Editing W. H. R. Rivers (section)

==Torres Straits expedition==
Rivers recognised in himself "the desire for change and novelty, which is one of the strongest aspects of my mental makeup"<ref name=ConflictDream>{{cite book|title=Conflict and Dreams|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.106714|first1=W. H.|last1=Rivers|last2=Smith|first2=Grafton Elliot|author-link2=Grafton Elliot Smith|year=1923|publisher=K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co|location=London|isbn=1-4179-8019-2|oclc=1456588 }}</ref> and, while fond of St John's,<ref name="HistMel">{{cite book |first=W. H. R. |last=Rivers |title=The History of Melanesian Society |url=https://archive.org/details/b31362692_0001 |year=1914 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]}}</ref> the staid lifestyle of his Cambridge existence showed in signs of nervous strain and led him to experience periods of depression.<ref name="Eagle1922"/>

The turning point came in 1898 when [[Alfred Cort Haddon]] seduced "Rivers from the path of virtue... (for psychology then was a chaste science)... into that of anthropology:"<ref>From a speech made after Haddon had been presented with the first Rivers Medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute on 27 January 1925 – quoted in Langham, 1981</ref> He made Rivers first choice to head an expedition to the [[Torres Straits]].<ref name="langham"/> Rivers's first reaction was to decline, but he soon agreed on learning that [[C. S. Myers]] and [[William McDougall (psychologist)|William McDougall]], two of his best former students, would participate.<ref name="langham"/> The other members were [[Sidney Herbert Ray|Sidney Ray]], [[Charles Gabriel Seligman|C. G. Seligman]], and a young Cambridge graduate named Anthony Wilkin, who was asked to accompany the expedition as photographer.<ref name="langham"/> In April 1898, the Europeans were transported with gear and apparatus to the Torres Straits.  Rivers was said to pack only a small handbag of personal effects for such field trips.<ref name="slobodin"/>

[[Image:Torres Straits 1898.jpg|left|thumb|Members of the 1898 Torres Straits Expedition. Standing (from left to right): Rivers, [[Charles Gabriel Seligman|Seligman]], [[Sidney Herbert Ray|Ray]], Wilkin. Seated: [[Alfred Cort Haddon|Haddon]]]]

From [[Thursday Island]], several of the party found passage, soaked by rain and waves, on the deck of a crowded 47-foot [[ketch]]. In addition to sea sickness, Rivers had been badly sunburnt on his shins and for many days had been quite ill. On 5 May, in a bad storm nearing their first destination of [[Murray Island, Queensland|Murray Island]], the ship dragged anchor on the [[Great Barrier Reef|Barrier Reef]] and the expedition almost met disaster<ref name="slobodin"/> Later Rivers recalled the [[palliative effect]] of near shipwreck.<ref>''Instinct and the Unconscious'': "Not only may an injury occurring in the presence of danger fail wholly to be perceived, but the pain already present may completely disappear, even if it depends upon definite organic changes. On one occasion I was in imminent danger of shipwreck while suffering from severe inflammation of the skin over the shin-bones, consequent upon sun-burn, which made every movement painful. So long as the danger was present I moved about freely, quite oblivious to the state of my legs, and wholly free from pain. There was also striking absence of the fear I should have expected the incident to produce."</ref>

When the ketch dropped anchor, Rivers and Ray were at first too ill to go ashore. However the others set up a surgery to treat the native islanders and Rivers, lying in bed next-door tested the patients for [[colour vision]]: Haddon's diary noted "He is getting some interesting results."<ref name="slobodin"/> The warmth shown to the sickly Rivers by the Islanders contributed to strong positive feelings for the work and a deep concern for the welfare of Melanesians during the remainder of his life.<ref name="slobodin"/>

Rivers's first task was to examine first hand the colour vision of the islanders and compare it to that of Europeans.<ref name="langham"/><ref name="J.LMyers1923">{{cite journal |author=J.L Myers |date=January–June 1923 |title= W. H. R. Rivers |journal= Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute |volume=53 |pages=14–17 |doi=10.2307/2843748 |jstor=2843748}}</ref> In the course of his examinations of the visual acuity of the natives, Rivers showed that colour-blindness did not exist or was very rare, but that the colour vision of Papuans was not the same type as that of Europeans; they possessed no word for blue, and an intelligent native found nothing unnatural in applying the same name to the brilliant blue sea or sky and to the deepest black.<ref name="RoyalSoc1922">{{cite journal |author=Henry Head |date=January–June 1922 |title= W. H. R. Rivers |journal= Obituary Notices from the Proceedings of the Royal Society }}</ref>  "Moreover", Head goes on to state in Rivers's obituary notice, "he was able to explode the old fallacy that the 'noble savage' was endowed with powers of vision far exceeding that of civilised natives. Errors of refraction are, it is true, less common, especially myopia. But, altogether the feats of the Torres Straits islanders equalled those reported by travellers from other parts of the world, they were due to the power of attending to minute details in familiar and strictly limited surrounding, and not to supernormal visual acuity."<ref name="RoyalSoc1922"/>

It was at this point that Rivers began collecting family histories and constructing genealogical tables<ref name="RoyalSoc1922"/> but his purpose appears to have been more biological than ethnological since such tables seem to have originated as a means of determining whether certain sensory talents or disabilities were hereditary.<ref name="A.C.HNature1922">{{cite journal |author=A.C Haddon |date=June 1922 |title= Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, F.R.S |journal= Nature |volume=109 |pages=786–787 |doi=10.1038/109786a0 |issue=2746|bibcode=1922Natur.109..786H |doi-access=free }}</ref> However, these simple tables soon took on a new prospective.

It was at once evident to Rivers that "the names applied to the various forms of blood relationship did not correspond to those used by Europeans, but belonged to what is known as a 'classificatory system'; a man's 'brothers' or 'sisters' might include individuals we should call cousins and the key to this nomenclature is to be found in forms of social organisation especially in varieties of the institution of marriage."<ref name="RoyalSoc1922"/> Rivers found that relationship terms were used to imply definite duties, privileges and mutual restrictions in conduct, rather than being biologically based as Europeans' are. As Head puts it: "all these facts were clearly demonstrable by the genealogical method, a triumphant generalisation which has revolutionised ethnology."<ref name="RoyalSoc1922"/>

The Torres Straits expedition was "revolutionary" in many other respects as well. For the first time, British anthropology had been removed from its "armchair" and placed into a sound empirical basis, providing the model for future anthropologists to follow.<ref name="langham"/> In 1916, Sir Arthur Keith stated in an address to the Royal Anthropological Institute, that the expedition had engendered "the most progressive and profitable movement in the history of British anthropology."<ref name="langham"/>

While the expedition was clearly productive and, in many ways, arduous for its members, it was also the foundation of lasting friendships. The team would reunite at many points and their paths would frequently converge. Of particular note is the relationship between Rivers and Haddon, the latter of whom regarded the fact he had induced Rivers to come to the Torres Straits as his claim to fame.<ref name="Man1940">{{cite journal |author1=A. H. Quiggin |author2=E. S. Fegan |year=1940 |title= Alfred Cort Haddon |journal= Man }}</ref> It cannot be denied that both Rivers and Haddon were serious about their work but at the same time they were imbued with a keen sense of humour and fun. Haddon's diary from Tuesday 16 August reads thus: "Our friends and acquaintances would often be very much amused if they could see us at some of our occupations and I am afraid these would sometimes give occasion to the enemy to blaspheme – so trivial would they appear ... for example one week we were mad on [[cat's cradle]] – at least Rivers, Ray and I were – McDougall soon fell victim and even Myers eventually succumbed."<ref name="langham"/> It may seem to be a bizarre occupation for a group of highly qualified men of science, indeed, as Haddon states: "I can imagine that some people would think we were demented – or at least wasting our time."<ref name="langham"/> However, both Haddon and Rivers were to use the string trick to scientific ends<ref>Rivers saw string figures as throwing light on protopathic, as opposed to epicritic, mental processes (for more on this, see Rivers's review of ''String Figures'' by Caroline Jayne in ''Folklore'' '''18''' – 1907). For Haddon, producing string figures became an unequalled means of winning the confidence of informants. As his daughter Kathleen wrote, "who would suspect the guile of a man who sits among the children playing with a piece of string?"(Langham, 1981)</ref> and they are also credited as inventing a system of nomenclature that enabled them to be able to schematise the steps required and teach a variety of string tricks to European audiences.<ref name="langham"/>

The expedition ended in October 1898 and Rivers returned to England.<ref name="Eagle1922"/> In 1900, Rivers joined Myers and Wilkin in Egypt to run tests on the colour vision of the Egyptians; this was the last time he saw Wilkin, who died of [[dysentery]] in May 1901, aged 24.<ref name="slobodin"/><ref>Rivers and Haddon established the Wilkin Studentship at Cambridge in the young man's honour</ref>

===The Todas===
Rivers had already formed a career in physiology and psychology. But now he moved more definitively into anthropology. He wanted a demographically small, fairly isolated people, comparable to the island societies of the Torres Strait, where he might be able to get genealogical data on each and every individual. The [[Toda people|Todas]] in the [[Nilgiri Mountains|Nilgiri Hills]] of Southern India, with their population then about 700 plus, suited Rivers's criteria. And they had specific features of social organization, such as [[Polyandry in India|polyandrous marriage]] and a bifurcation of their society into so-called [[Moiety (kinship)|moieties]] that had interested historical evolutionists. Whether his fieldwork was initially so single-minded is questionable, however, since at first Rivers looked at other local communities and studied their visual perception before fixing all his attention on the Todas.

Rivers worked among the Todas for less than six months during 1901–02, communicating with his Toda informants only through interpreters and lodged in an [[Ootacamund]] hotel. Yet he assembled a stunning collection of data on the ritual and social lives of the Toda people. Almost all who have subsequently studied the Todas have been amazed at the richness and the accuracy of Rivers's data. His book ''The Todas'', which came out in 1906, is still an outstanding contribution to Indian ethnography, "indispensable: still only to be supplemented rather than superseded", as [[Murray Barnson Emeneau|Murray Emeneau]] wrote in 1971. And it is little wonder that so famous a champion of anthropological fieldwork as Dr [[Bronisław Malinowski|Bronislaw Malinowski]] (1884–1942) declared Rivers to be his "patron saint of field work".

In the preface to this book Rivers wrote that his work was "not merely the record of the customs and beliefs of a people, but also the demonstration of anthropological method". That method is the collection of genealogical materials for the purpose of more fully investigating other aspects of social life, notably ritual. 
 
The first eleven chapters of ''The Todas'' represented in 1906 a novel approach to the presentation of ethnographic data, one that, under the influence of Malinowski, would later become a standard practice in British [[social anthropology]]. This is the analysis of a people's society and culture by presentation of a detailed description of a particularly significant institution. In the Toda case, it is the sacred dairy cult. But Rivers is unable to sustain this focus throughout the work, so after a brilliant opening, the book tails off somewhat. We get a good idea of the Toda dairies and the ideas of ritual purity that protect them; but then the author returns to the ready-made categories of the day: gods, magic, kinship, clanship, crime and so on, and says no more about the dairies. Moreover, he failed to discover the existence of matrilineal clans alongside the patrilineal ones. A second, and more important, limitation of his study is its failure to view Toda society as a local and specialized variant of—as [[Alfred Kroeber|A. L. Kroeber]] wrote—"higher Indian culture". Rivers's book has been largely responsible for the view (now not infrequently held by educated Todas themselves) that these are a people quite distinct from other South Indians.

When, in 1902, Rivers left the Nilgiri Hills and India too, he would never return. Moreover, after the publication of ''The Todas'' he wrote very little more about them.