Abstract
WE regret to record the death of Mr. Maurice Vidal Portman, which occurred at Axbridge, Somerset, on February 14, at the age of seventy-four years. Mr. Portman was well known as an authority on the natives of the Andaman Islands as they existed fifty years ago. He was appointed “Officer in charge of the Andamanese”, with headquarters at Port Blair, in 1879, and remained in the Andamans until 1899, when he was sent home on account of ill-health. Throughout his term of duty he was in constant and intimate touch with the life of these tribes of shy, difficult and sometimes dangerous, little people. As a result of his care for them and his disregard for the risks he ran in getting into touch with them, he acquired knowledge of their customs and beliefs which made him the equal, if not indeed the superior, as an authority, of E. H. Man, although the latter won the wider reputation through his books. Mr. Portman was a contributor of papers on Andamanese matters to the publications of learned and scientific societies, and made a remarkable collection of photographs of the Andamanese and their articles of material culture.
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Mr. M. V. Portman. Nature 135, 573 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135573b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135573b0