Georg August Schweinfurth
Georg August Schweinfurth (born 17 Dezemberjul / December 29 1836greg in Riga, .. † September 19, 1925 in Berlin) was a German explorer of Africa. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Schweinf. "
Life
His ancestors came from Wiesloch, he himself was born in Riga and grew strictly pietistic on. Schweinfurth studied from 1856 to 1862 in Heidelberg, Munich and Berlin among others botany and paleontology. He traveled from 1863 to 1866 Egypt and the Sudan and the areas of the Azande and Mangbetu in the Congo as a companion Arab- Nubian ivory dealer (edge of Nilgebiets in the southwest ). Through a shipwreck on the Congo in Kisangani, he forfeited an eye.
On August 15, 1868 Schweinfurth occurred in Suez on his third trip to Africa. On behalf of the Humboldt Foundation in Berlin, he traveled up the Nile from Khartoum 1869 after Fashoda and the area of the Jur. With slavers ever encroaching, he passed by the countries of the Bongo, Shilluk, Nuer and the Dinka, took a trip to his view cannibalistic Niam - Niam, visited the country of Mittu and Madi and discovered in 1870 in the land of the hitherto unknown ( also cannibalistic ) Monbuttu the Uellefluss ( Welle - Makua ( Ubangi ) ). He also won certain knowledge of the dwarf people of Akka, from whose circle he took with him a copy for future education, but which died in late summer 1871 in Berbers from dysentery. After overcoming the greatest difficulties he met in July 1871 again safely in Khartoum, a, from where he reached the exit port of Suez on October 4, 1871.
1873-1874 Schweinfurth visited the Libyan desert and the Lebanon. "The results obtained by him in ethnography, botany and geography therefore lined up on the important of what has ever been achieved on African soil. " Said Friedrich Embacher 1882 the work in the heart of Africa. In fact, his work had great influence.
In 1875 he founded the Geographical Society in Cairo in 1889 and moved to Berlin where it is permanently set up his botanical collections, which he enriched in subsequent years by new research trips over again. Schweinfurth remained a bachelor. He has published and presented together collections that are used scientifically today. His major work was " in the heart of Africa." Since 1872 he was a member, since 1906 honorary member of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory.
He was also politically active colonial and 1887 member of the German Colonial Society. He exerted influence on the acquisition and the organization of German colonies and called in lectures, such as 1887, directly to a capture. No later than 1885, he was accused, he used his travelogues, especially the extensive descriptions of cannibalism 'to pull the rug out philanthropic attitudes and " skepticism ". Paola Ivanov even thought he was the main cause that long the cannibalism of the Azande was kept almost self-evident for a fact. Their designation as " Numniam " took over Schweinfurth of the Dinka, who apparently saw them as cannibals, or they wanted to denigrate as such. Susan Arndt, Heiko Thierl and Ralf Walther 2001 went so far as to say that cannibalism could be detected in Africa in a single case. Schweinfurth even understood it, although he doubts and the exaggerations of his contemporaries (here the " Nubians " ) calls and especially the alleged cannibals themselves, these superior with a kind of Western colonial knowledge to sweep aside: " The Nubians even want to know that here and since carriers who were traveling died and buried, have been brought from their graves. Some of the Niamniam again protested that at their house the people eating 'll abhors to such a high degree that each refused to eat with a cannibal from a bowl "And he continues:". Of all the peoples of Africa, the cannibalism is fixed, the fan ... in the equatorial west coast in more ways than one the Niamniam seem to be cognate. "
He was buried in the Botanical Garden in Berlin. His grave was later declared to be a grave of honor of the city of Berlin. Several streets in German cities are named after him.
Taxonomic ceremony
To him, the genus Schweinfurthia A. Brown of the plant family of the plantain family ( Plantaginaceae ) was named in honor.
Works
- Reliquiae Kotschyanae Georg Reimer, Berlin 1868 digitally online at the Bavarian State Library
- Linguistic results of a trip to Central Africa Wiegandt & Hempel, Berlin 1873
- In the heart of Africa F. A. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1874 part 1 at archive.org Part 2 online at archive.org
- Artes Africanae illustrations and descriptions of productions of the industrial arts of Central African tribes Brockhaus [ua ], Leipzig 1875
- Discours au Caire prononcé à la séance d' inauguration le 2 juin 1875 Soc. Khédiviale de Géographie, Alexandria 1875
- Abyssinian plant names in: Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin, p.1 -84, 1893
- Vegetation types from the colony of Eritrea of vegetation 2nd row, Issue 8 (1905 ) online at archive.org
- African Sketchbook German Book Association, Berlin 1925