Linnaeus and the troglodyte

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which early modern knowledge of the Malay world informed European science, through a case study of the classification of humans in the work of the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus. In the 1758 edition of his Systema Naturae, Linnaeus proposed an entirely new species of human, Homo troglodytes, a counterpoint to Homo sapiens, said to be a resident of the Malay world. Whereas this ‘different’ species has hitherto been seen through Linnaeus’ application of his own taxonomic principles, and has also been dismissed as a product of an uncritical reliance on ‘travel lies’ of the day, this article takes the Homo troglodytes back to his assumed natural habitat. Through a detailed examination of Linnaeus’ sources and the genealogies of European writing on the Malay world in the 18th century a complex picture emerges, framed by local folklore and an early modern ‘ethnography of difference’. Crucially, it is suggested that information about the Malay world available to Linnaeus was ultimately generated by the unique ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity of the region, in particular the ambivalent relationships between the ethnically different peoples of the coast and interior, a longstanding theme in Southeast Asian history. The figure of the troglodyte then becomes a powerful interlocutor between interpretations of the diversity of the Malay world that served to shape not only natural history, but also Enlightenment debates on the relationship between man and beast.

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