William F. Wheeler Efe Pygmy papers
name: label: Creator
content: Wheeler, William F. (William Felix), 1943-2008
place: label: Place
content: Ituri Rainforest, Belgian Congo (Zaire)
topic: label: Topic
content: Exhibitions
creator: label: Creator
content: Wheeler, William F. (William Felix), 1943-2008
culture: label: Culture
content: Efe (African people)
label: Culture
content: Pygmies
bioghist: label: Biographical Note
content: William F. Wheeler was born in Blackville, S.C. in 1943 and received an M.D. degree from Duke University after completing his internship at UC San Diego and a specialty degree in anesthesiology at Massachusetts General in Boston. After years of practicing medicine, he bought a Land Rover and began traveling Africa on his own, chalking up 40,000 miles over a five year period. To gain a more intimate experience, he returned to the most remote places and began to explore them on foot. His detailed safari journals, written in the style of 19th century explorers, describe camel journeys in the Sahara, foot safaris with Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania, and hundred of miles of treks with Efe through the rainforest of the Ituri river basin, a tributary of the Congo River. He passed away at the age of 65 of bone-marrow cancer in 2008.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 8.75 Linear feet (document box (5 inches); 5 oversized boxes (12x17.5 inches); and 1 oversized box (16 x 20 inches))
unitdate: label: Date
content: bulk 1990-2004
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.MS2005-14
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: William F. Wheeler papers and photographs of Efe Pygmies. A large part, if not all, of these materials are associated with the 2004 exhibit of Wheeler's Efe Pygmies photographs and artifacts at the San Diego Museum of Man titled "Efe: Archers of the Congo." This collection consists of mounted photographs (20 x 30 inches and 11 x 17 inches); text panels; "Safari Diary of William Wheeler" (3 volumes of typed diary transcripts from 1990, 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1998); photocopies of the original handwritten diaires; bound sample pages of drawings from diaries; enlarged and laminated copies of field journal pages used for the exhibit; a photocopy of Efe collection provenance book (relates to artifact collection donated to NMNH Department of Anthropology Collections Management ); and list of those artifacts and items listed herein.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: The National Anthropological Archives also holds Photo Lot 2005-19 William F. Wheeler photographs of Africa and Efe people.

The Human Studies Film Archives holds William Wheeler videos of the Efe Pygmies, Ituri Forest, 1994-1996 (HSFA.2004.07).