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, becomming 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 variou disadvantaged people, much to the consternation of various relatives and acquantainces who would rather see the status quo continue intact. 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 Westminister 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 chastized Colin's inability in sports "to take his beatings like a man" and questioned whether it might be good for him to stop allowing him his music. A pivotal point was when as as a teenager he wittnessed 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 Magdelen College, Oxford, England and studied Music, Literature, and Anthropology studying under the ethologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard. His studes 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 and gained his Bachelors and degree. Traveleing to India, he gained a Masters degree in India from Banares 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 morotcycle 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 Humphry Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. In 1953 he traveled to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, to work as a geoplogist for a gold miningo company. When he returned, he and a cousin traveled again to Africa and made his first recordings of the Mbutu Pygmie music. He loved the sound of a unique instrument they used, the molimo, that was a tube of sorts and how they "played" 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 retuned to studies in Oxford, and became engaged to an Indian woman, Kumari Mayor. In 1959, he was named assistant curator of the American Museum of African Ethology in New York City, even though he would not get his graduate degree in Anthropology until 1964. 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 marriage vows 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 Brittish. He said that he realized that he simply prefered the company of men to women.
Fame came with the publication of "The Forest People" in 1961. His D.Phil from Oxfored in 1964.
d gorge 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 behaviour and customs.
Turnbull became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1964and ived in New York and Virginia with his professional collaborator and partner of 30 years, the African American Dr. Joseph Towles, 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. After his partner's death in 1988, Turnbull retreated to a Buddhist monastery where he lived out his remaining years under a Buddhist name before his death in 1994. Both Drs. Towles and Turnbull died from the complications of AIDS.
Some of Turnbull's recordings of BaMbuti music were commercially released, and his works inspired other ethnomusicological studies, such those of Simha Arom and Mauro Campagnoli.
Books
- The Forest People, 1961
- The Lonely African, 1962
- Wayward Servants; The Two Worlds Of The African Pygmies, 1965
- Tibet (with Thubten Jigme Norbu), 1968
- The Mountain People, 1972
- Africa and Change, 1973
- Man in Africa, 1976
- The Human Cycle, 1983
- The Mbuti Pygmies : Change And Adaptation, 1983
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