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A History of the World

From: Harry Hayfield <harryhayfield~at~googlemail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:43:16 -0000
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

BlankToday the BBC launched a year long project that will be carried on BBC
Television (including all the BBC regions and the CBBC channel, BBC Radio 4
and the local and national radio stations) in conjunction with the British
Museum called "A History of the World" where the primary aim is to ask
questions about historical objects to see what answers can be found. The
project (although based in the United Kingdom) is also online and one of the
objects listed might be able to answered by our good selves. The object in
question is a ceremonial turtle post.



Now, you are probably saying "All very nice, but I don't quite follow",
however the description of it should make the connection to our good selves
crystal clear.

This is one of a pair of male and female carved wooden turtle posts, of an
unknown date, from the Torres Straits. This turtle post, representing the
smaller female figure, may be the only survivor of a ceremony thought to
celebrate the fertility of people and nature on Dauar Island in the Torres
Strait off the northern tip of Australia. Both posts were brought to Glasgow
in 1889 by Robert Bruce, a Scottish missionary worker and boat builder
living in the Torres Strait Islands with his family. Bruce found the posts
in a cave on Waier, a small, uninhabited island near Dauar. It is thought
that they may have been hidden there around 1871 when the islanders
converted to Christianity and local customs were put aside. A re-enactment
of the ceremony was witnessed and described by the Cambridge anthropologist
Alfred C. Haddon (1855-1940), a friend of Bruce, 17 years after Christianity
was introduced to the islands.

That's right, the same Torres Straits that a certain Prof. Arronax, Conseil
and Mr. Ned Land visited under the supervision of Captain Nemo in 20,000
Leagues under the Sea. So, does this mean that Jules not only knew about the
areas of the world written in his books, but also went there (even to the
opposite ends of the world)?

Received on Mon 18 Jan 2010 - 21:43:30 IST

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