Nikolay Miklouho-Maclay was born on July 17 (5), 1846 in the family of a railway engineer. Place of birth - the village of Yazykovo-Rozhdestvenskoe, Borovichi district, Novgorod province.
The hereditary nobility for the family was earned by the Zaporozhye Cossack Stepan Miklukha, who distinguished himself in the capture of Ochakov. In 1858, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where Nikolai continued his studies at the Second St. Petersburg gymnasium. Without graduating from high school, Miklouho-Maclay became a volunteer at the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University.
The study did not last long. Miklouho-Maclay, an active participant in student unrest, was expelled from the university without the right to enroll in others. The student community supported the disgraced comrade. The money was collected, with which he went to the University of Heidelberg in Germany, where he continued his studies - at the Faculty of Philosophy. He soon transferred to the Faculty of Medicine at Leipzig and then at the University of Jena. Here he met the famous zoologist E. Haeckel, with whom he traveled to the Canary Islands and Morocco as an assistant. After graduating from the university, Nikolai Nikolayevich made an independent journey along the coast of the Red Sea and in 1869 returned to his homeland.
Here Nikolai Nikolayevich turned to an active study of natural science, anthropology, ethnography and geography, and the next page in the biography of Miklouho-Maclay becomes a long journey, which he set off on in 1870. On the warship Vityaz, he reached New Guinea. Here, among the aborigines (Papuans), he spent two years studying their way of life, customs, and religious rites. Later, he continued his observations in the Philippines, Indonesia, the Malacca Peninsula and the islands of Oceania.
In 1876-1877, he returned to the already explored shores of northeastern New Guinea. Poor health and general exhaustion forced him to leave the island and go to Singapore. The treatment lasted six months. There were no funds to return to Russia, and he moved to Australia, where at one time he lived with the Russian vice-consul.
Then he moved to a public figure, zoologist and chairman of the Linnaean Society of New South Wales W. McLay. With his help, Miklouho-Maclay's proposal was implemented - the construction of the Australian Zoological Station, which later became known as the Marine Biological Station.
In 1879-1880 he was a member of an expedition to the islands of Melanesia and again returned to his "native" places of New Guinea.
In 1882 Miklouho-Maclay returned to Russia. His plans included the construction of a Russian station and a Russian settlement in New Guinea, but no one supported them. The audience with the Emperor Alexander III also ended with little result. True, a little help was still provided: debts were paid off and funds were allocated for further research and the publication of scientific papers.
In 1883, Nikolai Nikolayevich returned to Australia, where he married Margarita Robertson, the daughter of a large landowner.
In 1886, the scientist came to Russia again and proposed to the emperor the "Maclay Coast Development Project" in order to counteract the colonization of the island by Germany. A positive decision on this project was never made.
On April 2 (14), 1888, the great Russian scientist died at the Willie clinic in St. Petersburg. The worn-out body could not cope with the aggravated diseases.
After the death of Nikolai Nikolaevich, his wife and children returned to Australia. Until 1917, as a sign of the scientist's high merits, they received a pension, which was paid from the personal money of Alexander III and Nicholas II.
In 1996, in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Miklouho-Maclay, UNESCO named him a Citizen of the World.
Nikolay Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay
Russian ethnographer. Studied the indigenous population of Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania (1870-1880s), including the Papuans of the northeastern coast of New Guinea (now the Miklouho-Maclay Coast). Opposed racism.
Miklouho-Maclay was born into the family of an engineer in the village of Rozhdestvenskoye, near the town of Borovichi, Novgorod province. Nikolai was eleven years old when his father died, leaving the family in poverty. The boy was sent to school, and then to the Second State Gymnasium in St. Petersburg.
In 1863 he entered the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University as a volunteer. At the beginning of 1864, Nikolai was expelled from the university for participating in student gatherings without the right to enter other higher educational institutions in Russia. Miklouho-Maclay went to Germany. For two years he attended lectures at the Faculty of Philosophy of the famous Heidelberg University in Germany, then studied medicine in Leipzig and Jena. These were years of strenuous pursuits and dire need. Here Miklouho-Maclay attracted the attention of the famous naturalist Ernst Haeckel, the promoter of Darwin's ideas.
In 1866, Haeckel took a 19-year-old student as an assistant on a great scientific journey.
Madeira, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzerot Island, Morocco, Gibraltar, Spain, Paris and, finally, Jena again - this was the route of Miklouho-Maclay's first trip.
In Jena, he becomes close to another "Darwinist", Dr. Anton Dern, with whom he works on the shores of the Strait of Messina, studying crustaceans, sea sponges and other animals. Having studied the fauna of the Mediterranean Sea, the young scientist went to the shores of the Red Sea.
In March 1869, Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay appeared on the streets of Suez. Like a true Muslim, shaving his head, painting his face and donning the attire of an Arab, Maclay reached the coral reefs of the Red Sea. He was seen in Suakin, Yambo, Jeddah and other places. Then Miklouho-Maclay recalled more than once the dangers he was exposed to. He was sick, starving, and more than once met with gangs of robbers. For the first time in his life, Miklouho-Maclay saw the slave markets flourishing in Suakin and Jeddah.
Miklouho-Maclay walked the lands of Morocco, visited the islands of the Atlantic, wandered around Constantinople, crossed Spain, lived in Italy, studied Germany.
Returning to St. Petersburg, Miklouho-Maclay, under the leadership of Academician Karl Baer, began to study the collection of sea sponges brought by Russian expeditions from the North Pacific Ocean. Miklouho-Maclay was able to establish that all types of sponges of the Bering and Okhotsk seas can be reduced to the same species.
Once the work of Otto Finsch "New Guinea", published in Bremen, fell into the hands of Miklouho-Maclay. In his book, Finsch systematized many other people's observations about the life of a distant and mysterious country.
Gradually, Miklouho-Maclay developed the conviction of the need for a comprehensive study of the Pacific Ocean. He managed to convince the vice-chairman of the Russian Geographical Society, Admiral Fyodor Litke, to obtain permission for him to go to Oceania on the Vityaz corvette. From the funds of the Geographical Society, Miklouho-Maclay was allocated 1,350 rubles. And at least five thousand were needed. To collect the required amount, his mother, Ekaterina Semyonovna, sold securities, pawned things.
In the article "Why did I choose New Guinea?" (it was published posthumously) Miklouho-Maclay wrote "that it is on this little-studied island that primitive people are least affected by the influence of civilization and this opens up exceptional opportunities for anthropological and ethnographic research."
The Vityaz corvette of the Russian navy left Kronstadt at the end of October 1870. Miklouho-Maclay was supposed to step on his deck in one of the big ports, but in the meantime he set off on a trip to Europe. He visited museums, got acquainted with scientists. The young zoologist was proud to learn that his works were known to his new friends and acquaintances. Not long before that, his report on the study of the Pacific sponges was published in the Notes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Miklouho-Maclay's work on comparative anatomy, The Brain of Vertebrates, was published in Leipzig.
In London, he met with the famous biologist and traveler Thomas Huxley, who had once studied New Guinea. Huxley put forward the assumption about the common origin of the Indonesians and the ancient inhabitants of Europe.
While sailing on a corvette, Miklouho-Maclay crossed the Atlantic Ocean, visited Brazil, Chile, some of the archipelagos of Polynesia and Melanesia. Everywhere the young scientist observed, collected materials, made scientific excursions.
On September 20, 1871, Miklouho-Maclay landed on the shores of the Astrolabe Bay, near the village of Bonga, on the northeastern coast of New Guinea. The tribes and villages were disunited here and were constantly at odds with each other; every stranger, white or black, was considered an unwelcome guest.
Miklouho-Maclay was the first to go down into the boat, followed by his servants - the Swede whaler Ulsen and the young Polynesian Boy.
Miklouho-Maclay came to the village along a path in a wild forest. It was empty. But near the village in dense bushes Miklouho-Maclay noticed the first Papuan Tui, frozen with horror Miklouho-Maclay took him by the hand and led him to the village. Soon, eight Papuan warriors with tortoise-shell earrings in their ears, with stone axes in swarthy hands, hung with woven bracelets, crowded around the foreigner. The Russian guest generously presented the Papuans with various trinkets. Towards evening he returned to the ship, and the officers of the "Vityaz" sighed with relief: so far the "savages" had not eaten Nikolai Nikolayevich.
The next time Miklouho-Maclay went ashore again, Tui went out to meet the guest. This is how the first rapprochement of the traveler with the terrible "cannibals" took place. On the bank of the stream, by the sea, sailors and ship carpenters cut down the first Russian house in New Guinea - the house of Maclay.
Scientists-officers from the "Vityaz" conducted a topographic survey of the area.
The Vityaz continued to sail, while Miklouho-Maclay, Ulsen and Boy remained on the shores of New Guinea.
Before going to the village of Gorendu for the first time, Miklouho-Maclay hesitated for a long time whether to take a revolver with him. In the end, he left the weapon in the hut, taking only gifts and a notebook. The Papuans were not very welcoming to the white man. They shot arrows over the stranger's ear, brandished their spears in front of his face. Miklouho-Maclay sat down on the ground, calmly untied the laces of his shoes and ... went to bed. He forced himself to sleep. When, waking up, Miklouho-Maclay raised his head, he saw with triumph that the Papuans were peacefully sitting around him. Bows and spears were hidden. The Papuans watched in amazement as the white man leisurely tightened the laces of his boots. He went home, pretending that nothing had happened, and that nothing could have happened. The Papuans decided that since the white man is not afraid of death, he is immortal. “Papuans from different coastal and mountain villages,” wrote Miklouho-Maclay, “visited my hut almost every day, as the rumor about my stay spread further and further. weapons, which I had not shown them until that time, so as not to increase their suspicion and remove them even more from me, and, assuming great treasures in my hut, they began to threaten to kill me. attention to them ... More than once they made fun of them, firing arrows so that the latter flew very close near my face and chest, put their heavy spears around my head and neck, and even sometimes without ceremony stuck the spearhead into my mouth or unclenched their teeth. went everywhere unarmed, and indifferent silence and complete indifference to others were the answer to all these courtesies of the Papuans. I soon realized that my extreme helplessness in the mind of hundreds, even thousands of people I was my main weapon. "
The scientist got up at dawn, washed himself with spring water, then drank tea. The working day began by observing the tidal wave of the ocean, measuring the temperature of water and air, and making entries in the diary. About noon Miklouho-Maclay went to breakfast, and then went to the seashore or to the forest to collect collections.
Miklouho-Maclay entered the huts of the Papuans, treated them, talked with them (he mastered the local language very quickly), gave them all kinds of advice, very useful and necessary. And a few months later, residents of nearby and distant villages fell in love with Miklouho-Maclay. He became a welcome guest everywhere, which gave him the opportunity to conduct various ethnographic and anthropological observations. As a result, Miklouho-Maclay got acquainted with the life, customs, economy, culture and everyday life of the Papuans. Based on these observations, Miklouho-Maclay made the greatest discovery - he discovered the people of New Guinea.
Friendship with the Papuans grew stronger. More and more often Miklouho-Maclay heard the words "Tamo-Rus", as the Papuans called him among themselves. "Tamo-rus" meant "Russian man". There were days when up to 40-50 people visited Miklouho-Maclay. Exchange became commonplace. Miklouho-Maclay soon noticed that the Papuans valued first of all those objects new to them, from which they could immediately derive direct benefit. They rather quickly adapted the bottle glass for shaving to replace the not so sharp shards of silicon.
Miklouho-Maclay sacredly honored and respected the customs of his neighbors. The number of friends grew rapidly. Tui introduced him to his son Bonham. Then a villager from the village of Bongu, named Bugai, made friends with Miklouho-Maclay. It was he who launched a rumor all over the coast that Miklouho-Maclay was not only "Tamo-rus", but also "Karaan-tamo" - "man from the moon" or "lunar man". The traveler received in his hut natives from the island of Vityaz (Bili-Bili) and from the small island of Yambomba.
Once Miklouho-Maclay was informed that a tree fell on Tui and severely wounded him in the head. "Tamo-rus" healed his friend. Tui made a feast in honor of the Russian guest and even wished to exchange names with him. The same thing happened once on the island of Vityaz, where an acquaintance with the influential native Cain took place.
Having gained access to the villages, Miklouho-Maclay began to collect a collection of Papuan skulls. The Papuans usually threw the skulls of their relatives into the bushes near the huts, but the lower jaw was sacredly protected by the hut suspended from the ceiling. For a long time, the scientist was unable to find a whole skull.
For over a year the Russian traveler lived in a hut on the ocean shore. The patient, often hungry, he managed to do a lot: he planted seeds of useful plants in the land of New Guinea and raised pumpkins from Tahiti, beans, and corn. Fruit trees have taken root near his hut. Many Papuans themselves came to his garden for seeds.
Miklouho-Maclay collected a collection of hair samples from the Papuans and, in order not to offend them, cut off strands of his thick wavy hair and exchanged them for tufts of black hair of the Papuans. Thanks to this, they willingly let Miklouho-Maclay not only cut his hair, but at the same time take anthropometric measurements. Miklouho-Maclay found that the hair of the Papuans is no different from the hair of the Europeans.
The traveler compiled a dictionary of Papuan dialects and found signs carved on trees in the area of the mountain village of Tengum-Mana. Miklouho-Maclay decided that there were rudiments of writing among the Papuans. "Tamo-Rus" has accumulated invaluable observations about the art and crafts of the Papuans. Here he wrote "Anthropological Notes on the Papuans of the Maclay Coast in New Guinea".
Miklouho-Maclay saved Papuan Saul from death, witnessed the birth and funeral of the Papuans, sat as an honored guest at banquets. He delved into the inconsolable grief of the woman Kolol, who mourned the dead pig, which she once nursed with her breast, as was often the case here. The Papuans believed that if he wanted to, he was able to stop the rain, and if he got angry, he could set the sea on fire. Once a traveler specially played a trick on the natives - he poured some water into a saucer with alcohol and lit the alcohol. The stories of this and similar miracles passed from village to village, overcoming language and tribal barriers.
"I am ready to stay on this shore for several years," he wrote in his diary.
Around the Bay of Astrolabe, in the surrounding mountains, at least three to four thousand Papuans lived. Miklouho-Maclay, by right of a discoverer, eagerly studied the country. He already knew well the roads to the villages of Bongu, Malo, Bogatim, Gorima, Gumbu, Rai, Karagum. He climbed the mountains, swam along the bays, discovered an unknown river, which Tui pointed out to him. Miklouho-Maclay sailed with Cain to the island of Tiar and mapped the Contented People archipelago and the vast strait. He discovered a new kind of sugar banana, valuable fruit and oil plants His notebooks were full of notes, notes and drawings, including many portraits of his Papuan friends Diseases, hunger strikes, snakes crawling on the writing table, tremors shaking the hut - nothing could interfere with Miklouho-Maclay in his great work.
In December 1872, the Russian clipper Emerald entered the Astrolabe Bay under the command of Kumani. The Papuans conducted "Tamo-Rus" with the roar of barums - long Papuan drums.
During the voyage on the "Izumrud" Miklouho-Maclay got the opportunity to study the peoples of the Moluccas. He makes short excursions to Minahasa on the island of Celebes (Sulawesi), visited Tidore, the capital of one of the sultans on the island of the same name.
Taking advantage of the "Emerald" call in Manila, the traveler on March 22, 1873, together with a guide, sails in a fisherman's boat across the vast Manila Bay. After spending the night in the village, he goes to the Limayskie Mountains and at the edge of a forest clearing he finds inclined palm shields. Under them, wandering black Negritos were hiding from the heat or bad weather, the mystery of whose origin had not yet been solved by scientists. Their height did not exceed 1 meter 44 centimeters. No wonder they were called "negritos", in Spanish - "little blacks".
Miklouho-Maclay spent more than two days among the wandering people. The negritos gave the guest a palm shield, and he sheltered himself at night with this canopy. By affection and persuasion Miklouho-Maclay made sure that the Negritos allowed measurements of their heads. The natives even allowed a foreigner to dig up a skull from a grave in the mountains near the village of Pilar.
Miklouho-Maclay was touched by the fate of the downtrodden black people. Driven by the Malays into the depths of forests and mountains, they wandered through the wilds, deprived of food and shelter. But these little people took care of children, the elderly, and the sick. Here, in the Philippines, Miklouho-Maclay made a major new discovery: Negritos are not Negroes at all. The custom, language and other signs indisputably indicated their relationship with the Papuans.
In the second half of May 1873, Miklouho-Maclay was already in Java. The Emerald is gone, but the scientist remains. However, a tropical fever was raging in Batavia (now Jakarta), so the traveler moved to Byuytenzorg (now Bogor), located quite high in the mountains, in a relatively healthy and cool area. Colonial newspapers wrote about him. Mr. James Loudon, Governor General of the Netherlands India, invited the Russian scientist to his residence in the vicinity of Beitensorg.
Loudon did everything so that Miklouho-Maclay could rest and work on the Beitensorg Hill. The palace of the Javanese governor was located in the center of the famous Botanical Garden. Miklouho-Maclay spent seven months here. Having written several articles about his first stay on the Maclay Coast, the researcher began to prepare for a new campaign. This time, he intended to penetrate the coast of Papua Koviai, in the southwest of New Guinea. The Malays unanimously assured that the inhabitants of the coast of Papua Koviai were the most terrible cannibals and robbers.
In December 1873 Miklouho-Maclay arrived in the city of Amboina (now Ambon, Moluccas), located on the island of the same name. The capital of the "clove kingdom" was famous all over the world as a place for the extraction of expensive spices. Miklouho-Maclay watched the local residents here with enthusiasm. They were a mixture of Malays with Alfurs, Arabs, Chinese and Dutch.
Maclay sailed from the Moluccas in a large sea boat "Urumbai", with a crew of sixteen, and soon reached the coast of Papua Koviai. Here he discovered the straits of Helena and Sofia, explored the area and made significant corrections to the old maps of the coast. For several days he sailed between small islands in narrow straits in search of a convenient place to establish a base. Miklouho-Maclay built a hut in a beautiful place on Cape Aiva. From here there was a magnificent view of the sea, the islets of Aydum and Mavara. On March 8, 1874, he wrote in his diary: "At last I can say that I am again a resident of New Guinea."
Miklouho-Maclay fearlessly moved into the depths of New Guinea, climbed a high mountain range and saw Kamaka-Vallar lake below. In the waters of Lake Miklouho-Maclay, he discovered a new type of sponges, collected a collection of shells. Near the islands of Kayu-Mera and Dramai, a cape was discovered, which received the name of Laudon. On the island of Lakakhia Miklouho-Maclay found outcrops of coal. In Telok-Kiruru Bay, the traveler was almost attacked by hostile natives.
On the island of Aidum Miklouho-Maclay discovered a curious species of kangaroo. The animal had strong claws. The kangaroo did not jump like its Australian counterparts, but climbed trees, where he spent most of his time.
The expedition to the coast of Koviai ended with a severe illness that put the traveler to bed for almost a month and forced him to abandon sailing to the islands closest to New Guinea and return to Java.
In June 1874, the commander of the British warship "Basilisk" John Moresby visited Miklouho-Maclay at the hospital in Amboina and presented the patient with a map of the route traversed by the "Basilisk" along the northeastern edge of New Guinea. The Maclay Coast was on it.
In August 1874, the traveler returns to Byuytenzorg to travel around the Malacca Peninsula at the end of the year. Having enlisted the support of the Maharaja of Johor, he moved up the Muar River. Mysterious tribes living inside the Malacca Peninsula, the natives call "oran-utan", that is, "man of the forest." Miklouho-Maclay went to look for the wild orans.
Miklouho-Maclay met the first "Oran-utans" in the forests, on the upper reaches of the Palon River. Shy, short, black people spent their nights in the trees. All their belongings consisted of rags on their thighs and a knife. They roamed the wild forests, named their children after trees, and obtained camphor, which they exchanged with the Malays for knives and cloth. And they did not resemble the Malays in any way, they resembled the Negritos of the Philippines in growth, and the appearance of the Papuans of New Guinea. Miklouho-Maclay made the habitat of the Melanesians of Malacca the property of science, studied their appearance, way of life, beliefs and language.
The travelers spent fifty days in the wilds of Johor. Miklouho-Maclay's caravan scared away herds of wild boars. The mouths of the rivers were swarming with crocodiles. I had to walk waist-deep in water or sail in a boat through flooded forests, between huge stumps, fallen tree trunks and strong vines. Huge snakes often crossed the road to Miklouho-Maclay. He wrote his notes by the light of torches, ate wild lemons, slept in the dwellings of "Oran-utans." He managed to open hot springs, inspect old tin mines on the Ni-Dao River, collect samples of mysterious poisons from plant juices and snake teeth, with which the orans poisoned their arrows.
The channels of the Sombron and Indao rivers brought Miklouho-Maclay to the seashore. From the mouth of the Indao, he turned south and reached the familiar strait between Malacca and Singapore. In February 1875, he reappeared in the palace of the Maharaja of Johor. Miklouho-Maclay was shaking with fever, he could hardly overcome his weakness, but he talked about a new campaign into the depths of Malacca.
In July-October of the same year, he made a second trip to the Malacca Peninsula. But before that, the powerful governor of the British "Colony of the Straits and Singapore" Sir Andrew Clark kindly invited Miklouho-Maclay to Bangkok - to relax on the Pluto ship, to get acquainted with the Siamese (Thai) capital. The Russian traveler looked with curiosity at the Wat Cheng pagoda, corrals for royal elephants, the Xetufon temple, where the footprint of the Buddha was shown, the floating city on the Menam River, markets. Back in Singapore, he was a guest of the Russian Vice-Consul Wampoa and lived in a comfortable house in his garden.
The second journey began from Johor. The route was difficult. Porters, rowers, guides changed regularly. Reaching the capital of Pahang, the seaside town of Pekan, Miklouho-Maclay moved to the tropical forests of the Kelantan principality, where no white man had ever been before him. Miklouho-Maclay traveled by raft, boat, cart, sometimes on elephants, but more on foot. He walked up to forty kilometers a day. To the north of the rapids of the Pahang River, he saw the chain of the highest mountains of Malacca with the peak of Gunu-Tahan.
In the mountain gorges between the countries of Terengganu, Kelantan and Pahang Miklouho-Maclay made a remarkable discovery. Here he found the Melanesian tribes of Malacca. These were the "people of the forest" - the Oran-Semang and Oran-Sakai tribes. In the natives of Johor Miklouho-Maclay saw the remains of the primitive Melanesian tribes that once inhabited the whole of Malacca. They were very short, dark in skin, but well built and not strong in stature. The scientist was struck by the extreme unpretentiousness of the oran-sakai, who constantly changed their places of accommodation and limited themselves only to the construction of a "pondo" - a barrier made of palm leaves, which was both a wall and a roof.
The traveler spent one hundred seventy-six days in Malacca. From the "people of the forest" he left - through the possession of seven Malay princes - to the rich city of Patani, visited the country of Kedah, subject to Siam, and ended his journey in the city of Malacca.
In 1875, Nikolai Nikolaevich in Beitenzorg finished his notes about wanderings among the "people of the forest". By that time, Russian cartographers had already mapped Mount Miklouho-Maclay, near the Astrolabe Bay, on the map of New Guinea. It was like a lifetime monument - a rare honor for scientists. But no one knew that such a famous person has been wandering for many years without shelter, family, making debts in order to make his dangerous and distant campaigns with the help of borrowed money. Miklouho-Maclay often did not even have the means to pay for the correspondence of his articles. Diseases made it difficult to sit down to big books. I had to limit myself to preliminary reports in the Batavian scientific journal, letters to the Russian Geographical Society.
In 1876-1877, he traveled to western Micronesia and northern Melanesia, visiting the islands of Palau, Vuap (Yap) and the Admiralty archipelago.
On the light schooner Sea Bird (Sea Bird) Miklouho-Maclay sailed from the Javanese port of Cheribon. His path led to Celebes, and from there - to the colorful reefs of the Western Carolines. In May 1876, he was already on the island of Yap. Miklouho-Maclay visited the village of Kilivit.
The Russian traveled to many islands. He kept diaries everywhere. He visited the huts, which were like clubs — meeting places, night dances, and a guest shelter. In such clubs one could see huge roughly hewn stones with holes in the middle, in the form of millstones of various sizes, sometimes weighing several tons. It was money, the so-called "fe". They were taken here from the Palau Islands. The millstone kept in the club was the property of the community.
From the basalt rocks of Palau, the schooner proceeded to the islands of the Admiralty. Here there was a significant meeting with a large native pie, the mast and yard of which were decorated with human scalps. Many of the elderly natives who climbed onto the deck of the ship had strange objects like panicles hung on their backs or chests. Thin branches gathered in a bunch were attached to a handle carved from a human tibia Miklouho-Maclay was the first to discover the custom of wearing "ruen-rimata" - the bones of his father or close relatives, if they were noble or outstanding people.
On the islands of the Admiralty, Miklouho-Maclay went to an unknown tropical coast, near the villages of Pubi and Loneu. He saw huge drums made from tree trunks - "barums". He gave out gifts, and the islanders were allowed to measure their heads or compare the color of their skin with Paul Broca's chart.
In the last days of June 1876, the traveler reached the Maclay Coast. The sailors unloaded supplies, boxes, barrels, gifts for the Papuans. The traveler landed on the coast near Gorendu. All old acquaintances were alive. The Papuans made Tamo Ruso very warm. The ship's carpenters, with the help of the Papuans, built a house of solid timber in the vicinity of Bongu. The traveler celebrated his housewarming with the Papuans, two servants and a cook.
Miklouho-Maclay did not know how to rest. Descending to the mouth of the Morel River, he left the boat and soon saw four mountain peaks. He visited the village of Maragum-Mana, the village of Rai and finally came to the bank of the Gebensu river. From the mountain villages of Miklukho-
Maclay brought skulls, utensils and ... an eternal fever. Despite his illness, he continued his comparative anatomical studies of the newly discovered species of animals in New Guinea. He managed to describe the people and nature of the Maclay Coast over a large area, two hundred miles around Bugarlom. Miklouho-Maclay perfectly studied all the customs of the Papuans, the structure of their family and community, knew their language and art. He understood that the invasion of the whites was inevitable, so he decided to create a Papuan union from the villages of the Maclay coast and stand at the head of it himself. Alas, the Russian government refused to support him ...
In November 1877, the English schooner Flower of Yarrow accidentally entered Astrolabe Bay. Miklouho-Maclay decided to go to Singapore on it - to put his collections in order, sit down for books and articles about his discoveries.
In parting, he called the Papuans from all the surrounding villages and warned them that white people might turn out to be slave traders and pirates. If white friends appear here, they will give a special "sign of Maclay", and then the Papuans should trust in all the brothers of "Tamo-Rus".
This time the scientist lived on the Maclay Coast for fourteen and a half months (from June 27, 1876 to November 10, 1877).
The two-month voyage on board the schooner turned out to be quite difficult. Although Miklouho-Maclay saw something new for himself on the way (he happened to witness volcanic eruptions on two islands) and only partially repeated the route of the previous voyage, he arrived in Singapore completely ill.
After spending six months in Singapore, Miklouho-Maclay, at the insistence of doctors, leaves for Australia.
In July 1878, he appeared in Sydney. The traveler was sheltered first by the Russian Vice Consul Pauli, and then by the head of the Australian Museum, William Maclay, with whom Miklouho-Maclay later published a work on cartilaginous fish. ”Pauli brought the scientist a whole bunch of European and Russian publications.
The magazine "Cosmos" wrote about the New Guinean exploits of Miklouho-Maclay, and the "Globe" published a biography of the traveler. Paul Broca published in his Paris Maclay's article on the art of the Papuans. Miklouho-Maclay's name appeared on the pages of the Anglo-Australian magazine "Argus", and he saw his notes on the islands of Yap, Palau and the Admiralty archipelago published in Izvestia of the Geographical Society.
Five countries of the world paid tribute to the works of Miklouho-Maclay. But few people knew that Javanese and Singaporean merchants reminded the Russian scientist that his debts reached the sum of ten thousand rubles, translated into Russian money.
Letters to the Russian Geographical Society, containing requests for help, remained unanswered. Literary earnings were ridiculously small. Miklouho-Maclay was oppressed by constant worries about a piece of bread and funds for scientific work, and here, as if mockingly, someone gave the humble Miklouho-Maclay the loud title of "baron". Soon, the scientist moved to live in a small room at the Australian Museum.
The tireless explorer has set up the Marine Zoological Station in Watson Bay, near Sydney. Moreover, Nikolai Nikolayevich himself made the drawings of its buildings, supervised the construction and equipment.
Miklouho-Maclay conceived a new journey, considering it necessary to expand his acquaintance with Melanesia and visit new places for himself. The money this time was lent to him by William McLay.
At dawn on March 29, 1879, he left Port Jackson aboard the schooner Sadie F. Keller. Skipper Webber carried goods to the city of Noumea, the main port of New Caledonia.
This is the route Miklouho-Maclay followed during this 1879-1880 journey through Melanesia: New Caledonia - Lifou Islands - Admiralty Islands - Ninigo and Loub archipelagos - Andra Island - Solomon Islands - Louisiada archipelago - southern coast of New Guinea - Torres Strait Islands - eastern coast of Australia.
Miklouho-Maclay visited the very heart of Oceania, in places where white travelers did not dare to penetrate. He spent two hundred thirty-seven days on the shores of unexplored islands and one hundred and sixty days sailing the stormy sea. The main results of the trip were in the anthropological characteristics of the population of the surveyed islands, in the establishment of connections and differences between different ethnic groups, in the study of many customs.
After almost ten months sailing on the islands of Melanesia, the schooner anchored in the bay of one of the islands of the Louisiada archipelago. Miklouho-Maclay continued his journey on the steamer Ellengovan, which belonged to the London Missionary Society. The vessel was heading for the southern coast of New Guinea. The swimming lasted for three months. The scientist found out that the same Papuans live on the southern coast of New Guinea as on the Maclay Coast and on the coast of Papua Koviai.
Miklouho-Maclay again visited the Admiralty Islands, where he observed cases of cannibalism. But that didn't scare him. He quietly wandered through the cannibal villages, ate the native unsalted wild pigeon soup, and slept in the open air. From the "land of cannibals" he took away many drawings, anthropometric measurements and a dictionary of the local language compiled by him. Miklouho-Maclay visited the port of Moresby, in the southwestern part of New Guinea, and discovered the secret of the "yellow people" of the coast. He found that blood flowed in the veins of these Papuans with a Polynesian admixture: apparently, once by a storm or waves, boats with the inhabitants of Polynesia were brought here. In the Solomon Islands and Louisiads, he traced the transitions from the Polynesian to the Papuan type and made observations of the life of the dark-skinned natives.
Miklouho-Maclay did not hide his concern for the fate of the black tribes, for he had long foreseen the threat hanging over Oceania. Back in 1881, he wrote in his notebook: "... the missionaries are directly followed by merchants and other exploiters of all kinds, carrying with them diseases, drunkenness, firearms, etc. These benefits of civilization are hardly balanced by the ability to read, write and sing psalms ... "
In 1881, Sydney newspapers reported the killing of missionaries in the village of Kahlo, on the southern coast of New Guinea. Anticipating the bloody massacre, Miklouho-Maclay went to Commodore Wilson and declared that only the instigators of the murder should be punished. In response, the scientist received an offer to take part in a punitive expedition. On August 21, Miklouho-Maclay arrives in Port Moresby in an English corvette. Thanks to his intercession, Wilson refused to burn down the Papuan village and exterminate its inhabitants. In a short skirmish, only the missionary's killer was killed.
In 1882, after twelve years of wandering, Miklouho-Maclay returned to St. Petersburg. He became the hero of the day. Newspapers and magazines reported on his arrival, set out a biography, dwelled on episodes of his travels, expressed admiration for his exploits. Scientists from the Moscow and St. Petersburg societies held meetings in his honor. The main event was his public appearances, which attracted a huge audience at that time. In November 1882 Miklouho-Maclay had a meeting in Gatchina with Alexander III.
Several years in Russia flew by quickly. Now the traveler's route lay through Berlin - The Hague - Paris - London to Genoa, where he intended to board one of the steamers making regular flights to Australia. He makes reports in Berlin, Paris, London, meets with scientists. In Paris, Maclay visited the writer Turgenev, whom he had known since 1867.
In early February 1883 Miklouho-Maclay sailed from Aden to Java. In tropical Batavia, he found the Russian corvette Skobelev (formerly Vityaz) and convinced its captain to go to the Maclay Coast on the way to Vladivostok.
On March 16, the traveler saw the Emerald Strait, the Kar-Kar Island, the green expanse of the Maclay Coast ... Children and youths grew up, only a few old people were his good friends. Many have died ...
Russian sailors cleared the dense bushes and planted new useful plants - Miklouho-Maclay's gift to the Papuans. He brought seedlings and seeds of pumpkins, coffee and citrus trees, mangoes, new types of breadfruit "Tamo-Rus" generously distributed to his friends pieces of red Chinese woman, Malay knives, mirrors, beads, axes. A whole herd of domestic animals was transported from the ship to the shore. Miklouho-Maclay bought goats, cows and a humpback zebu goby for the Papuans in Amboina. A corral was built for them. At the sight of the bull, the poor Papuans rushed into the trees.
Miklouho-Maclay, Cain and the Ambonian Jan make a trip in a native boat along the Ayu River, between thickets of lianas and wild bananas. Along the channel they reach the forest lake Ayu-Tengey. The cannibals of the Bombashi village welcomed the "moon man" about whom they had heard so much from the inhabitants of the coast. Miklouho-Maclay was treated to boiled vegetables. The Papuans told the guest about all the customs associated with cannibalism ...
In June 1883, the traveler arrived in Sydney. He spent almost three years in Australia, and these were very difficult years. The cottage in the Exhibition Park, where he lived on his last visit, burned down. Part of Miklouho-Maclay's many years of work and exhibits perished in the flames. The traveler moved to a house at the Marine Station on the banks of Watson Bay. There he lived alone, in need.
In February 1884, the Russian traveler and scientist Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay married a young widow, Margarita Robertson, daughter of Sir Robertson, former Prime Minister of New South Wales. The Robertson family lived in the vicinity of Watson Bay, on the Clobelli estate. Margarita's parents and relatives opposed this marriage, considering the Russian traveler an unsuitable party for her. In November, a son is born, a year later - a second.
Miklouho-Maclay closely followed the events in the world. He wrote to Prince Bismarck that "in general, all whites should take it upon themselves to protect the rights of dark-skinned natives of the Pacific Islands from shameless, unjust and brutal exploitation (kidnapping, slavery, etc.)."
In 1884, the eastern part of New Guinea was divided by Germany and England. The Germans secured the northeastern quarter of the island, the British - the southeastern quarter of the island. German agents, and first of all Otto Finsch, who appeared on the Maclay Coast in the footsteps of the great Russian traveler, prepared this seizure.
In one of his works, the German Otto Finsch confessed that during the seizure of New Guinea he passed himself off as "Brother Maclay." No wonder he tried so often to see the Russian scientist. He needed the "Maclay sign" in order with his help to gain the trust of the Papuans. For all his greatness, Maclay was often innocent and did not hide anything, especially when it came to his beloved science.
Miklouho-Maclay wrote to the English prime minister Gladstone that "the German flag in the Pacific covers the most shameless injustices: theft and deception, slave trade and robbery." On January 9, 1885, he sent a telegram from Melbourne to Bismarck: "The natives of the Maclay Coast reject the German annexation." On the same day, he sent a telegram to Alexander III, begging the Russian tsar to intercede for the Papuans.
New names appear on German maps: Emperor Wilhelm's Land, Bismarck Archipelago, New Mecklenburg, New Pomerania, Finsch Harbor. The Germans took possession of the Solomon Islands and the Marshall Archipelago.
The traveler returns to St. Petersburg. German newspapers slander: Miklouho-Maclay found gold in New Guinea, but hid it in order to take possession of it without unnecessary witnesses; Miklouho-Maclay wants to declare a Russian protectorate over the Pacific islands ... Some Russian newspapers picked up the gossip.
He was exhausted by the constant struggle for the right to quiet work. Diseases undermined his strength. Only after much trouble and anguish did his exhibition open in St. Petersburg. It passed with tremendous success. Miklouho-Maclay opened the world of Oceania for Russia, showed the homeland the life of distant tribes, their art, crafts, customs. He came close to the origins of the human race.
In 1886 Miklouho-Maclay went to Sydney again. He went there for his family, collections, materials. On the way, he visited Adelaide, described the Adelaide-Melbourne railway, found out everything about the wonderful experience of the Australian, James Brown, planting eucalyptus trees in barren deserts.
In Sydney, he goes through his papers ... Sixteen notebooks, six thick notebooks, plans, maps, his own drawings, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, diaries from different years. Miklouho-Maclay wanted to start preparing two volumes: the first - about New Guinea, the second - about Malacca and the islands of Oceania.
In February 1886 Miklouho-Maclay left Australia and arrived in Russia in April. From Odessa, he immediately went to Livadia, where he obtained a reception from Alexander III. He proposed to the tsar to establish a Russian settlement on the Maclay Coast. Alexander III entrusted the New Guinean case to a special commission; the commission rejected Miklouho-Maclay's project, and the tsar issued a verdict: "Consider this matter finished. Refuse Miklouho-Maclay."
The last months of 1886 were filled with work on the New Guinea travel diaries. Miklouho-Maclay continued it in fits and starts in 1887. By early 1888, the travel diaries of all six voyages to New Guinea were generally ready. He began work on the second volume, but finally fell ill. The patient was not allowed to work, they even took away a pencil and notebooks. Then Nikolai Nikolaevich began to dictate his autobiography. His joy was immeasurable when he received his newly printed book Excerpts from the Diary of 1879.
Miklouho-Maclay spent the last days of his life in the Willis clinic at the Military Medical Academy. His main wealth - the brain - he bequeathed to Russian science, to her - his papers, collections, everything written and printed by him.
Miklouho-Maclay died in a hospital bed at 9:30 pm on Saturday, April 2, 1888. They buried him at the Volkov cemetery. On the inconspicuous grave of the great son of the Russian land, a wooden cross with a short inscription was erected.
Professor Modestov said at a fresh grave that the fatherland is burying the man who glorified Russia in the far corners of the immense world, and that this man was one of the rarest people ever to appear on our old land.
Miklouho-Maclay's contribution to anthropology and ethnography was enormous. In his travels, he collected a lot of data on the peoples of Indonesia and Malaya, the Philippines, Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia and western Polynesia. As an anthropologist, Miklouho-Maclay proved to be a fighter against all "theories" postulating racial inequality, against the concepts of "lower" and "higher" races. He was the first to describe the Papuans as a specific anthropological type. The scientist showed that the Papuans are the same full-fledged and full-fledged representatives of the human race, like the British or the Germans.
As a child, many of us heard stories about a brave traveler with an unusual surname who lived among the wild tribes of the Papuans in distant hot countries. Those of us who chose natural sciences as our profession got acquainted in more detail with the scientific achievements of Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay. He made a huge contribution to the development of anthropology, ethnography, zoology, biology, geography and was highly appreciated in scientific circles around the world.
July 17, 2016 marked the 170th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay. He lived a short but eventful life.
N.N. Miklukho-Maclay was born in 1846 in the village of Rozhdestvenskoye, Okulovsky district, Novgorod region. His father Nikolai Miklukho-Maclay, a railway engineer, came from Zaporozhye Cossacks, mother Ekaterina - from a Polish-Russian family. The family estate of the Miklouho-Maclay family was located in the village of Malin, Ukraine. After graduating from school, N.N. Miklukho-Maclay studied medicine, philosophy, jurisprudence, natural sciences at St. Petersburg, Heidelberg, Leipzig and Jena universities. Studying in the latter, N.N. Miklukho-Maclay, as an assistant to the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel, visited scientific expeditions to the Canary Islands, France, Italy, Morocco. During these trips, N.N. Miklukho-Maclay showed interest in the culture and life of the indigenous population. It was this that played a decisive role in the entire subsequent life of the talented scientist.
In 1871-1883 N.N. Miklukho-Maclay was on scientific expeditions in Papua New Guinea, the Philippine Islands, the islands of the Malay Archipelago, the Malay Peninsula and Oceania. During the first five months of his residence on the Astrolabe Bay, N.N. Miklukho-Maclay made friends with the local tribe of Papuans; they also fell in love with him and even offered to stay with them forever. NN Miklukho-Maklai taught his servant-assistant Achmat the Russian language in a few months. Once N.N. Miklukho-Maclay lit the ship's torch kept by him and amazed the Papuans so much that they nicknamed him "Kaaram-tamo" (in their language - the Moon Man), confident that Nikolai Nikolaevich was able to produce fire from the Moon. NN Miklukho-Maclay wholeheartedly fell in love with this land and its people, about which he later wrote: the coast of New Guinea ".
An important result of scientific research by N.N. Miklukho-Maclay was his conclusion that there is no difference between representatives of different human races. Socio-cultural differences, such as civilized and less developed peoples, are due to their environment.
Unfortunately, the stay in the tropical climate did not pass without leaving a trace for the health of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay: he had been ill with malaria and other tropical diseases. But each time, having recovered, he again set off on another expedition.
N.N. Miklukho-Maclay was not limited only to science. The humiliated position of the indigenous population of New Guinea and the Pacific Islands did not leave him indifferent: he fought against injustice as best he could, sending petitions to the governors of the colonies, persistently drawing their attention to the facts of the forced seizure of land and cases of slavery. Nikolai Nikolaevich developed a project for the creation of an independent state in Papua New Guinea - the Papuan Union and the organization of a free Russian colony, but the Russian Tsar Alexander III later rejected this project.
For the first time N.N. Miklukho-Maclay came to Australia in 1878, where, at the invitation of the Australian naturalist scientist, member of the Legislative Council of the State of New South Wales, William McLay, he settled in his house at Elizabeth Bay in Sydney.
In Australia, N.N. Miklukho-Maclay continued to engage in scientific activities: he made reports in the Linnean Society, wrote and sent articles to the Russian Geographical Society, spent 8 months in the State of Queensland, studying the vital activity of local aboriginal tribes and also tried to speak in their defense. In 1878 N.N. Miklukho-Maclay proposed to create a Marine Biological Station in Sydney. His idea found support in academia and the Australian Government, and by 1881 the first such station in the Southern Hemisphere was opened. N.N. Miklukho-Maclay was hired at the station to conduct anatomical studies of the Australian fauna.
Being familiar with representatives of the scientific, business and political circles of Australia, N.N. Miklouho-Maclay sometimes visited the house of the Governor of New South Wales, Minister of Lands Sir John Robertson. It was at this time that Nikolai Nikolayevich got acquainted with the attractive, intelligent and musically gifted daughter of J. Robertson, 29-year-old Margaret, whom it was impossible not to fall in love with. She was a young widow. For the marriage, Father Margaret asked N.N. Miklukho-Maclay to provide permission from the Russian Tsar Alexander III. After a twelve-year absence, N.N. Miklukho-Maclay arrived in Russia. There he was greeted as a national hero: all newspapers enthusiastically wrote about him, Scientific societies organized meetings in his honor, at which N.N. Miklukho-Maclay talked about his scientific achievements. In order to obtain a marriage license, N.N. Miklukho-Maclay went to the Crimea to meet with the Russian Emperor Alexander III. There, in the Summer Palace, N.N. Miklukho-Maclay was presented with the coveted document.
Back in Australia, Nikolai and Margaret got married. The wedding took place on February 27, 1884 at the bride's parental home, Kloveli, near Watson Bay.
Memorial plaque on the house "Wyoming"
After the wedding, in 1884, the newlyweds settled in the Wyoming house on the picturesque coast of Sydney. In the same place, Nikolai Nikolaevich and Margaret had their first son, Alexander Niels.
Later, the Miklouho-Maclay couple had a second son, Vladimir Allan. In 1887, Nikolai Nikolaevich with his wife and children came to Russia. Less than a year later, in April 1888, in St. Petersburg, in the clinic of the Military Medical Academy, N.N. Miklukho-Maclay died at the age of 41 ...
Today there are two branches of the descendants of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay: one, from the side of his Russian relatives, lives in Russia, the other, the descendants from the marriage of Nikolai Nikolaevich with Margaret, in Australia. Some of the relatives have met each other and continue to maintain a relationship.
Direct descendants from the marriage of Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay and Margaret Emma lived and now live in different cities of Australia. Their eldest son Alexander Niels had one son - Paul, Paul has two daughters Anthony Li and Anya Seraphim.
The youngest son of Nikolai Nikolaevich and Margaret, Vladimir Allan, had two sons - Kenneth and Rob. Kenneth has three daughters, Denise, Diana and Lindal. Rob's children, son John Robertson and daughter Margaret Anna, also live in Australia. Everyone has their own families - children and grandchildren.
Several descendants of Nikolai Nikolaevich's brothers live in Russia. Representatives of each branch of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay's descendants kindly agreed to give me their interview.
Interview with Diana, N.N. Miklukho-Maclay's great-granddaughter. Her father is Kenneth Allan, the son of the second son of Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay, Vladimir Allan.
Corr .: Diana, please tell us about yourself.
Diana: I was born and have lived in Sydney all my life; I love this city and cannot imagine that I could live somewhere else: there is always a large selection of things to do and where to go. We have three daughters in the family: besides me, there is Lindal and Denise. My mother was of French-Scottish descent. Our father always believed that the main thing for women was to get married, which we did (laughs). After high school, I graduated from business college and worked as a secretary. She married Michael, an insurance company manager. We are now retired. In my free time I like to play golf, meet friends, walk, draw a little (folk-art). Our daughter Katrina is a secretary by profession, has a family and has two daughters. Son Cameron is a plumber, also has a family and is raising a daughter.
Corr .: When did you find out that your great-grandfather was a famous Russian scientist?
Diana: Even as children, we often heard my father's stories about Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay. Unfortunately, our father has never been to Russia, unlike his brother Rob, who took a more active part in events dedicated to N.N. Miklukho-Maclay. Our father became more interested in the personality of his famous grandfather as he got older. Mom often told him to go to Russia, but he did not agree to go alone, and mom could not - she was already sick.
Corr .: Did your father tell anything about his grandmother Margaret, the wife of Nikolai Miklukho-Maclay, your great-grandmother?
Diana: He said that he constantly took her to church for services. And despite the fact that they lived not far from each other, the grandson and grandmother wrote tender letters to each other.
Her diaries, which we transferred to the libraries of Fischer and Mitchell, say a lot about Margaret: she loved her husband, Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay, very much, his loss was a great sadness for her, which is what her diaries are imbued with.
Reporter: Do you communicate with relatives from Margaret's side?
Diana: Several years ago we organized a meeting with the descendants of Margaret, the Robertson family. It was an interesting meeting. But to maintain relations - we do not.
Corr. Have you participated in any events dedicated to N.N. Miklukho-Maclay in Australia?
Diana: In 1996, I attended the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Nikolai Nikolaevich. On this day, a bust of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay was installed at the University of Sydney with the participation of the Russian Embassy. I am interested in going to all the events that are held from time to time in Australia in honor of my great-grandfather.
Sculptor Gennady Raspopov. Bust of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay at the University of Sydney. Photo by the author
Correspondent :. N.N. Miklukho-Maclay was a young, but brave enough man - he traveled alone and was not afraid of anything ...
Diana: During his short life, he managed to do a lot, so he is still interesting and interesting to a large number of people. My maternal uncle, William Charles Ventvos, was also a research assistant. He was engaged in natural research and used the scientific works of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay.
Corr .: N.N. Miklukho-Maclay spent a lot of time in Papua New Guinea. Have any of your relatives visited the same places?
Diana: My uncle Rob has traveled to this country twice. Unfortunately, my father did not. But one day in Australia he met Tui, the grandson of Papuan Achmat, who was an assistant to Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay. My father and Tui hugged like family ...
My husband and I also had one interesting meeting. During my husband's eight-month business trip to Guam, we visited several of the islands of Micronesia. N.N. Miklukho-Maclay also visited them, about which he wrote in his scientific works. For example, he described that there were cannibals on the island of Tia, whose teeth were red from chewing one of the herbs, apparently instead of smoking. I told the local employees of the office where my husband worked that cannibals used to live on their island and that my great-grandfather had written about this in his book. Of course they were surprised.
Corr .: Have you ever been to Russia?
Diana: A couple of years ago, with my sister Denise and her husband, I first went to Russia: I visited Moscow, St. Petersburg, on a cruise along the Volga. We met with Olga Miklukho-Maclay, the great-granddaughter of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay's elder brother, Sergei, who lives in St. Petersburg. There we went to the Academy of Sciences, where they gave us a lecture about our great-grandfather Nikolai. Olga introduced us to her mother, who had a long correspondence with my father when he was alive. We also went to the cemetery in St. Petersburg and saw the grave of Nikolai Miklukho-Maclay. The ride was very impressive.
My father, unfortunately, as I said, has never been to Russia. My uncle Rob and his wife Alice traveled to Russia several times at the invitation of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Friendship Society of the USSR and Australia to events related to N.N. Miklukho-Maclay. In Russia, Rob even gave a series of lectures.
Cooking Pot brought by NN Miklukho-Maclay from Bili Bil Island, Madang province, Papua New Guinea in 1877 (?). Transferred by the wife of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay to Margaret in 1889. to the Museum. W. McLay University of Sydney.
Corr .: Your impressions of Russia.
Diana: I was amazed at the luxurious palaces - Peterhof, Catherine! But it was sad to see poor people on the streets, unrepaired roads. I wish there was a balance. Now I understand why there was a revolution in Russia. Perhaps someone from our family was killed during the revolution, but many still managed to go abroad. We found relatives even in Norway.
Corr .: Do you have any things that belonged to N.N. Miklukho-Maclay?
Diana: We donated almost all household items and a lot of photographs to the William McLay Museum at the University of Sydney and the Mitchell Library. All these things can be viewed there upon request.
Corr .: Does anyone in Australia now bear the surname Miklouho-Maclay?
Diana: Yes. This is my uncle Rob's son, John Robertson de Miklouho-Maclay. Also, one of my sisters, after a divorce, is going to regain our maiden name Miklouho-Maclay.
Interview with the great-granddaughter of the elder brother N.N. Miklukho-Maclay, Sergei Nikolaevich, Olga Miklukho-Maclay (interview via Email).
Corr .: Olga Andreevna, please tell us about yourself and your children.
Olga Andreevna: I graduated from the Geological Faculty of the Leningrad State University (LSU), worked for 20 years at the All-Union Geological Institute, and since 1991 I started working as an editor of fiction: first at the publishing house "North-West", then at "Azbuka".
The eldest son Andrei Basov graduated from the philological faculty of Leningrad State University, is fluent in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish. He walked around and traveled all over Russia from the Far East to Kaliningrad and Europe from Sweden to Portugal, including England and Scotland. I spent six months in India. Now he works as a translator in Siberia on oil wells, and before that he worked in the Caspian Sea.
The youngest son Dmitry Basov graduated with honors from the Faculty of Oriental Studies of Leningrad State University (Department of Philology of China, Korea and Southeast Asia). Journalist, writer (pseudonym - Dmitry Orekhov), author of ten books on historical and religious topics, sold with a total circulation of more than half a million copies. In 2003, his first book of prose, The Silver Bell. Tales of Holy Russia ”, in 2006 - the novel“ Buddha from Benares ”. Now he is writing a book (novel) about street children (after university, Dmitry worked at the Center for the rehabilitation of street children).
Corr. You are the great-great-granddaughter of the brother of one of the famous Russian ethnographers and anthropologists Nikolai Miklukho-Maclay. Do you feel proud for your ancestor and for wearing such a surname?
Olga Andreevna: I am proud of all Russians who honestly served their Motherland. There were many such heroes in Russia.
Corr. Your surname, which sounds complicated, surprised your classmates at school? What have you been told in childhood about your great-great-grandfather?
Olga Andreevna: Everyone in Russia knows this surname since childhood. The question is always - then and now - only one: who is the famous traveler. Well, they told what the child understands - everyone knows the stories about the first meeting of the unarmed Nikolai Nikolayevich with the Papuans, when he was shot from a bow, and he lay down and fell asleep, about how he was asked: "Can you die, Maclay?" , and he held out a spear in response and said: "Try it," about how he threatened the Papuans to set fire to the sea if they start a war, etc.
Corr. I believe that Nikolai Nikolayevich he was a very brave and completely devoted to science person - few people could live among practically wild tribes in little-known corners of the Earth ... What could you say about your ancestor?
Olga Andreevna: Yes, you are right. I have always admired his courage, passionate dedication to the idea, sense of responsibility for everything that happens in the world, absolute honesty. And also the motto: "I always keep one word." I know this motto almost from birth and I try to follow it.
Corr. How do you like being in the homeland of Nikolai Nikolaevich, in the village of Rozhdestvenskoye, which is located next to Okulovka? Don't you go there often?
Olga Andreevna: The places in those parts are incredibly beautiful, there are many forests and lakes, and the people in Okulovka (this is near Bologim, half way from St. Petersburg to Moscow) are simply wonderful, very hospitable and sacredly honor the memory of their famous countryman.
Corr .: Nikolai Nikolaevich worked for a long time in Papua New Guinea. Have you ever thought to visit this country and the places of stay of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay?
Olga Andreevna: Yes, of course, I would gladly go if I had such an opportunity.
Olga Andreevna: Wendy is interested in everything in Russia that is connected with Nikolai Nikolaevich. She knows so much about him that even Russians are surprised at the vastness of knowledge of this lovely resident of distant Australia. And she liked most of all, I think, in Okulovka.
Corr .: When you first met your Australian relatives, what were your feelings?
Olga Andreevna: It was a long time ago. In the late 1960s, when I was still a teenager, one of the grandchildren of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay (son of Alexander, the eldest son of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay), Paul with his wife Janey, came to Russia. I remember how beautiful they were both. Then, probably, it was already in the 80s, when another grandson arrived (the son of Vladimir, the youngest son of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay) Rob with his wife Alice, I, among other things, asked them if cabbage grows in Australia. Australia is a very exotic country for us.
Corr .: Do you keep in touch with your Australian relatives and were any of them visiting you?
Olga Andreevna: Yes, with many and many have already visited Russia and here in St. Petersburg, in particular.
Corr .: Have you seen the house in Sydney where Nikolai Nikolaevich lived with his wife and sons, his bust at the University of Sydney, the diary of his wife Margaret? What impressed you the most?
Olga Andreevna: Yes, I saw everything. I liked everything very much. Perhaps the greatest impression was made on me by the personal belongings of Nikolai Nikolaevich and Margaret, they were then kept in the family of the late Kenneth in 2002, and now they are probably with Denise, Kenneth's daughter.
Corr .: What are your impressions of Australia?
Olga Andreevna: A wonderful country, wonderful nature, wonderful people. If it were not for Russia, I would like to live in Australia.
Wendy, who had never been involved in literary work before, worked in the tourist business and visited Russia several times with tourists. Ten years ago, as the secretary of the Australian-Russian Friendship Society, the Russian Consul E. Nesterov turned to her and asked for help in organizing the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay in Australia. Wendy agreed, thinking it was just one of the fun activities. But this event aroused in her a great interest in the personality of Nikolai Miklukho-Maclay. Wendy has done a tremendous job of collecting material for her book: in it you can find very comprehensive information about the life of our famous countryman in Russia and Australia, his scientific expeditions, the history of the family of his wife Margaret and much more.
In 1996, Wendy also attended the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay at the Consulate of Papua New Guinea in Australia. In 1970, in this country, on the eve of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the first visit of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay to New Guinea, a memorial plaque to the famous explorer and defender of the Papuan people was erected in the town of Garagasi.
Wendy enthusiastically told me about her trips to Russia. She is very pleased that she was able to visit the house where Nikolai Miklukho-Maclay lived with his wife and children, at 53 Galernaya Street, not far from St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. She added one more detail about this: "When Olga Miklukho-Maclay and I came to this house, we were invited to one of the apartments: her owner said that Alexander Pushkin lived here."
Annually in the village of Okulovka the birthday of N.N. Miklukho-Maklai is celebrated. Olga Andreevna Miklukho-Maclay is a frequent and honorable guest at these holidays. Wendy took part in them 3 times. She also went to Okulovka this year, where, besides her, three descendants of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay from Australia came to celebrate the 160th anniversary. The program of the holiday also included an interesting performance about the life and love of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay, prepared by local schoolchildren. Wendy said with a smile that during the holiday, local children painted their faces and dressed up to resemble the Papuans - they put on skirts made of long grass, but since it was cool, the children were forced to wear warm jumpers over these skirts, which amused all the guests.
Nikolai Nikolaevich is known and remembered both in Russia and in Australia. In 1979-1988 the Australian Society of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay existed in Australia. The society, supporting the idea of equality between people of different religions, races and social status, promoted research in the natural and social sciences, held lectures on the scientific heritage of N.N. Miklukho-Maclay, provided scholarships for research, and much more. In 1988, with funds from the activities of the N.N. Miklukho-Maclay Society and the William Maclay Museum, a scholarship was established and still exists for scientific research in the field of anthropology, ethnology, zoology, botany. Daniil Tumarkin, a professor at the Miklukho-Maclay Institute of Ethnography, became a Russian scholar who received this scholarship in 1992.
In Russia there are two Ethnographic Institutes at the Russian Academy of Sciences named after N.N. Miklukho-Maclay - in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
In St. Petersburg School 232, where N.N. Miklukho-Maclay studied, exhibitions dedicated to him are held annually. Many other events are held in Russia in honor of our great scientist.
N.N. Miklukho-Maclay not only advanced the natural sciences a few steps forward, but was also the first scientist who, through science, built a bridge of friendship between Russia and Australia. We will always remember our fellow countryman and be proud of him.
Alla Guteneva, who lived on N.N. Miklukho-Maklaya Street in Moscow in 1992-2003.
On September 20, 1871, a young Russian scientist landed on the lush green shore of a tropical paradise. His dream has finally come true. After a long 10 months of travel on the corvette "Vityaz", 25-year-old Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay landed in Astrolabe Bay, on the coast of New Guinea, which became the coast of his fate, where he aspired for the rest of his life.
Thus began this wonderful story and a new era in the life of a young explorer, traveler and great humanist, whose name, after a century and a half, children in Papuan families on the Maclay Coast, on the northeastern coast of the island of New Guinea, are named.
Nikolay Miklukho-Maclay - "White Papuan"
Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukha, later Miklouho-Maclay, was born on June 17, 1846 in the village of Yazykovo-Rozhdestvenskoye near Borovichi, Novgorod province. He was the second of five children in the family of a young railway engineer Nikolai Ilyich Miklukha, who in those years worked on the construction of a railway in this province. Nikolai Ilyich became the first head of the Nikolaevsky, today Moskovsky railway station in St. Petersburg, but he lived a short life, having died at the age of 39 from tuberculosis. He was a true patriot of his cause, personally participating in the construction of the railway, where he often lived in extremely cramped conditions and undermined his health. The children, the oldest of whom was 12 at that time, and the youngest 1.5 years old, stayed with their mother, Ekaterina Semyonovna, nee Becker, who came from a family of Russified Germans who came to Russia during the reign of Catherine II. Ekaterina Semyonovna's grandfather was a physician-in-law of the Polish king Stanislav Poniatowski, to whose service he came from Prussia on behalf of the Prussian king, and her father married a Polish woman, Louise Shatkovskaya, from the city of Vilna.
Nikolai Nikolaevich became the most famous of the Miklukho-Maklaev family, and today Novgorodians and all Russians are proud of their famous compatriot. However, the life of Nikolai Nikolaevich was filled with difficulties from an early age. It was very difficult for the mother to support such a large family, but she managed to raise all the children in the spirit of the original Russian nobility, with high morals and principles. All children received a good education. Nikolai Nikolaevich began his education at St. Petersburg University, but in 1864, for participation in the student movement, he was expelled. Nikolai Nikolayevich continued his studies abroad, at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Heidelberg University, and at the medical faculties of the Leipzig and Jena Universities, studying anatomy and zoology. Scientific work in these areas brought Nikolai Nikolaevich his first fame in scientific circles.
In 1866, N. N. Miklouho-Maclay went to the Canary Islands, where, together with his zoology teacher, a famous biologist, professor at the University of Jena, Ernst Haeckel, he studied the fauna of the island of Lanzarote. After trips to Sicily and the coastal regions of the Red Sea, in the fall of 1869, Nikolai Nikolayevich presented his plan for a scientific trip to the Pacific Ocean to the Russian Geographical Society and received support and approval. As a result, the corvette "Vityaz", which was then sailing around the world, took on board a young scientist, and on September 20, 1871, he landed on the island of New Guinea, in Astrolabe Bay, and the "Vityaz" team built a small hut on the shore of the bay for Nikolai Nikolaevich and two of his companions. This is how the amazing epic of the life and scientific research of the famous scientist began. During his first trip, Miklouho-Maclay spent 15 months among the Papuans, gaining unlimited trust and respect, as a man of his word who became his “white Papuan” for the local population.
Miklouho-Maclay was the first among Europeans to assert the equality of all races and to advocate for the Papuans' right to independence. In 1882, Nikolai Nikolaevich, during his stay in St. Petersburg, even turned to Emperor Alexander III with a proposal to protect the population of the Malay coast of New Guinea and establish a "free Russian colony" there. However, this proposal was not accepted, and he went back to Sydney, where for two years he put in order his extensive collections and diaries.
There he also married Margaret Robertson (01/21/1855 - 01/01/1936), the daughter of a large landowner, Governor General of New South Wales in Australia, with whom he later lived in St. Petersburg for almost two years, bringing with him two sons to his homeland - Alexander (11/14/1884 - November 1951) and Vladimir (12/29/1885 - 02/19/1958).
The collected materials and collections allowed Nikolai Nikolaevich to organize an exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1886, which became a sensation in scientific circles. Miklouho-Maclay's articles were published in many publications and, first of all, in Izvestia of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society.
On April 14, 1888, at the age of 42, Nikolai Nikolayevich died in St. Petersburg and was buried at the Volkovskoye cemetery. In 1938, his remains were reburied next to his father's grave at Literatorskie Mostki. After the death of Nikolai Nikolaevich, his widow returned to Sydney with her children. Until 1917, for special services to the fatherland, she received a pension from the Russian government for the maintenance of children. She donated her husband's works and collections to the Russian Geographical Society. More than 700 drawings are kept in the archives of the Russian Geographical Society, a collection of items collected in expeditions, and some diaries are now kept in St. Petersburg, in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography named after I. Peter the Great (Kunstkamera) ¹.
The rare Russian surname Miklouho-Maclay is known all over the world today. But it was restored by Nikolai Nikolaevich, after which the whole family officially accepted her.
According to one of the family legends, in 1648, during the Battle of Zheltye Vody in Ukraine, the Cossacks of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, who defeated the troops of the Polish hetman Pototsky, captured the Scottish Baron Michael McLay, who served in the Polish army. The baron remained in Ukraine, became Russified and married the daughter of a Cossack who had captured him by the name of Miklukh, taking the name of his wife. Until the 60s of the XIX century, the second part of the surname was used very rarely, and Nikolai Nikolaevich officially restored it before his first trip to the island of New Guinea.
It was after Margaret took her sons to Sydney that the Miklouho-Maclay family got an Australian branch. The descendants of Nikolai Nikolaevich live in Australia - in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Canbera, and still maintain contact with the family in Russia.
The Russian branch of the bearers of the surname in the male line comes from the older brother of Sergei Nikolaevich. Unfortunately, there are not so many carriers of the surname left - someone died during the war in besieged Leningrad, someone left for Yugoslavia during the revolution, someone disappeared in the troubled 20s of the twentieth century.
Miklouho-Maclay and Maclay Coast
The descendants of Sergei Nikolaevich, the elder brother of the great humanist and traveler, live in St. Petersburg. His great-grandson Nikolai Andreevich was born in 1940, graduated from the Faculty of Geography of Leningrad University, and worked for 35 years at the Central Research Geological Prospecting Institute. He is now retired. His son, the successor of the surname, the great-great-grandson Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay was born in 1973. He is the first full namesake of the great scientist, an economist by education, who is fond of the heritage of the great traveler Nikolai Nikolaevich, the first Miklukho-Maklaev in 2017 repeated the trip to the island of New Guinea, organizing an expedition with the participation of scientists from the St. Petersburg Museum of Ethnography and Anthropology (Kunstkamera ) RAS and the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. N.N. Miklukho-Maclay RAS.
The modern Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay is the founder of the Foundation for the Preservation of Ethnocultural Heritage named after V.I. Miklouho-Maclay.
As a result of the expedition, it was possible to bring to Russia a rich collection of objects of the material culture of the peoples living on the Maclay Coast, a unique photo and video material was collected, which will serve humanity and will become the basis for organizing exhibitions, creating documentaries, scientific articles and works.
The modern collection will add to the one that was collected back in the 19th century by Miklouho-Maclay the elder, and is kept in the St. Petersburg Kunstkamera. Now we can really say that the idea of preserving the heritage of the great scientist came to life, discovering a unique world that is still little studied, and the interest of the world community in it has not faded to this day.
The expedition of a descendant of Miklouho-Maclay with the participation of scientists confirmed the relevance of the works of Nikolai Nikolaevich and the collections he collected. We are re-opening the world, unknown to us 150 years ago, establishing ties not only with the local population, but also with the scientific community - with the largest Universities and Museums of Papua New Guinea.
It is symbolic that Papua New Guinea opened its doors to the full namesake and descendant of Miklouho-Maclay from Russia, with a desire to restore the lost ties. Miklouho-Maclay of the 21st century was received by the "father of the nation" Sir Michael Somare, prominent public figures of this country, one of whom is Sir Peter Barter, the leadership of the Universities and National Museums.
Oceania, the island of New Guinea, once so distant and unknown, is getting closer, thanks to Miklouho-Maclay the younger and the memory of Miklouho-Maclay the elder, who is still rightfully considered the discoverer of the island. After all, it was he who opened the island to mankind, inhabited by people equal to Europeans, although it was previously believed that a separate transitional species between a monkey and a man lives on the island. Miklouho-Maclay proved the inconsistency of these ideas and fought for the rights of the peoples inhabiting the second largest island in the world for a long time.
At one time, the Maclay Coast was named after the great scientist - a section of the northeastern coast of the island of New Guinea, about 300 km long. But over time, the historical name was lost, and today it is called the Rai coast, after a French researcher who studied the languages of New Guinea.
During the first expedition in 2017 in the modern history of the Russian expedition, Miklouho-Maclay the younger or the fourth, as he was called on the island, discovered documents in the Mitchell Library in Australia confirming the historical name of the coast - Maclay Coast, which was used in documents of that time. And today there is a real opportunity to restore this name on the maps of Papua New Guinea, especially since public figures and local residents of this country were happy to learn about such an initiative.
More than a century has passed since the death of H. H. Miklouho-Maclay - a classic of world science, a brave traveler, a humanist thinker, a passionate fighter for the rights of oppressed peoples. But his scientific and social feat, his rich heritage have not lost their significance to this day.
¹ Based on materials from the archives of the Miklukho-Maklaev family and the article “Russian family - a placer of diamonds. Getting acquainted with Miklouho-Maclay ". V.E. Pavlov, magazine "History of Petersburg" №3 (13) from 2003
Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay is a famous Russian traveler who made a number of expeditions to previously unexplored New Guinea and other islands of the Pacific Ocean, a researcher of primitive culture, who collected the richest materials about primitive peoples. Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay was born on July 17, 1846 in the village of Rozhdestvenskoye, near the town of Borovichi, Novgorod province. His father, Nikolai Ilyich Miklukha, was an engineer-captain, and his great-grandfather Stepan was a cornet of one of the Cossack Little Russian regiments, who distinguished himself in the capture of Ochakov in 1772. His mother, Ekaterina Semyonovna, was also from a military family. Nikolai Ilyich Miklukha had four sons and a daughter. Nikolai Nikolaevich was the second. All children bore their father's surname. But Nikolai Nikolaevich from his youth began to call himself Miklouho-Maclay. Miklouho-Maclay's father died when the boy was 11 years old. During his father's life, he studied at home. After the death of his father, his mother sent him to school in St. Petersburg, and then he was transferred to the 2nd St. Petersburg gymnasium.
Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay did not graduate from the gymnasium; due to frequent misunderstandings with teachers and bickering with them, he was forced to leave the 6th grade. In 1863, seventeen-year-old NN Miklukho-Maclay entered the St. Petersburg University, the department of natural sciences at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, from where in the spring of 1864 he was dismissed "for repeated violations of the rules established for volunteers."
To continue his education, N. N. Miklouho-Maclay went abroad. For two years he listened to physicists and naturalists and partly to lawyers and philosophers at the University of Heidelberg. In Leipzig, N. N. Miklouho-Maclay diligently studied anatomy at the Faculty of Medicine, at the same time listening to lectures on natural sciences and at other faculties. His interest in comparative anatomy continued throughout his life. Even completely devoting himself to the study of primitive peoples, he did not abandon anatomical work. Miklouho-Maclay continued his medical education in Jena, where he attended lectures by the famous Ernst Haeckel, then a young professor of zoology, who had a beneficial effect on him in the development of independent scientific research.
Having completed his natural history education, N.N. Miklukho-Maclay devoted himself to the study of the broadest scientific problems devoted to the origin of life, the development of species, the laws of evolution of the organic world. Together with E. Haeckel, whose assistant he became in 1866, he made his first trip to the Canary Islands. Here he studied the anatomy of sponges and the study of the brain of cartilaginous fish. Returning from the expedition in 1867, N. N. Miklouho-Maclay conducted comparative anatomical work in Messina, where he went with Dr. Dorn, a propagandist for the organization of marine zoological stations. In 1869 N. N. Miklouho-Maclay traveled along the shores of the Red Sea, collecting material for his great generalizations. To avoid persecution from the Arabs, N.N. Miklouho-Maclay was transformed into a Muslim: he shaved his head, painted his face, put on an Arabic costume, acquired some familiarity with the language and external Muslim customs. In this form, he wandered the coral reefs of the Red Sea with a microscope, alone, undergoing many hardships and dangers. I had to endure temperatures over 35 °, fever, grief and, to top it off, hunger. But despite all this, N. N. Miklouho-Maclay managed to collect rich zoological and comparative anatomical materials. Soon he went to Constantinople and Odessa, visited the southern coast of Crimea and visited the Volga, collecting materials on the anatomy of cartilaginous fish. From here he came to Moscow for the 2nd Congress of Russian Naturalists and Physicians, where he made a presentation on the need to organize Russian zoological and biological stations on the Black, Baltic, Caspian and White Seas, on the Volga and other rivers. This idea of N. N. Miklouho-Maclay met with sympathy at the congress. Soon Russian zoological stations began to appear. But the completely broad plan of scientific research proposed by N.N.Miklouho-Maclay was not implemented due to lack of funds.
From Moscow N. N. Miklouho-Maclay arrived in St. Petersburg and was warmly received at the Academy of Sciences, where he was offered to take up a collection of sponges from rich academic collections. At a meeting of the Russian Geographical Society in St. Petersburg, N. N. Miklouho-Maclay made a report on the features of the Red Sea, its fauna, the nature of the shores and the life of the population. At the same time, he had the idea of traveling to the vast territories of the Pacific Islands to study the life and customs of primitive peoples. It distracted N. N. Miklouho-Maclay from processing the huge natural-historical materials he had collected. But for him the "field of scientific observation" was still "white", unexplored. Neither personally collected materials nor academic collections seemed to him sufficient for the grandiose generalizations that carried him along. A young and energetic traveler, obsessed with the desire to give science more and more riches of factual material, rushes into the "field", which this time for him is the Pacific Ocean.
“Choosing in 1868 that part of the globe which I intended to devote my research to,” writes N. N. Miklukho-Maclay in his message to the Russian Geographical Society in 1882, “I settled on the islands of the Pacific Ocean and mainly in New Guinea, as the least known island ... with the main goal in mind is to find an area that, until 1868, had not yet been visited by whites. Such an area was the northeastern coast of New Guinea, near Astrolabe Bay. " NN Miklouho-Maclay called it “Maclay Coast”. Explaining the reasons why he left zoology and embryology and devoted himself to ethnology, N.N. the life of this part of humanity under certain new conditions (which may appear every day) are very soon transient. The same birds of paradise and butterflies will fly over New Guinea even in the distant future. "
On October 27, 1870, the Russian military corvette "Vityaz" set sail from Kronstadt around the world. NN Miklouho-Maclay went on a long journey on it. The route of the "Knight" lay through the Strait of Magellan, and this made it possible for N. N. Miklouho-Maclay to engage in scientific observations in different points of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. In September 1871 N. N. Miklouho-Maclay arrived on the northeastern coast of the huge (785,000 square kilometers) deserted island of New Guinea in the Astrolabe Bay, where he settled in a small hut with two servants.
N.N. Miklouho-Maclay was greeted by the natives-Papuans with hostility. They pointed to the sea with gestures, demanding his removal. "It got, - wrote N. N. Miklouho-Maclay, - even to the point that almost every day, for the sake of amusement, they shot arrows that flew very close to me." But soon the Papuans fell in love with him so much that when the Russian military corvette Emerald came for him in December 1872, the natives did not let him in and persuaded him to stay with them forever; they took him to the villages, declared their friendship, promised to build a new house for him instead of a hut, which had collapsed by that time, offered any girl as a wife. N. N. Miklouho-Maclay promised to return to his new friends. "Having considered completely objectively all the circumstances of my first stay between the natives and the subsequent acquaintance with them," writes N. N. Miklouho-Maclay, "I came to the conclusion that I owe a good result of relations with savages, mainly, to my restraint and patience." ... NN Miklouho-Maclay's truthfulness, his attentive friendliness to the Papuans amazed and charmed them, and they decided that he was a special person, "kaaram-tamo", which means "a man from the moon." They also considered his homeland, Russia, to be on the moon.
