Museum of Ethnology, Herrnhut

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Völkerkundemuseum Herrnhut 2015

The ethnographic museum in Herrnhut , founded in 1878, houses ethnographic collections with currently around 6,500 individual items. Mainly these objects came into the fundus through the collecting activities of missionaries of the Evangelische Brüder-Unität ( Mission Museum ) in the period between 1878 and 1940.

The Völkerkundemuseum is part of the State Ethnographic Collections Saxony , which belongs to the State Art Collections Dresden .

history

prehistory

With the beginning of the missionary work of the Evangelical Brothers Unity (Moravian Mission) in 1732 the foundation of the collection was laid. The collection of the first ethnographic objects by Moravian missionaries in Ceylon can be traced back to 1740. The first forerunner of the Moravian Museum was the natural history cabinet at the Theological Seminary of the Brothers Unity in Barby (Saxony-Anhalt), which has been documented since 1758 and was one of the oldest mission collections in German-speaking countries. Johann Jakob Bossart, supervisor of the natural material cabinet in Barby, issued one of the first collecting instructions in German in 1774 with the short printed instructions for collecting natural objects. A year later he wrote the "Catalogus der Kunstsachen", the inventory for ethnographic objects in the natural history cabinet. In 1781, 106 objects (from Polynesia, from Indians on the northwest coast of North America and from southern Alaska) from James Cook's third trip were included in the inventory. Only part of it survived the Second World War. In 1989 evidence was provided about these pieces.

The collection items in the Natural History Cabinet were brought from Barby to Niesky in 1809 and presented there in a museum in 1810, making it one of the first public museums in Upper Lusatia.

Foundation, expansion and construction of the museum building

Bernhard Kinne (1812–1895), the founder of the Moravian Ethnographic Museum

The Museum-Verein Herrnhut was founded in 1878 on the initiative of the pharmacist Bernhard Kinne (1812–1895). He initiated the establishment of a "historical, ethnographic and natural history museum" in Herrnhut based on the model of the Niesky Museum. He is thus the founding father of the Moravian Ethnographic Museum. For the first few years, the exhibition was housed in a rented building in Herrnhut.

After an appeal to the missionaries of the Brothers Unity to collect for the museum in 1880, the exhibition area was enlarged in 1881 and 1882. The museum association was legally registered a year later, the statutes of the association were laid down in printed form and Bernhard Kinne became chairman. A second collective appeal in 1891 led to the exhibition being enlarged again with the creation of a printed guide to the museum. The exhibition was redesigned in 1896 and an edited new edition of the exhibition guide was published in 1898.

After the turn of the century 1900/01, a separate museum building was finally built at the current location and the opening of the first exhibition in the new building was celebrated. A catalog was drawn up for this between 1909 and 1911.

post war period

After the Second World War, the Museum Association was dissolved in 1946. In 1949 the museum came under legal ownership of the municipal administration of the city of Herrnhut. From 1959 to 1962 the catalog of the collection items was renewed and revised. The permanent exhibition was redesigned and the collection was profiled in 1964, and a study collection that is stored in the depot was created. The museum building was partially renovated in 1971. The museum lost its independence in 1975 and became a branch of the State Museum of Ethnology in Dresden . Between 1976 and 1978 there was a new inventory and new cataloging as well as the establishment of external storage rooms. The library and picture collection were expanded and additional collection areas were built.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Ethnographic Museum, the permanent exhibition was renewed; a new catalog for the exhibition was published.

Post-turnaround time

In 1991 the museum was subordinated to the Saxon State Ministry for Science and Art as a branch of the State Museum for Ethnology Dresden . In the same year the non-profit association "Freundeskreis Völkerkundemuseum Herrnhut eV" was founded.

In 1993/94 an extension with a special exhibition room was built. The construction activities continued from 1998 to 2003 with the basic renovation of the building. The study collection moved to larger storage rooms in 2000. To mark the 125th anniversary of the museum, a permanent exhibition was opened in 2003 with the title “Ethnography and Moravian Mission”. A comprehensive catalog was also published.

In 2004 the Leipzig and Dresden Museum of Ethnology merged with the Dresden branch of the Völkerkundemuseum Herrnhut to form the State Ethnographic Collections of Saxony . In 2010 these became part of the Dresden State Art Collections .

From 2010 to 2012, a new wing for storage rooms and a new special exhibition / lecture room was built to the west of the old museum building, in the course of which a new entrance area and barrier-free access for the entire museum will be created.

Name story

Over the years the museum has used numerous names:

  • 1911: Change of the museum name to "Ethnographic Museum"
  • 1920: Renaming to "Ethnographic Museum"
  • 1933: Renaming to "Völkerkundliches Missions-Museum"
  • 1946: Renaming to "Völkerkundemuseum"

Exhibitions

Völkerkundemuseum Herrnhut exhibition area 2015

In addition to permanent exhibitions on various topics, the museum also shows changing special exhibitions from its own holdings and on loan.

Permanent exhibition

The permanent exhibition with the title “Ethnography and Moravian Mission” presents around 2000 original ethnographic objects from historical cultures of those peoples in which missionaries from the Evangelical Brothers Union (Moravian Church) were active on an area of ​​500 m² on two floors. Furthermore, individual missionaries and their ethnographic work are presented.

Special exhibitions

Regular special exhibitions have been held in the museum since 1985. The special exhibition "Enjoyment and Teaching" (2008) referred to the 250 years anniversary of natural and ethnological collecting in the Brothers' Unity . Other special exhibitions revolved around the following topics: "In Humboldt's footsteps in Eastern Venezuela " (2005), "'Choco, choco, chocolate' - On the cultural history of cocoa " (2007), "Forgotten islands - traveling and researching in the Talaud archipelago " (2009), "Pictures of the dream time " (2010), "Crow Fair - Powwow with the Crow Indians Montana " (2013), " Waurá - Indians on the Rio Xingú " (2015).

collection

Over the years numerous objects from other institutions have been taken in order to concentrate these ethnographic collections from the mission areas of the Brothers Unity in Herrnhut, for example the collection of the Kleinwelka Mission Children's Institution in 1926, the remains of the Brothers Natural History Cabinet Barby / Niesky in 1947/48 and the brotherly collection from Neudietendorf .

Contents of the exhibition concept are show pieces from the cultures of the Eskimos of Greenland , Labrador and Alaska . Objects are also shown from the African-American slave population of the Caribbean Virgin Islands , from Indian tribes of the Miskito coast of Nicaragua and the coastal areas of Suriname in northern South America. There are also showpieces of the Aborigines from Australia , various Bantu-speaking peoples from South and East Africa, the Kalmyks from the steppe areas of southern Russia and from Ladakh in northern India.

Since December 25, 2011, the exhibition area “Art from Cook's Travels” can be seen again.

The collection of pictorial documents includes drawings, prints, historical recordings and contemporary photographs ( slides in small format and 6x6 format as well as in digital form). The approximately 5000 images in the collection focus on ethnographic representations from the former mission areas of the Brothers Unity.

The film and sound archive records around 400 film titles (mainly documentaries) on video cassettes, as well as around 100 magnetic tape cassettes, CDs and records with music recordings on the culture of non-European peoples.

Library

The museum library is part of the Dresden library of the Museum für Völkerkunde and is looked after and systematized according to the same scheme.

The holdings are site-specific (reference library) and geared towards the profile of the ethnographic collections of the Moravian Museum. The current holdings of around 6,000 volumes - including books, journal volumes and data carriers - serve primarily as a working library for museum staff.

The holdings can be researched via the web opac of the State Ethnographic Collections of Saxony.

Web links

Commons : Völkerkundemuseum Herrnhut  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. http://webopac.skd.museum/libero/WebOpac.cls?VERSION=2&ACTION=OPACTIMEOUT&DATA=SKS&TOKEN=RdeTzzTLpH9456&MGWCHD=0

Coordinates: 51 ° 1 ′ 8.5 ″  N , 14 ° 44 ′ 26.2 ″  E