e variety of meats consumed in Africa is attested to by these quotations from American missionary Robert Hamill Nassau's My Ogowe: Being a Narrative of Daily Incidents During Sixteen Years in Equatorial West Africa

Most delicious meat is that of the manatee. A man had killed one, gave me a piece, and allowed me to witness one of their superstitious ceremonies for future success, in their manatee-hunting. A piece of the flesh was cooked (not in a foreign iron-pot, but, in native earthenware). It was then carefully covered by plantain leaf; no women or children were allowed to be present. Then, the men gathered around the pot, with a variety of incantations, and ate the meat. When it was consumed, they simultaneously jumped and shouted. "My belly is not full!" This was said, even if their appetite had been satisfied, as a sort of prayer to the spirit of the feast, that they wanted more at a future day. When, then, the fisherman shall go again manatee-hunting, he puts a small pot of boiled leaves and barks, as a sacrifice to the spirit, in the bow of the canoe; and, it is then expected it will attract the animal to its death. The man gave me a piece of the uncooked meat, conditioning, however, that I should boil it, and not have it cooked in my preferred mode of jomba. I yielded to this condition.