Studia Językoznawcze

The article presents a picture of the indigenous inhabitants of Africa whom Sienkiewicz met during his exotic expedition made at the end of 1890 and at the beginning of 1891. The material basis for the analysis is a written account of the journey in the form of letters, which was very popular in the second half of the 19th century, Listy z Afryki [‘Letters from Africa’]. The article may be placed in the trend of research into ethnic stereotypes from a historical perspective. In her analysis the author uses the terms of ‘point of view’ (of the author) and ‘perspective’. The lexical material, analysed in that way, allows to define the points of view and the inventory of aspects from which representatives of foreign nationalities are perceived. The dominant point of view while describing the black inhabitants of Africa is Eurocentrism. Sienkiewicz in his journeys was a European and a Pole with a strong national identity. Among the aspects profiling the Black nationality the following ones have been distinguished: physical, cultural, psychological and social. The Niggers and their civilisations are treated in a condescending way in the analysed texts. The writer is convinced of the civilisational and religious superiority of the Europeans, that is why he finds it indispensable to civilise the Niggers. The Blacks are perceived as slaves or servants of low social status, looking exotically, being materially and spiritually poor. This way of describing seems to have been influenced by a general mechanism of creating stereotypes: isolating a foreign group and attributing a set of permanent features to it.