works

Galleries and Reading Room

Library

Wellcome Café

Wellcome Kitchen

Wellcome Shop

To make your visit as safe and enjoyable as possible, you’ll need to follow our safety measures inside our venue, including wearing a face covering unless you’re exempt. Find out how we're keeping you safe. You no longer need to book a ticket to enter the museum or library.

We’re undertaking research with website visitors to find out some more about you and what you thought about your visit. This survey will take less than 10 minutes to complete. Thank you for your time!

What brought you to our website today?

Offers the first comprehensive history of the human-orangutan encounter. Arguably the most humanlike of all the great apes, particularly in intelligence and behavior, the orangutan has been cherished, used, and abused ever since it was first brought to the attention of Europeans in the seventeenth century. The red ape has engaged the interest of scientists, philosophers, artists, and the public at large in a bewildering array of guises that have by no means been exclusively zoological or ecological. One reason for such a long-term engagement with a being found only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra is that, like its fellow great apes, the orangutan stands on that most uncomfortable dividing line between human and animal, existing, for us, on what has been called ₃the dangerous edge of the garden of nature. Beginning with the scientific discovery of the red ape more than three hundred years ago, this work goes on to examine the ways in which its human attributes have been both recognized and denied in science, philosophy, travel literature, popular science, literature, theatre, museums, and film. The authors offer a provocative analysis of the origin of the name orangutan, trace how the ape has been recruited to arguments on topics as diverse as slavery and rape, and outline the history of attempts to save the animal from extinction. Today, while human populations increase exponentially, that of the orangutan is in dangerous decline. The remaining wild men of Borneo are under increasing threat from mining interests, logging, human population expansion, and the widespread destruction of forests. The authors hope that this history will, by adding to our knowledge of this fascinating being, assist in some small way in their preservation.

Wild man from Borneo : a cultural history of the orangutan / Robert Cribb, Helen Gilbert, Helen Tiffin.

1 photograph : photoprint, platinum ; 14.6 x 10.3 cm

Sarawak: an adult orang-utan (Simia satyrus). Photograph.

"There is a mixed breed called Topasses or Mardikers, consisting of several nations, incorporated with the Dutch ..." (Salmon, op. cit. p. 114)
The ape is described as having human characteristics (Salmon, op. cit., p. 115: "Monkeys also abound here: Mr. Leguat, who resided in Java some years, relates, that he saw a monkey that was kept in one of the bastions at at Batavia, that came very near the human form; that it was a female, went upright on its hinder legs, was very tall, and concealed the pudenda with one of its hands; that she made her bed neatly every day in a little house her master had built for her, and lying down at night, covered herself with a quilt, and sometimes would bind her head with a cloth, and seemed to grieve as if she had the head-ach. Mr. Leguat imagined great pains had been taken to teach the creature to perform such actions, as seemed to be the result of reason, while others were of opinion it was the issue of an ape and a female slave; for when a slave has committed a great fault, or what the Dutch are pleased to call such, they frequently run up into the mountains, and live perfectly wild, and supposes that this creature was begot on her mother by some male ape.")

1 print : etching, with engraving ; image 14 x 23.5 cm

Java: a man and a woman of mixed race (Dutch and Javanese), with the woman holding a young child in her arms, standing outside a plantation; right an ape of Java (orangoutan?). Etching by F. Garden, 1752.

Sarawak: a baby orang-utan (Simia satyrus). Photograph.

Leaflet advertising appearances by an armless woman, an orangutan and a cassowary bird. 18th century.

Freak shows ephemera. Box 5

To the admirers of the wonderful productions of nature : just arrived here, to be seen in a commodious room, from eleven in the morning, till 9 at night, at Mr. Robson's, Market Place, Durham : the famous Miss Baggs from Newfoundland, now twenty years of age, born without arms, and will work with her toes, in as complete a manner as with arms, and hands ...

Wellcome uses cookies.

More filters

Active filters:

Wild man from Borneo : a cultural history of the orangutan / Robert Cribb, Helen Gilbert, Helen Tiffin.

Sarawak: an adult orang-utan (Simia satyrus). Photograph.

Java: a man and a woman of mixed race (Dutch and Javanese), with the woman holding a young child in her arms, standing outside a plantation; right an ape of Java (orangoutan?). Etching by F. Garden, 1752.

Sarawak: a baby orang-utan (Simia satyrus). Photograph.

Stay in the know

Wellcome collection

Finding us:

Opening times:

Today's opening times

Wellcome uses cookies.

Search the collections

More filters

Active filters:

Wild man from Borneo : a cultural history of the orangutan / Robert Cribb, Helen Gilbert, Helen Tiffin.

Sarawak: an adult orang-utan (Simia satyrus). Photograph.

Java: a man and a woman of mixed race (Dutch and Javanese), with the woman holding a young child in her arms, standing outside a plantation; right an ape of Java (orangoutan?). Etching by F. Garden, 1752.

Sarawak: a baby orang-utan (Simia satyrus). Photograph.

Stay in the know

Wellcome collectionWellcome Collection

Finding us:

Opening times:

Today's opening times

Wellcome collection