Colin Turnbull

November 23, 1924- July 28, 1994

Biography

Colin Turnbull was a British anthropologist born in 1924. He studied music, literature, and anthropology at Magdalen College, Oxford under E.E. Evans-Pritchard, a famous anthropologist. He joined the Royal Navy before he could graduate in 1942, but when the war was over he returned to school. Once, he received his bachelor’s degree, he moved to India to study at Banares Hindu University. After India, Turnbull visited the Democratic Republic of Congo where he was introduced to the Mbuti of the Ituri forest for the first time. Turnbull was fascinated by the Mbuti and ended up visiting them for a total of six times. In 1959, he became a curator of African ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History. After his career as a curator, he decided to continue his field work, as well as teach anthropology at Hofstra University(1969-72), Virginia Commonwealth University(1972-75), and George Washington University(1976-1983). After he retired, he moved to Bloomington, Indiana to help build the Tibetan Cultural Center and he eventually became a monk. Between 1970 and 1988, Turnbull and Joseph Towles lived openly as a gay, interracial couple in one of the smallest and most conservative rural towns, Lancaster, Virginia. Few people know that during this time, Turnbull devoted himself to championing the cases of death row inmates in Florida and Virginia. Turnbull passed away of AIDS in 1994.

Career in Africa

Turnbull visited the Ituri forest, where the Mbuti live, six times during his time researching the Mbuti. He was fascinated by their music, spirituality, ways of interacting with each other and with others, and overall their harmonious way of living. Turnbull was very dedicated to immersing himself in Mbuti life, so he learned the Mbuti language and attempted to truly understand all their practices and beliefs. Turnbull went on to write his most famous book, “The Forest People”, based on his experience in the Ituri forest. Following his time amongst the Forest People, Turnbull went to study the Ik in Uganda. Turnbull was not as fond of the Ik as he was of the Mbuti. The Ik were at a very low point in their society and were on the verge of extinction when Turnbull was there. He attributed this state of being to the Ik having become “materially and morally impoverished, having abandoned the values of family, love, and altruism for a cut-throat individualism matched only by western civilization”(Grinker). Turnbull witnessed the Ik being violent towards on another and refusing to cooperate and share with other members of their tribe, even if it meant their extinction. This way of living and interacting with one another was the exact opposite of the Mbuti and their society. After being enchanted by the Mbuti, Turnbull was horrified by the behavior of the Ik. Turnbull went even as far as suggesting to the Ugandan government that the Ik society should be eliminated, an idea that was met with a lot of criticism by the Ugandan government and by other anthropologists. He wrote “The Mountain Men” about the Ik and expressed his harsh views of the people, which led to the book and him receiving a lot of backlash.

Written Works

Turnbull is most well-known for his ethnography “The Forest People” (1968) about the Mbuti of the Ituri Forest. In The Forest People, Turnbull talks about his time living amongst the Mbuti and everything he’s learned about Mbuti culture, subsistence, beliefs, politics, social control, puberty rites, and rituals. In 1972, Turnbull publishes his second book, “The Mountain People” about the Ik of Uganda and how they went from “once-prosperous hunters to scattered bands of hostile, starving people whose only goal is individual survival” (Goodreads). In 1985, Turnbull Publishes “The Human Cycle,” a book in which he examines the different societies view and experience the stages of life- childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, late adulthood, old age.

Turnbull, Colin M. The Forest People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968. Print.

Turnbull, Colin M. The Mountain People. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972. Print.

Turnbull, Colin M. The Human Cycle. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985. Print.

Learn More

Grinker, Richard. 2000. In the Arms of Africa: The Life of Colin Turnbull. St. Martin's Press https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/22379/anthronotes_22_1_3.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y

Essay(Towards the bottom of the page)- An Anthropologist Monk: Colin M. Turnbull https://tricycle.org/magazine/anthropologist-monk-colin-m-turnbull/

Frederik and Turnbull. 1974. "On Responsibility and Humanity: Calling a Colleague to Account." Current Anthropology. http://bora.uib.no/bitstream/handle/1956/4190/Barth_On%20responsibility%20and%20humanity_1974.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Works Cited

AnthroNotes Fall 2000 (Grinker), web.archive.org/web/20071217194239/http://artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/courses/306/GrinkerTurnbull.html.

Colin Turnbull - New World Encyclopedia, www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Colin_Turnbull.

Grinker, Richard. 2000. In the Arms of Africa: The Life of Colin Turnbull. St. Martin's Press https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/22379/anthronotes_22_1_3.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y

Inventory of the Joseph A. Towles Papers, circa 1920s - 2009, avery.cofc.edu/archives/Towles_Joseph_A.html. “Mbuti.” Peaceful Societies, cas.uab.edu/peacefulsocieties/societies/mbuti/.

McIntosh, Ian S. “Review: In the Arms of Africa: The Life of Colin Turnbull.” Cultural Survival, 1 Sept. 2003, www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/review-arms-africa-life-colin-turnbull.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Colin Macmillan Turnbull.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 24 July 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/Colin-Macmillan-Turnbull.

“The Mountain People by Colin M. Turnbull.” Goodreads, Goodreads, 2 July 1987, www.goodreads.com/book/show/159880.The_Mountain_People.

Turnbull, Colin M. The Forest People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968. Print. ISBN 0671640992