"Old African Women, Livingstonia" Malawi, ca.1910

Photograph of an old African woman, possibly of the Ngoni people. The woman is sitting on the ground outside a round, thatched hut. The Ngoni people are an ethnic group living in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. Their origins can be traced to the Zulu people of kwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. This belongs to a series of Church of Scotland Foreign Missions Committee lantern slides relating to Rev Donald Fraser (1870-1933). Rev Donald Fraser, the Scottish missionary, was born in Argyllshire, Scotland, the son of a Free Church minister. In his youth Rev Fraser helped found the Student Volunteer Movement in Britain and the World Student Christian Federation before beginning missionary service in Malawi with the Free Church of Scotland. He worked in Malawi from 1896 until he returned to Scotland in 1925. He was first posted to Ekwendeni and later Embangweni. Rev Fraser worked closely with the Ngoni people.