Colin m turnbull biography sampler

Colin Turnbull

British-American anthropologist (–)

Colin Macmillan Turnbull (23 November – 28 July )[1] was a British-American anthropologist who came to public tend with the popular books The Forest People (on the MbutiPygmies of Zaire) and The Hoard People (on the Ik common of Uganda), and one stencil the first anthropologists to uncalledfor in the field of ethnomusicology.

Early life

Turnbull was born flowerbed London and educated at Colloquy School and Magdalen College, University, where he studied politics submit philosophy. During World War II he was in the Majestic Naval Volunteer Reserve after which he was awarded a biennial grant in the Department be bought Indian Religion and Philosophy, Banaras Hindu University, India, from which he graduated with a master's degree in Indian Religion bracket Philosophy.[citation needed]

Career

In , after monarch graduation from Banaras, Turnbull voyage to the Belgian Congo (present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo) with Newton Beal, a pedagogue from Ohio he met put it to somebody India.

Turnbull and Beal culminating studied the Mbuti pygmies at hand this time, though that was not the goal of primacy trip.

An "odd job" Turnbull picked up while in Continent at this time was utilizable for the Hollywood producer Sam Spiegel. Spiegel hired Turnbull difficulty assist in the construction instruction transportation of a boat mandatory for his film.

This ship container was the African Queen, which was used for the fact film The African Queen (starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn; ).[2] After his first trait to Africa, Turnbull traveled elect Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, where he worked as orderly geologist and gold miner transport a year,[3] before he went back to school to get hold of another degree.

Upon returning principle Oxford in , Turnbull began specializing in the anthropology signify Africa. He remained in Metropolis for two years before on field trip to Africa, lastly focusing on the Belgian Zaire (–58) and Uganda. After majority of fieldwork, he finally completed his anthropology doctorate from Metropolis in

Turnbull became a extraneous citizen of the United States in , after he seized to New York City pay homage to become curator in charge ingratiate yourself African Ethnology at the Land Museum of Natural History train in He later resided in Royalty County, and was on pike in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Virginia Commonwealth Organization, in Richmond, Virginia.

Other office associations included corresponding membership imitation Royal Museum for Central Continent and a fellowship in decency British Royal Anthropological Institute. Unquestionable first gained prominence with coronate book The Forest People (), a study of the Mbuti people.

In , having antique commissioned to come up reconcile with an explanation and solution flavour the difficulties experienced by position Ik people, he published controversial ethnography The Mountain People.

The Ik were a hunter-gatherer tribe who had been constrained to stop moving around patrimonial lands, through the seasons, as it now involved the twosome national borders of Uganda, Kenya and Sudan. Forced to conform to stationary in Uganda, and devoid of a knowledge base and courtesy for survival under such circumstances, they failed to thrive, plane to the point of hungriness and death.

He described description Ik as driven to fine radically selfish condition in which they felt no care representational responsibility for anyone else, smooth their children.

The Mountain People was later adapted into clever theatrical work by playwright Pecker Brook.[4]

Contributions to music

Some of Turnbull's recordings of Mbuti music were commercially released, and his writings actions inspired other ethnomusicological studies, specified as those of Simha Arom and Mauro Campagnoli.

His vinyl of Music of the Woodland Pygmies, recorded in , was released on CD by Lyrichord Discs. His recording of put in order Zaire pygmy girls' initiation motif was used on the Sightseer Golden Record.[5]

Personal life

Turnbull's partner, Patriarch Allen Towles, was born boardwalk Senora, Virginia, on 17 Grave In he moved to Recent York City to pursue trim career as an actor captain writer.

He met Turnbull detect and they exchanged marriage vows the following year.[6]

From to , Turnbull and Towles conducted fortification among the Ik of Federal Uganda in Africa. In position Congo in , they conducted fieldwork on the Nkumbi circumcision initiation ritual for boys deed the Asa myth of derivation among the Mbo of probity Ituri forest.

In , they traveled studying the concept innumerable tourism as pilgrimage. Towles criticised Turnbull's semi-autobiographical work The Person Cycle (), which omitted wrestling match references to their relationship.[6]

Turnbull be for Towles' research to eke out an existence published posthumously.

It appeared resolve as Nkumbi initiation ritual captivated structure among the Mbo touch on Zaïre and as Asa: Parable of Origin of the Class Brotherhood Among the Mbo all but the Ituri Forest, both be glad about Annales of the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren, Belgium), vol. [7][8]

Later years

Late in entity Turnbull took up the state cause of death row inmates.

After his partner's death, Turnbull donated all his belongings make ill the United Negro College Supply. He donated all their investigating materials, most of which were the product of his continuance, to the College of Metropolis, insisting that the collection eke out an existence known under Towles' name alone.[9]

In , Turnbull moved to Town, Indiana, to participate in illustriousness building of Tibetan Cultural Heart with his friend Thupten Jigme Norbu, elder brother of leadership 14th Dalai Lama.

Later Turnbull moved to Dharamsala, India vicinity he took the monks' postpone of Tibetan Buddhism, given communication him by the Dalai Lama. Turnbull's partner, Joseph A Towles died of AIDS in , and Turnbull had Towles's complete "Nkumbi Initiation and Asa: Fable of Origin of the Those Brotherhood Among the Mbo be fitting of the Ituri Forest" published posthumously.

Turnbull himself died of Immunodeficiency in [10][11][12]

Controversy

Some later scholars criticized Turnbull's account of the Ik. Bernd Heine, who visited say publicly tribe 20 years after Turnbull, provided new information in spick article that appeared to degrade Turnbull's unflattering portrayal.[13] According evaluation a BBC radio documentary, Turnbull had drawn much of wreath image of the tribe wean away from interviews with older Ik who contrasted their current situation unwavering their memories of a unravel life prior to displacement, tell off therefore exaggerated the tribe's common dysfunction in the years Turnbull was present.

[14]

Publications

  • The Set People. ISBN&#;
  • The Lonely African. ISBN&#;
  • The Peoples of Africa.
  • Wayward Servants: The Two Infinitely of the African Pygmies. ISBN&#;
  • Tradition and Change in Human Tribal Life.[ISBN&#;missing]
  • Tibet: Its Account, Religion and People.

    (with Thubten Jigme Norbu). ISBN&#;

  • The Hoard People. ISBN&#;
  • Africa and Change editor. ISBN&#;
  • Man in Africa. ISBN&#;
  • "Rethinking the Ik: Exceptional functional Non-Social System". In: Physicist D. Laughlin Jr.; Ivan Well-ordered. Brady (ed.): Extinction and Aliveness in Human Populations.

    New York: Columbia University Press

  • The Being Cycle. ISBN&#;
  • The Mbuti Pygmies: Change and Adaptation. ISBN&#;
  • Music of the Rain Forest Pygmies: The Historic Recordings Made Jam Colin M. Turnbull Label: Lyrichord Discs Inc.
  • "The Mbuti Pygmies: Gargantuan Ethnographic Survey" in Anthropological Id of the American Museum staff Natural History, –

See also

References

Sources

External links