West County Humor

You Can Never Find a Cassowary When You Really Need One

Left: Pampas, by Hannah Rose West County Humor by Ben Marshall If I were a Cassowary On the plains of Timbuktu, I'd eat a missionary, Coat and bands and hymnbook too. These insightful words were penned by Bishop Samuel Wilberforce in the late 1800's. Little is known of Bishop Samuel after his much heralded visit to Leadville, Colorado, at the end of the last century. He sailed back to England and vanished into 3rd grade readers but his words live on. The poem's insightful usage of "cassowary" applied to a region of the world not ordinarily known for their presence signifies the foolishness of goin' somewhere you don't belong. Cassowaries first appeared to European explorers in 1611 and are described as large ratite birds, chiefly of New Guinea and northern Australia, having a horny casque on their heads and closely related to the emu.

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This puts in doubt any geographical expertise Bishop Wilberforce may have owned.

But if he is correct, a cassowary found in "Timbuktu" eating missionaries, implies a conflict between two spiritually-crazed creatures.

It has long been known cassowaries are evangelical beasts who try to get other birds to adopt their religious ways. Ceremonies have been witnessed where cassowaries attempt to make smaller birds wear the "horny casque" on their heads and stare at the sky.

Birds who object to the cassowaries' rituals are often slaughtered as infidels.

The behavior of the cassowary is in sharp contrast to its cousin, the emu, who, like the Hindus of today, will not allow a bird to join their religion without actually being born an emu.

Looking at the sky confused scientists at first. Then they examined the term, "ratite."

The modifier, ratite, is of significance when you unravel this amazing poem.

Ratite: [ultimately from Latin, ratitus, marked with the figure of a raft, from ratis raft. First appeared circa 1890]: a bird with a flat breastbone, especially any of various, mostly flightless birds (as an ostrich, rhea, emu, moa, or kiwi) with small or rudimentary wings and no keel on the sternum that are probable of polyphyletic origin and are assigned to a number of different orders.

Because the Cassowary has almost no flight capabilities, it is always looking towards heaven and forcin' weaker fowl to do the same. The lack of a keel gives them no direction in life other than tryin' to make other species conform to their beliefs.

Among Bishop Wilberforce's many keen skills was his intuitive knowledge of the polyphyletic origin of this animal.

Polyphyletic: [First appeared 1875] of, relating to, or derived from different ancestral stocks; specifically relating to, or being a taxonomic group that includes members (as genera or species) from different ancestral lineages.

It is thought the inference of this dark poem gave rise to one of America's most ardent religious groups, Donnie and Marie. Even today, followers of this group are often referred to as "Cassowaries" by anthropologists and other polyglots.

So, in essence, what we have in this poem is a classic battle between two mindless, crusading creatures, the missionary and the cassowary, both alien to Timbuktu and both intent on forcing their belief systems on hapless populations.

It's clear where Bishop Wilberforce's sympathies were harbored. He wanted to be the cassowary.