Thomas Whiffen

Thomas Whiffen was a British army officer and explorer of the early twentieth century. In 1908 and 1909 he spent several months traveling in the remote northwest Amazon, between the Issa and Apaporis rivers, a region including the Putumayo where few outsiders had been, living among the Boro, Witoto and neighboring peoples. His book The North-West Amazons (1915) records their customs, beliefs and material culture, and he was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Anthropological Institute. His account appeared just as reports of abuses by rubber companies in the Putumayo were becoming an international scandal.