The Beasts that Hide from Man by Shuker Karl P.N

Author:Shuker, Karl P.N. [Shuker, Karl P.N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
Published: 2012-12-09T22:00:00+00:00

The discovery of Bennett’s cassowary was followed by the documentation of other, similarly undersized, wattle-less types, initially treated as distinct species. These included Westermann’s cassowary C. westermanni (Jobi Island) and the painted cassowary C. picticollis (southeastern New Guinea), but they are all conspecific with C. bennetti.

Among the wealth of myth and folklore associated with cassowaries is a most curious conviction fostered by such tribes as the Huri and the Wola from Papua New Guinea’s remote Southern Highlands Province. According to their lore, a female Bennett’s cassowary maintained in captivity is able to reproduce even if she is not provided with a male partner. All that she has to do is locate a specific type of tree and thrust her breast against its trunk, again and again, in an ever-intensifying frenzy, until at last she collapses onto the floor in a state of complete exhaustion, suffering from internal bleeding that festers and clots to yield yellow pus. This in turn proliferates, producing yolk-containing eggs that the female lays, and which are incubated and hatch as normal.

Although a highly bizarre tale, it is worth recalling that cases of parthenogenesis (virgin birth) are fully confirmed from a few species of bird, notably the common turkey; the offspring are genetically identical to their mother. Perhaps, therefore, this odd snippet of native folklore should be investigated—just in case (once such evident elements of fantasy as the pus-engendered yolk are stripped away) there is a foundation in fact for it, still awaiting scientific disclosure.

An even more imaginative Wola belief regarding Bennett’s cassowary concerns its migratory habits. As revealed by Paul Sillitoe during a filming expedition to Wola territory in 1978 (Geographical Journal, May 1981), these birds only visit this area when the fruits upon which they feed are in season here. At the season’s end they travel further afield again, but the Wola are convinced that they have gone to live in the sky with a thunder goddess (though they neglect to reveal how these flightless birds become airborne!).

Irrespective of these charming tales, it is true that for flightless birds the cassowaries do exhibit an extraordinarily dispersed, far-flung distribution—occurring on a surprising number of different islands. Admittedly, many of these islands were once joined to one another in the not-too-distant geological past, but some ornithologists remain doubtful that the cassowaries’ range is natural—suggesting instead that they may have been introduced onto certain of their insular territories by humans. For example, Drs. A.L. Rand and Thomas Gilliard proposed in their Handbook of New Guinea Birds (1967) that C. casuarius may well have been brought by man to Seram. In view of the New Guinea tribes’ very extensive trade in cassowaries—not only transporting them across land but also exporting them far and wide in boats, a tradition known to have been occurring for at least 500 years, such a possibility is by no means implausible. It was raised in 1975 by Dr. C.M.N. White too, within the British Ornithologists Club’s bulletin, and he offered a corresponding explanation in the same publication the following year for the presence on New Britain of Bennett’s cassowary.

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