After the true story of Manet's aunts I have uncovered another little known fact of history and a new mystery, to boot!
When I went to see my brother Bob last week he gave me a really interesting book Rajah Brooke's Borneo edited by D.J.M. Tate.
or to give it its full title:
RAJAH BROOKE'S BORNEO: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY WORLD OF PIRATES AND HEAD-HUNTERS, ORANG UTAN AND HORNBILLS, AND OTHER SUCH RARITIES AS SEEN THROUGH THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS AND OTHER CONTEMPORARY SOURCES.
(If you see another copy grab it for me!)
It is fascinating, full of shipping news, gossip and adventures.
Included is the story of Robert Burns' grandson Robert Burns; a trader and a well known figure on the Borneo coast in 1851. When coming down the coast from Labuan in the steamer Pluto, with a cargo of mats, pearls and camphor, the ship was attacked by pirates and Burns lost his head.
A Sulu kris adroitly severed Burns's head from his body with a single cut.
This might have been just an unremarkable act of everyday piracy and headhunting...
Except for the fact that Burns seems rather like Tom Harrison, and if not the most offending soul alive in 1851 then certainly one of the most offensive in Borneo at that time. As well as being, 'quarrelsome, cruel and demanding -particularly where women were concerned-' he was also blessed with a very short temper and had broken all the norms of Malay etiquette. In other words there were a lot of people who wanted to see Burns' head on a stick.
That is a good enough story on its own, but then I came across things that suggested Burns might not have been the man The London Illustrated News supposed.
In December 1851, the Singapore Straits Times reported that Robert Burns, a grandson of the Scotish Bard, was murdered by pirates off the coast of Borneo. since that time the identity of the young man has remained an enigma for Burns genealogists and biographers. This book re-examines the story, in the light of hitherto unpublished evidence, as it moves from Glasgow to Southeast Asia to the Pacific Northwest of the USA.
(from a review of The Burns Boys by Alistair Renwick.)
and this from the New York Times of 1852.
In our paper of the 11th inst. we published an account of the murder of a Mr Burns by the Borneo pirates, and stated that he was a grandson of Robert Burns. This was a mistake. The Mr. B. who lost his life among the pirates was a native of the north of Ireland, and no relative of the poet. He went from Ireland to Glasgow, where he resided for some years, and hence the mistake.
There seems to have been no retraction in The London Illustrated News.
Was Borneo Burns the man in the picture above? I'd liked to think he was. Disowned by his family because of his scandalous lifestyle and debauchery.
There seems one obvious way to solve the mystery and find the true identity of the scoundrel trader. Find his head and run a DNA test. Not an easy task but a highly rewarding one and a great service to both history and poetry, as both arts are fundamentally about the search for truth.
More valuable than looking for spitfires*.
(The search for those has been abandoned and the story is now thought to be a myth.)
Who will sponsor me?
I wanted to end with a clever Burns pun but I confess I'm stumped. Please help me out with this.
I am tormented by the thought of a ball of string. White string the kind you put in a china cat and then pull lengths out of its bottom like worms.
Or was it its mouth? I don't remember.
But why is the image so important?
Was it a dream? Do I need string for something? A poem? The opening lines of a novel?
I don't know and it is infuriating.
Life can be so difficult.
Since I started work with the WEA I have found that there are many people who have never heard of the organisation. It has an interesting history but the only link I can give is http://www.westmidlands.wea.org.uk/history-wea
One of the organisers in Stoke hopes to put up a much more interesting history soon drawing on the huge WEA archive.
* I must tell you about the Mitchell Theatre some time.