Suchergebnisse

Wilhelm Knappe (1855–1910), the first German administrator (imperial commissioner) assigned to the newly acquired Marshall Islands in 1886, created a photo album with pictures, presumably taken by New Zealand photographer Thomas Andrew in the same year. There are at least three existing copies of these albums and a bundle of loose photographs identical to those in the album in question. At the time of Knappe's arrival in the Marshall Islands, Germany was still in the process of consolidating its newest colonial acquisition. The photographs show both Marshall Islanders untouched by Christian missions and colonial influence, and already 'civilized' Indigenous people from various atoll islands of the Ralik- and Ratak-group. The importance of this album results from the fact that it is one of the earliest pictorial records of the Marshall Islands and it probably represents the first documentation of German activities on the eastern Micronesian archipelago. This article highlights the history of the album and the photographs as well as their importance for a reconstruction of Marshall Islands' history in the late nineteenth century.

Nur etwas mehr als ein halbes Jahr nach der Gründung der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte (BGAEU) kam es 1870 in Österreich zur Gründung der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien (AGW). Diese konnte 2020 ihr 150-jähriges Bestandsjubiläum feiern. Der Beitrag nimmt auf die Entstehungsgeschichte der Gesellschaft Bezug sowie die zum Teil sehr engen Verbindungen zwischen der Berliner und der Wiener Gesellschaft. Neben einer reflektierenden Darstellung jener wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Beiträge – insbesondere jüngere Werke – die sich mit der Entwicklung der AGW beschäftigen, wird auf die nur teilweise aufgearbeiteten Verstrickungen der AGW in der NS-Zeit eingegangen. Des Weiteren werden die Aufgaben der AGW in der Gegenwart skizziert und potentielle Herausforderungen der Zukunft für diese Wissenschaftsgesellschaft angesprochen.

This article focuses on the depiction of the iconographically significant subject of the Melanesian tree house in the popular medium of the trade or collectors card. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, the new and innovative medium of the trade card had gained great importance in Europe and the United States as a colourful form of advertising through the use of the new printing technique of chromolithography. The resulting striking designs were not only used to advertise consumer products but also to convey information on overseas countries to an increasingly interested domestic population. In particular, countries engaged in overseas colonialism used the medium to provide information about exotic countries and the civilizing goals of the colonial powers. Using the example of the unique and spectacular tree houses that existed in Oceania, predominantly in New Guinea, this article explores the variations of this motif on trade and collectors cards. The conclusion is that these cards, while serving exoticism, contain only limited ethnologically useful information. Nevertheless, the trade cards are valuable testimonies to the European-overseas relationship, in which clichés such as the romantic idea of the 'South Seas' found their expression. Ultimately, the trade cards say more about the colonizing European countries and their prejudiced perception of Oceanic cultures than about the peoples and cultures of the Pacific islands depicted.