Theodor Koch-Grunberg
Theodor Koch - Grünberg ( born April 9, 1872 in Grünberg ( Hesse ); † October 8, 1924 in Vista Alegre, Brazil), also known as Theo Koch, was a German anthropologist and explorer who made major contributions to the study of South American Indians made, especially the Pemon in Venezuela and the Amazon tribes.
Life
Koch- Grünberg studied classical philology at the University of Giessen, where he joined the fraternity Landsmannschaft Darmstadtia, and was a teacher at schools in Hesse. In 1899 he took part in his first expedition in Brazil. From 1901 on, he worked at the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, in 1909 he moved to the University of Freiburg, where he received his habilitation, and lecturer and has been since 1913 an associate professor. 1915 he was appointed director of the Linden - Museum in Stuttgart.
The Brazilian expeditions
From 1898 to 1900 he participated in the second Xingu expedition headed by the Leipzig Hermann Meyer part that was looking for the sources of the Rio Xingu, a tributary of the Amazon.
From 1903 to 1905 he explored the Yapura and the Rio Negro on the border with Venezuela ( northwestern Amazon). His expedition report with its investigation of the Baniwa, 1910-1911 under the title Two Years Among The Indians. Travel in North West Brazil, 1903-1905 published in two volumes.
He was a pioneer of anthropological photography and its descriptions of Brazilian tribes are for anthropologists still of interest.
His second major expedition to northern Brazil and southern Venezuela began 1911. It led from Manaus, the Rio Branco up to Monte Roraima in Venezuela. There he documented myths and legends of the Pemon Indians and photographed. Koch- Grünberg described this Pemón with the local name and Arekuna Taulipang. Koch- Grünberg explored the Sierra Parima, the Caura and the Ventuari before he reached the Orinoco on 1 January 1913. He stayed a short time in San Fernando de Atabapo, then the capital of Amazonas state, followed the Casiquiare channel connecting the Orinoco River system over the Rio Negro and the Amazon.
He returned to Manaus, and then to Germany in 1917 to publish his most important work from Roroima to the Orinoco.
Koch- Grünberg unexpectedly died in 1924 from malaria, on an expedition with the American researcher A. Hamilton Rice and Brazilian filmmaker Silvino Santos, who wanted to map the headwaters of the Rio Branco.
In his native town of Grünberg ( Hesse ) is both a street and a comprehensive school with Gymnasium upper level, the Theo - Koch-Schule Grünberg, named after him.
Works
- Beginnings of art in the jungle. Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin, 1905.
- Indian types from the Amazon region. According to his own recordings during his trip to Brazil. Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin 1906-1911 ( seven deliveries ).
- South American petroglyphs. Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin, 1907.
- Two years among the Indians: Travel in northwestern Brazil, 1903-1905. 2 vols. Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin 1909/1910.
- From Roroima to the Orinoco. Results of a journey in Northern Brazil and Venezuela in 1911-1913. 5 volumes. Strecker and Schröder, Stuttgart from 1916 to 1928. Reprints: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, ISBN 978-1-108-00627-9.