''White Papuan. Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay against the background of the era''. Shocking traditions of the Papuans, which not everyone will understand. Did you take any gifts with you for the Papuans?

A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. They practice blood feud. If your relative was harmed, maimed or killed, then you must answer the offender in kind. Broke your brother's arm? Break it for whoever did it too.

It’s good that you can pay off blood feud with chickens and pigs. So one day I went with the Papuans to the Strelka. We got into a pickup truck, took a whole chicken coop and went to the showdown. Everything happened without bloodshed.

2. They “sit” on nuts like drug addicts

The fruits of the betel palm are the most bad habit Papuans! The fruit pulp is chewed and mixed with two other ingredients. This causes profuse salivation, and the mouth, teeth and lips turn a bright red color. That’s why Papuans endlessly spit on the ground, and “bloody” blots are found everywhere. In West Papua, these fruits are called penang, and in the eastern half of the island - betelnut (betel nut). Eating fruits gives a slight relaxing effect, but is very damaging to teeth.

3. They believe in black magic and punish it

Previously, cannibalism was an instrument of justice, and not a way to satisfy one's hunger. This is how the Papuans punished witchcraft. If a person was found guilty of using black magic and harming others, he was killed and pieces of his body were distributed among clan members. Today, cannibalism is no longer practiced, but murders on charges of black magic have not stopped.

4. They keep dead people at home

If in our country Lenin “sleeps” in the mausoleum, then the Papuans from the Dani tribe keep the mummies of their leaders right in their huts. Twisted, smoked, with terrible grimaces. The age of the mummies is 200–300 years.

5. They allow their women to do heavy physical labor.

When I first saw a woman seven or eight months pregnant chopping wood with an ax while her husband rested in the shade, I was shocked. Later I realized that this is the norm among Papuans. Therefore, the women in their villages are brutal and physically resilient.

6. They pay for their future wife with pigs

This custom has been preserved throughout New Guinea. The bride's family receives pigs before the wedding. This is a mandatory fee. At the same time, women care for piglets like children and even breastfeed them. Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay wrote about this in his notes.

7. Their women mutilated themselves voluntarily

In the event of the death of a close relative, women of the Dani tribe cut off the phalanges of their fingers. Stone axe. Today this custom has been abandoned, but in the Baliem Valley you can still find toeless grandmothers.

8. A necklace made of dog teeth is the best gift for your wife!

Among the Korowai tribe, this is a real treasure. Therefore, Korovai women do not need gold, pearls, fur coats, or money. They have completely different values.

9. Men and women live separately

Many Papuan tribes practice this custom. That's why there are men's huts and women's huts. Women are prohibited from entering the men's house.

10. They can even live in trees

“I live high - I look far away. Korowai build their homes in the canopies of tall trees. Sometimes it's 30m above the ground! Therefore, children and babies here need an eye and an eye, because there are no fences in such a house

11. They wear kotekas

This is a phallocrypt with which the mountaineers cover their manhood. Koteka is used instead of panties, banana leaves or loincloths. It is made from local pumpkin.

Every nation has its own cultural characteristics, historically established customs and national traditions, some or even many of which cannot be understood by representatives of other nations.

We present to your attention shocking facts about the customs and traditions of the Papuans, which, to put it mildly, not everyone will understand.

Papuans mummify their leaders

Papuans have their own way of showing respect for deceased leaders. They do not bury them, but store them in huts. Some of the creepy, distorted mummies are up to 200-300 years old.

Some Papuan tribes have preserved the custom of dismembering the human body.

The largest Papuan tribe in eastern New Guinea, the Huli, has acquired a bad reputation. In the past they were known as headhunters and eaters of human flesh. Now it is believed that nothing like this is happening anymore. However, anecdotal evidence indicates that human dismemberment occurs from time to time during magical rituals.

Many men in New Guinea tribes wear kotekas

Papuans living in the highlands of New Guinea wear kotekas, which are sheaths worn over their male parts. Kotek is made from local varieties of calabash gourd. They replace panties for Papuans.

When women lost relatives, they cut off their fingers

The female part of the Papuan Dani tribe often walked without phalanges of fingers. They cut them off for themselves when they lost close relatives. Today you can still see fingerless old women in villages.

Papuans breastfeed not only children, but also animal cubs

The obligatory bride price is measured in pigs. At the same time, the bride's family is obliged to take care of these animals. Women even feed piglets with their breasts. However, their breast milk other animals also eat.

Almost all the hard work in the tribe is done by women

In Papuan tribes, women do all the main work. Very often you can see a picture where Papuans, being in the last months of pregnancy, chop firewood, and their husbands rest in huts.

Some Papuans live in tree houses

Another Papuan tribe, the Korowai, surprises with their place of residence. They build their houses right on the trees. Sometimes, to get to such a dwelling, you need to climb to a height of 15 to 50 meters. The Korowai's favorite delicacy is insect larvae.

Marina Timasheva: Continuing the theme of anthropology started in the last program - real anthropology, as my interlocutor would clarify - we present a book about a man who became the founder and personification of this science in Russia. Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology named after Miklouho-Maclay and publishing house "" Eastern literature"" released a book by Daniil Tumarkin "" White Papuan. Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay against the background of the era "". So, before us is a fundamental - 600 pages - biography of a scientist and traveler, who, however, has not been deprived of attention before. A specialized institute was named after him, his birthday became a professional holiday, and not only his colleagues - the children knew who he was. In the preface of today’s book, I read that his image “is shrouded in legends... The literature about him is characterized by his idealization and mythologization” (3) - and I would like to clarify with our reviewer Ilya Smirnov: that the new research has somehow significantly changed the idea about Miklouho-Maclay, shaped by the black-and-white screen and children's books?

Ilya Smirnov: If you mean the story "The Man from the Moon", I will answer honestly: it has not fundamentally changed. Enriched additional information, clarified the details, corrected some errors in the questionnaire. For example. The Scottish ancestor Maclay, who allegedly was captured by the Cossacks in the 17th century and gave the Miklukhs the second half of their surname, does not have any reliable confirmation (79). However, there are quite a few such genealogical fantasies about a “noble husband” from somewhere abroad in the genealogies of more eminent persons, even the most august
The hero of the book was the son of a railway engineer, he never acquired wealth and power (like his father), but created his own fame. His life was short (1846 - 1888) and amazing.
As a rule, scientists study myths, but do not become their heroes. And in New Guinea, legends are written about a white-skinned alien - the color of the moon - who taught people to use iron tools (instead of stone) and many other useful things

Ilya Smirnov: Yes, like Prometheus. But in his homeland he became a kind of cultural hero. Several generations were brought up by his example - “to make life from someone.” Remember, Vysotsky is about children's books. May God grant that the next generation read the right books about real people in childhood. Miklouho-Maclay is one of the last well-known naturalists of a wide profile in the history of world science, who placed man and the manifestations of his culture within the geographical environment at the center of his research, but also actively worked in branches of natural science not directly related to this issue (oceanography , geology, etc.)"" (563). For example, we owe him the acquaintance with a wonderful creature called couscous. "" June 13. The small couscous I purchased a few weeks ago is thriving and growing for me. Eats everything: rice, ayan, bau, coconuts, sweet potatoes and loves bananas. During the day he usually sleeps curled up, but still eats if given to him; At night, he mercilessly gnaws the wood of the box where I plant him."
But it is impossible to correctly understand the “white Papuan” without taking into account the fact that in his own formulation it sounds like this: “The only goal of my life is the benefit and success of science for the benefit of humanity” (49). These components – scientific and moral – are inseparable. As the French professor Gabriel Monod wrote about him, “he serves science as others serve religion... The most sincere and consistent idealist I have ever met” (435).

Marina Timasheva: It turns out that modern anthropologists have someone to follow as an example.

Ilya Smirnov: Undoubtedly. And Daniil Davydovich Tumarkin, also a colleague of Miklukh-Maclay, conducted ethnographic research(212) in the same regions - and in the book he continues the tradition that comes to us from the Russian democratic intelligentsia of the 19th century through the entire 20th century. The biography is indeed very detailed. All sorted controversial issues, the nuances of the hero’s relationships with colleagues and relatives, with superiors of various ranks, on whom the financing of the expeditions depended. Miklouho-Maclay’s own words: “It’s stupid to depend on such rubbish as money!” (129). And then I would highlight several storylines. Firstly, public views future scientist - and yet he was still a high school student behind bars in the Peter and Paul Fortress as a participant in a demonstration (29) - this factor was not accidental and extraneous to his main specialty. In general, progress and reaction are clearly separated in the book (109, 422, 442, etc.)

Marina Timasheva: It seems that now these words - “progress”, “reaction” - are not at all fashionable. Even in scholarly works they are sometimes put in quotation marks. The so-called progress.

Ilya Smirnov: But the author of the book is not afraid to pronounce them. And how could it be otherwise? After all, the views of the book’s hero were based on “the conviction in the equal ability of all peoples ... to move along the path of progress” (422). Both components are important in this formula. “He tried to supplement the scientific criticism of racism with practical actions for the benefit of oppressed peoples” (287). A fragment of the manuscript has been preserved: the young Miklouho-Maclay was translating “The Natural History of Peacemaking” by his teacher, the great biologist Ernst Haeckel. ""True knowledge of the most general laws nature, the highest triumph of the human mind should not remain the private property of a privileged learned caste, but become the common property of all humanity"" (83). The publication of this work was banned in Russia for “shaking the foundations of religion.” And Miklouho-Maclay, already when he himself became famous, was targeted by the “chauvinist newspaper “Novoe Vremya”” (496).
However, the reaction is not only medieval, monarchical and in the East. The worldview of the Russian scientist is formed in polemics with eminent Western colleagues, including his teacher. Haeckel considered “the Papuans the missing link” between man and their animal ancestors... Nikolai Nikolaevich could not agree with this formulation of the question” (125). It is perfectly shown that even advanced science, if it is independent of morality, can become a justification for degradation. IN in this case these are massacres and the slave trade.

Marina Timasheva: Wait. It seems that by that time slavery had already been prohibited in all the major world powers.

Ilya Smirnov: On paper this is exactly the case, but in fact in the region where Maclay worked, it flourished, covered by the fig leaf of “contracts”, when a person was given something incomprehensible to sign in an unknown language, after which his land and children were taken away, and he himself was driven into camp barracks (415, 389). ""Mr. Maclay, having visited one of these schooners (slave traders - I.S.) in the roadstead of Noumea, saw a group of black children aged from 10 to 15 years. He asked the captain, and then the state commissioner, how it happened that boys too young to work usefully were recruited. Both answered: “You see, there is no arguing about tastes” (389). There was, to quote W. Gladstone, “a trade in people, incorrectly called a trade in free labor” (467). That is, in the 19th century the English Prime Minister understood, but in the 21st we have to listen to rantings about the fact that if residents of devastated countries, who literally have nothing to eat, sell themselves for pennies in the service of “commercial and entertainment biomass”, then this is being done allegedly “ "freely" and "voluntarily", and modern slaves still have to be grateful for being "fed". And here is one of the paradoxes real story. The allies of the unbelieving naturalist Maclay, who spoke very skeptically about the missionaries (423), might not have been his scientific colleagues, but, for example, James Chalmers, “who came from a poor family (the son of a mason)”, who defended the natives from slave traders and land speculators , guided by "" church dogmas about the creation of all human races heavenly Creator" (395).

Marina Timasheva: I will interrupt you to clarify: did these learned colleagues not understand at all what Miklouho-Maclay understood?

Ilya Smirnov: The fashion was on the so-called. ""scientific racism"". It is now fashionable to explain behavior by “genes.” And most importantly... I’d better answer you in the words of the hero of the book himself, who in democratic Queensland very accurately formulated the connection between opinion and interest. ""...Very few want to see the real state of affairs, which is beneficial for themselves or their friends... The majority do not want to know the truth, which will not hurt, however, this majority, when it is too late, pretending to assure that they never suspected... and was indignant against the trade in human flesh and barbaric violence"" (415).
For example, the aforementioned Gladstone dissociated himself from some of the colonial adventures begun by Disraeli. But his cabinet also pursued policies in the interests of the English bourgeoisie, and the latter demanded new seizures. Gladstone's peace-loving election promises were discarded already in 1882, when, under pressure from British financial circles, he agreed to occupy Egypt"" (424)
At the same time, Miklouho-Maclay himself was not at all a politically correct amoeba. Yes, he entered into an agreement with the captain, which prohibited, in the event of his death, reprisals against the natives under the pretext of “punishment” (373). But, when necessary, he could take up arms himself (278) and, judging by the episodes cited in the book, he did not at all believe that everything was allowed to representatives of oppressed peoples. Equal rights mean equal responsibilities, right? But it is specific criminals who must answer, not entire tribes (419). In France, they didn’t burn down an entire village because its resident robbed or even killed someone.
Maclay appears, on the one hand, of course, as Don Quixote (564) and a utopian. Well, the Papuan tribes of that time, even under his leadership, could not create an independent state. On the other hand, in order to delay their colonial enslavement as far as possible and minimize the destructive consequences - for the sake of this historical delay, he rather deftly maneuvered between the rulers of the great powers (501), used all his popularity, signed letters (454) that could be delivered to blame if you don’t know that you didn’t ask for yourself. For the people who trusted him, and he truly became one of them.
Another one story line, which runs through the entire book - incredible willpower. After all, the traveler was a seriously ill person. How did he manage to get into Heidelberg University after being expelled from St. Petersburg? It turns out that after an examination by “a commission of 9 doctors at the police department” (39), he was given a foreign passport specifically for treatment. All his life he was tormented by malaria (211). "He was a hero who overcame himself" (188). And at the same time... well, not to say it harsh words""womanizer"", had big success from the fair sex, be it scantily clad aboriginal women or European aristocrats.
But as for the research methodology: since the islanders ""responded to questions about their customs for the most part only out of politeness"," Miklouho-Maclay ""almost did not resort to questioning, ... preferred to see everything with his own eyes"" (223). A lesson for modern sociologists who do exactly the opposite.
In general, I cannot retell the 600-page work. I would also like to thank the author for making the story of the glorious traveler in his version more voluminous and more picturesque. For example, I personally was interested to know that Alexander the Third, who is treated seriously historical literature, frankly speaking, not the best, had, according to at least, one advantage: he sympathized with Miklouho-Maclay, defended him from attacks and, apparently, sincerely wanted to support his New Guinea utopian projects (454). But, as they say, even kings can’t do everything.

Marina Timasheva: Well, it turns out that from a practical point of view, the hero of the book is a loser?

Ilya Smirnov: How to judge this? On what page should you close your history textbook and sum it up? Is Alexander the Great lucky if the empire collapsed immediately after his death? Is Lenin a lucky man? Looks like he built it. But not quite what I wanted. Fate saved Miklouho-Maclay from disappointment of the second kind: dreams that came true. But now we can appreciate the fact that the people of New Guinea did not share the same fate Australian Aboriginals or Tasmanians.
In conclusion, I will allow myself to disagree with the author of the book “White Papuan” regarding modern readers. In my opinion, he underestimates them somewhat. In any case, the part that reads thick books about scientists. “Readers are probably looking forward to the story about the development of Miklouho-Maclay’s relationship with the ladies from the Loudon family...” (290) Focusing on this hypothetical request, the author “revives” an already adventurous biography juicy details, like the photograph "Naked girlfriend of Nikolai Miklukha. Jena "" (63) and scraps of notes in which the traveler, indeed, allowed himself to comment with natural scientific directness on subjects that were completely taboo for the Victorian society of that time. Our society, thank God, is not Victorian, we have the right to discuss any topics, but since we still cannot reliably reconstruct the hero’s personal life, his relationships with women, then perhaps there is no point in giving rise to ambiguous interpretations (for example, 399 ). In my opinion, it would be better to tell in more detail about the origin of those peoples that Miklouho-Maclay encountered in his expeditions. Maybe include a special reference chart with the book. Moreover, it is in this area that many important discoveries have been made.

Marina Timasheva: Ilya Smirnov introduced us to a new fundamental biography of Miklouho-Maclay, a man who became a hero of myths in New Guinea, and in world science one of the creators of the doctrine of the unity of mankind and the equality of all races and peoples.

One of the most memorable school days books - "Clay Papuan".
The book is my age, 1966. It is a collection of stories in hardcover and with memorable b/w illustrations. That year, a book from school library the small seaside port city of Nakhodka ended up in my hands; it was already quite shabby, carrying a trace of a certain mystery and a feeling of uncertain influence on the fate of its reader in the future.

The writer was born in 1907 in the city of Verkhneudinsk (now Ulan-Ude), spent the first year of his life in prison, where his parents were imprisoned for revolutionary activities. In 1923 he moved to Petrograd, where he entered the literary department of the Faculty of Language and material culture Leningradsky state university. He was expelled from the university for the novel “Cow” he wrote (published in 2000 in the magazine “Zvezda” No. 10), after which he devoted himself entirely to literary activity. He spent the 1930s in the Far North. In 1933, the first book of his stories, “Painting,” was published in Leningrad. In 1934, Gore was admitted to the Union of Soviet Writers.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War war joined the people's militia.

In the 60s he headed the Central literary association Leningrad.
Since the 1960s, he has gained fame as an author of fantasy works.

"This amazing story It started when a clay Papuan in the museum accidentally broke his finger, with which he was pulling the bowstring, and an arrow hit Vitka Korovin in the chest. A rare occurrence, but in the hospital he met a boy named Gromov, whose father made a serious discovery that aliens visited our Earth in the Cretaceous period and left a message for us."

About the book:
Looking ahead, I will say that many of the stories described take place in the city on the Neva.
"I was riding on a tram with my mother. We were going to Chernaya Rechka to visit friends to congratulate them on their housewarming. And on my mother’s lap in a white case lay huge cake, purchased at the Sever confectionery. Everything was as usual on a tram. Some people stood holding their belts, others sat. And one of them was reading a newspaper. I looked over his shoulder and looked at the third stripe, and the letters began to jump, as if I was looking at them through my father’s glasses. But I managed to read:
“The information copies of aliens who visited Earth during the Jurassic period found by Professor Gromov are being studied...”

"everything next to him on the Petrograd side or on Vasilyevsky Island, but he did not value what was far away, in the past or future."

The book also mentions the House of Books on Nevsky and even the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology on Vasilyevsky Island!
It will be interesting for everyone, both adults and children.))

“Aristotle drowned while swimming in the Gulf of Finland the year he was finishing his dissertation on the paradox of time. The world lost at that hour not only a new Leonardo, but perhaps a new Einstein.”

- In the story “The Annoying Interlocutor,” excerpts from the diary of a space alien stuck on prehistoric Earth allow the author to confront representatives of different historical eras.
- earthly life, seen through the eyes of an alien child living on Earth, is used in the story “Boy” (1965) (continued - the story “Clay Papuan” (1966)
- In the story “Olga Nsu” (1965) The problems of immortality and prolongation of human memory are discussed.
- Hero of the story " Great actor Jones" (1966) , “reincarnated” as Edgar Poe, visits St. Petersburg in the 19th century.

The works of Gennady Gora have been translated into English, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Georgian, Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, German, Polish, Romanian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, French, Czech, Japanese.