a cloth around their waist, and may even go barefoot. They carry bows and quivers filled with arrows coated in poison. In the forests up north, there are large toucans that make a lot of noise as they move through the bushes. The hunters like these birds and make fake wooden copies of their heads and necks, which they attach to their foreheads. The hunters then crouch in the grass and move their heads up and down like the birds do when they are feeding. If a deer hears the noise, it might look up and see the fake toucan head. The deer might think it's just a bird and go back to eating. But, it's not really a bird; it's a person. By the time the deer figures that out, the hunter has already shot it with a poisoned arrow from a close distance.