18 Facts About Colin Turnbull

Colin Macmillan Turnbull was a British-American anthropologist who came to public attention with the popular books The Forest People and The Mountain People, and one of the first anthropologists to work in the field of ethnomusicology.

In 1951, after his graduation from Banaras, Colin Turnbull traveled to the Belgian Congo with Newton Beal, a schoolteacher from Ohio he met in India.

An "odd job" Colin Turnbull picked up while in Africa at this time was working for the Hollywood producer Sam Spiegel.

Spiegel hired Colin Turnbull to assist in the construction and transportation of a boat needed for his film.

Colin Turnbull remained in Oxford for two years before another field trip to Africa, finally focusing on the Belgian Congo and Uganda.

Colin Turnbull became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1965, after he moved to New York City to become curator in charge of African Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History in 1959.

Colin Turnbull later resided in Lancaster County, and was on staff in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Virginia Commonwealth University, in Richmond, Virginia.

Colin Turnbull first gained prominence with his book The Forest People, a study of the Mbuti people.

Colin Turnbull described the Ik as driven to a radically selfish condition in which they felt no care or responsibility for anyone else, even their children.

Colin Turnbull's recording of Music of the Rainforest Pygmies, recorded in 1961, was released on CD by Lyrichord Discs.

Colin Turnbull's recording of a Zaire pygmy girls' initiation song was used on the Voyager Golden Record.

Colin Turnbull's partner, Joseph Allen Towles, was born in Senora, Virginia, on 17 August 1937.

Colin Turnbull met Turnbull in 1959 and they exchanged marriage vows the following year.

Late in life Colin Turnbull took up the political cause of death row inmates.

Colin Turnbull donated all their research materials, most of which were the product of his career, to the College of Charleston, insisting that the collection be known under Towles' name alone.

In 1989, Colin Turnbull moved to Bloomington, Indiana, to participate in the building of Tibetan Cultural Center with his friend Thupten Jigme Norbu, elder brother of the 14th Dalai Lama.

Later Colin Turnbull moved to Dharamsala, India where he took the monks' vow of Tibetan Buddhism, given to him by the Dalai Lama.

Bernd Heine, who visited the tribe 20 years after Colin Turnbull, provided new information in a 1985 article that appeared to discredit Colin Turnbull's unflattering portrayal.