The tragic story of this famous meteorite
发布时间 2024-01-19 13:00:55 来源
Inside the American Museum of Natural History in New York is this enormous iron meteorite. It crashed into Earth here in northwest Greenland around 10,000 years ago as a piece of space debris and for centuries was used to make metal-tipped tools and weapons by a small tribe of indigenous Greenlanders the Inukwit until an American explorer seeking fame and fortune dragged it across the Arctic and sailed it to New York to sell to the museum.
在纽约自然历史博物馆内的这颗巨大的铁陨石，它大约在1万年前以太空碎片的形式坠落在格陵兰岛的西北部。数个世纪以来，它被当地格陵兰土著部落——伊努伊特人（Inukwit）用来制作有金属尖端的工具和武器，直到一位渴望名利的美国探险家将其拖过北极并将其运往纽约以便向博物馆出售。
But this giant piece of iron isn't the only thing brought here on that ship in 1897. Six Inukwit came too. After being told they'd return home to the Arctic within the year, rich with weapons and tools if they agreed to be studied by the museum. Most of them wouldn't make it back. It's a story of false promises, big ambitions, and one small boy who would grow up to challenge the museum that took everything from him.
然而，这庞大的铁块并不是1897年那艘船带来的唯一物品。同时也有六座伊努伊特雕像跟随而来。他们被告知如果同意被博物馆研究，他们将在一年内返回北极，并带回丰富的武器和工具。然而，大多数人最终未能回到家园。这是一个关于虚假承诺、追求宏伟目标的故事，以及一个小男孩长大后挑战那个夺走他一切的博物馆的故事。
For centuries of human history, pretty much the only way to get iron was if it crashed into Earth from space in the form of meteorites. Like here, where 19 iron pieces, including this dagger, were found in Tutankhamen's tomb, which was sealed centuries before smelting technology developed in Egypt. Ancient Egyptians even had a hieroglyphic symbol for meteoric iron, which translates literally to metal of the sky.
在人类的历史上，几个世纪以来，获得铁制品的主要方式基本上只有从太空中的陨石上获取。就像在图坦卡蒙陵墓中发现的19块铁制品，包括这把匕首，这座陵墓在冶炼技术在埃及发展前就已封闭了几个世纪。古埃及人甚至还为陨铁设计了一个象形文字符号，字面意思是天空之金属。
Indigenous groups in this part of the world were using meteoric iron too, like the Inukwit, sometimes called polar Inuit, who make up the northernmost band of Inuit. The ancestors of the Inuit first came to this part of Greenland around 1000 AD, and the chance existence of meteoric iron here was a crucial part of making this region inhabitable for humans at all.
这个世界上的原住民群体也在使用陨铁，就像以太阳神石堆闻名的伊努克和极地因纽特部落一样。因纽特人是因纽特族最北端的一个支系。因纽特人的祖先最早于公元1000年左右来到格陵兰岛的这个地区，而陨铁在这里的偶然存在成为了这个地区能够让人类居住的关键部分。
This area north of the Arctic Circle has always been harsh and extremely remote, but the Little Ice Age, which spanned from the 15th through early 19th century, froze ocean access to this region, making it even harder to reach. The Inukwit lived in virtual isolation for centuries, until an expedition led by British explorer John Ross arrived in 1818 and came ashore. When he saw the iron-tipped knives, spears, and harpoons, Ross assumed at first that the metal must have washed up from a shipwreck, until the Inukwit told him it came from a nearby mountain. Ross guessed that this iron mountain must be a crashed iron meteorite.
北极圈以北的这个地区一直以来都是严酷而非常偏远的地方，但是小冰河时期从15世纪到19世纪初期冻结了这个地区的海洋通道，使得抵达这里变得更加困难。因纽特人在几个世纪中几乎与外界隔绝，直到1818年由英国探险家约翰·罗斯率领的一次探险队抵达并登陆。当他看到带有铁尖的刀、矛和鱼叉时，罗斯一开始以为这些金属是从沉船上冲上岸的，直到因纽特人告诉他它们来自附近的山上。罗斯猜测这座铁山一定是一颗坠落的铁陨石。
Bad weather prevented the expedition from finding the iron mountain, which Ross later described as the most important mineral production of this country. This was the beginning of an increase in trade with European explorers as northern expeditions continued here throughout the 1800s, several of which tried to find the meteorite, but never could.
糟糕的天气阻止了远征队找到铁山，罗斯随后将其描述为该国最重要的矿产。这标志着随着北极远征在整个19世纪持续进行，与欧洲探险家之间的贸易逐渐增加。其中几次尝试寻找陨石，但从未成功。
By the 1890s, the Inukwit had become accustomed to trading with foreign ships for manufactured goods, metal tools, and weapons, and relied less on the meteorite as their sole source of iron, which is how an American explorer, hungry for fame and fortune, justified his decision to take it. At this time, the foreigner the Inukwit interacted with the most was this man, Robert Pirri. He had come to this remote part of northwest Greenland with one goal in mind, reaching the North Pole.
到了19世纪90年代，因纳努特人已经习惯了与外国船只进行贸易，以获取制造品、金属工具和武器，并不再完全依赖陨石作为他们唯一的铁源。这就是为什么一位渴望名利的美国探险家决定带走它的理由。而当时，与因纳努特人互动最多的外国人就是罗伯特·皮里（Robert Pirri）。他来到了西北格陵兰这个偏远地区，怀揣一个目标，就是达到北极点。
Pirri was part of an era of European and American exploration in the late 19th century, obsessed with the parts of the map not yet reached by white people. And in the case of the North and South Pole, not known to have been reached by humans at all. He's considered to be the first non-Inuit to study Greenlandic Inuit culture and survival methods, and throughout his years of exploring the Arctic, funded by his wealthy family and by groups like the National Geographic Society and Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, now known as the Brooklyn Museum.
皮里是19世纪末欧洲和美国探险时代的一部分，他迷恋地图上白人尚未到达的区域。而北极和南极，在当时也没有据称被人类到达过。他被认为是第一个非因纽特人对格陵兰因纽特文化和生存方式进行研究的人。在他探索北极的多年中，他的探险活动得到了他富有的家族以及国家地理学会和布鲁克林艺术与科学学院（现为布鲁克林博物馆）等团体的资助。
The Inuit taught Pirri how to survive Arctic conditions and how to travel over the ice using sled dogs. They also worked as expert guides, hunters, dog handlers, and laborers during his Arctic expeditions. From a trade perspective, the relationship was beneficial to the Inuit, but it was much more enriching for Pirri. While the Inuit got resources like guns, household items, and metal tools from Pirri, Pirri got furs and ivory from the Inuit, which, along with other cultural artifacts, he would bring back to New York and sell to support his efforts to reach the North Pole.
因纽特人教会了皮里如何在北极环境中生存，以及如何利用雪橇狗在冰上旅行。在他的北极探险期间，他们还担任了专业导游、猎人、狗操纵员和劳动力的角色。从贸易的角度来看，这种关系对因纽特人是有益的，但对皮里来说，更加充实。虽然因纽特人从皮里那里得到了枪支、家庭用品和金属工具等资源，但皮里从因纽特人那里得到了毛皮和象牙，还有其他文化文物，他会带回纽约并出售，以支持他达到北极的努力。
When Pirri's 1894 Arctic expedition failed, he knew he had to come home with something to keep his backers interested. And he knew from stories going back to John Ross in 1818 that the Inuit had access to a rare iron meteorite, maybe a big one. So in exchange for a gun to an Inukman who said he knew the location of the Iron Mountain, Pirri was led right to it.
当皮里（Pirri）的1894年北极探险失败后，他知道他必须带着一些东西回来，以保持他的支持者的兴趣。他从1818年约翰·罗斯（John Ross）的故事中知道因纽特人有一块稀有的铁陨石，可能是一块大的。因此，为了得到一把枪，他与一个因纽特男子交换信息，后者声称自己知道铁山的位置，结果皮里被准确带到了铁山。
A lot of this history has been lost to time, but what historians do know is that Pirri didn't ask permission for what he did next. After a mostly Inuit crew excavated two fragments of the meteorite found here and dragged them to Pirri's ship using rope and wood rollers, Pirri learned of a third, much larger fragment on this nearby island, too heavy to take on his ship.
很多的历史已经随着时间的流逝而消失了，但历史学家们所知道的是，皮里并没有为接下来的行动征求许可。在一个由因纽特人组成的船员挖掘出两块这里发现的陨石碎片，并使用绳子和木头滚轮将它们拉到皮里的船上后，皮里得知在附近的一个岛上还有第三块更大的碎片，但太重无法装上他的船。
It would take multiple attempts over the next couple of years, returning to Greenland with a much bigger ship and specialized equipment, including heavy duty jacks and even a custom-built railway, to excavate and then drag this largest meteorite across the Arctic landscape, to the edge of the island, and finally load the most expensive resource Pirri ever extracted from the Arctic onto his ship bound for New York.
在接下来的几年里，这个任务需要进行多次尝试，需要带着一艘更大的船只和专门的设备，包括重型千斤顶和定制的铁轨，返回格陵兰岛进行挖掘，然后将这颗最大的陨石拖过北极的景色，拖到岛边，最终将这个Pirri从北极提取出的最昂贵资源装上前往纽约的船只。
Careful to frame his interactions with the Inuit as nothing but good-hearted and without coercion or exploitation, Pirri orchestrated a few images about his removal of the tribe's local source of iron by staging this scene recreating the, as he put it, ancient practice of mining the meteorite for metal and captioning this photo of the Inuit who moved it for him as a farewell to the Sabbath so the meteorite, who Pirri later wrote happily did all they could to put into my possession the Iron Mountain of their forefathers.
为了将自己与因纽特人的互动形容为纯善良的，并且没有任何强迫或剥削行为，皮里设计了一些场景来再现他移走部落的铁源的情景。他将这个场景称为开采陨石以获取金属的古老做法，并在这张照片上为为他移动陨石的因纽特人配上了“告别安息日”的字幕，以表达感谢。皮里后来写道，他们竭尽全力使我获得了他们祖先的铁山，对此他感到非常高兴。
But the meteorite wasn't all Pirri took from the tribe to impress his backers in New York, as an assistant curator for the American Museum of Natural History, had asked a special request of Pirri. And he bring back In-N-U-T to be studied at the museum.
然而，为了给自己在纽约的支持者留下深刻印象，皮里并不只是带走了那颗陨石，作为美国自然历史博物馆的助理馆长，他还接到了助理馆长的一个特殊要求。他带回了一块用于研究的原始部落的神秘物品In-N-U-T。
Pirri convinced six Inuit to come with him, a respected hunter and key provider in the tribe named Ntak who brought his wife Atangana and their 12-year-old daughter Aviak, a young man named Wisa Kasak, and Kisuk, another skilled hunter who lost his wife to an epidemic brought on by one of Pirri's earlier expeditions, who brought with him his 7-year-old son, Minik.
皮里成功说服了六个因纽特人与他一同前往，其中有一位受人尊敬的猎人和部落中的主要供应者叫做恩塔克（Ntak），他带着妻子阿坦加娜（Atangana）和他们12岁的女儿阿维雅克（Aviak）；还有一个年轻人瓦萨卡萨克（Wisa Kasak）；以及基苏克（Kisuk），另一位熟练的猎人，他的妻子在皮里早先的探险中死于一场流行病，他带着他7岁的儿子米尼克（Minik）一同前往。
Pirri didn't just promise to compensate the group handsomely for their journey, he also assured them they'd be taken care of by the museum for their entire stay in New York. But that's not what happened.
皮里不仅承诺丰厚地为他们的旅程进行补偿，他还向他们保证他们在纽约的整个逗留期间，博物馆会照顾好他们。但现实并非如此。
When Pirri's ship, with the giant meteorite and six Inuit on board, arrived in the Brooklyn Navy Yard in October 1897, it stirred up a lot of excitement. Twenty thousand people paid to board the ship and see the people and meteorite period brought back, which he pocketed to fund his further expeditions. And then left, on a lecture tour promoting his latest thrilling adventures in Greenland, leaving the Inuit in New York to be studied at the American Museum of Natural History, where they were initially forced to live in a damp, hot basement inside the museum.
当皮里的船，载着巨大的陨石和六个因纽特人，于1897年10月抵达布鲁克林海军船坞时，引起了很大的兴奋。两万人付钱登船观看陨石和被带回来的人们，这些钱被皮里用来资助他的进一步探险。然后，他离开，进行讲座巡回演讲，宣传他在格陵兰最新的刺激冒险故事，将因纽特人留在纽约，在美国自然历史博物馆进行研究，一开始他们被迫住在博物馆里一个潮湿炎热的地下室里。
Within days of exposure to the warmer climate and with no immunity from American diseases, they were all hospitalized with respiratory infections. Minik's father, Kisuk, was the first to die. The museum told Minik they buried Kisuk, but that wasn't true. Kisuk's body was dissected and his remains were stored inside the museum for further study. Photos of his brain appeared in this 1901 scientific report. Soon after Kisuk's death, Atangana, Nktak, and their daughter Aviak died a disease too. And we saw Kisuk asked to be sent back to Greenland, which left only Minik alone, and the only Inuit in all of New York City by 1899, just nine years old.
在暖和的气候中待了几天后，由于没有免疫力抵抗美国疾病，他们全部因呼吸道感染被送进了医院。Minik的父亲Kisuk是第一个去世的。博物馆告诉Minik他们已经将Kisuk安葬，但事实并非如此。Kisuk的尸体被解剖，并且他的遗骸被保存在博物馆内供进一步研究。他的大脑照片出现在1901年的科学报告中。Kisuk去世后不久，Atangana、Nktak和他们的女儿Aviak也患病去世。我们看到Kisuk曾要求被送回格陵兰，这让只有9岁的Minik独自一人留在纽约市，成为整个城市唯一的因纳人。
Minik had lost all contact with Peri at this point. The explorer never came back for the people he convinced to come to New York and sold their meteorites to the museum for forty thousand dollars, an equivalent of more than a million dollars today.
在这一时刻，Minik与Peri失去了所有联系。这位探险家从未回来接他们来到纽约的人，并将他们的陨石卖给博物馆，换成了四万美元，相当于今天的一百多万美元。
It took a few years for the museum to find a way to remove the meteorite from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which they finally did in 1904. And just like in the Arctic, carefully dragged it through the streets of New York on wood rollers. And then a giant truck, pulled by a team of horses all the way to the American Museum of Natural History, where it became a prestige item and major attraction for the museum.
博物馆花了几年时间找到一种方法，终于在1904年成功将陨石从布鲁克林海军庭院中移除。就像在北极一样，他们小心地用木制滚筒将其拖过纽约的街道。然后，由一队马拉的巨型卡车将其拉到美国自然历史博物馆，成为博物馆的一件威望物品和主要吸引力。
There's no record that Peri ever shared the fortune he got from the meteorite with Minik, the boy he brought to the museum, and then abandoned. After his father died, Minik was taken in by a museum official named William Wallace, and grew up in New York City under Wallace's care. He forgot his native language, Inuktun, and started going by the name Minai Wallace.
至今没有记录显示Peri曾与他带到博物馆后便抛弃的男孩Minik分享自己从陨石上得来的财富。在他父亲去世后，Minik被博物馆官员威廉·华莱士收养，在华莱士的照顾下在纽约市长大。他忘记了自己的母语Inuktun，并开始以Minai华莱士的名字为自己命名。
Eventually, his foster family fell on hard times, and now impoverished, a teenage Minik started asking questions about his father, Kisuk. And though it's somewhat unclear how discovered the truth, that the officials from the museum had lied to him. And his father's body had been desecrated, without Minik's knowledge, and was inside the museum, supposedly in the name of science.
最终，弗洛斯特家庭陷入困境，如今贫困的青少年米尼克开始询问关于他的父亲基索克的问题。虽然不太清楚是如何发现真相的，但是博物馆官员对他撒了谎。他的父亲的尸体在没有米尼克的知情下被亵渎，并且据称在博物馆中以科学之名展示。
Starting in 1907, Minik took to newspapers to tell his story, and publicly pleaded that the museum returned his father's remains so he could give him a proper burial. They ignored him.
从1907年开始，米尼克通过报纸讲述自己的故事，并公开呼吁博物馆归还他父亲的遗骸，好让他可以给他举行一个合适的葬礼。然而，他们对他置之不理。
The following year, he called him Peri to help him leave New York and send him to his home in Greenland. Peri said there was no room on his ship. At least, not until 1909, when there was suddenly a spot for Minik on one of Peri's ships bound for Greenland. It was right around the time Peri claimed that his recent Arctic expedition was the first to reach the North Pole.
接下来的一年，他叫他帕里帮助他离开纽约，并把他送回他在格陵兰的家。帕里说他的船上没有空位。直到1909年，帕里的一艘船突然有了一个去格陵兰的地方，这正好是帕里声称他最近的北极探险是第一个到达北极的时候。
And Minik was writing in American newspapers about how Peri treated his people when he was a boy, including taking the meteorite. Which Peri put aboard his steamer and took for my poor people. I can never forgive Peri, and I hope to see him to show him the wreck he has caused.
而Minik 在美国报纸上写道当他还是个孩子的时候，Peri如何对待他的人民，包括拿走了那块陨石。Peri将那块陨石放在他的轮船上，带走给了我可怜的人民。我永远不会原谅Peri，并希望能见到他，向他展示他所造成的破坏。
A few months before Peri returned to the US from his final Arctic expedition, Minik was on a ship back to Greenland. Before Minik left, he wrote the biggest regret he had about leaving America. That I must return home alone, leaving the body of my father, who was taken from me, a martyr to the cold-blooded scientific study of your people.
在佩里从最后一次北极考察返回美国的几个月前，米尼克已经在返回格陵兰的船上了。在米尼克离开之前，他写下了他最大的遗憾，即我必须孤身返回家乡，留下了被你们人们冷酷的科学研究夺去的父亲的遗体，他成为了一名冷血的科学研究的牺牲品。
When Minik got home to Greenland, he needed to relearn his native language and in a quick customs like hunting, kayaking, and dog handling. He'd only been around 7 years old when Peri took him to the US after all. He eventually returned to the US in 1916, working as a lumberjack in New Hampshire. He died there two years later, one of the millions of victims of the 1918 pandemic.
当Minik回到格陵兰时，他需要重新学习他的母语，并学习一些快速的风俗习惯，如狩猎、划船和狗的驯养。毕竟，在被Peri带到美国时，他只有大约7岁。他最终于1916年返回美国，在新罕布什尔州当木工。他两年后在那里去世，成为1918年大流行病的数百万受害者之一。
The museum never answered his repeated calls to return his father's remains. They kept the bodies of all four of the Inuit who died in their care for almost a century. While new appeals were made by author Ken Harper, who had published Give Me My Father's Body, a deeply researched book about Minik in 1986. The museum finally gave in to mounting pressure and returned the remains of Kisuk, Nktok, Atangana, and Aviak to Greenland in 1993.
这个博物馆从未回答他多次要求返还他父亲遗骸的电话。他们将四位因纽特人的尸体保留了近一个世纪。在1986年，应作者肯·哈珀的新要求，他已经出版了一本关于米尼克的深入研究的书籍《给我父亲的尸体》。博物馆终于在1993年屈服于持续增加的压力，将Kisuk，Nktok，Atangana和Aviak的遗骸归还给格陵兰岛。
When we reached out to the American Museum of Natural History for comment, they acknowledged that their role in Peri bringing Minik and the five other Inuit to New York in 1897 included a series of unethical and unjustifiable actions, especially the Morally-Apphoran act of misleading Minik and refusing to return his father's remains. Only in October 2023 did the museum finally begin to reckon with the more than 12,000 human remains it's kept going back to the 1800s, and committed to removing all human remains from its display cases.
当我们联系纽约自然历史博物馆以便获取评论时，他们承认自己在1897年将米尼科和其他五名因纽特人带到纽约期间，进行了一系列不道德和不能被辩解的行为，尤其是在道德上令人震惊的误导米尼科并拒绝归还他父亲遗骨的行为。直到2023年10月，该博物馆才终于开始反思自身自1800年代以来一直保存的超过12,000具人类遗骨，并承诺将从展柜中移除所有人类遗骨。
But the meteorite Peri took is still there. It remains a signature exhibit of the American Museum of Natural History, which the museum has described as the largest meteorite in captivity. A plaque displayed in front of the meteorite includes a passing mention that it was brought to the museum by American explorer Robert Peri. But nowhere in this room will you find a mention or a photo of Minik or Kisuk or any of the six people that Peri left at the museum.
但是佩里拿走的那颗陨石仍然在那里。它仍然是美国自然历史博物馆的一个标志性展品，该博物馆将其描述为被囚禁的最大陨石。一块陈列在陨石前的铭牌上简要提到它是由美国探险家罗伯特·佩里带到博物馆的。但是在这个房间里，你无法找到任何关于米尼克、基苏克或佩里留在博物馆的其他六个人的提及或照片。