William Henry Furness

Born in 1866 in Pennsylvania, he was an American physician, ethnographer, and writer from a prominent Philadelphia family. He studied at Harvard and then earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania before turning much of his energy toward travel and fieldwork.

He made several journeys in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, and became known for writing about the peoples and cultures he encountered. He was among the first outsiders to study and photograph the Kayan people of Borneo and the Wa'ab people on Yap, and his travel-based books include The Home-Life of Borneo Head-Hunters, Folk-lore in Borneo, and The Island of Stone Money.

His work blends exploration writing with early anthropology, preserving observations, photographs, and stories from places that were little known to many American readers at the time. He died in 1920.