‘Being Honest to my Science’: Reo Fortune and J.H.P. Murray, 1927-301

Reo Fortune worked on Tewara Island in the D'Entrecasteaux group in the Australian Territory of Papua from November 1927 to May 1928. His relations with the Lieutenant-Governor J.H.P. Murray and the government anthropologist F.E. Williams were problematic. In this paper I argue that Fortune's actions, along with increasing tension between Murray and Radcliffe-Brown, were sufficient for a change in Murray's attitude towards continued independent anthropological research in Papua. After 1930, despite his early support for colonial officers receiving training in anthropology, Murray sent no cadets or officers for training in the university. With the exceptions of Geza Roheim and Paul Wirz, both in 1930, Williams conducted all anthropological research in Papua until the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941.