Hobart M. Van Deusen '33

Hobart M. Van Deusen '33, Assistant Curator of the Archbold Collections of the American Museum of Natural History, sent in this picture of Tanis with the following explanation of how it came about:

"The enclosed photograph is one of the unexpected, hundred-year-later by-products of the founding of the Museum! Humor, after months in the field, verges on the sophomoric. However, no excuses! The gentleman in the photo is Tanis, my cook on our 1964 expedition to New Guinea. One night after dinner he was beating his carved, hour-glass-shaped drum (with a ring-tailed possum skin on the drum head) and dancing around the camp fire. The decoration in his hair consists of the plumes of the red bird-of-paradise, and the circlet around his forehead is made of dog's teeth and shells. Finally the temptation was too great and I pulled out my old Dartmouth sweat shirt and asked Tanis to come back to the twentieth century (from the Stone Age) for a few minutes while we took his picture. What a dancer and drummer, and a fine cook, too! He was doing the twist et al. long before they were given names! With his Stone Age background Tanis never balked at cooking amethystine python for dinner, or putting the bodies of owls and birds-of-paradise in the soup du jour! Tanis has his home in a small village in the Crom-well Mountains on the Huon Peninsula on the north coast of the Australian administered Territory of New Guinea. Tanis is a good friend and one of the finest New Guinea men I have met. He gave one member of the Class of 1933 a glimpse of life as it once was. External influences are rapidly changing the face of New Guinea, but the mind moves more slowly."