"Gorilla Trails in Paradise": Carl Akeley, Mary Bradley, and the American Search for the Missing Link

Abstract

In 1881, Ward's Natural Science Bulletin published anonymously authored poem Missing Link. Referencing decades-long debates over relationship of man to ape, and spiritual, intellectual, and moral capacities of apes, chimpanzees, and orangutans (Desmond 45, 141, 289), poem recounts following tale of simian king ordered by council to find bride. When pressed by lords of state to mate, as time arose for him to perform royal duties, simian regent replied with indignation that he would not make mesalliance with chimpanzee. Despite assurances that female of lesser simian species would suffice as royal consort, gorilla king declared that he would wait for someone worthy of royal bloodline. Suddenly, from treetop viewpoint, sight of a vision of beauty never seen before-[a] maiden young and fair, [a]s charcoal's ebon tint surprised him. Her teeth were white as cowry shells, [h]er locks of crispy curl, and [h]er feet of mammoth size. The gorilla king felt so moved by this bewitching dream that he declared: Now by my kingly troth, This maid shall be, I think, My royal bride, and supply beside The African woman, thoughtless and [sjuspicionless of guile strayed beneath trees where simian court convened. When spake love to her, the lady smiled on him, at which point gorilla king stuck his great prehensile toes in her hair and carried her off into arboreal kingdom. Thus was monarch wed, [a]nd thus race began, [w]hence, thro' various links, somewhat strange methinks, [c]ame of Man! (Ward's Natural Science Bulletin 8). The Bulletin, official journal of Henry Ward's Natural Science Establishment in Rochester, New York, enjoyed wide readership in America and selective reading audience in Europe. Ward's, an emporium, cabinet of curios, and taxidermy studio, boasted reputation as one of premier American (and Western) purveyors of natural history specimens (Kohlstedt, 647-48). In another poem To in The Rochester University, which appeared in Bulletin in 1882, narrator questions existence and purpose of gorilla. At one point in imaginary conversation with stuffed animal on display, author asks: Could you not serve upon rice plantation-[r]aise sugar-cane, and cotton, for masses, [a]nd carry burdens, as do mules and asses? (To 9). Both poems reflected popular and scientific discourses concerning relationship between man and animal kingdom in light of publication of Mr. Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871), and allude to importance of gorilla in those discussions. More specifically, poems' authors speculated that Africans and African Americans were key to unlocking transition from ape to man, as popular and scientific thought configured Negroes closest to simian in form and intellect. In this complex exposition of race and gender, popular thought imagined female African body as producer of the link-a half-man, half-beast creature that would reveal key to descent of man. Analogies drawn between Africans, African Americans, apes, and gorillas in missing link narratives assumed that African women submitted to animal couplings due in part to their perceived hyper and bestial sexuality (Collins 99). This discussion of possible couplings between African woman and gorilla reflected broader American captivation with link. Gorilla Trails in Paradise explores American obsession with primates and evolution, as informed by notions of race and sexuality, as an important current in American cultural and intellectual history during late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This preoccupation began with queries regarding relationship between man and ape in light of evolutionary theories that predated publication of seminal treatises. …