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 miningo 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 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 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. 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).
There was, unfortunately, trouble brewing at home. In 1969 there was some nasty in-fighting among the staff at the American Museum of African Ethology, some data was fabricated and references to his gay relationship were used. Ultimately he resigned ascribing it to the unfair treatment of African Americans by the Museum. He went on to continue his fieldwork, and in 1971 published "The Mountain People."
With "The Mountain People" he became as reviled as he had been previously celebrated, as his pronouncements against the Ik culture were so very strong.
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 behavior and customs.
Turnbull in 1964and lived 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 Mbutu 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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