Very early in my career as an anthropologist I stumbled across a curious report about an mid-19th century Aboriginal man, a whaler called Thomas Chaseland, who was said to have extraordinary physical capabilities – particularly eyesight. Chaseland’s shipmates claimed he could see land from
30 miles out to sea, spot whales surfacing outside of telescope range, and see a full mile underwater. A huge man of apparently prodigious strength, Chaseland also survived several shipwrecks at the hands of thrashing whales, on one occasion swimming 6 miles through freezing waters that killed his fellow whalemen.
But the attribute that stands out is his vision. Could it really be true, I wondered, that this Aboriginal man’s eyesight was so much better than that of his European shipmates?
It was hard to believe, for several reasons. Chaseland’s reported eyesight was, for a start, better than most scientists thought theoretically possible. There was also the problem that the stories had something of the “noble savage” myth about them – the hardy native whose “wild essence” gives him superhuman powers.
A little research, however, showed that Chaseland’s shipmates were probably right. Aboriginal men, even today, do have eyesight four times as good as men of European ancestry. A 1980s survey of Aboriginal eye health proved it.
This made me wonder how...
