Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR's international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.

The key takeaway is that the paintings do not simply show people moving; they encode recognizable ritual elements - like clapping women, dancers in circles, and altered postures associated with trance ...

In 1825, a tax collector compiling a census in South Africa’s Cape Colony paused to write a poem in the margin of his work.