Darwin's bulbuls: South Asian cultures of bird fighting and Darwin's theory of sexual selection

Projit Bihari Mukharji

doi:10.1017/bjt.2021.3

Abstract

AbstractThe article explores the extent and nature of the relationship between Darwinian science and the British Empire. It does so by unpicking Darwin's British Indian examples of avian combat in constructing his ‘law of battle’. The article shows how Darwin's interpretation of these reports was simultaneously enabled, shaped and limited by the imperial context within which the reports were generated. Particularly important was Darwin's inability to see the enormous investment of human labour and complex knowledge in sculpting and curating these avian fights through a culture ofshauq. Partly this oversight followed from the South Asian birds having already been saturated by Romantic poetic associations, even before Darwin began considering them. Somewhat surprisingly, I note, Clifford Geertz shared Darwin's blindness towards the ‘cultural’ sculpting of ‘nature’ during avian combat.

Highlights

Important was Darwin’s inability to see the enormous investment of human labour and complex knowledge in sculpting and curating these avian fights through a culture of shauq. This oversight followed from the South Asian birds having already been saturated by Romantic poetic associations, even before Darwin began considering them
The first image insists that Darwinism pays its debt to empire, but does so leaving little room for the epistemic frameworks of the colonized people
The second image insists that the empire was a vibrant intellectual space with its own independent intellectual traditions and agendas, but does so by tracing reactions to Darwin

Summary

Introduction

Darwin’s bulbuls: South Asian cultures of bird fighting and Darwin’s theory of sexual selection Evelleen Richards has, argued that this was the earliest part of his theory of ‘sexual selection’ and had its roots in Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin’s work.[7] In establishing this ‘law’ in The Descent, Darwin deployed a significant number of examples of avian combat observed in British India.

Results

Conclusion