Empress Augusta River Expedition

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Sawfish mask from the collection of the Empress Augusta River Expedition 1912/13 in the Ethnological Museum Berlin-Dahlem

The Empress Augusta River Expedition 1912/13 (official name: "Expedition of the Reich Colonial Office, the Royal Museums and the German Colonial Society to explore the Empress Augusta River in Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land", also known as the "Berlin Sepik Expedition") was one One and a half year German scientific expedition to explore the Sepik , its banks and tributaries as well as the surrounding area. The Sepik, the longest river in New Guinea was time for Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach , the wife of Emperor I. William Empress Augusta River called.

background

1884 founded German Empire , the colony German New Guinea to the northeast, inter alia, that part of the island of New Guinea, the Kaiser-Wilhelm land belonged. During the time of German colonial rule, numerous scientific expeditions to research the area took place. Organized, carried out and supported by the colonial administration, but also by the Imperial Navy , by research societies, museums and private researchers , they served both to gain scientific knowledge for the establishment of settlements and economic ventures and to create academic collections. In 1885, Otto Finsch was the first European to sail the Sepik from its mouth about 50 km upstream. In 1886 and 1887 further German expeditions under the leadership of Eduard Dallmann , Georg von Schleinitz , and Carl Schrader explored around 800 km of the river.

financing

The Empress Augusta River Expedition 1912/13 was financed and organized by the Reich Colonial Office , the Prussian Ministry of Education , to which the Berlin museums were also subordinate, and the German Colonial Society . The later Imperial Governor of Cameroon , Karl Ebermaier, organized the research trip .

Participants in the expedition

The expedition was under the direction of the district administrator, mountain assessor and geologist Artur Stollé . Participants in the research trip were scientists from various fields, including the geographer Walter Behrmann , the anthropologist Adolf Roesicke, the expedition doctor J. Bürgers, who also carried out zoological studies, and the engineer Schatteburg. The governor of German New Guinea , Albert Hahl , accompanied the expedition at the beginning. From January 1913, the ethnologist Richard Thurnwald took part in this research trip, who then carried out further ethnological studies in the area of ​​the Sepik lower reaches as well as on the upper reaches of the Sepik and its tributaries. Carl Ludwig Ledermann (1875–1958) joined the expedition as a botanist .

The expedition

The Sepik expedition began on February 8, 1912. The main camp was set up near the village of Malu, about 400 km upstream, about 5 km from today's Ambunti . From there, the expedition members explored the wider area around the river in geographical , ethnological , botanical and zoological terms. The government steamer colonial company and some smaller boats were available to them for this purpose.

In September 1912, Governor Albert Hahl requested the small cruiser Condor of the Imperial Navy under Corvette Captain Konrad Mommsen, stationed in the South Sea region , in order to establish contact with the expedition. The Condor reached the camp of the expedition in Malu on December 11, 1912, stayed there for two days and arrived on the return journey on December 18, 1912 on the island of Matupi off Rabaul . Mommsen prepared a report for the Imperial Navy Cabinet about the trip on the Sepik .

Mask depicting a pig from the Thurnwald Collection in 1914 in the Ethnological Museum Berlin-Dahlem

Walter Behrmann researched the topographical , hydrographic and geological conditions of an area of ​​around 40,000 km², which included the West Range he discovered, the Hunstein Mountains , up to 1500 m high , the Schatteburg Mountains and the Schrader Mountains . By triangulation , bearings and photogrammetric surveys the foundations for were cartographic representation of the expedition area created. Behrmann traveled to some large, southern tributaries of the Sepik, including the April River ( April River ), the Leonhardt-Schultze River, ( Wario River ), the Frida River ( Frida River ), the May River , the South River, the Village river ( Yuat River ) and the pottery river ( Keram River ) On May 20, 1913, members of the Empress Augusta River Expedition, including Adolf Roesicke, reached the pottery village of Aibom on the southern edge of the central sepik area after a long search .

In addition to the geographical and geological investigations, collections of the flora and fauna were also carried out. In August 1913, Thurnwald made a trip from the Kaiserin-Augusta River to the north coast, which he reached at Cape Moem near today's Wewak . After returning from there to the Marienberg am Sepik mission station , in October 1913 he crossed partly densely populated areas between the river and the coastal town of Berlinhafen . During the expedition, engineer Schatteburg suffered fatal heat stroke ; the Schatteburg Mountains (today: Schatteburg Mountains ) was named after his grave.

Results

Most of the collections created in the course of the expedition were given to the “Royal Museum of Ethnology” ( Ethnological Museum in Berlin-Dahlem ), where they are kept to this day. 6,660 plants collected by Ledermann ended up in the Royal Botanical Museum in Dalem . The Free Hanseatic City of Lübeck contributed a 5% share in the financing of the Sepik expedition and received 144 objects in return, which are in the ethnological collection of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck in the armory at the cathedral . The Lübeck collection was closed in 2007 for cost reasons and can no longer be viewed.

literature

  • Otto Reche : The Empress Augusta River . Friederichsen, Hamburg 1913. = Hamburg South Sea Expedition 1908–1910 , Ethnography A: Melaniesien, Volume 1
  • Walter Behrmann: In the river area of ​​the Sepik. A German research trip to New Guinea. Verlag August Scherl, Berlin 1922, ISBN 0-00-355573-9 .
  • Walter Behrmann: On the pottery river. Memories of the first visit during the Empress Augusta River Expedition from February 6 to 12, 1913. In: Deutsche Kolonialzeitung . New Series, Volume 31, 1914, pp. 231-233, 245-246.
  • Heinz Kelm: Art from Sepik. Publications of the Museum für Völkerkunde, South Sea Department, Berlin 1966–1968, volumes 1–3.
  • Adolf Roesicke: reports on ethnographic results of the Empress Augusta river expedition. In: Journal of Ethnology . Volume 46, Berlin 1914, pp. 507-522.
  • Artur Stollé: Overview of the course of the Empress Augusta River Expedition. In: Journal of the Society for Geography in Berlin . No. 4, Berlin 1914, pp. 249-253.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Artur Stollé: Overview of the course of the Empress Augusta River Expedition. In: Journal of the Society for Geography in Berlin . No. 4, Berlin 1914, p. 249
  2. ↑ Walter Behrmann , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 30/1953 of July 13, 1953, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  3. ↑ According to other sources, the Fly is the longest river in New Guinea
  4. ↑ a b c d e Thomas Menzel: The Imperial Navy and the Empress Augusta River Expedition 1912/13 ( Memento from January 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Federal Archives (accessed March 30, 2009)
  5. ↑ The Ambunti government station was built in 1924 near the former main expedition camp. See: George WLTownsend: District Officer. From untamed New Guinea to Lake Success. 1921 (46th Pacific Publications, Sydney 1968)
  6. ↑ a b Kaiser-Wilhelmsland . In: Heinrich Schnee (Ed.): German Colonial Lexicon . Volume 2, 1920, pp. 144 ff.
  7. ↑ Empress Augusta River . In: Heinrich Schnee (Ed.): German Colonial Lexicon . Volume 2, p. 144
  8. ^ Markus Schindlbeck: Aibom (New Guinea, Middle Sepik) - pottery . In: Encyclopaedia Cinematographica . Institute for Scientific Film, non-profit GmbH, Göttingen 1998 ( pdf ( Memento from May 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), iwf.de)
  9. ↑ Silke Olig: signs on the Sepik. (PDF; 5.2 MB) The New Guinea collection of naval officer Joseph Hartl from 1912 to 1913 in the State Museum of Ethnology in Munich as a semiotic object of investigation. Dissertation, Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich 2006, p. 72
  10. ^ Special exhibition 1998 - The green treasury of the Free University of Berlin: Carl Ludwig Ledermann
  11. ^ Christian Kaufmann: Art from Sepik: ornament, sculpture and painting in competition . Museum of World Cultures, Frankfurt a. M. 2008
  12. ^ Ethnological collection of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck in the armory at the cathedral ( Memento from December 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive )