Joachim Quäck

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Joachim Quäck on April 10, 1832 in a watercolor by the painter Friedrich Theodor Kloß (1802–1878)

The Botokude Indian Joachim Quäck (Quäck = Portuguese: Kuêk, originally: Nuguäck ) (* probably around 1800 in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais in Brazil ; † June 1, 1834 in Neuwied ) met the German explorer, ethnologist, zoologist and as a minor in 1817 Naturalist Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied in Brazil, who observed and researched the life of the Botocudos for three months in the area between Rio Doce and Rio do Prado in 1817 during his expedition to Brazil . Quäck became a local travel companion for the prince who provided him with the background knowledge necessary for his research. Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied had him come to Europe. Quäck arrived in Neuwied on February 12, 1818. There he worked for the prince as his personal valet . Quäck died at the age of 34 on June 1, 1834 at 9 o'clock in the morning of an inflammation of the liver and was buried as a Catholic on June 3, 1834 (presumably in the old cemetery of Neuwied).

Life

Portrait of the Botokuden Joachim Quäck by Karl Prince zu Wied-Neuwied

Quäck grew up in a Botocud family in the midst of Botocud Indians in the Brazilian jungle. This can be deduced from the fact that his name was Nuguäck , that he mastered the use of the bow and arrow, that he spoke the language of the Botocuds, Krenak, and that he knew the way of life, culture and thoughts of the Botocudians in every detail. On the other hand, in his youth he lived separately from his family and the Botuku Indians with Catholic Brazilians. This can be seen from the fact that he was baptized a Catholic in Brazil and received the Christian first name Joachim (Brazilian: Joaquim ). In addition, Quäck had learned the Portuguese language and was able to communicate well with Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied. It is also obvious that Quäck no longer wanted to live with the botocudes or get together with them, since he accused them of cannibalism and for this reason felt a deep-seated fear of every botocudian. Even later in Neuwied, he did not lose his fear of botocudes. Carmen Sylvia, Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied's great-niece, pointed out:

“He was once told that various compatriots of his were coming on the ship on the Rhine, because it was believed that they would please him. However, he only felt fear because he was afraid of being eaten by them. "

Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied mentions Quäck in eight places in his work Journey to Brazil in the years 1815 to 1817 , but he does not report anything about the story of his life or the circumstances under which he met him. His decision to take Quäck with him on his expedition to the Botocudos and then to Neuwied caused him immense costs. He had to raise Quäck on the spot with money and finance Quäck's living in Neuwied from his private coffers until his death. There were two reasons for his decision. He hoped that the seventeen-year-old Quäck would have a comprehensive knowledge of the botocudes, and he wanted Quäck with him when he was writing his work Reise nach Brasil between 1815 and 1817 so that he could discuss the scientific details with him. The second reason was that Maximilian expected the attractive and exotic valet a lot of public attention and a gain in status, and not only in Neuwied, but also in the surrounding German countries, as people from foreign cultures were among the most popular attractions in Europe at the time . This expectation was later confirmed: Even the Prussian State Chancellor Prince Karl August von Hardenberg insisted on seeing the Indian. Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied traveled with Quäck to Engers Castle and introduced him to the State Chancellor, and Quäck devotedly admired his medals and ribbons.

This watercolor by Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied shows Quäck with a bow and arrow hunting large butterflies.

During the trip to the Botokuden in 1817, Quäck felt safe in the prince's group. During their two stays, the tour group stayed for three months in the Portuguese military base Quartel. Quartel dos Arcos was located on the island of Cachoeirinha in the Rio Grande de Belmonte in the Indian area and was therefore well suited for researching the botocudes. The explorers around Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied were armed, among other things, with two double shotguns, and Quäck always carried a bow and arrow on his body. A watercolor of the prince, which he painted in January 1817, shows Quäck with a bow and arrow hunting large butterflies. Quäck is in the company of the armed gardener Christian Simonis from Neuwied Castle, and on the instructions of Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, Quäck used a blunt arrow when hunting butterflies so that he only anesthetized the butterflies and not destroyed them. Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied described this butterfly hunt and emphasized that Quäck had acquired a great skill in this strange type of hunt.

Quäck gave the prince important information about the life, customs, language and appearance of the Botocudos from his background knowledge during the trip and later in Neuwied. He helped him hunt with a bow and arrow, and he worked as an interpreter at meetings with Indians. Thus Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied gained a friendly relationship with a chief. He observed the botocudos hunting, in their huts, bathing and climbing the trees and drew them in the process.

On May 10, 1817 he started his return journey and arrived in Neuwied via Lisbon and London in early August 1817. His hunter and taxidermist David Dreidoppel stayed with Quäck in Bahia and took care of the packing and transport of the numerous collection items and the hunting trophies. After six months, the two of them boarded their ship to Europe together with an Afro-Brazilian chosen by Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied and came to Neuwied via Lisbon, London and Amsterdam, where they arrived on February 12, 1818.

The trip to Brazil from 1815 to 1817 cost Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied a total of 15,842 fl 12 Xr. After deducting the appanage , the prince then owed the princely rent chamber 12,976 fl 50 Xr, which was paid interest as a loan. By the end of 1831 he repaid the loan up to 4500 fl.His next trip to North America cost 18,069 fl 29 Xr, so the loan that Prince Johann August Karl zu Wied granted his brother Maximilian rose to 22,569 fl 29 when he returned from America Xr.

In a conversation with Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, Quäck had assumed that the botocudes were cannibalism, and the latter had written down Quäck's statements in his work on the trip to Brazil and published them worldwide in German, English, French and Dutch editions by 1823. The consequences for the botocuds in Brazil were devastating. Under the pretext that botocuds were cannibals, botocuds were persecuted in Brazil until 1985. According to Jimmie Durham, only 600 out of 100,000 botocuds survived these persecutions by 1985 .

Joachim Quäck around 1830 in a watercolor by Karl Prinz zu Wied-Neuwied

In Neuwied Quäck became the prince's personal valet. Already at the age of eighteen he caused a sensation and attracted numerous visitors with his appearance. Eight days after his arrival, the Neuwied newspaper Reich der Todten wrote :

“The news of the arrival of a savage spread through the city incredibly quickly and aroused the general curiosity to see him. - The building in which he was located was besieged by dense crowds all day, as was the next following, and his room was never empty. "

The visitors were particularly interested in Quäck's skin color and his appearance, which was described in detail in the Neuwied newspaper. Little by little, Quäck became a research object for the scientists who had arrived, which was examined and described in correspondence.

Quäck quickly got used to Neuwied. In the Neuwied newspaper Reich der Todten he was described as follows:

“He is extremely good-natured, but, as a free person, does not allow himself to be forced or ordered: on the other hand, everything can be received from him through good words. It is precisely through the good, loving treatment he received from the prince that the affection for him has arisen and will remain, since the latter takes care not to say anything unpleasant to him, which the latter also gives no cause for. At his request he not only names the animals brought back from his fatherland in his mother tongue, but also imitates their voices in the most deceptive way: yes, when he was once asked to start his national song, he hesitated a few seconds, but stopped when the prince asked him repeatedly and patted on the shoulder, immediately the right hand on the head, the left on the ear and sang. "

Quäck soon became homesick with a longing for life in the jungle of his childhood, and Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied commissioned his hunter David Dreidoppel, Quäck to hunt in the Wiedische districts of the Westerwald , at the Dreifel ponds and in the Rhine meadows to take with you. Quäck's surprising homesickness encouraged Maximilian to question it and to generalize it in his manuscript for the second volume of the work Reise nach Brasilien in the years 1815 to 1817 as a characteristic of every botocude:

“The love for a free, raw and unbound life, impresses itself deeply in him from early youth and lasts through his whole life. All those savages, who have been removed from their motherly primeval forests and drawn into the society of Europeans, have withstood this compulsion for a while, but always longed for their place of birth and often fled if their wishes were not heard. Who does not know the magical power of the patriotic soil and the earlier way of life! In particular, where is the hunter who does not long for the forests, which he was used to roaming through from his youth enjoying the beautiful nature, when he is transported into the fearful, driving tumult of big cities? "

Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied with Joachim Quäck on the hunt in the Brazilian jungle

The journalist, who was standing in the midst of the audience and looking at Quäck in 1818, noticed that Quäck turned away from all visitors, withdrew into himself and was lost in deep thought:

"There he sat, warming himself by the hot stove, calm, cold, serious, without changing an expression, without worrying about the gawking crowd, withdrawn from himself. Anyone who had seen him by the lamp, lonely in the quiet night, could easily have mistaken him for a philosopher sunk in deep thought. "

Homesickness and loneliness drove Quäck to excessive alcohol consumption for the next sixteen years. Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied and the court administration had strictly forbidden the serving of alcohol. When that was not enough, the Princely Wiedische Hofmarschall-Amt was forced to publish the following announcement in the weekly Neuwiedische Nachrichten No. 21 of May 23, 1834:

"All local gentlemen wine and innkeepers are kindly requested not to give the Brazilian Queck liquor, neither for money nor for payment of others, by giving him everything necessary for his maintenance in abundance. Neuwied on May 22nd, 1834. "

On June 27, 1834, the following news appeared in the weekly Neuwiedische Nachrichten no.26 :

"Died: June 1st: Joachim Quäck, about 34 years of age, born in Brazil from the Butocudos tribe, servant of his princely highness, Prince Max von Wied."

Quäck died at the age of about 34 on June 1, 1834 at 9 a.m. of an inflammation of the liver and was buried as a Catholic on June 3, 1834 - presumably in the old cemetery in Neuwied. The date of death and the diagnosis of liver inflammation show that the oral tradition that Quäck fell out of the window on New Year's Eve 1833 on the first floor of the side wing of the Neuwied Castle and froze to death cannot apply.

Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied was on his research trip to North America from 1832 to 1834 . After his return, he wrote to Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius on January 6, 1835 :

“Unfortunately, my poor good Quack (the botokude) died in my absence. Fortunately, my brother Karl had recently painted an excellent, eloquently similar picture in oil. We now remember him very vividly. "

In the prince's study, which was located in the so-called new building of the Neuwied Castle, today's castle theater, hung an oil painting by the Koblenz painter Johann Heinrich Richter from 1828, which depicted Maximilian zu Wied together with Quäck. There he had his personal valet in mind even after his death.

Afterlife

Quäck's skull was autopsied after his death and was then transferred to the Skulls of Foreign Raçen department of the anthropological collection of the Anatomical Museum of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . At the end of September 2010, a representative from the Brazilian city of Jequitinhonha asked whether the Anatomical Institute of the University of Bonn could hand over the skull to the city of Jequitinhonha. They wanted to hand it over to the descendants of the Krenak tribe - as a sign of the reconciliation of the local European population to the address of the original Amerindian inhabitants. The repatriation was successful with the help of the Foreign Office. On May 15, 2011, Quäck's skull was presented to the members of his tribe in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais by Professor Karl Schilling , the managing director of the Anatomical Institute of the University of Bonn, as part of the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the city of Jequitinhonha.

City partnership between the cities of Neuwied and Jequitinhonha

The city of Jequitinhonha with 26,000 inhabitants in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais celebrated its bicentenary from May 13th to 15th, 2011 with an homage to Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied and the Botokuden Quäck, both of which are part of the history of Neuwied and Jequitinhonha. Jequitinhonha would like to make friends with Neuwied and build a town partnership with youth exchange. The association ANEJE (Friendship Neuwied-Jequitinhonha eV) will cultivate the friendship between Neuwied and Jequitinhonha in memory of Quäck.

literature

Web links

Commons : Joachim Quäck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The current names of the botocuds are Krenak (in Portuguese: Crenaques) or Borun .
  2. ↑ Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied: Journey to Brazil in the years 1815 to 1817 , Volume 2, pp. 130-131.
  3. ↑ Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied: Journey to Brazil in the years 1815 to 1817 , Volume 2, p. 51.
  4. ↑ Carmen Sylvia: My great uncle Maximilian. In: Velhagen and Klasings monthly books. Bielefeld 1912/13, pp. 247–248.
  5. ↑ Neuwied Newspaper Reich of the Dead . No. 16, year 1818, p. 123f.
  6. ^ Susanne Koppel: Brazilian library of the Robert Bosch GmbH: Catalog Volume II: Estate of Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied . Part 1: Illustrations for the journey in Brazil from 1815 to 1817. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-421-02938-5 , pp. 34-39.
  7. ^ Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied: Journey to Brazil in the years 1815 to 1817 , Volume 2, pp. 130-131, Verlag Heinrich Ludwig Brönner, Frankfurt 1820-1821.
  8. ↑ Bernd Willscheid: The Botokuden Indian Quäck in Neuwied. In: Heimat-Jahrbuch 2002 of the district Neuwied. Published by the district of Neuwied, p. 182.
  9. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Krüger: Prince Maximilian zu Wied - his travels, his debts. In: Heimat-Jahrbuch 2000 of the district Neuwied. Edited by the district of Neuwied, pp. 142–154.
  10. ↑ Jimmie Durham: Essay on the Krenak Indigenous People. Quack's return. Accessed November 25, 2013.
  11. ↑ Neuwied Newspaper Reich of the Dead . No. 16, year 1818, p. 123.
  12. ↑ Neuwied Newspaper Reich of the Dead . No. 16, year 1818, pp. 121–122.
  13. ↑ Neuwied Newspaper Reich of the Dead . No. 16, year 1818, p. 124.
  14. ^ Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied: Journey to Brazil in the years 1815 to 1817 , Volume 2, pp. 17–18, Verlag Heinrich Ludwig Brönner, Frankfurt 1820–1821.
  15. ↑ Neuwied Newspaper Reich of the Dead . No. 16, year 1818, pp. 121–122.
  16. ↑ Entries in the death register of the Catholic Church in Neuwied cf. Diocese archive Trier, Neuwied - St. Matthias, church book 10, p. 49, no. 14.
  17. ↑ Hermann Josef Roth : “My poor Quäck!” The death of an Indian. In: Christoph Kloft (Ed.), Hermann Josef Roth: ... and in the middle of it the Westerwald. Stories and fortunes in the center of Europe. Viewpoints between Mainz and Cologne, Rheingau and Siebengebirge . Paulinus Verlag, Trier 2008, ISBN 978-3-7902-1627-1 , pp. 265-268.
  18. ↑ Hans Läng: Indians were my friends. Life and work of Karl Bodmer 1809–1893. Hallwag Verlag, Bern / Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3-444-10198-8 , p. 128.
  19. ↑ Source code
  20. ↑ Encontro Indígena de Jequitinhonha - Homenagem ao príncipe Maximiliano e ao borun Kuêk ( Memento from September 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). Embaixada e Consulados Gerais da Alemanha no Brasil of May 13, 2011. Retrieved April 17, 2018 (Portuguese).
  21. ↑ Visits and research by the ANEJE (Friendship Neuwied-Jequitinhonha e.V.) association (called on February 17, 2016).
personal data
SURNAME Quack, Joachim
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nuguäck
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Brazilian Botokude Indian, valet in Neuwied
DATE OF BIRTH around 1800
PLACE OF BIRTH Minas Gerais , Brazil
DATE OF DEATH June 1, 1834
Place of death Neuwied