The Alienation of Ali: Was Wallace’s Assistant from Sarawak or Ternate?.


 

THE SARAWAK MUSEUM JOURNAL
VOL LXXVI NO.97 DECEMBER 2016

 
 
Title : 
The Alienation of Ali: Was Wallace’s Assistant from Sarawak or Ternate?.

Author : 
Jerry Drawhorn

Abstract:
One hundred and sixty years ago (December-January 1855) British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and his teenage assistant Charles Allen spent New Year Eve at Rajah James Brooke’s mountain cottage on Gunung Peninjau in Sarawak. It was a melancholy holiday. Allen has just announced his decision to remain in Sarawak and train as a teacher in the Anglican mission school, and this left Wallace in something of a bind. A skilled collecting assistant would be essential in Wallace’s future destinations of the Moluccas and Papua, where he could potentially collect less common insect species and the rare and valuable Bird-of-Paradise. Although he had regularly upbraided Allen for his carelessness and laziness he now lacked a trained assistant for his subsequent journey1. Fortunately for Wallace they took along Ali, a Malay cook of about 15 years ofage to the mountain retreat. Ali would eventually accompany Wallace for almost his entire trip into the Dutch-controlled portion of the Malay Archipelago.

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61507/smj22-2016-991Z-07


How to cite:
Jerry Drawhorn. (2016). The Alienation of Ali: Was Wallace’s Assistant from Sarawak or Ternate?. The Sarawak Museum Journal, LXXVI (97) : 165-200

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