W H R R

W H R Rivers (or Captain Rivers during his Army experience) will be a familiar figure to readers of Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy – Regeneration, The Eye In the Door, and The Ghost Road.  As Barker makes clear throughout, Rivers is a real character, a psychologist and clinician of distinction; in the third novel, it becomes clear that he is first and foremost an ethnologist, specialising in the tribal societies of the Solomon Islands.  I thoughtthe Rivers passages by far the most interesting parts of the three novels, with brilliant dialogue between him and his patients, and compelling and intense descriptions of his Solomon Islands experience illuminating the savagery and psychological disturbances of the First War, so I borrowed Richard Slobodin’s 1978 biography of him (simply called W. H. R. Rivers), which is fascinating reading (though, as a contribution to the Columbia University Press’s Leaders of Modern Anthropology Series, it clearly focuses more on that part of his life than on others).

Frankly, in itself, it's not an exciting read, but Rivers is quite a man and the book (just republished) is well worth a look.  He's older than I thought from the novels, he was born in 1864, so was already 50 when the First World War started, and he began to treat nervous patients - which, no doubt, accounts for the wisdom, tolerance and humanity that comes across so well in the Barker novels.  He died in 1922, at St John's College, Cambridge, an extremely popular man, but one who never married, and indeed, as far as Slobodin can find out, never had much of an emotional life of any sort.  He was a pioneering medic, interested in psychology and psychiatry, but also becoming a major figure in ethnology and social studies.  One of his great interests was in the nature of perception of feeling  how you feel pain - such as a pinprick - and how accurately if you can't see it being applied - very relevant to an extended scene in The Ghost Road.

He was particularly noted for his accounts of the Solomon Islanders - his The Funeral of Sinerani, an account for a Cambridge University magazine is reprinted in full in Slobodin, and is a marvellous account of the funeral of a very young girl, who had to be "married" to a three year old boy before she could be cremated - and shows the practical nature of these people, adapting and forcing the ritual as they went along.  It is briefly described, too, in his most famous ethnological work, The Todas, and here's a flavour:

The child was about two years old and had not yet been betrothed, but as soon as she was dead it was arranged that she should marry her a little boy about four years of age, the son of her mother's brother, and this boy occupied a prominent position among those taking part in the funeral rites. Owing to the marriage of the dead child to this boy, the dead child would come to be one of his clan, the Keadrol, and there seemed to be no doubt that, according to strict custom, the

funeral should have been held at the funeral place of this clan.

Kuriolv, however, arranged that the funeral should take place

at Kurkalmut, the funeral place for women of the Kuudrol,

but as the girl did not properly belong to this clan the funeral

hut was not erected within the circle of stones at this place,

but outside it.

… the buffalo which had been caught by the Taradr men was

being taken to the place appointed for its slaughter by the

side of the funeral hut. The people had great difficulty in

making the buffalo move, and at last it lay down on a boggy

piece of ground, and the efforts of all failed to make it go

further. The diviners, Midjkudr and Mongudrvan, were then

called upon to ascertain the cause of the obstinacy of the

buffalo … the buffalo was thus family property, it should go to the sons, and ought not to be killed for a daughter.

Then after being swung over the flames as usual, the body was placed

on the pyre. [There then should be a “dry funeral” a couple of weeks later. But …] Less than half an hour later, and long before the body could have been consumed, the tnarvainolkedr began, and passed

off without any special incident. Another buffalo was caught

and killed and laid by the side of a mantle containing hair

which had been cut from the head of the dead child by

Keinba. The mantle should also have contained a piece of

skull, but the body had not been sufficiently consumed to

procure this, and so the hair alone was held to be sufficient.

By the way, his full name was William Halse Rivers Rivers.  Why the double Rivers -no one knows, maybe just an error by the registrar!

 

Comments

[Dark Puss]

I am working at CERN at the moment. I am regularly reading Lindsay's posts, but have not had much to say about them sadly. This is not a reflection on the content or style of the posts of course!

[glo]

Speaking of WWI, do you know, or have you already heard of a series of books written by Ann Perry about the story and antics of a British family during the First World War?
The titles of the books are:
No Graves As Yet
Shoulder the Sky
Angels in the Gloom
At some Disputed Barricade
We shall not sleep
I have come across these books on bookstores shelves several times. And I was decided to buy the first novel and read it, but each time the first novel was missing. Apparently, most people decided to read the first novel, but then they never came back to buy the second one - at least, that's what I am telling myself.
From what I recall, Ann Perry is a London-born novelist, she is still alive and lives now in Scotland. And she has written a lot of thrillers who take place during the Victorian era.

But now, last but not least: the blog has gone dramatically miaowless and whiskerless lately... any news from our favourite cat?