Bernhard Funk

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bernhard Ernst Carl Friedrich Funk , actually Funck (born August 8, 1844 in Neubrandenburg , † April 8, 1911 in Berlin ) was a German doctor, meteorologist and collector .

Life

Bernhard Funk was born as the eldest son of the Neubrandenburg doctor of the same name as well as city and district physicist (Hans Ludwig Wilhelm) Bernhard Fun (c) k (1815–1894) and his wife Auguste (Friederike Adolfine), née. Brückner (1821-1857). Both ancestral lines belonged to the upper class in Neubrandenburg. The mother was also a granddaughter of the Mecklenburg theologian and writer Ernst Theodor Johann Brückner, who was known as a member of the Göttinger Hainbund .

Funk grew up with six siblings, attended grammar school in his hometown, passed the Abitur at Michaelis in 1866 and studied medicine in Berlin and Tübingen . After graduating, he moved to Australia . In the late 1870s he went to Samoa as a doctor for a trading company , where he lived on the island of Upolu in the capital Apia . He was the first doctor to permanently settle in Samoa. His first marriage was in 1881, the daughter of the pirate Bully Hayes, from whom he divorced the following year. He had a child with her. In his second marriage, Funk married the Samoan Senitima, daughter of chief Talea, in 1883. He had several children with her. In 1910, Bernhard Funk became seriously ill. That is why he went to Berlin in the hope of medical help, where he died. He found his final resting place in the old cemetery of his hometown.

plant

In addition to his work as a doctor, Bernhard Funk was interested in many things. He studied meteorology and founded a weather station on Samoa that is still available today . He spoke fluent Samoan and wrote the first German-Samoan-English dictionary and a textbook for learning the Samoan language. He also published meteorological studies. He was particularly interested in local culture. He maintained numerous local customs in his home.

collection

During his stay in Samoa, Funk put together an extensive collection of ethnographic objects from the Samoan islands, but also from other areas, especially the German South Sea colonies . Before his death, Funk had sold part of his collection of oceanic objects to the Neubrandenburg Museum through sale (1894) and a donation (1902) , where the holdings are kept to this day.

Of the 250 or so objects in his South Sea collection that Bernhard Funk left his hometown, almost 200 ethnological objects and historical photographs have been preserved in the Regional Museum in Neubrandenburg. The material comes from the former German colonies in the South Seas, most of it from German Samoa, as well as objects from Melanesia, especially from the Bismarck Archipelago.

The predominantly very light-sensitive objects are only occasionally shown in temporary exhibitions. Such a special exhibition is planned again for summer 2021.

Literature / sources

  • Hermann Joseph Hiery [Ed.]: The German South Sea 1884–1914. A manual. Schöningh, Paderborn [a. a.], 2001
  • Leilani Burgoyne: Going Troppo in the South Pacific: Dr. Bernhard Funk of Samoa, 1844-1911. (Working Papers of the Center for Germanic Connections with New Zealand and the Pacific, 6/2007).
  • The life of Dr. Bernhard Funk , student project on vimeo.com (accessed March 8, 2019)
  • Samoa Collection of Dr. Bernhard Funk at www.museum-neubrandenburg.de (accessed on March 8, 2019)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernhard Funk . In: Heimatkunde. Everything about Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2009. (accessed March 8, 2019)
  2. ^ Leilani Burgoyne: Going Troppo in the South Pacific: Dr. Bernhard Funk of Samoa, 1844-1911. (Working Papers of the Center for Germanic Connections with New Zealand and the Pacific, 6/2007).
  3. ↑ Bernhard Funk: Brief instructions for understanding the Samoan language. Grammar and vocabulary. In addition to an appendix: Meteorological notes. Berlin 1893.
personal data
SURNAME Funk, Bernhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Funk, Bernhard Ernst Carl Friedrich (full name); Funck, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German medic, meteorologist and collector
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1844
PLACE OF BIRTH Neubrandenburg
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1911
Place of death Berlin