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Re: Question re L'Ile mysterieuse

From: thomas mccormick <tom_amity~at~hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 19:34:55 +0000
To: jvf~at~Gilead.org.il

I confess it wouldn't be out of character for Buffon. I've read some of the
stuff he wrote about organgutans, his notion that a "Hottentot" or an
Australian aborigene is somewhere on the chain of being inbetween an
orangutan and a caucasian, and Verne repeats the sentiment in the chapter
where Jupiter is introduced). Bill Butcher also points out, in a note to
that chapter, that the (rather racist) geographer Rienzi also claimed to
have had an orangutan servant.

Anybody who has read about human-orangutan interactions will recognize the
story as entirely plausible. Orangutans habituated to human presence may
adopt all kinds of human practices. There exist orangutans who can no longer
do without silverware, dishes, toilets and furniture, and one hears of them
being enslaved as stevedores and bricklayers.

Do let us know what you find out!

Tom


>From: Skravitz~at~aol.com
>Reply-To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
>To: jvf~at~Gilead.org.il
>Subject: Re: Question re L'Ile mysterieuse
>Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 14:37:53 EST
>
>I will try to track down this story but I believe that it is true. If any
>man in history had an orangutan as a manservant then Buffon was just the
>man
>to do so. He was in charge of the French king's zoo, he was one of the
>first to study animals scientifically and he was financially well to do.
>In
>Verne's "Uncle Robinson" the engineer Harry Clifton declares that orangs
>have
>quasi human intelligence and that they can serve at tables, clean rooms
>and
>clothes and drink liquors.

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Received on Fri 03 Feb 2006 - 21:35:12 IST

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