Excerpts from Bellany's recent book,
"Wiki-People Who Died At Age 32"

Since 2006, Bellany has scoured Wikipedia for people who died at his exact age. When he was 32, he found 117 figures - some obscure and others notable, who had died at that tender age. In addition to writing up a short biography for each 'character', Bellany created original black and white portraits using illustrations he uncovered on image searches.

"Being the same age as each person I researched (when they died), I naturally felt a strong personal connection to their stories. I compared our accomplishments, social situations, and the eras in which we lived. It was a new way of looking at both history and myself. Now that I have moved on to age 33, I find myself contemplating the strange fact that I have lived longer than Bruce Lee, King Richard III and Alexander the Great. It definitely motivates me to work harder and make a difference."

↓more

・Bruce Lee

・Buzz Sawyer

・Davey Allison

・Dick Turpin

・Eadred of England

・Elizabeth Siddal

・Galeazzo Maria Sforza

・Glen Kidston

・Hernan Gaviria

・Jedediah 'Strong' Smith

・Joseph I

・Keith Godchaux

・Lya De Putti

・Mike Lockwood

・Ota Benga

・Ottavio Bottecchia

・Proof

・Regnier De Graaf

・Steve Chiasson

・Thomas Ashe

・Vladimir of Novgorod

・William Cartwright

・Wyndham Hallswelle

back to INDEX

Wiki-People Who Died At Age 32

Ota Benga (1884-1916)
Ota Benga was a Congolese pygmy and member of the Batwa tribe. After the Belgian army slaughtered his village, murdering his wife and two children, Ota was sold by a slave-trader to American businessman and missionary Samuel Phillips Verner, who was in Africa looking for pygmies to exhibit at the St. Louis World's Fair.

Benga, though an intelligent human being, was brought to New York in 1906 and exhibited at the Bronx Zoo alongside gorillas and chimpanzees. Though he was occasionally allowed to wander the zoo grounds and help feed animals, he was encouraged to stay in his exhibition area near the monkey house and shoot arrows at a target.

The exhibit quickly drew protests from prominent Christians, who were offended by both his captivity as well as how he was being used to promote Darwin's theory of evolution. As zoo crowds prodded and verbally assaulted him, Benga also began to act with hostility towards his captors and onlookers.

Finally released from the humiliation of public exhibition, Ota Benga was sent to Virginia to receive a Christian education. His teeth, which had been carved into points in his native Congo, were capped and he was given western-style clothes. Despite this, he was often known to suddenly strip his clothing and run into the forest.

Gaining employment at a tobacco plant, Benga was popular with his co-workers, often exchanging stories of his life in Africa for sandwiches and soda pop. Benga was also good at his job. Due to his excellent climbing skills, he needed no ladder to pick high-hanging tobacco leaves.

Despite his apparent assimilation, Benga was far from happy with life in America. At the age of 32, he chipped the caps off his teeth, built a ceremonial Batwa fire and shot himself in the heart with a stolen gun. He was quicky buried in an unmarked grave.

Nearly 100 years later, a cast of Ota Benga's body is still on exhibit at New York's American Museum of Natural History. Like at the beginning of the 20th century, instead of Benga's name, the exhibit simply bears the title, "Pygmy".