Darwin's Armada by Iain McCalman

Author:Iain McCalman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847377180
Publisher: Simon and Schuster

The discovery of Barbara Thompson proved to be a watershed in Huxley’s intellectual growth. What he learnt from her would underpin much of his later writing as a Darwinian ethnographer. This young woman of twenty-one or so–whom Huxley thought ‘not bad looking’ once he’d treated her inflamed eyes and burnt face–had lived with the Kaurareg people of Muralag (Prince of Wales Island) for five years. Learning their language and absorbing their ways, she had in effect become a native, in much the same way that FitzRoy’s three Fuegians had temporarily become Britons. To the Kaurareg, she was Giom, a respected member of their tribal group.

As a result, she was able to open up to the naturalists on the Rattlesnake a world that had previously been opaque to them. Within two days of her transfer to the ship, Huxley reported that ‘she has already given us a great deal of curious information about the habits of these people with an air of the most perfect truth and sincerity, and no little intelligence’.41

Admittedly, Giom’s testimony included some insights into indigenous ways that Huxley found disconcerting. He learned how Kennedy had been killed by a dangerous inland tribe for the clothes on his back; how, when the Kaurareg killed and decapitated their enemies, they usually ate their victims’ eyes and cheeks to instil bravery; and how they often killed unwanted, mainly female, babies by burying them in the sand.

On the other hand, he also learned of the Kaurareg’s deep understanding of and reverence for the natural world around them. They believed that sharks and porpoises were enchanted and should be protected. Even turtles, a food staple, were seen as intricately linked with the cosmos: ‘when the heavy squall of these parts gathers and the clouds topple over one another in huge fantastic masses they say the “marki” (ghosts) are looking out for turtle and they profess that one comes down and fetches a supply for the rest.’ Finally, he received eye-opening glimpses into the Kaurareg’s social complexity, and the importance of male initiation and death rituals.42

Yet these were only stray fragments of Kaurareg culture compared with the depth of information that Oswald Brierly uncovered. And it was really through Brierly’s mediations that Huxley moved decisively closer to understanding the indigenous cultures of the Torres Strait. As a friend and social equal of the captain, Brierly was allowed to visit Barbara Thompson’s otherwise segregated cabin and interview her at length.

Though untrained, his methods would have done justice to a modern ethnographer. He even read back his transcriptions to the illiterate young Scotswoman to ensure he’d grasped her meaning accurately. Patiently he quizzed her on rituals, myths, magic, religious values, love, birth, friendship, kinship, death, child-rearing, initiation, education, music, singing, dancing, warfare, ship and house building, sailing, hunting, craft work, food, medicine, agriculture, clothing, fashion, body scarification, and much more.43

The fact that Brierly and Huxley sketched together may also have heightened their appreciation of close detection. In his journal, Brierly urged the need ‘to record

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