Wilhelm Müller (ethnologist)

Wilhelm Müller (also Wilhelm Müller-Wismar ; born May 20, 1881 in Wismar , †  October 13, 1916 in Malang on Java ) was a German ethnologist .

biography

The son of a bank director from Wismar studied ethnology and anthropology at the University of Berlin with Felix von Luschan . Mueller received his doctorate in 1905 , Dr. phil. with the work contributions to the craniology of the New Britons and became a scientific assistant at the Berlin Museum of Ethnology . Here he turned to linguistics, learned Sanskrit (religion, literature, mythology) and the languages ​​of the South Seas . As an ethnologist and interpreter , he took part in the South Sea Expedition of the Hamburg Scientific Foundation, organized by Georg Thilenius from 1908–1910. Together with Ernst Sarfert and Paul Hambruch , Müller made cylinder recordings during this expedition, which are now in the Berlin phonogram archive . After his expedition to the Southern Moluccas in 1913–1914, Müller was unable to return to Germany due to the outbreak of World War I and stayed in Java. In 1916 he died of typhus in Malang .

Works (selection)

• Contributions to the craniology of the New Britons . In: Messages from the Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg 1906, pp. 71–187.
• Austroinsular canoes as cult and war symbols . In: Baessler-Archiv 2, 1912, pp. 235–249.
• The religions of the South Seas 1905–1910 . In: Archive for Religious Studies 16, 1913, pp. 176–207.
• Yap. In: Georg Thilenius (Ed.): Results of the South Sea Expedition 1908–1910 , half-volume. 1 and 2, Friederichsen, Hamburg 1917
  • Half vol. 1, Friederichsen, Hamburg 1917 ( online , alternative )
  • Half vol. 2, Friederichsen, Hamburg 1918 ( online )

literature

• Nico de Jonge, Toos van Dijk: Wilhelm Müller-Wismar (1881-1916). Hunting for Answers in the Banda Sea . In: Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde 30, 2002, pp. 241–260.
• Andreas Leipold: The first year of the Hamburg South Sea Expedition in German New Guinea (1908–1909) . Dogma, 2013, ISBN 978-3-95580-364-3 , pp. 94–95 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• Archive material in the Ethnological Museum Berlin: I / MV 0418 (IB 088 Asia, 1910–1934)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ G. Thilenius: Wilhelm Müller † , obituary in: Results of the South Sea Expedition 1908-1910 , Vol. 2, half-vol. 1, Friederichsen, Hamburg 1917, SV