Jakob Baegert

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Heavily weathered grave slab Jakob Baegert in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse (2010): "P. JACOBUS BAEGERT SJ, OBIIT DIE 29 SEPT. 1772"

Christoph Johannes Jakob Baegert , also: Begert (* December 22, 1717 in Schlettstadt ; † September 29, 1772 in Neustadt an der Haardt ) was a German Jesuit , missionary and author of an important ethnological work.

Live and act

Origin and entry into the order

Jakob Baegert came as the son of Johannes Michael Baegert and Maria Magdalena, born in Kaysersberg, Alsace . Scheydeck, born in Schlettstadt . The father was a glove maker. As a young man, Baegert entered the Jesuit order in Mainz on September 17, 1736 , where he studied philosophy . From 1740 to 1743 he taught at the Jesuit college in Mannheim , studied theology in Molsheim until 1747 and was ordained a priest.

In 1747 and 1748, Father Baegert taught as a professor in Hagenau . At the end of 1748 he was sent to Bockenheim / Alsace (today Sarre-Union ), where he was preparing to be sent to America as a missionary.

Missionary in California

From Bockenheim he set off for the "New World" on January 10, 1749. The priest traveled by stagecoach via Ettlingen , Augsburg , Innsbruck and Milan to Genoa , where he arrived on March 20th of that year. 10 weeks later he drove across the Mediterranean to Cadiz . At the "Hospitium de las Indias" there, Father Baegert received the last instructions, embarked for Mexico on June 16, 1750 and landed in Vera Cruz on August 23 . At the Collegio San Gregorio in Mexico City he concluded his internship trial period and left for California on November 16, 1750. Jakob Baegert reached his new place of work in the remote mission station San Luis Gonzaga Chiriyaqui on May 28, 1751 via various intermediate stations. He worked here until he was expelled by the Spanish colonial rulers in 1767.

Return and death

After the so-called Madrid hat revolt (1766), the Jesuits were expelled from Spain and its colonies by decree of June 1767. On the return trip via Spain, Baegert was imprisoned for eight months there. Back in his home country in April 1769, the priest only stayed briefly in his place of birth, Schlettstadt, but soon moved to Neustadt an der Haardt (now Neustadt an der Weinstrasse ). There he worked until his death as a pastor in the collegiate church parish administered by the Jesuits , where he worked particularly as an experienced confessor, spiritual of the religious community, and as a teacher at the Jesuit college. Father Baegert was buried in the Jesuit crypt in Neustadt, his simple grave slab when it was dissolved at the end of the 19th century, on the outer wall of the Catholic. Marienkirche moved. It is embedded in the north-eastern side of the choir, under the epitaph of Pastor Bernhard Magel , but has since been badly damaged by the weather and is difficult to read.

The printed mission reminders

Here at the last place of activity, in Neustadt in the Electoral Palatinate at that time , the priest wrote his missionary memories from California in book form, which were first published in 1771 in nearby Mannheim . Father Baegert himself revised a second edition, but without a statement of the author. It appeared in the year of his death in 1772, also in Mannheim.

Title page of Jakob Baegert's description of the California country.

In this strongly autobiographical "News from the American Peninsula California" he reported about the country and its people, especially about the Indians, whose simple lifestyle he described with open sympathy. The work also contains an introduction to the local Indian culture and language as well as German-Indian translations of common prayers, as well as an appendix correcting widespread prejudices about America and the activities of missionaries.

Father Baegert's book has been translated into English and Spanish. In America it has seen several new editions or reprints and excerpts, up to the present day. There it is regarded as a standard work on regional history and the history of the region and is rated as an important geographical , ethnological , discovery and mission history representation; in his home country it is unfortunately almost completely forgotten. Only the modern book "Germans in Foreign Countries: Assimilation - Demarcation - Integration" by Torsten M. Kühlmann and Bernd Müller-Jacquier provides a few excerpts which immediately reveal what an impressive historical and regional description here in the country of origin is still due Appreciation awaits:

“ As for the thorns in California, their abundance is astounding and many are appalling. It seems that the curse which God inflicted upon the earth after the fall of Adam peculiarly affected California and had its effect there. At one point I was stung by cheek and I tried to count the thorns there, on a piece that was long, cut out of the middle of a branch or arm of a thorn bush and a good fist thick, and I counted no less than a thousand six one hundred and eighty. "

- Jakob Baegert, "News from the American Peninsula California", 1772

The priest describes the bananas, which were still largely unknown in Germany at the time:

“ The fruit that the Spaniards in America call Plantanos is, as it were, a grape that sometimes weighs half a hundredweight and even more. There are different genera of these, and have a few to 200 beers on a stem. These little beers are long and round, of the same thickness from top to bottom, like a cilinder, except that both ends are a little pointed. All the beers on the same cluster are of the same thickness and length. But there are those who are only a third of a span and others that are one and a half spans long and almost as thick as an arm, and this is where the difference of their plananos consists, although some are tastier than the others. The fruit or the meat lies under a rather thick but tender shelf, which can be pulled off without difficulty. The grape becomes green and still hard broken off, and after hanging or lying at home for a few weeks, the shelf turns yellow and is then the fruit already edible, but if you let it lie or hang for longer, the shelf becomes completely black and the meat golden yellow, like a pleasant squeeze or a really cool commodity butter and is then best. In the middle of it from top to bottom lies the very small, almost invisible seed. The plantanos are of good taste and sweet light, but are a bit hard on the stomach. "

- Jakob Baegert, "News from the American Peninsula California", 1772, pages 37 and 38

Baegert also states in his report that he killed around 500 scorpions in his rectory alone during his stay in California and he gives his own experiences with species that do not occur here, such as B. for the best of the skunk:

" A very fine little animal, not much different in shape to the squirrel and called Sorillo, to report with honor, of such pestilent, foul-smelling urine that one in the room where it leaves him for fear if one wants to chase it away Breathe out and after a month there is still a remnant of the hellish stench. "

- Jakob Baegert, "News from the American Peninsula California", 1772

There is also a collection of Californian letters from the Jesuit father to his brother Franz Xaver Baegert, pastor in Dürningen . The originals are archived in the Strasbourg City Library ; there is an English book edition in America.

Father Baegert's book "News from the American Peninsula California" was already extensively reviewed in "Auserlesene Bibliothek der newest German Litteratur", Volume 6, published in 1774 by Meyersche Buchhandlung, Lemgo.

Memories of Jakob Baegert

In the old mission station of San Luis Gonzaga Chiriyaqui, in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur , the mission church built by Father Jakob Baegert has been preserved and is considered an important cultural and historical monument of the region. Despite its situational primitiveness, the façade, with its two towers and the gable between them, is clearly reminiscent of Father Baegert's home church of St. Fides in the Alsatian Schlettstadt .

In 1917, in honor of Father Baegert, the marine snail subspecies discovered in this area was given the scientific name "Turbonilla Baegerti".

Selection of works

literature

Web links

Commons : Jakob Baegert  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ruthardt Oehme:  Baegert (Begert), Christoph Johannes Jakob. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 517 ( digitized version ).
  2. ↑ English source with precise data on Jakob Baegert's career
  3. ↑ Mexican website about Father Jakob Baegert's mission station in California with his mention and photos that can be enlarged.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.e-bajasur.com  
  4. ↑ Modern text excerpts from Father Baegert's description of California
  5. ↑ To the English book edition of the missionary letters from Father Jakob Baegert ( Memento of the original dated December 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sandiegohistory.org
  6. ^ Contemporary, German-language review of Father Baegert's book
  7. ^ Website of Father Baegert's mission station, with a photo of the church
  8. ↑ Exterior shot of the mission church built by Father Jakob Baegert in San Luis Gonzaga Chiriyaqui, with the old mission station
  9. ↑ Interior shot of the mission church built by Father Jakob Baegert himself in San Luis Gonzaga Chiriyaqui, Baja California, Mexico ( Memento of the original from March 8, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / static.panoramio.com.storage.googleapis.com
  10. ↑ Website about the sea snail named after Father Baegert
  11. ↑ Another website about the animal named after Father Baegert
personal data
SURNAME Baegert, Jakob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Begert, Jakob; Baegert, Johann Jakob; Baekert, Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Jesuit and missionary
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1717
PLACE OF BIRTH Schlettstadt
DATE OF DEATH September 29, 1772
Place of death Neustadt an der Haardt