Johann Siegmund Wurffbain
Johann Sigmund Wurffbain , also Wurfbain (born August 20, 1613 in Nuremberg ; † 1661 ibid), was one of the earliest German travelers to India in the 17th century .
Life
Before the end of the Thirty Years' War , only two German reports from the East Indies were published: one by Johann Albrecht von Mandelslo (1616–1644), a traveling aristocrat from Schönberg (Mecklenburg), the other by Johann Sigmund Wurffbain. Both came from well-off families. Johann Sigmund's father, the legal scholar Leonard Wurffbain (1581–1654), was a member of the Nuremberg council. He provided his son with a good education.
The fact that Johann Sigmund left his homeland has a lot to do with the turmoil and gloomy life prospects during the Thirty Years' War. In 1628, on his father's advice, he went to Amsterdam to learn the nuances of trading. In 1631 he returned to Nuremberg, but soon moved back to the Netherlands and in January 1632 he was hired by the Dutch East India Company . Since he had learned French since childhood and now also spoke good Dutch, he hoped for a career as a businessman. But he was only hired as an aristocrat , that is, the lowest rank for soldiers. He soon regretted his decision - so much that he later advised his compatriots not to do the same: “Nobody would bend for a soldier out of Fürwitz or stranger's desire, but rather for lack of food or uncommon causes English, Portuguese and Dutch to take service ”.
After landing in Batavia he was initially stationed on Ambon in the Moluccas. He then spent a lot of time at Fort Nassau on the even more remote spice island of Banda Neira . Probably also in order to survive the boredom of garrison service, he put his experiences and observations on paper. The reader gets to know the most common diseases ( Morbos Endemios, Epidemicos and Sporadicos ) in the tropical climate of Southeast Asia: dropsy, various fevers, peeling, smallpox, dysentery and beriberi. One also learns a lot about the offenses negotiated on the court days: desertion , conspiracy , murder, manslaughter, sodomy , adultery , incest , blasphemy . The punishments were brutal in keeping with the times. The delinquents were whacked, branded, teetered, hanged, beheaded and shot.
Wurffbain also writes about Japan, but makes it clear that he has never been there himself and that his remarks are based on oral and written sources in Batavia .
In 1634 he finally became a commercial assistant. When his five-year contract expired in 1637, he decided to extend it, on the one hand because the situation at home was still not very encouraging, and on the other hand because the company offered him the position of sub-trader in the Surat trading post , an important one Port city of the Mughal Empire on the west coast of India. Here he mainly traded in precious stones. On behalf of the company, he also made trips to Bengal , Mocha, Cambay and Goa . 1640 he acquired in Mocha 84,000 pounds "Cauwa, a kind of bean which usually grow only in the past to Mocha Mountain" and made himself as to the further spread of coffee in Europe deserves. In January 1642 he was finally promoted to senior merchant. This actually gave him access to the management of one of the trading posts in East India. However, it turned out that the Council of India and the Governor General in Batavia only granted these positions to the Dutch, and Wurffbain decided to travel home with the return fleet at the end of 1645. In September of the following year he reached his hometown.
During the years in the East Indies, he had accumulated an impressive fortune that enabled him to enter the gemstone trade. The reintegration into the bourgeois world of the homeland was not easy for him. His silk stockings and gilded sword, the bracelets, necklaces and golden hairbands of his wife did not correspond to the dressing habits of the fellow citizens. Such ostentatious displays had been forbidden by law since 1618, and Wurffbain had to pay a fine of 120 guilders in 1649. Regardless of this, a year later he became a member of the city council that had previously warned him. In 1655 the son Johann Paul Wurfbain (1655–1711) was born, who studied medicine and made a name for himself in 1683 as the author of the first comprehensive work on the biology of the salamander ( Salamandrologia ).
The father Leonard liked to take up pen and published several books on Charlemagne and the history of the expansion of the Habsburgs. In order to please his son, he had just printed a travelogue in the summer of 1646 based on the materials sent to him from East India. The little book, however, contained so many errors that Johann Sigmund bought and destroyed all available copies. It seems that he had in mind the publication of a revised version, but that did not happen during his lifetime.
The high school professor and poet Christoph Arnold (1627–1685) lived in Nuremberg at the time. As an ambitious publicist, he prepared a work on the situation in East Asia, collected materials on this and corresponded with returnees. Of course, fellow citizen Wuffbain did not go unnoticed. In the anthology compiled by Arnold “Fr. Carons and iodine. Schouten Truthful Descriptions of Two Powerful Kingdoms, Jappan and Siam ”(1663), as a contribution by Wurffbain, there is a short report that is well worth reading on how a trip to India, both by water and by land, can be made .
Wurffbain's book is one of the few early descriptions of the situation in the Dutch East Indies. In terms of content, quality and accuracy of representation, it surpasses most travel works of that century.
Works
- Ioannis Sigismundi Wurffbain's citizen in Nuremberg. Tear description. Which He in the name of and because of the highly commendable East Indian Compagniae de Anno Christi 1632. in the month of April received with God and honor in the month of April / and completed in the month of June of 1646. Made by his father Leonhartum Wurffbain ... Nuremberg: Michael Endter, 1646.
- Joh. Hieronymi Wurffbains [...] Tractatus De Differentiis Juris Civilis Et Reformationis Noricæ antehâc in Inclutâ Universit . Altendorfina Inauguraliter propositus: Nunc Novis Additionibus auctior redditus [...] Noribergae / Cramer; Felsekerus, 1665.
- Johann Sigmund Wurfbains Instruction, or Kurtzer Report / How to make a trip / both by water / by land / to India. In: Christoph Arnold: Truthful descriptions of three powerful kingdoms of Japan, Siam and Corea. Nürnberg, 1672, pp. 1132-1148.
- Joh. Sigmund Wurffbain's fourteen-year-old East Indian war and senior merchant service, in a properly kept journal and daily book. Decorated with different coppers in response to various and often repeated requests, finally revealed by JPWD Sultzbach: Johann Georg Endters, 1686.
- Fourteen-year East Indian war and Ober-Kauffmanns service, in a properly kept journal and diary book ... finally revealed by JPWD Sultzbach: Endters, 1686. Reprint: Journey to the Moluccas and the Middle East 1632-1646. Hague: Nijhoff, 1931.
literature
- Roelof van Gelder: The East Indian Adventure. Germans in the service of the United East India Company of the Netherlands (VOC) 1600–1800. Convent, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-934613-57-8 ( writings of the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum 61), (also: Amsterdam, Univ., Diss., 1997).
- Roelof van Gelder: Het Oost-Indisch avontuur. Duitsers in dienst van de VOC (1600–1800). SUN, Nijmegen 1997, ISBN 90-6168-492-7 .
- PC Molhuysen, PJ Blok (ed.): Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek . Deel 7. AW Sijthoff, Leiden 1927, Sp. 1339-1340 ( online ).
- Viktor Hantzsch: throwing leg, Johann Siegmund . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 44, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, p. 324 f.
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ More on this at W. Michel: Japan in Caspar Schmalkaldens travel book. In: Dokufutsu Bungaku Kenkyû - Studies on German and French Literature , No. 35 (1985), pp. 41–84. ( Digital copy, Kyushu University Institutional Repository ( 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. )
- ↑ Only a few Germans like Zacharias Wagner and Andreas Cleyer managed to rise to the position of factoring leader ( opperhoofd ).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wurffbain, Johann Siegmund |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Wurffbain, Johann Sigmund; Wurfbain, Johann Sigmund; Wurfbain, Johann Siegmund |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German traveler to East India |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 20, 1613 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nuremberg |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1661 |
| Place of death | Nuremberg |