Tom Harrisson

ANTHROPOLOGISTS OF THE WORLD 

Tom Harrisson (1911 - 1976) 

Major Tom Harnett Harrisson DSO OBE (1911–1976) was a British polymath. In the course of his life he was an ornithologist, explorer, journalist, broadcaster, soldier, guerrilla, ethnologist, museum curator, archaeologist, documentarian, film-maker, conservationist, and writer. Although often described as an anthropologist his degree studies at University of Cambridge were in ecology before he left to live in Oxford. He is also known as the Barefoot Anthropologist and founded Mass-Observation.

Tom Harrisson was born in Argentina, educated in England at Harrow School and Pembroke College, Cambridge, conducted ornithological and anthropological research in Sarawak (1932) and the New Hebrides (1933-5), spent much of his life in Borneo (mainly Sarawak) and finished up in the USA, the UK and France before dying in a road accident in Thailand.

In 1937 Harrisson, with Humphrey Jennings and Charles Madge, founded Mass-Observation, a project to study the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain.

During the Second World War Harrisson continued directing Mass-Observation and was Radio critic for The Observer from May 1942 until June 1944. For much of this time he was in the army and gave up reviewing on leaving the UK. After service in the ranks he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Reconnaissance Corps on 21 November 1943. He had been recruited (some sources say by a confusion of names, despite his apparent suitability) for a plan to use the native peoples of Borneo against the Japanese. He was attached to Z Special Unit (also known as Z Force), part of the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD: a branch of the combined Allied Intelligence Bureau in the South West Pacific theatre). On 25 March 1945, he was parachuted with seven Z Force operatives from a Consolidated Liberator onto a high plateau occupied by the Kelabit people. An autobiographical account of this operation (SEMUT I, one of four SEMUT operations in the area) is given in World Within (Cresset Press, 1959); there are also reports - not always flattering - from some of his comrades. His efforts to rescue stranded American airmen shot down over Borneo are a central part of "The Airmen and the Headhunters," an episode of the PBS television series Secrets of the Dead. The recommendation for his Distinguished Service Order which was gazetted on 6 March 1947 (and dated 2 November 1946) describes how from his insertion until 15 August 1945 the forces under his command protected the flank of Allied advances, and caused severe disruption to Japanese operations.

At the start of the Brunei Revolt in 1962, Resident John Fisher of the 4th Division of Sarawak called on the Dayak tribes for help by sending a boat with the traditional Red Feather of War up the Baram River. Tom Harrisson also arrived in Brunei. He summoned the Kelabits from the highlands around Bario in the 5th Division, the centre of his wartime resistance. Hundreds of Dayaks responded, and formed into companies led by British civilians all commanded by Harrisson. This force reached some 2,000 strong, and with excellent knowledge of the tracks through the interior (there were no roads), helped contain the rebels. And cut off their escape route to Indonesia.

Harrisson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1959 New Year Honours, for his work as curator.

The title of his biography, The Most Offending Soul Alive, gives a flavour of the strong feelings he engendered, but he also had many admirers and is recognised as a pioneer in several areas.

His works

Following the war, he was Curator of the Sarawak Museum 1947-1966 (although he did not relinquish his commission until 14 March 1951). In the 1950s and 1960s Tom and Barbara Harrisson undertook pioneering excavations in the West Mouth of the Great Cave at Niah, Sarawak. Their most important discovery was a human skull in deposits dated by radiocarbon to about 40,000 years ago, the earliest date for modern humans in Borneo. The results of their excavations were never published in an appropriate manner leading to uncertainty and doubts as to their results; however, they are largely vindicated by results of excavations carried out by the Niah Cave Project from 2000-2003. Three films (amongst more made for British TV) record the Niah work

Harrisson's TV series The Borneo Story was broadcast by BBC television in 1957.

Books:

• Harrisson, T.H. (1931). Birds of the Harrow District 1925-1930. Harrow School.
• Harrisson, T.H. (1933). Letter to Oxford. The Hate Press: Gloucestershire.
• Harrisson, Tom (1937). Savage Civilisation. Victor Gollancz: London.
• Madge, Charles; & Harrisson, Tom (1937). Mass-Observation. Frederick Muller: London.
• Harrisson, Tom (ed). (1938). Borneo Jungle. An account of the Oxford University expedition of 1932. Lindsay Drummond Ltd: London.
• Madge, Charles; & Harrisson, Tom (1939). Britain by Mass-Observation. Penguin: Harmondsworth.
• Harrisson, Tom (1943). Living Among Cannibals. George G. Harrap & Co: London.
• Harrisson, Tom (ed). (1943). The Pub and the People. Victor Gollancz: London.
• Harrisson, Tom (1959). World Within. A Borneo Story. Cresset Press: London.
• Harrisson, Tom (ed). (1959). The Peoples of Sarawak. Sarawak Museum: Kuching.
• Harrisson, Tom (1961). Britain Revisited. Victor Gollancz: London.
• Harrisson, Tom (1970). The Malays of South-West Sarawak before Malaysia. Macmillan: London.
• Harrisson, Tom (1976). Living through the Blitz, Collins, London

© Text and photo: Wikipedia

Carl Sofus Lumholtz

ANTHROPOLOGISTS OF THE WORLD 

Carl Sofus Lumholtz (1851 - 1922) 

Norwegian explorer and ethnographer, best known for his meticulous field research and ethnographic publications on indigenous cultures of Australia and Mesoamerican central Mexico. 

Born in Faberg, Norway, Lumholtz graduated in theology in 1876 from the University of Christiania, now the University of Oslo.

Lumholtz travelled to Australia in 1880, where he spent ten months from 1882-1883 amongst the indigenous inhabitants of the Herbert-Burdekin region in North Queensland. He wrote a book about his experience, Among Cannibals: An Account of Four Years' Travels in Australia and of Camp Life with the Aborigines of Queensland, first published in 1889, which is regarded as the finest ethnographic research of the period for the northern Queensland Aborigines. Whereas previous authors had commented only upon the aesthetic physical appearances and material culture of the region's indigenous people, Lumholtz added a level of academic research that was unique for the period. His work recorded for the first time the social relationships, attitudes and the role of women in the society. He also gave a series of two lectures on "Among Australian Natives" for the Lowell Institute for their 1889-90 season.

He spent a total of four years in Queensland, his expeditions included visits to the Valley of Lagoons and the Herbert River area. He made collections of mammals while living with the local peoples, these specimens were used for the descriptions of four new species. One of these was named for the type locality, Pseudochirulus herbertensis (Herbert River Ringtail Possum), and another commemorates his name, Dendrolagus lumholtzii (Lumholtz's Tree Kangaroo).

Lumholtz later travelled to Mexico with the Swedish botanist C. V. Hartman. He stayed for many years, conducting several expeditions from 1890 through to 1910 which were paid for by the American Museum of Natural History. His work, Unknown Mexico, was a 1902 two-volume set describing many of the indigenous peoples of northwestern Mexico, including the Cora, Tepehuán, Pima Bajo, and especially the Tarahumara, among whom he lived for more than a year. Lumholtz was one of the first to describe artifacts from the ancient shaft tomb and the Tarascan cultures. He described archaeological sites, as well as the flora and fauna, of the northern Sierra Madre region called the Gran Chichimeca. He gave a series of three lectures on "The Characteristics of Cave Dwellers of the Sierra Madre" for the Lowell Institute's 1893-94 season.

In 1905 Lumholtz was a founding member of the Explorers Club, an organization to promote exploration and scientific investigation in the field. He went on a brief expedition to India from 1914–1915, then to Borneo from 1915 to 1917, which was his last expedition.

In 1922 Lumholtz died of tuberculosis at Saranac Lake, New York, where he was seeking treatment at a sanatorium. He had published six books on his discoveries, as well as the autobiography My Life of Exploration (1921).

His works

• Among Cannibals; an account of four years' travels in Australia and of camp life with the aborigines of Queensland (1889)
• Unknown Mexico; a record of five years' exploration among the tribes of the western Sierra Madre; in the tierra caliente of Tepic and Jalisco; and among the Tarascos of Michoacan (1902) 
• Through Central Borneo; an account of two years' travel in the land of the head-hunters between the years 1913 and 1917 (1920)
• My life of exploration (1921)

© Text and photo: Wikipedia

Tribal Art Auction at Zemanek-Münster

Auction: 65th Tribal art auction

Date: 28 May 2011

Preview: 21 to 27 May, 10 to 20h, and 28th May, 9 to 13:30h

Place: Auctionhouse Zemanek-Münster, Hörleingasse 3-5, Würzburg, (Germany)

Contact:  info@tribal-art-auktion.de

Webpage:  www.tribal-art-auktion.de

Catalogue: http://www.tribal-art-auktion.de/downloads/catalogue173.pdf

Comments:

65th Tribal art auction

About Zemanek-Münster:

The Zemanek-Münster art auction house in Würzburg has been involved with African art since the beginning of the nineties and it has become Europe's only auction house that specializes exclusively in non-European art.

The company started in 1978 as a small and distinguished antique shop for European art in Würzburg. Its first art auction was held seven years later, initially in rented rooms. In addition to their premises in Würzburg, Zemanek-Münster had been running art auctions for many years in Miltenberg (Frankfurt am Main) and following the reunification of Germany in 1989 in Dresden, the provincial capital of Saxony. In 1992 Zemanek-Münster moved into their premises in the Hörleingasse, Würzburg, an old blacksmith's shop in former times. In the summer of 2007 the auction house was renovated to provide more exhibition space and a new glass roof also considerably improved presentation.

In 1990 Zemanek-Münster was already reacting to emerging changes on the arts market. In 1991 the company started to specialise in non-European art with the separation of the Africa collection belonging to the late artist and great collector Joachim Schlotterbeck, who died in 2007.

The family run company today has eight full-time employees, who are art historians and ethnologists for European art and non-European art. The extended team also includes photographers, layouters and other enthusiastic employees. Their professional qualifications, academic application and the dedication with which auction catalogues are compiled have gained them a high degree of customer trust. The company is now widely regarded for its integrity, reliability and fairness in dealings with bidders and consignors all over the world.

These constant high standards have led to the success of this small, family-run company at an international level. In addition, amicable relationships with both customers and employees and a warm and welcoming atmosphere all form part of the Zemanek-Münster company philosophy and have proved a decisive factor in the success of the art auction house. The future is also in safe hands: David Zemanek, the older son, who grew up surrounded by art and is a qualified art-ethnologist himself, will take over in the future.