Video: How the famous traveler Miklouho-Maclay got a double surname and was able to survive among the savage cannibals
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Many have heard of the Russian traveler Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay, who went to the other end of the Earth and lived for several years among the Papuans. He studied their culture and life, as well as the flora and fauna of New Guinea. But all this might not have happened, because the local savages almost ate the famous ethnographer.
At school, Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukha was not considered a gifted student, he even stayed twice in the second year of study. Nevertheless, he was able to enter the prestigious University of Heidelberg, then attended lectures in Leipzig and Jena. There he met the philosopher and biologist Ernst Haeckel. Haeckel invited a capable young man to take part in a scientific expedition. In 1866-1867, they went to Madeira and the Canary Islands.
An expedition of two teachers and two students studied fish and other inhabitants of the sea. Miklouha himself even discovered a new type of sponges for science. Teachers and students returned in different ways: some went through Paris, and Miklouha and his partner bought Berber costumes and went to Morocco. Probably, it was there, in the sands of the Black Continent, that an interest in anthropology awoke in a young Russian scientist.
On his return to Jena, he published his first scientific work on some of the features of shark anatomy. It was signed with a double surname: Miklouho-Maclay. The scientist himself did not leave any explanations about this in his notes, but his heirs have several versions. According to one of them, someone in their family "crossed paths" with a Scotsman by the name of Maclay. Another, more plausible, is that, having discovered a new type of sponges, Miklukha attributed to its name an abbreviation of his surname - Mcl. This is how the same "Maclay" appeared.
Being a person of an ordinary origin, Miklukha was ashamed of this. Therefore, doubling the surname in the Polish manner (and Nikolai Miklukha's mother was a Polish woman), he made her more "presentable". By spreading rumors about his nobility, Miklouho-Maclay made his way in the scientific world easier, since it was much easier for aristocrats to get funding and get on expeditions.
Soon, Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay set off on a journey across Italy, and then on a journey through the Egyptian desert to the Red Sea. Risking his life, he even tried to get into the holy city of Jeddah. At the same time, the young traveler contracted malaria, and also owed his friends a large sum of money.
Returning to his homeland, Miklouho-Maclay joined the Russian Geographical Society, made useful contacts and was able to organize an expedition across the Pacific Ocean. In November 1870, the traveler set out on a long voyage aboard the 17-gun corvette Vityaz. On the way, he conducted a number of studies of flora, fauna, climate, bought gifts for the aborigines: knives, axes, cloth, needles, soap, beads.
On September 20, 1871, the Vityaz moored in Astrolabe Bay off the northeastern coast of New Guinea. When the ship fired an artillery salvo to greet the assembled Papuans, they were frightened and fled.
The first acquaintance of Nikolai Miklukho-Maclay with the natives already on earth passed in an original way. To improve relations with the locals, he went to the village of Gorendu, where the savage cannibals lived. Seeing a white-skinned man, they began to threaten, threw spears, fired bows at their very feet. It seemed almost impossible to survive in such a situation. What did the Russian traveler do? He spread the mat, lay down on it, and defiantly fell asleep.
When the scientist opened his eyes, he saw that the Papuans had lost all their fighting enthusiasm. The savages, seeing a man who was not at all afraid of them, decided that he was immortal. Moreover, the natives thought it was a real god.
Naturally, no one began to dissuade them. Nikolay Miklouho-Maclay surprised the Papuans more than once. Once he demonstrated to the natives how alcohol burns. He explained to the savages that if he wanted, he could set fire to the whole sea. After this, of course, they feared and respected him even more.
This was only the beginning of the first expedition of the Russian traveler to the lands of New Guinea, from which he brought the richest ethnographic and anthropological material, as well as collections of animals and plants from this tropical island on the other side of the Earth, which will find something to surprise. Papuans of New Guinea have more many shocking customs that not everyone will understand.
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