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Abstract
This article explores the ways in which early modern knowledge of the Malay world informed European science, through a case study of the classification of humans in the work of the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus. In the 1758 edition of his Systema Naturae, Linnaeus proposed an entirely new species of human, Homo troglodytes, a counterpoint to Homo sapiens, said to be a resident of the Malay world. Whereas this ‘different’ species has hitherto been seen through Linnaeus’ application of his own taxonomic principles, and has also been dismissed as a product of an uncritical reliance on ‘travel lies’ of the day, this article takes the Homo troglodytes back to his assumed natural habitat. Through a detailed examination of Linnaeus’ sources and the genealogies of European writing on the Malay world in the 18th century a complex picture emerges, framed by local folklore and an early modern ‘ethnography of difference’. Crucially, it is suggested that information about the Malay world available to Linnaeus was ultimately generated by the unique ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity of the region, in particular the ambivalent relationships between the ethnically different peoples of the coast and interior, a longstanding theme in Southeast Asian history. The figure of the troglodyte then becomes a powerful interlocutor between interpretations of the diversity of the Malay world that served to shape not only natural history, but also Enlightenment debates on the relationship between man and beast.
Notes
1It has, for example, been suggested that Jean-Jacques Rousseau's idea of ‘natural man’ presented in his Discours sur l'inégalité in fact was a description of an orang-utan (Wokler Citation1978).
2While not acknowledged in Keevak (Citation2011), Linnaeus’ description of the Asian variety may well have been based on information about China which at this time flowed into Sweden via the Swedish East India Company.
3A third species Homo ferus (wild man), described as mute and hairy was based on a few individual cases of people found living in isolation in European forests.
4Linnaeus often dictated his dissertations in Swedish, after which they were translated into Latin. The original manuscript is kept in the archives of the Linnaean Society, London. Another treatise, entitled ‘De Troglodytes’, was referred to by Linnaeus in correspondence, but is now lost (Broberg Citation1975: 179).
5This section will only present the text of the dissertation, whereas a further elaboration on the sources will follow below.
6Dalin had based this on Count Buffon's description of an African albino.
7This refers to Rumpf's manuscript ‘Amboinsch Dierboek’ which was never published and is still lost.
8This was clearly based on an earlier woodcut of a primate, published by Gesner.
9This seems to refer to either Sambas or Sukadana in west Borneo where the Dutch had factories at this time.
10See, for example, Jacob Wallenberg (Citation1979: 183) for a Swedish account of Java in the 1780s.
11This figure was copied from the illustration accompanying Beeckman (Citation1973). The ‘hooded serpent’ of Java was described in a well known travel account by the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Taveriner.
12Linnaues had also used Köping's account in an unpublished lecture from 1753, where he described Simia sapiens (the first time the term sapiens was used), a species of ape who could play backgammon and keep watch over his fellow apes during the night to protect them from tigers (Broberg Citation1983: 176).
13The ruler of Bantam also told de Bruyn that he was the first European to be invited to the inner court.
14See Jeremy Franks (Citation1997).
15Braad, ‘Curriculum vitae’, Royal Library, Stockholm.
16Four short letters from Linneaeus to Braad have survived. These are all dated 1763 and reveal that the two were by then personally acquainted.
17See also Wokler (Citation1988: 145–68); Barnard (Citation1995: 71–82); Cloyd (Citation1972); Sherwin (Citation1958).
18Except for Monboddo's published letter to Linnaeus no other correspondence between the two is known.
19Braad is quoted saying ‘Vixit in Malacca, siquis alius vir gravis, candidus, et sincerus, vidit hominem nocturnum, et descripsit in familiari colloquio; omnia quae ego novi antea ita sincere, ut de ejus side dubitare nequeam, mihi retulit’.
20‘Beskrifning På Skeppet Götha Leyons Till Surat och Åtskillige Andre Indianske Orter. Uppsatt och i ödmiukhet öfwerlemnad Till Höglofda Swenska Ostindiska Compagniet af Christ: Hind: Braad’ is in the archive of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm.
21For a detailed examination of this relationship, see Andaya (Citation2008: chapter 7).
22This account was published in English in Philosophical Transactions in 1799.
23Now Tharangambadi in India.
24See, for example Purchas (Citation1905, II: 203; Eisler (Citation1995: 48–9, 76).
25Marsden to Stamford Raffles, undated, Raffles Collection, Mss Eur. 742/2, OIOC, London. In it, Marsden suggested that curly hair occurred only in people who did not oil their hair like the Malays, but he also thought that the frizzy hair of some Sumatrans might be just an occasional occurrence, comparable to some Europeans having curly hair.
Additional information
Christina Skott is Fellow, Tutor and Director of Studies in History at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and an Affiliated Lecturer of the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on Europe's relationship with Asia and European expansion in the Malay world in the early modern era and long eighteenth century.