Fulani in Georgetown, Then and Now

   I first encountered an image of Yarrow Mamout at the public library in Georgetown, which has James Alexander Simpson's painting of him.  Yarrow was Fulani, a distinct ethnic group that had migrated from what is now the country of Mali into Senegal and Guinea.  The Fulani settled in the highlands known as Futa Jallon.  In Africa, Yarrow's name would have been spelled Yero Mamadou.  Both were given names, but he treated Yarrow as his last name even though it is written first.  Yarrow was living in Georgetown when Charles Willson Peale painted the different, more striking portrait of Yarrow that appears below in 1819.  The portrait on the left now belongs to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
    I ran into Mamadou Mbengue in Georgetown as well, but in 2012 and in the flesh.  He too is Fulani from Matam in northern Senegal.  I was struck by the fact that he had Yarrow Mamout bear a vague resemblance to each.  Mbengue agreed to pose for the picture on the right.