Alfred Russell Wallace spent several years in the 1850s and 1860s killing and collecting specimens in what is now Indonesia and Malaysia for natural-history collections in Europe. In this classic account, he describes and discusses the plants and animals that he finds, how he came upon them, and aspects of their context, and he relates distribution of species to his musings on geology and to the theory of natural selection, which he developed simultaneously to Charles Darwin. In addition, Wallace expresses his fascination with the local “races,” which he categorizes in a high-handed fashion, and with their technologies, which he describes in appreciative detail. Finally, he relates his own adventures, which are numerous, and procedures, which are interesting. Drawings illustrate much of the text. In present-day terms, this long, detailed classic reads much like a magnificent blog.
Here are a few comments:
- These were the ‘bad old days’ when a naturalist could assume that the reader will cheer for him as he kills, among other animals, orangutans. He bags quite a few and seems bemused by their attempts to save themselves or their babies. He tries to raise an infant orangutan but ends up starving it to death.
- His discussion of human “races” contains some classic terminology from Social Darwinist, unilineal evolution. I particularly recommend, in this regard, p. 194. By today’s standards (and some people’s standards then) his text is rife with racism. Interestingly, at the very end he turns the tables, and, rather than saying that “barbarians” and “savages” have much to recommend them, he criticizes European society as being even worse in some respects.
- Perhaps the greatest revelation for me was the amount of interconnection that Wallace unwittingly demonstrates among different societies. Some of these groups he paints as being isolated, yet all of them – including some in the interior jungles of small islands with no permanent European settlement – appear to be involved in trade that brings European and South Asian products. Their languages have words adopted from Portuguese, and at least one group even has important stories that Wallace believes result from Portuguese domination. It’s a great example of how there was no truly isolated group, even 150 years ago.
- Wallace’s appreciation of local technologies, foods, and materials is infectious. He is a wonderful promoter of, for example, bamboo, durian, and locally produced bridges and boats.
- He mentions a bird called a “goat-sucker.” In Spanish this would translate to chupacabras, a research interest of mine.
- Wallace speculates at length about how various islands could have constituted a single landmass in the past. Generally, he credits subsidence due to volcanic activity for the current lack of connection. At no point does he consider that the sea level might have fallen due to an ice age. I wonder when that became accepted as fact among scientists.
Indonesian observations 