Friedrich von Horn Fitz-Gibbon

Friedrich Alfred Patrik von Horn Fitz-Gibbon (born September 14, 1919 in Ilz , Styria , † 1958 in Bolivia ) conducted research among the indigenous peoples of South America .

Life

Friedrich von Horn Fitz-Gibbon was born on September 14, 1919 in Ilz / Styria as the son of the former Austrian liner captain Fritz von Horn Fitz-Gibbon and his mother Margarete, née Rottauscher von Malata.

After the collapse of the Austrian monarchy in 1918, the family emigrated to Brazil in 1933 under the leadership of the former Austrian Minister of Agriculture, Andreas Thaler , where they founded the Treze Tílias (Dreizehnlinden) settlement together with Tyrolean colonists .

While his parents returned to Austria after the end of World War II, von Horn moved to the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso , where he built a farm and worked as a cartographer for the Brazilian government. At the same time, von Horn undertook research trips to then unknown Indian tribes in the Brazilian-Bolivian border area and is considered to be the discoverer of the Pauserna-Guarasug'wä tribe in eastern Bolivia. von Horn studied the tribe of San Ignacio-Velasco for several years and made linguistic records, which he published in French journals. During an expedition in Bolivia in 1958, he was ambushed by Bolivian bandits.