Arthur John Newman Tremearne

A. J. N. Tremearne

Major Arthur John Newman Tremearne (1877 – 25 September 1915) was a British barrister, major ("D" Company. 1st/22nd Battalion, London Regiment attached to the 8th Battalion Seaforth Highlanders), anthropologist and ethnographer.

Life

Tremearne was born in Melbourne in 1877, son of Ada Tremearne, of Melbourne, Australia, and John Tremearne MRCS. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge.

He was a lieutenant in the Second Boer War, but was invalided to England on 1 June 1900. He was struck off field strength on joining the Ashanti Field Force. He married Mary Louisa Tremearne, from Blackheath, London, in 1905. He was a masonic deacon in the Royal Colonial Institute No. 3556 E.C. lodge.

He died at the Battle of Loos. He left an estate of £4638 5/6. There is a memorial;.

Head measuring device

In 1913 Tremearne developed a head-measuring device, which was modified with suggestions from Karl Pearson.

Publications

• The tailed head-hunters of Nigeria: an account of an official's seven years experiences in the Northern Nigerian Pagan Belt; and a description of the manners, habits, and customs of the native tribes. London (1912)
• Hausa superstitions and customs: an introduction to the Folk-Lore and the Folk. London (1913). Als PDF (62 MB)
• Some Austral-African notes and anecdotes. John Bale Sons & Danielsson, London (1913)
• The Ban of the Bori. Demons and demon-dancing in West and North-Africa. London (1914)
• Chapter in Georg Buschan's Die Sitten der Völker. Bd. 2, Union Deutsche Verlagsges., Stuttgart um 1920