Gauguin’s mystery birds
KARL SHUKER RETURNS TO THE ART OF CRYPTO-TWITCHING IN AN ATTEMPT TO SOLVE THE AVIAN ENIGMAS FOUND IN TWO MASTERPIECES OF POST-IMPRESSIONIST ART
Nn May 2007, FT published an article of mine (“The Art of Crypto-Twitching”, FT222:4244) in which I revealed that several paintings by various world-famous artists contained mysterious birds that have never been formally identified and may constitute species still undescribed by science. One such example was a very intriguing multicoloured bird closely resembling a purple gallinule (aka the swamphen, related to moorhens and including New Zealand’s famous flightless takahes). It appeared in one of the last paintings produced by the celebrated post-impressionist Paul Gauguin (pictured at left) while residing in the Marquesas, a group of tropical Pacific islands owned by France. Here is what I wrote about it:
No less celebrated an artist than Audubon is Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), though his fame lies far more with paintings of dusky South Sea Island maidens than with ornithological subjects. Having said that, however, it may well be that one of his paintings has considerable crypto-twitching significance. One of his last works was painted in 1902 while on the small Pacific island of Hiva Oa in French Polynesia’s Marquesas group, and is now at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in
Liege, Belgium. Entitled “The Sorcerer of Hiva Oa”, it depicts a tall man in a striking red cape standing near a forest – but what is most intriguing from a cryptozoological standpoint is the brightly plumaged bird portrayed in the painting’s bottom-right corner, and seemingly held in place by one wing by a dog.
“Remarkably, this bird looks very like the famous New Zealand takahe Porphyrio mantelli, the large flightless gallinule thought to be extinct until rediscovered on South Island in 1948... 1 In recent years, specimens of this greatly endangered species have been transferred to, and have successfully bred on, the small island bird sanctuary of Tiritiri Matangi, which I visited in November 2006 and where I was greatly privileged to see wild takahes at close range. Hence I can confirm that Gauguin’s bird does indeed look very like – though not identical to – a takahe; the main difference is that the mystery bird’s head is green, whereas the takahe’s is dark blue. But what could any such bird be doing far from New Zealand, on the tiny South Pacific island of Hiva Oa? No such species is known to exist here.
“Nevertheless, two aspects of the painting clearly indicate that the bird was indeed native to this island. Firstly, the sorcerer depicted in 1902 was a famous Hiva Oa local of that time called Haapuani. Secondly, there is a distinct suggestion that the bird had been newly captured on the island during a hunt, because Gauguin depicted it gripped by the jaws of a hunting-type dog.
“What makes this painting so important cryptozoologically, as brought to attention by French researcher Michel Raynal in a number of his writings, is that Gauguin’s rara avis compares very closely with descriptions of a stillundescribed, uncaptured species of bird reported on several occasions from Hiva Oa (it was even briefly spied there by the famous Norwegian voyager Thor Heyerdahl in 1937) and known locally here as the koao. Moreover, subfossil remains of an officially extinct gallinule, Porphyrio paepae, have been uncovered on Hiva Oa, leading to the exciting possibility that this species and the elusive koao are one and the same. And perhaps, unknowingly, Gauguin has left us a unique portrait of this bird.”
Incidentally, in 2014 I received an email from Michel, who had been continuing his researches into the koao and this intriguing Gauguin painting, in which he claimed that although the tall human figure in it is indeed
generally assumed to be Haapuani, he had discovered that in reality it was Haapuani’s wife, Tohataua, thus explaining why there were flowers in this person’s noticeably long hair. Unfortunately, however, he did not provide any confirmatory sources for this identification. Also, although I agree that the figure does have a somewhat feminine appearance, why is the painting’s original French title “Le Sorcier d’Hiva-Oa”, i.e. labelling the person as masculine, not feminine?
GAUGUIN’S THREE BIRDS
More than a decade has passed since my crypto-twitching article was published, but I too have continued to investigate mystery birds in art, and I am now delighted to reveal two further examples painted by Gauguin. Moreover, both of these further examples appear in the same painting, but neither has previously been brought to cryptozoological notice.
“Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” is considered not only by art aficionados but also by Gauguin himself to be his masterpiece. It was painted in oils on canvas during a month of incessant work between December 1897 and January 1898 on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti – located 932 miles (1,500km) southwest of the Marquesas, and separated from them by the Tuamotu Islands. Measuring approximately 12ft x 5ft (3.6m x 1.5m), it is his largest canvas); it contains numerous humans, animals, and symbolic figures arranged across a Tahitian landscape, and is currently housed in The Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Gauguin’s own description of this spectacular artwork includes the following details: “To the right, below, a sleeping baby and three seated women. Two figures dressed in purple confide their thoughts to each other. An enormous crouching figure which intentionally violates the perspective, raises its arm in the air and looks in astonishment at these two people who dare to think of their destiny. A figure in the centre is picking fruit. Two cats near a child. A white goat. An idol, both arms mysteriously and rhythmically raised, seems to indicate the Beyond. A crouching girl seems to listen to the idol. Lastly, an old woman approaching death appears reconciled and resigned to her thoughts. She completes the story. At her feet a strange white bird, holding a lizard in its claw, represents a futility of words.”
The first – and potentially the most noteworthy – of the two mystery birds to be considered here is the one that Gauguin referred to above as “a strange white bird, holding a lizard in its claw”. As can readily be seen by comparing the close-up view of it with that of the mystery bird in “The Sorcerer of Hiva-Oa”, the two specimens are very similar indeed in shape and size, and share a very sturdy red or orange beak – all features, moreover, that readily align them morphologically with the purple gallinules (swamphens). In fact, the only noticeable difference between them is the pure white plumage of the former bird versus the multicoloured plumage of the latter.
Initially, therefore, I wondered if the white mystery gallinule portrayed by Gauguin in “Where Do We Come From?” might simply be a freak albinistic or leucistic individual of whatever species is represented by the multicoloured mystery gallinule in “The Sorcerer of Hiva Oa”, especially as there is no gallinule species known from Tahiti (nor from the intervening Tuamotu Islands). If so, I think it more likely that this pallid individual is albinistic, which would explain its uniformly snow-white plumage, because true, complete albinos are indeed characterised by a total absence of pigmentation. In leucistic individuals, conversely, pigmentation is merely reduced rather than absent, thus bestowing upon leucistic birds a faded, washed-out plumage appearance rather than a pure white one.
However, in recent years a third colourrelated condition has been recognised, known as progressive greying, which could be very pertinent here. Indeed, there is a notable precedent on file relating to this latter condition.
LORD HOWE’S ISLAND
Named after Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe, First Lord of the British Admiralty at the time of its discovery and subsequent settlement by Europeans in 1788, the previously uninhabited Lord Howe Island is situated in the Tasman Sea; it lies 320 nautical miles east of New South Wales in Australia, and is officially an Unincorporated area of that state. Approximately 6.2 miles (10km) long, 1.24 miles (2km) wide at its widest point, and 3,600 acres (1,457ha) in area, prior to the arrival of the first Europeans this island was home to a considerable diversity of avifauna (over 200 species have been recorded here), which included no fewer than 13 endemic species and subspecies. Tragically, however, only four of these latter birds still survive today, the remaining nine having been wiped out variously by introduced rats, hunting and habitat destruction.
One of these now-extirpated birds was a very striking species of gallinule, known officially as the Lord Howe swamphen Porphyrio albus, but also as the white gallinule. The latter name and also its taxonomic binomial
name refer to its most conspicuous feature. For apart from its red legs and red beak, this swamphen was almost exclusively white – as depicted in a number of illustrations and described in verbal accounts by European visitors to the island between 1788 and 1790. 1790 also saw its formal scientific description, by Irish surgeon and botanist John White in his book Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, which included a colour illustration. White formally named it Fulica albus, thereby including it within the coot genus, Fulica, which at that time also contained the purple gallinules. 2
White also recalled in his book the first sighting made of this species by sailors from the fleets landing on Lord Howe Island, in March 1788: “They also found on it [the island], in great plenty, a kind of fowl, resembling much the Guinea fowl in shape and size but widely different in colour, they being in general all white, with a red fleshy substance rising, like a cock’s comb, from the head, and not unlike a piece of sealing wax. These not being birds of flight, nor in the least wild, the sailors, availing themselves of their gentleness and inability to take wing from their pursuits, easily struck them down with sticks.”
This brief passage contains some very significant information relating to this now-vanished form. Firstly, the principal aspects of its morphological appearance. Secondly, the fact that it was unable to fly. Thirdly, the way in which it met its demise – killed off by humans, for which it had no fear, because prior to their arrival on Lord Howe Island this species evidently had no predators to be afraid of. This in turn explained its flightlessness – birds inhabiting islands that lack predators have no need of flight and therefore often eventually evolve into flightless forms. The last reports of living white swamphens on Lord Howe Island occurred during the 1830s, since when it has been deemed extinct.
Pertinent here is the concise yet detailed description of the Lord Howe swamphen penned in 1789 by Admiral Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales, in his tome The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay; With an Account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson & Norfolk Island: “This beautiful bird greatly resembles the purple Gallinule in shape and make, but is much superior in size, being as large as a dunghill fowl. The length from the end of the bill to that of the claws is two feet three inches [68cm]; the bill is very stout, and the colour of it, the whole top of the head, and the irises red; the sides of the head around the eyes are reddish, very thinly sprinkled with white feathers; the whole of the plumage without exception is white. The legs the colour of the bill. This species is pretty common on Lord Howe’s Island, Norfolk Island, and other places, and is a very tame species. The other sex, supposed to be the male, is said to have some blue on the wings.”
Again, this succinct account contains some very noteworthy information concerning the Lord Howe swamphen. Namely, its relatively large size relative to typical purple gallinules; the apparent presence of some blue shading on the wings of the male; and this species’ supposed existence not only on Lord Howe Island itself but also on Norfolk Island as well as unnamed “other places”. Norfolk Island is an external territory of Australia, located approximately 560 miles (900km) northeast of Lord Howe Island and 877 miles (1,411km) due east of Australia’s New South Wales-Queensland border. Today, most ornithologists believe that Phillip’s claim that this species existed in Norfolk Island and elsewhere is in error. However, just like Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island was once home to a fair number of endemic birds that were mostly extirpated following contact with European sailors and colonists. So perhaps such a bird really did exist there but was wiped out before its existence had been scientifically confirmed.
Indeed, other than by virtue of some still-existing written accounts like those quoted above and a selection of illustrations by various artists and actual eyewitnesses, even the Lord Howe Island swamphen’s own erstwhile reality is scarcely substantiated scientifically. Just two physical specimens of it exist – one a former taxiderm mount later converted to a study skin and housed at Liverpool’s World Museum, the other a skin preserved in Vienna’s Naturhistorisches Museum.
GOING GREY
All very interesting, but of what direct relevance is Lord Howe Island’s white swamphen to the white swamphen in Gauguin’s Tahiti-set “Where Do We Come From?” After all, whereas Tahiti and the Marquesas are located fairly close to each other, they are both far removed from Lord Howe Island (over 3,000 miles/4,800km and over 4,000/6,440km
miles respectively), so it seems implausible that these two white but zoogeographically discrete forms could be one and the same species. The answer stems from a phenomenon only recently recognised and which I alluded to earlier in this article – progressive greying.
Previously confused with albinism and leucism, progressive greying, as its name suggests, is an inheritable condition in which melanin-producing cells decrease in number as an individual exhibiting this condition ages. Consequently, as a juvenile it is normally pigmented, but becomes progressively paler as it matures until by adulthood it is completely white. In the case of the Lord Howe swamphen, there is a key illustration (see previous page) that seems to confirm that this phenomenon was actually responsible for its ostensibly unique white coloration. Produced by an unknown artist at a time when this species was still alive, the painting (now housed in London’s Natural History Museum) depicts three specimens of this species. It also includes the handwritten caption: “Three stages of this Bird, taken at Lord Howes [sic] Island, before it arrives at maturity.”
As seen here, the bird resting is very dark blue all over, almost black, whereas the bird standing on the right has a brighter blue chest, throat, and neck, and the bird standing on the left is entirely white as in other depictions of the Lord Howe swamphen. As all of them are juveniles, and as all known adults of this species were white, it would seem that this species actually began life as a dark-plumaged bird, but became progressively lighter as it aged until eventually it was entirely white – exactly as occurs with progressive greying.
Consequently, in an extensive monograph on the Lord Howe swamphen published in 2016 by the Bulletin – British Ornithologists’ Club, Hein van Grouw and Julian P Hume declared that this phenomenon is indeed the explanation for this species’ coloration. Moreover, they also note that it possessed various morphological attributes that confirmed it was a valid species in its own right. 3
But what has all of this to do with Gauguin’s mystery gallinules? Possibly quite a lot – inasmuch as it occurs to me that perhaps a similar phenomenon involving progressive greying once occurred on Tahiti and Hiva Oa, with Gauguin’s paintings providing visual proof. Could it be that the multicoloured mystery gallinule in his sorcerer painting was a juvenile version of the white gallinule in “Where Do We Come from?”? In other words, did Tahiti and Hiva Oa once share a species of gallinule that began life as a normal multicoloured phase but via progressive greying ultimately transformed by adulthood into a white phase, and therefore was comparable in outward appearance throughout its life with the Lord Howe swamphen?
If – and I confess that it’s a big ‘if’ – Gauguin’s paintings depict real birds, rather than wholly imaginary ones, it would certainly be more parsimonious to proffer the scenario of a single species that exhibits progressive greying as an explanation for its existence, rather than to suggest that Tahiti and Hiva
Oa were collectively home to not one but two entirely separate species of mystery gallinule – a Tahitian white one and a Marquesan multicoloured one respectively. However, as I am unaware of any gallinules (white or otherwise) being reported from Tahiti today, even if such a species did indeed exist there in Gauguin’s time, it apparently no longer does so. Equally, his Marquesan mystery gallinule (which may – or may not – have been one and the same as the aforementioned fossil Marquesan species Porphyrio paepæ) is quite possibly extinct too, with the koao briefly spied by Heyerdahl in the late 1930s possibly being one of the last living specimens.
I am not aware of any specific scientific search for Hiva Oa’s enigmatic koao ever having been made, so it is high time that one was conducted, just in case, against all the odds, it still lingers on, in order to determine once and for all the taxonomic identity and morphological range of this intriguing bird. Moreover, as it is undoubtedly highly endangered if it still exists, the launching of a conservation plan to secure its continuing survival is warranted.
FOWL PLAY?
Now, turning at last to the second mystery bird in “Where Do We Come From?”: this can be spied just to the left of the loincloth of the painting’s main human figure, who is standing centre-stage, arms stretched upward, hands holding a fruit, and effectively dividing the painting into two almost equal halves. Observing the bird in close-up, its head and neck can be seen to be dark green, merging into deep blue on its underparts. Its wings and tail tip are a ruddy brown, the remainder of its tail is grey, as is the distal portion of its beak, with its beak’s base red, its legs a pale yellow, and its eye dark.
In overall appearance, this bird recalls a species of waterfowl, possibly a Tadorna shelduck, but not one that I am familiar with, and certainly not from Tahiti (which boasts only a single waterfowl species, the Pacific grey duck Anas superciliosa, which looks nothing like it). Nor does it even remotely resemble any other avian species known from this island or neighbouring ones. This leaves three options. It is a species once native here but now extinct; it is a non-native species that I do not recognise (but if so, why did Gauguin depict such a bird in a painting directly influenced by Tahitian culture?); it depicts an entirely imaginary bird created by Gauguin (but if so, the previous question once more comes into play).
Of course, if Gauguin’s mystery waterfowl is an invented bird, this lends weight to the possibility that so too are one or both of his two mystery gallinules. Arguing against this prospect, however, is what in such a circumstance would be the truly extraordinary coincidence that a near-identical bird in terms of plumage colour phases is known beyond any doubt to have existed elsewhere (Lord Howe Island), occurring by virtue of a confirmed pigmentation phenomenon in birds.
So, the ultimate mystery here – one that currently remains unsolved – is this. Was Gauguin, albeit unknowingly, the world’s most successful painter of cryptozoological birds? Or did his artistic creativity spill out into the creation of birds that never existed? Sadly, we will probably never know – unless, that is, there is some hitherto overlooked documentation pertaining to these birds awaiting discovery – perhaps in an academic library or a newspaper or journal archive. Or is there someone reading this article with additional knowledge concerning them? If so, I’d love to hear from you!
I wish to offer my sincere thanks to longstanding Danish correspondent Philip H Jensen for kindly bringing Gauguin’s “Where Do We Come From?” painting and its two mystery birds to my attention via an email in 2017.
NOTES
1 Nowadays, it is split into two species, the still-extant South Island takahe and the extinct North Island takahe, originally housed in their own genus, Notornis, but subsequently rehoused in Porphyrio, the genus consisting of the purple gallinules or swamphens, whose several species collectively exhibit a near-global zoogeographical distribution.
2 When they were later assigned to Porphyrio, the Lord Howe swamphen become Porphyrio albus.
3 Countering suggestions that it was nothing more than a mutant colour variety of Porphyrio melanotus, the Australasian purple gallinule (which is a known straggler to Lord Howe Island and since 1987 has become an established breeding bird there).