View source for Colin Turnbull

{{Short description|British-American anthropologist (1924–1994)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2024}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Colin Turnbull
| image             = Colin Turnbull. (Lobsang Ridgol) holding a friend's baby, Gainesville, Florida, 1993.jpg
| image_size        = 
| alt               = 
| caption           = Colin Turnbull holding a friend's baby, Gainesville, Florida, 1993
| birth_date        = {{birth date|1924|11|23|df=y}}
| birth_place       = [[London]], England
| death_date        = {{death date and age|1994|7|28|1924|11|23|df=y}}
| death_place       = [[Virginia]], U.S.
| residence         = 
| citizenship       = British, later American
| nationality       = British, American
| field             = [[Anthropology]]<br />[[Ethnomusicology]]
| work_institutions = 
| alma_mater        = [[Magdalen College, Oxford]]<br />[[Banaras Hindu University]]
| doctoral_advisor  = 
| doctoral_students = 
| known_for         = ''[[The Forest People]]'',
[[The Mountain People]]
| author_abbrev_bot = 
| author_abbrev_zoo = 
| influences        = 
| influenced        = 
| prizes            = 
}}
'''Colin Macmillan Turnbull''' (23 November 1924 – 28 July 1994)<ref>{{Cite news |last=Middleton |first=John |date=10 August 1994 |title=Out of Order in Africa |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-guardian-colin-turnbull/159590148/ |access-date=23 November 2024 |work=[[The Guardian]] |pages=30}}</ref> was a British-American [[anthropology|anthropologist]] who came to public attention with the popular books ''[[The Forest People]]'' (on the [[Mbuti people|Mbuti]] [[Pygmy|Pygmies]] of [[Zaire]]) and ''[[The Mountain People]]'' (on the [[Ik people]] of [[Uganda]]), and  one of the first anthropologists to work in the field of [[ethnomusicology]].

==Early life==
Turnbull was born in London and educated at [[Westminster School]] and [[Magdalen College, Oxford]], where he studied politics and philosophy. During [[World War II]] he was in the [[Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve]] after which he was awarded a two-year grant in the Department of Indian Religion and Philosophy, [[Banaras Hindu University]], India, from which he graduated with a master's degree in Indian Religion and Philosophy.{{cn|date=December 2024}}

==Career==
In 1951, after his graduation from Banaras, Turnbull traveled to the [[Belgian Congo]] (present-day [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]]) with Newton Beal, a schoolteacher from [[Ohio]] he met in India. Turnbull and Beal first studied the Mbuti [[pygmies]] during this time, though that was not the goal of the trip.

An "odd job" Turnbull picked up while in Africa at this time was working for the [[Hollywood (film industry)|Hollywood]] producer [[Sam Spiegel]]. Spiegel hired Turnbull to assist in the construction and transportation of a boat needed for his film. This boat was the [[African Queen (boat)|''African Queen'']], which was used for the feature film ''[[The African Queen (film)|The African Queen]]'' (starring [[Humphrey Bogart]] and [[Katharine Hepburn]]; 1951).<ref>Grinker, 70–71</ref> After his first trip to Africa, Turnbull traveled to [[Yellowknife]] in the Northwest Territories, where he worked as a [[geologist]] and gold miner for a year,<ref>Grinker, 87–89</ref> before he went back to school to obtain another degree.

Upon returning to Oxford in 1954,  Turnbull began specializing in the anthropology of Africa. He remained in Oxford for two years before another field trip to Africa, finally focusing on the Belgian Congo (1957–58) and [[Uganda]]. After years of fieldwork, he finally achieved his anthropology doctorate from Oxford in 1964.

Turnbull became a [[naturalized citizen]] of the United States in 1965, after he moved to [[New York City]] to become [[curator]] in charge of African Ethnology at the [[American Museum of Natural History]] in 1959. He later resided in [[Lancaster County, Virginia|Lancaster County]], and was on staff in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, [[Virginia Commonwealth University]], in [[Richmond, Virginia]]. Other professional associations included [[corresponding member]]ship of [[Royal Museum for Central Africa]] and a fellowship in the [[Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland|British Royal Anthropological Institute]]. He first gained prominence with his book ''[[The Forest People]]'' (1961), a study of the [[Mbuti people]].

In 1972, having been commissioned to come up with an explanation and solution to the difficulties experienced by the [[Ik people]], he published his controversial ethnography ''[[The Mountain People]]''.  The Ik were a [[hunter-gatherer]] tribe who had been forced to stop moving around ancestral lands, through the seasons, because it now involved the three national borders of Uganda, Kenya and Sudan. Forced to become stationary in Uganda, and without a knowledge base and culture for survival under such conditions, they failed to thrive, even to the point of starvation and death. He described the Ik as driven to a radically selfish condition in which they felt no care or responsibility for anyone else, even their children.

''The Mountain People'' was later adapted into a theatrical work by playwright [[Peter Brook]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Production of The Ik {{!}} Theatricalia|url=https://theatricalia.com/play/a0/the-ik/production/1dt|website=theatricalia.com|access-date=29 May 2020}}</ref>

===Contributions to music===
Some of Turnbull's recordings of Mbuti music were commercially released, and his works inspired other [[ethnomusicology|ethnomusicological]] studies, such as those of [[Simha Arom]] and Mauro Campagnoli.  His  recording of ''Music of the Rainforest Pygmies'', recorded in 1961, was released on CD by [[Lyrichord Discs]]. His recording of a Zaire pygmy girls' initiation song was used on the [[Voyager Golden Record]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Voyager - Music on the Golden Record|url=https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/whats-on-the-record/music/|website=voyager.jpl.nasa.gov|language=en|access-date=29 May 2020}}</ref>

==Personal life==
Turnbull's partner, [[Joseph Towles|Joseph Allen Towles]], was born in [[Senora, Virginia]], on 17 August 1937. In 1957 he moved to New York City to pursue a career as an actor and writer. He met Turnbull in 1959 and they exchanged marriage vows the following year.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Inventory of the Joseph A. Towles Papers, circa 1920s-2009|url=https://avery.cofc.edu/archives/Towles_Joseph_A.html|website=Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture|access-date=29 May 2020|archive-date=4 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210904015808/http://avery.cofc.edu/archives/Towles_Joseph_A.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

From 1965 to 1967, Turnbull and Towles conducted fieldwork among the Ik of [[Northern Uganda]] in Africa. In the Congo in 1970, they conducted fieldwork on the Nkumbi [[circumcision]] initiation ritual for boys and the Asa myth of origin among the [[Mbo people (Congo)|Mbo]] of the [[Ituri Rainforest|Ituri forest]].

In 1979, they traveled studying the concept of tourism as pilgrimage. Towles criticised Turnbull's semi-autobiographical work ''The Human Cycle'' (1983), which omitted all references to their relationship.<ref name=":0" />

Turnbull arranged for Towles' research to be published posthumously. It appeared in 1993 as ''Nkumbi initiation ritual and structure among the Mbo of Zaïre'' and as ''Asa: Myth of Origin of the Blood Brotherhood Among the Mbo of the Ituri Forest'', both in ''Annales'' of the [[Royal Museum for Central Africa]] (Tervuren, Belgium), vol. 137.<ref>Open Library: [https://openlibrary.org/b/OL839785M/Nkumbi_initiation Nkumbi initiation]</ref><ref>University of Virginia Library: [http://virgobeta.lib.virginia.edu/catalog/u2402463 Asa: Myth of Origin...]{{dead link|date=August 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

==Later years==
Late in life Turnbull took up the political cause of [[death row]] inmates. After his partner's death, Turnbull donated all his belongings to the [[United Negro College Fund]]. He donated all their research materials, most of which were the product of his career, to the [[College of Charleston]], insisting that the collection be known under Towles' name alone.<ref>Avery Research Center: [http://avery.cofc.edu/archives/Towles_Joseph_A.html Inventory of the Joseph A. Towles Papers, circa 1920s - 2009] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111009181042/http://avery.cofc.edu/archives/Towles_Joseph_A.html |date=9 October 2011 }}</ref>

In 1989, Turnbull moved to [[Bloomington, Indiana|Bloomington]], [[Indiana]], to participate in the building of [[Tibetan Cultural Center]] with his friend [[Thupten Jigme Norbu]], elder brother of the [[Tenzin Gyatso|14th Dalai Lama]]. Later Turnbull moved to [[Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh|Dharamsala]], India where he took the monks' vow of [[Tibetan Buddhism]], given to him by the [[Dalai Lama]]. Turnbull's partner, Joseph A Towles died of AIDS in 1988, and Turnbull had Towles's book "Nkumbi Initiation and Asa: Myth of Origin of the Blood Brotherhood Among the Mbo of the Ituri Forest" published posthumously. Turnbull himself died of AIDS in 1994.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://avery.cofc.edu/archives/Towles_Joseph_A.html|title=Inventory of the Joseph A. Towles Papers, circa 1920s - 2009|website=avery.cofc.edu|access-date=26 November 2009|archive-date=9 October 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111009181042/http://avery.cofc.edu/archives/Towles_Joseph_A.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.colinturnbull.com/chronology.html |title=Chronology: The Life of Colin M. Turnbull |access-date=6 March 2009 |archive-date=10 February 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090210051807/http://colinturnbull.com/chronology.html |url-status=usurped }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://tricycle.org/magazine/anthropologist-monk-colin-m-turnbull/|title=An Anthropologist Monk: Colin M. Turnbull|website=Tricycle: The Buddhist Review|author1=Tricycle }}</ref>

==Controversy==
Some later scholars criticized Turnbull's account of the Ik. [[Bernd Heine]], who visited the tribe 20 years after Turnbull, provided new information in a 1985 article that appeared to discredit Turnbull's unflattering portrayal.<ref>[http://www.internationalafricaninstitute.org/journal.html ''Africa''], [https://www.jstor.org/pss/1159836 The Mountain People: Some Notes on the Ik of North-Eastern Uganda]</ref> According to a 2021 BBC radio documentary, Turnbull had drawn much of his image of the tribe from interviews with older Ik who contrasted their current situation with their memories of a better life prior to displacement, and therefore exaggerated the tribe's social dysfunction in the years Turnbull was present. <ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000synk|title=Sideways - 5. The Most Selfish People on Earth - BBC Sounds}}</ref>

==Publications==
* 1961 ''[[The Forest People]]''. {{ISBN|0586059407}}
* 1962 ''The Lonely African''. {{ISBN|0671200690}}
* 1962 ''The Peoples of Africa''.
* 1965 ''Wayward Servants: The Two Worlds of the African Pygmies''. {{ISBN|0837179270}}
* 1966 ''Tradition and Change in African Tribal Life''.{{ISBN missing}}
* 1968 ''Tibet: Its History, Religion and People''. (with [[Thubten Jigme Norbu]]). {{ISBN|0701113545}}
* 1972 ''[[The Mountain People]]''. {{ISBN|0671640984}}
* 1973 ''Africa and Change'' editor. {{ISBN|0394315200}}
* 1976 ''Man in Africa''. {{ISBN|0140220356}}
* 1978 "Rethinking the Ik: A functional Non-Social System". In: Charles D. Laughlin Jr.; Ivan A. Brady (ed.): ''Extinction and Survival in Human Populations''. New York: Columbia University Press
* 1983 ''The Human Cycle''. {{ISBN|0586084932}}
* 1983 ''The Mbuti Pygmies: Change and Adaptation''. {{ISBN|0030615372}}
* 1992  ''Music of the Rain Forest Pygmies: The Historic Recordings Made By Colin M. Turnbull'' Label: Lyrichord Discs Inc.
*"The Mbuti Pygmies: An Ethnographic Survey" in ''Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History'', 50: 139–282

==See also==
* [[Simha Arom]], who also studied pygmy culture

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
{{Refbegin}}
* [[Roy Richard Grinker|Grinker, Roy R.]] ''In the Arms of Africa: The Life of Colin M. Turnbull'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0226309045}}
* Smithsonian Institution: [https://web.archive.org/web/20071217194239/http://artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/courses/306/GrinkerTurnbull.html Review of ''In the Arms of Africa''], ''AnthroNotes'', Vol. 22, No. 1, Fall 2000.
{{Refend}}

==External links==
* [http://avery.cofc.edu/archives/Towles_Joseph_A.html Inventory of the Joseph A. Towles Papers, c. 1920s – 2009] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111009181042/http://avery.cofc.edu/archives/Towles_Joseph_A.html |date=9 October 2011 }}, in the Avery Research Center at the [[College of Charleston]]
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20000925112729/http://www.colinturnbull.com/ Official website of Grinker's biography]}}
* [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000synk Podcast BBC Radio 4 "Sideways" 28 minute] "Matthew Syed examines the work of the controversial anthropologist Colin Turnbull who claimed to have discovered 'the most selfish people on earth'."

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