I lived in Nigeria for three years while my husband, Jonathan Jenness, was working with the United Nations Development Program. During that time, I was able to learn about and photograph many of the different ethnic groups living in the northern town of Yelwa and its surrounding hamlets. After returning to the United States in 1969, I used a selection of these pictures in a book I wrote for young people, ALONG THE NIGER RIVER (Thomas Y. Crowell, NY, 1974).

In the years since then, political, religious and ethnic strife has proliferated across Nigeria. I have come to see that my photographs show a rare time and place, where people of different tribes and beliefs were moving together into the 21th century. Both trucks and dugout canoes brought produce to Yelwa market. Non-literate fishermen used short wave radios to learn market prices for their catch. 

I think this is a place that has never been documented, and it should not be forgotten. I hope these images, showing a valuable way of life, can be a resource for museums, universities and schools.