Andreas Reischek

Andreas Reischek ( born September 15, 1845 in Linz, † April 3, 1902 ) was an Austrian explorer, ethnographer and ornithologist.

Life and work

Trained baker was after military service huntsman at Baron Pasetti. Here he discovered his interest in taxidermy. He went to Vienna, where he worked in this same profession. The trained taxidermist and curator of the Upper Austrian Provincial Museum in Linz toured from 1877 to 1889 a total of eight times New Zealand. These expeditions he financed in part itself, where he explored the Māori King Country in the center of the North Island, which was forbidden for Europeans at that time. Reischek obtained a dispensation and the confidence of the Māori King Tawhiao, which awarded the honorary title " Ihaka Reiheke Te Kiwi Rangatira Autiria " ( German: " Andreas Reischek, the kiwi, Prince of Austria " ) it considered and with the award of the tail feathers of the Huia bird honored. Reischeks son, the journalist Andreas Reischek junior, always claimed that at this friendly gesture King Tawhiaos the award of a hereditary chieftainship was made.

In New Zealand Reischek completed the ethnological work of Ferdinand Hochstetters, studied the culture of the Maori and turned on natural history observations. From his travels he brought, among others, with a rich bird collection with 16,000 objects and two mummified Māori corpses. These he handed over to the Natural History Museum in Vienna and Linz Museum Francisco - Carolinum, today's National Museum. The city of Linz awarded him in recognition of his services, the civil rights, on the part of the National Museum, he was elected to the Board.

Honors

Publications

• Andreas Reischek: Dying World - Twelve years of research life in New Zealand. F. A. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1924 ( 2nd edition).
• Andreas Reischek jun. (Ed.): Dying world. Twelve years of research life in New Zealand. Estate of Andreas Reischek ( ethnographer ), 1924; Aotearoa - land of the long white cloud. Twelve years of research life in New Zealand. Reprints, Severus Verlag, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-86347-222-1.