Grave marker for Ernest T. Morris
Donación protegida
In the late 1800s, Indianapolis was home to Ernest T. Morris, who gained fame as the "Boy Naturalist" or "Boy Explorer". He made a solo canoe journey from Indy to New Orleans in 1874, when he was 18. He followed that up with 7 expeditions to the Amazon valley between 1875 and 1884, where he collected orchids, butterflies, and beetles for wealthy collectors.
On his 1876-1877 journey, he made an epic canoe voyage up the Tapajos and Cururu rivers, past a score of waterfalls, and spent weeks among an isolated group of Munduruku Indians, hunting with them, eating their food, and living in their longhouse.
In the early 1880s, he was a special correspondent for the New York World, and wrote many columns about the Amazon that were syndicated nationwide.
However, he had no wealth or financial backing, and after marrying returned to Indy and worked as a wholesale grocery salesman, and was quickly forgotten.
He died in 1891 at age 35, and left his family an unpublished manuscript of his 1876-1877 trip, titled "In Search of Human Heads" (the Munduruku took heads as war trophies and dried them; Morris brought several back to the US to great fanfare).
Last fall I contacted Morris's great-great grandaughter, Marianne Salaymeh, who still had his manuscript.
The manuscript has been transcribed and is now available to the world on the Internet archive site: Ernest Morris's "In Search of Human Heads"
Word of this delayed publication (140 years!) by an Indianapolis adventurer has spread to anthropologists of the Amazon region and is generating much interest.
Morris is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis. Sadly, he doesn't even have a marker at his grave site.
This fundraiser will provide an engraved gravestone for Ernest, to serve as a local memorial to an overlooked adventurer.
I'm a writer interested in Morris's career. This fundraising is being dome with the consent and approval of his great-great-granddaughter, Marianne Lanman Salaymeh.
On his 1876-1877 journey, he made an epic canoe voyage up the Tapajos and Cururu rivers, past a score of waterfalls, and spent weeks among an isolated group of Munduruku Indians, hunting with them, eating their food, and living in their longhouse.
In the early 1880s, he was a special correspondent for the New York World, and wrote many columns about the Amazon that were syndicated nationwide.
However, he had no wealth or financial backing, and after marrying returned to Indy and worked as a wholesale grocery salesman, and was quickly forgotten.
He died in 1891 at age 35, and left his family an unpublished manuscript of his 1876-1877 trip, titled "In Search of Human Heads" (the Munduruku took heads as war trophies and dried them; Morris brought several back to the US to great fanfare).
Last fall I contacted Morris's great-great grandaughter, Marianne Salaymeh, who still had his manuscript.
The manuscript has been transcribed and is now available to the world on the Internet archive site: Ernest Morris's "In Search of Human Heads"
Word of this delayed publication (140 years!) by an Indianapolis adventurer has spread to anthropologists of the Amazon region and is generating much interest.
Morris is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis. Sadly, he doesn't even have a marker at his grave site.
This fundraiser will provide an engraved gravestone for Ernest, to serve as a local memorial to an overlooked adventurer.
I'm a writer interested in Morris's career. This fundraising is being dome with the consent and approval of his great-great-granddaughter, Marianne Lanman Salaymeh.
Organizador y beneficiario
Jerry Kuntz
Organizador
Warwick, NY
Marianne Lanman Salaymeh
Beneficiario
