An intelligent biography of a quixotic American who spent his life
among the villagers and pygmies of the Ituri Forest in the Belgian
Congo (now Zaire). Scion of a long line of Boston Brahmins, Patrick
Tracy Lowell Putnam (1904-1953) first became attracted to Africa
during his undergraduate days at Harvard; the spell lasted through
25 years, one world war, three American wives, and a handful of
African ones. Heedless of the dangers posed by his adopted country,
repeatedly bailed out by his father, Putnam was an odd combination
of dilettante and expert. His knowledge of pygmy culture and
lifestyle was encyclopedic, but he never managed to publish
anything more substantial than a New Yorker article. After stints
as an explorer and agent sanitaire for the Congo Red Cross, he
settled on the Epulu River and established Camp Putnam with his
first American wife. He imagined an African "dude-plantation,"
where visitors could enjoy the luxuries of civilization while
hunting, observing pygmy demonstrations, and photographing exotic
wildlife in the middle of the jungle. Eventually the camp,
including a medical clinic, became a small village of workers and
two pygmy bands, a peculiar hybrid utopia under Putnam's benevolent
dictatorship. His specialized knowledge was sought by many, but he
never found the discipline to become a leader in his field. A
degenerative lung disease tied him to a wheelchair, and in the last
years of his life he became a frightening tyrant in his little
kingdom. Mark (History of Anthropology/Peabody Museum, Harvard
Univ.; A Stranger in Her Native Land, 1989) illuminates the bizarre
life of a man whose career stretched from the days of gentleman
ethnographers to the eve of independence in colonial Africa. One of
those rare books that may send you to the library for more on the
subject. (Kirkus Reviews)
Joan Mark offers an interpretive biography of Patrick Tracy Lowell
Putnam (1904-53), who spent twenty-five years living among the
Bambuti pygmies of the Ituri Forest in what is now Zaire. On the
Epulu River he constructed Camp Putnam as a harmonious multiracial
community. He modeled his camp on the "dude ranches" of the
American West, taking in paying guests while running a medical
clinic and occasionally offering legal aid to the local people, and
assumed the role of intermediary between locals and visitors,
including Colin M. Turnbull, author of the classic "Forest People."
Mark describes Putnam's mercurial relations with family and with
his African and American wives--and follows him to his sad and
violent end. She places Patrick Putnam within the context of three
different anthropological traditions and examines his contribution
as an expert on pygmies.
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