Figi Cannibals.

Lots of photos of Fijians bought by P.T. Barnum to display as freaks in his sideshow exhibits at his American circus have come to light.  It's all news to us and causing a bit of outrage but I really don't want to go there.

Instead let me show you one of the photos that I find interesting on so many levels:

Barnum's advertising poster.

First off, "Ra Bian, the Dwarf". If you look closely, he isn't a dwarf; he's a perfectly formed man only with midget proportions. He makes me intensely curious because there's always been legends of a tribe of non-Fijian pygmies up in Vanua Levu, there before Fijians first arrived but so deadly Fijians quickly learned to be frightened of them and leave them alone.

When they first discovered Homo Flores in Indonesia, I started thinking about Fiji's pygmy legends because it's all very "Mmmmmm!" isn't it.  However, they were so amazed at these little people reaching as far as Indonesia, I think it'll blow the tops of their heads off to consider they ever ended up as far away from Indonesia as Fiji. (Btw, did you know there are also pygmy tribes in North Queensland who were already there when the Murri Aboriginals arrived, purportedly between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago.)

So this image above of Ra Bian opens up so much speculation.  Where did the Blackbirders who originally kidnapped him find him? Is he one of the mythical Veli Lekas of Natewa Bay? But much more importantly, what did P.T. Barnum do with his remains?  It would be so interesting to examine them, wouldn't it?

And the second thing I find interesting about this photo is that they've all got names.  Back in those days, photos of natives were usually just labeled "Natives of Wherever".  When the Queen visited Fiji in 1953, she bought gifts of drawings and photos of "Natives of Fiji" that she'd had hunted up in all the museums, universities and ethography centres in England and Europe. These were given as gifts to the descendents of those "Natives" (a smart move considering those 19th century explorers and ethnographers usually took photos or sketches of only the highest ranking chiefs because their clothes were more strange and magnificent.) However the Queen's historians had a worst task beforehand identifying who the photos and drawings were of because ALL the records just said "Native of Fiji."  No names anywhere in the records.  But they did it - usually by working out where the sketches and/or photos were taken and who would be the most logical person to be in that shot - so great kudos to them.

But here, in this poster advertising P.T. Barnum's Circus, these "Natives of Fiji" all have names, almost unheard of back in those days. 

So, OK, yeah, Fiji's damned annoyed that some of our own were kidnapped, sold off and put into a freak-show in America and I understand where that annoyance is coming from, but I think we should also acknowledge a certain level of enlightenment at work here.  Sure, they may be freaks ... but they were freaks who were seen as individuals, so kudos of a kind to P.T. Barnum.