ИСТИНА

The focus of the paper will be on the person of Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay and his avatar – legendary “Maclay” of Rai-coast dwellers legends. The report will be composed of two parts. In the first part I will touch upon the most important fact of the biography of N. N. MiklouhoMaclay. I will also try to trace some parallels with the biography of A. C. Haddon, the founder of Cambridge anthropological school. In the second I will showcase the transformation of the legends about Maclay since 1870s up to 2010s. It is possible to divide this 140-years period into at least 4 parts: 1880-1910s – German domination, 1920s – 1940s – between Germans and Australians, 1950s-1970s – cargo-cult flowering; 1980s-2010s – independent Papua-New Guinea. I will try to compare this 140-years transformation with ‘two-point model’ of transformation of image of ‘the Europeans’ presented in the film “The first contact”.