Film Lesson: "Mountain of the Moon"

Recently in our Global 3 class, we watched a movie called "Mountains of the Moon" featuring Richard Burton and John Speke. While these two men explored Africa, they experienced many hardships, just like many other Europeans at that time. In Africa, diseases caused by mosquitoes, like malaria, were very common. This is why Burton and Speke were shown sleeping with mosquito or insect guards over them. There was one scene in the movie where John Speke was sleeping without a guard to protect him from the insects. This caused a beetle to crawl into his ear. They had to drop hot wax into Speke's ear and soon after Speke jammed a spear into his ear. Another hardship faced by these two men in Africa was when they entered a different territory. In one of the scenes of the movie, Burton and Speke entered the territory of a group of "colorful" Africans. They told the men that they could not enter their territory without bringing them gifts. In some cases in history, people have gotten into battles because one person entered a different territory without the permission of its owner.

Burton and Speke came across a body of water. They named this body of water Lake Victoria, after the Queen of England. This is very strange because they named a lake after the Queen of England and this lake is located in Africa. It would make more sense if they named a body of water in England after the Queen of England or if they named that body of water they encountered in Africa after an African leader. The movie had a scene where one of the two men took out a gun and threaten one of the Africans. The Africans appear to have not known what this object was. This is one of the primary technological advantages that Europeans had over Africans during this time. Europeans were more updated with their weapons. Europeans were eventually able to conquer Africa so easily not only because they were more advanced in their technology but because they were also more united than the Africans. The African people had different tribes who would occasionally end up in a battle with each other for land most of the time. Europeans, on the other hand, worked together and were more united. With teamwork, of course you can wipe out the other team.