Günther Tessmann

Günther Tessmann, 1912

Günther Theodor Tessmann (born April 2, 1884 in Lübeck , † November 15, 1969 in Curitiba ) was a German explorer , botanist and ethnologist . His botanical author abbreviation is " Tessmann ".

Life

Günther Tessmann (at times he wrote himself Günter ) was the only child of Johann Heinrich Theodor Tessmann (1832-1924), who lived as a merchant in Central and South America and then retired in his hometown of Lübeck, and his wife Laura Henriette (born Wöbbe, widowed Georg, 1847–1921). From his mother's first marriage, he had a half-brother and a half-sister. He had a close relationship with his mother, while his relationship with his father remained distant and conflict-laden throughout his life. From Easter 1890 to Easter 1893 he attended a preschool and then the Katharineum in Lübeck. The dreamy and sickly child was a poor student and had to repeat a grade three times before he left the hated school in 1902 with the completion of secondary school . Before the pressure of family and school he took refuge in a scientific passion for collecting, especially for butterflies .

From 1902 to 1904 Tessmann attended the Reich Colonial School in Witzenhausen to prepare for work in the German colonies  . After completing the two-year course and a four-month agricultural internship he received the offer of the West African Pflanzungsgesellschaft Bibundi , as overseers on their cocoa - Plantation in German-Cameroon to work. He committed himself for three years and left for Cameroon in August 1904 . In the following year, his leading role in a complaint campaign by employees attracted the opposition of his superiors, which led to his resignation without notice in August 1905. He then went into business for himself, first undertaking a trip into the hinterland to Yaoundé for the Moliwe planting company to recruit black workers and then set up his own station in the border area of ​​German Cameroon and Spanish Guinea , where he lived from elephant hunting . In addition to his intensive collecting activities, which he continued throughout his time in Africa, there was a growing interest in the culture of the indigenous people from the Fang ethnic group , whose language he learned.

In poor health, Tessmann returned to Lübeck in the spring of 1907 and, thanks to his knowledge of the area and the language , was recruited by Richard Karutz , the director of the Museum of Ethnology in Lübeck, as the leader of the Lübeck Pangwe expedition he initiated in 1907 until 1909 led to the exploration of the Pangwe (today's name Fang) in South Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea . The expedition report, published in 1913, is a comprehensive presentation of the Pangwe culture and the main work of Tessmann. In it he provided for the first time a description of the epic tradition of catching; he also made sound recordings of the Mvet bridge harp, which is at the center of this tradition .

In 1913, Tessmann led an expedition to New Cameroon on behalf of the Reich Colonial Office , which came to an abrupt end with the First World War . Most recently, from November 6 to December 15, 1914, he carried out field research from the then abandoned military post at Bafiahöhe am Don i tison , the results of which were published in 1934 under the title The Bafia and the Culture of Central Cameroon-Bantu .

After his escape to Spanish Guinea, Tessmann was interned by the Spaniards on the island of Fernando Póo . He used this time to collect material about the Bubi living there , the Bafia in Central Cameroon and the Baja (in what is now the Central African Republic ).

The painful loss of the German colonies in Africa led him to turn to South America, where he traveled to the Amazonian part of Peru from 1920 and worked as an ethnologist for the American geologist Harvey Bassler (1882–1950) until 1926 . Until 1936 he evaluated his notes in Berlin and processed them as an author. The University of Rostock awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1930. In 1936 Tessmann emigrated to Brazil and settled there in Paraná as a colonist. After various changing activities, he found a permanent position in 1947 at the Museu Paranaense and most recently at the Instituto de Biologia in Curitiba. In 1958 he retired there and devoted himself to research on the formation of the solar system.

Aftermath

In particular, his research reports on the catch are still considered authoritative today. He brought around 1200 ethnographic objects from Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea into the collection of the Lübeck Ethnological Museum, a large part of which was lost during the Second World War. Remaining objects of the Fang famous for their carving art have a high museum and material value today.

His autobiographical writings, preserved in twelve diaries, have been published for the first time since 2012 in cooperation with the Frobenius Institute and with the support of the DFG . Tessmann strove for academic recognition throughout his life.

Honor taxon

The Pterocarpus species Pterocarpus tessmannii Harms is named after him.

Fonts

A list of writings by Günther Tessmann can be found on pages 445 to 449 of the first volume of his autobiographical writings Mein Leben , 2012.

• The pangwe. Ethnological monograph of a West African Negro tribe. Results of the Lübeck Pangwe Expedition 1907–1909 and earlier research 1904–1907. 2 volumes, Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin 1913. ( Digitized I , II ) An English, Spanish and an abridged French version of this work was also published.
• People without god. A visit to the Ucayali Indians. (= Publication by the Harvey Bassler Foundation. Ethnology, Volume 1). Strecker & Schröder, Stuttgart 1928.
• The Indians of Northeast Peru. Fundamental research for a systematic cultural studies . Friedrichsen, de Gruyter & Co, Hamburg 1930.
  • Spanish: Las indigenas del Perú noriente. Investigaciones fundamentales para un estudio sistemático de la cultura . Ed. Abya-Yala, Quito, Ecuador 1997.
• The peoples and languages ​​of Cameroon. In: Petermann's communications . Vol. 78, 1932, Issue 5/6, pp. 113-120, Issue 7/8, pp. 184-190.
• Bafia and the Central Cameroon Bantu culture. (= Results of the ethnological research trip to Cameroon sent by the Reich Colonial Office in 1913. Volume 1: Results of the expedition to the Bafia, 1914 ). Strecker & Schröder, Stuttgart 1934.
• The Baja. A Negro tribe in central Sudan. (= Results of the ethnological research trip to Cameroon sent by the Reich Colonial Office in 1913. Volume 2: Results of the expedition to the Baja, 1913/14. Part 1: Material and spiritual culture ). Strecker & Schröder, Stuttgart 1934.
• The Baja. A Negro tribe in central Sudan. (= Results of the ethnographic research trip to Cameroon sent by the Reich Colonial Office in 1913. Volume 2: Results of the expedition to the Baja, 1913/14. Part 2: Spiritual culture ). Strecker & Schröder, Stuttgart 1937.
• The plan of creation and its development in the construction of our world. Two volumes. Curitiba, Paraná 1950.
• A great spirit created our solar system, not blind chance! A scientific proof of God. Curitiba, Paraná 1964.
• My life. Diary in 12 volumes. Edited by Sabine Dinslage and Brigitte Templin with the assistance of Hans Voges. Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck.
  • Part 1: Section I – II (Lübeck contributions to ethnology, volume 2), 2012, ISBN 978-3-7950-5209-6
  • Part 2: Section III (Lübeck contributions to ethnology, Volume 3), 2015, ISBN 978-3-7950-5225-6
  • Part 3: Section IV – V (Lübeck contributions to ethnology, volume 4), 2015, ISBN 978-3-7950-5226-3
• My life. Digitized copies of the manuscripts on the Lübeck museums website.

literature

• Wolfgang Haberland: Günter Tessmann 85 years old. In: Journal of Ethnography . Volume 94, 1969, No. 2, pp. 169-170. ( JSTOR 25841214 ).
• Thomas Klockmann: Günther Tessmann. King in the white spot. The ethnological work in the mirror of memories. A biographical work-critical attempt. Hamburg 1988. (At the same time: Dissertation, University of Hamburg, 1988).
• Thomas Klockmann: Tessmann, Günther. In: Alken Bruns (ed.): Lübeck résumés from nine centuries . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1993, pp. 400-402. ISBN 3-529-02729-4

Web links

• Literature by and about Günther Tessmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Author entry and list of the described plant names for Günther Tessmann at the IPNI
• Time travel: The researcher Günther Tessmann , NDR, first broadcast on July 21, 2013 (video 6:25 minutes)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tessmann on Harvard University's list of botanists
2. ↑ Review: Anton Willem Nieuwenhuis : Tessmann, Günther. The pangwe. In: International Archive for Ethnography. Volume 22, 1915, pp. 145-146.
3. ↑ Review: Konrad Theodor Preuss : Tessmann, Günther. People without god. In: Baessler Archive for Ethnology . Volume 12, 1928, p. 89.