FURNESS, William Henry.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Home-Life of Borneo Headhunters. First edition, limited issue, one of 500 copies illustrated with photogravures. This attractive work is one of the earliest western anthropological accounts of Kayans and Kenyahs of the Baram district of Sarawak. This is a particularly well-preserved copy. William Henry Furness III (1866-1920) was a Philadelphian physician, amateur anthropologist, and intrepid traveller. He undertook several expeditions to Asia to collect ethnological objects and natural history specimens for the University of Pennsylvania Museum. From 1895 to 1903, Furness travelled around the world twice and visited more than twenty countries, including India, Japan, China, Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Russia. He was accompanied by the explorer Alfred C. Harrison, Jr, and the physician Hiram M. Hiller.Furness later attempted to teach great apes to speak. He became interested in orangutans during his time in Borneo, and acquired one of the apes and two chimpanzees in 1909. The "apt orangutan pupil learned to say 'papa' after six months of training", and later learned to say "cup". For five years he "tried to teach his chimpanzee to say 'cup' but he had no luck doing so. His conclusion: 'On the whole, I should say that the orang holds out more promise as a conversationalist than does the chimpanzee; it is more patient, less excitable, and seems to take instruction more kindly'" (Hillix, p. 54).

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