Colin Turnbull

Dr Colin Macmillan Turnbull (November 23, 1924 - July 28, 1994) was a famous British anthropologist and ethologist who gained prominence in 1962 with his idealized,lyrical book The Forest People about the Mbuti Pygmies. Ten years later, he wrote an antithetical book, the highly controversial The Mountain People, about Uganda's starving Ik tribe. Turnbull was highly controversial, with a passion for involvement with his subjects rather than practicing the conventional scientific objectivity. He advocated that the Ik, for their own good, should be relocated in small groups of less than ten in distances so far from each other that their culture would continue to collapse and be destroyed. He later acknowledged his own inability to see the humanity in the Ik, and advocated racial equality and studied death row inmates in Florida, becoming a champion for some of their release. He sparked incredible debate on the value of ethology as a scientific discipline. He is also known for his musical recordings of the Mbuti Pygmies, some of which influenced further ethological studies as well as such musicians as John Coltrane and continues to be commercially available.

Life

Colin Macmillan Turnbull was born of Scottish parents in Harrow, England. His mother was often known to point out admirable qualities of various disadvantaged people, much to the consternation of various relatives and acquaintances who would rather see the status quo preserved. Colin had a succession of German nannies, none of whom stayed long enough for him to form any bond with. At six years old, he was sent to the prestigious Westminster boarding school and remained there until college.

He "had a jeweled soul" and became a renowned organist, but these qualities were not particularly rewarded. Some notes from teachers at that time rather chastised Colin's inability in sports "to take his beatings like a man" and questioned whether it might be good for him to stop his music. A pivotal point was when as as a teenager he witnessed a gang rape of a friend by the other boys, and he vowed to become a champion for those who were weak or unable to defend themselves.

He attended Magdalen College, Oxford, England and studied Music, Literature, and Anthropology under the ethologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard. His studies were cut short when he volunteered in 1942 with the Royal Navy. His duties were to do mine-sweeping and recover bodies and name tags from fallen soldiers. He returned to College after the war and gained his Bachelors degree. Traveling to India, he gained a Masters degree in India from Banares Hindu University in Indian Religion and Philosophy and was one of the few Westerners to study under Sri Anandamayi Ma & Sri Aurobindo, two of the great Indian saints of the 20th century.

In 1951 he made the first of three trips in the 50's to Africa to see the Pygmies in what was previously the Belgian Congo,on a motorcycle and with his friend, a musician, Norman Beal. Once there, he met the eccentric Patrick Putnam who made sure he got the job with the movie producer Sam Spiegel to build the boat named "African Queen" for the famous movie of the same name with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. In 1953 he traveled to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, to work as a geologist for a gold mining company. When he returned, he and a cousin traveled again to Africa and made his first recordings of the Mbutu Pygmy music. He loved the sound of a unique instrument they used, the molimo, that was a kind of tube that was blown through and the women would sit in their huts while it was played and pretend that they thought that is was the sound of an animal.

When Turnbull met a young Mbutu named Kenge, he felt a fulfillment of what he had been taught in India. He had been told that perhaps he would see this or meet someone who would show him how we ourselves create beauty from the muck of life as the lotus sucks up the dirt and becomes beautiful. He dedicated "The Forest People" to Kenge. He would visit the Mbutu Pygmies a total of six times.

From 1957-59 he returned to studies in Oxford, and became engaged to an Indian woman, Kumari Mayor. In 1959, he was named curator of African Ethology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, even though he did not yet have his doctorate degree. He terminated his engagement when he met the love of his life and partner for the next 30 years, Joe Towles, an African American man. They exchanged vows of commitment in 1960. Although they lived in an openly gay relationship, Turnbull has been described as "pre-gay" in the sense that when he described himself, he did not think his sexual orientation was part of his central identity any more than was being British. He said that he realized that he simply preferred the company of men to women.

Fame came with the publication of "The Forest People" in 1961. His D.Phil from Oxford in 1964, and there was trouble brewing at home. In 1964 there was some nasty accusations from the staff at the American Museum of African Ethology, some data was fabricated and references to his gay relationship were used. In 1965, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States and Towles decided to become an Anthropologist. Towles studied at the Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda and Turnbull continued fieldwork with the Mbutu and begins fieldwork with the Ik tribe of Uganda. In 1968 he did fieldwork in Asia and published "Tibet" with Thubten Norbu (the Dalai Lama's eldest brother). In 1969 Turnbull resigned from the Museum, ascribing it to their unfair treatment of African Americans. He went on to continue his fieldwork and taught at Hofstra University.

With the publication of "The Mountain People" in 1971, he became as reviled as he had been previously celebrated, as his pronouncements against the Ik culture were so very strong and unusual for an anthropologist. Frederick Barth of Boston University took up the main scholarly opposition, and led a vigorous critique on the book and scholarship on many levels. One criticism was about the utilization of verbal report per se, and some other criticisms were about the ethical foundations of publicizing photographs and names of subjects studied who were involved in crimes. In general, a movement against the findings of the book sparked much debate and scholarship within Anthropology for decades afterwards.

In 1973, Turnbull and Towles moved to Lancaster County, Virginia and taught at Virginia Commonwealth University. They lived as an openly gay and interracial couple in one of the smallest and most conservative towns of 1960s rural Virginia, during which time he also took up the the cause of death row inmates.

From 1974 to 1976, Turnbull taught at George Washington University and helped Peter Brook write a play about the Ik. Turnbull told Mr. Brook after seeing the play that "it helped him to see the Ik/s humanity, and what a nasty person he had become while among them." In 1975, his father died in England and his mother moved to Virginia to be near him until her death in 1977. In 1978 Turnbull studied death row inmates in Florida full time and Towles received his Ph.D. from Makere University.

Although Turnbull was offered tenure from George Washington University in 1982, he rejected it in favor of being able to care for Towles full time. Towles had begun behaving erratically, and this was quite disturbing for Turnbull. His partly autobiographical book "The Human Cycle" appeared in 1983. In 1985, Turnbull traveled to Samoa to follow up on Margaret Mead's 1927 study. He also received a clinical diagnosis of HIV/AIDS that year. Towles died of HIV/AIDS in December 18, 1988. Turnbull buried an empty coffin next to Dr. Towles and the gravestone reads that they both died on that date. Turnbull told others that his soul died on that day.

In fact, he lived another six more years. He gave all his possessions to the United Negro Fund and moved to Samoa. In 1990 he moved to Bloomington, Indiana and helped his old friend Thubten Norbuto build the Tibetan Cultural Center. In 1991 he traveled to Dharamsala, India, and in 1992 the Dalai Lama ordained him as a Buddhist monk with the name Lobsong Rigdol. In 1994 he returned to Lancaster County, Virginia, where he died of AIDS. Although he said he wanted no other funeral than the one he had with Towles, in 1995 the Mbutu Pygmies gave him a traditional Pygmy funeral ceremony there.

Legacy

Although a proponent of the necessity of being involved in a subject and the futility of having an objectivity to one's subject in Anthropology, it seems Dr. Turnbull became his own worst opponent in the value of this idea! As much as the public loved "The Forest People", they reviled "The Mountain People." It is, however, a great commentary how he accepted unfair criticism with patience and professionalism and was open to criticism and accepted it when valid. He seems a great man of character, rather than having led the way in scientific discovery.

Many criticized the way his passion for a subject seemed to blur the vision on other aspects of these subjects. He claimed the Mbutu Pygmies were really aware of their role with the local, modern natives and in a subjective position to them. Although romantic, this seemed implausible to later researchers. It is as if Turnbull was a manifestation of his time, and he made various points in methodology that were important at that time and have since become incorporated within the field of Anthropology. Much of his original conclusions remain somewhat compromised. For example, he said that the Ik had become devoid of any values in their culture as they practiced things such as gorging on whatever occasional excesses of food they might find until they became sick, rather than save or share. However, several anthropologists have since argued that a particularly serious famine suffered by the Ik during the period of Turnbull's visit may have distorted their normal behavior and customs. Some of the Ik themselves have published papers testifying to the return of more normal behavior and values, denying the original conclusions of Dr. Turnbull.

His thought is rigorous and has good logic that remains, and his field studies remain good with data useful to other Anthropologists. Some of Turnbull's recordings of Mbutu music were commercially released, and his works inspired other ethnomusicological studies, such those of Simha Arom and Mauro Campagnoli.

in championing the cause of death row inmates and the victims of inter-racial discrimination, he showed admirable character.

It seems that the pure joy of discovery and finding data to support the unity of humanity were his greatest contribution in the development of the field of Anthropology and the development of human cross-cultural relationships.

Publications

• Turnbull, Colin. The Forest People, 1961
• Turnbull, Colin.The Lonely African, 1962
• Turnbull, Colin.Wayward Servants; The Two Worlds Of The African Pygmies, 1965
• Turnbull, Colin.Tibet (with Thubten Jigme Norbu), 1968
• Turnbull, Colin.The Mountain People, 1972
• Turnbull, Colin.Africa and Change, 1973
• Turnbull, Colin.Man in Africa, 1976
• Turnbull, Colin.The Human Cycle, 1983
• Turnbull, Colin.The Mbuti Pygmies : Change And Adaptation, 1983

External links

• Mauro Campagnoli official website Contains his fieldworks in Equatorial Africa
• Baka Pygmies Culture, music and photos

Credits

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