Adolf Roesicke, Ethnographer and Collector of the Sepik Expedition (1912-1913)
Adolf Roesicke
Ethnographer and Collector of the Sepik Expedition
(1912-1913)
By Rainer F. Buschmann
Adolf Roesicke, foto by Josef Bürgers,VIII B 8054,
Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preuβischer Kulturbesitz
Adolf Ferdinand Roesicke (1881-1919) is best remembered for his participation in the extensive Sepik River Expedition that explored this critical cultural area a few years before the outbreak of the First World War. Unfortunately, this conflict and Roesicke’s early death prevented a detailed examination of the ethnographic results from this venture until recently.
Roesicke hailed from Berlin, where his father, Richard Roesicke, was a prominent politician and brewery director. He studied widely and at many prominent German universities until settling on the natural sciences. In early 1909, Roesicke obtained his doctorate in Chemistry from the University of Freiburg. However, instead of embarking on a career in this discipline, he opted to travel around the world, a journey that awoke an interest in foreign cultures. In April of 1910, he applied as a voluntary assistant at Felix von Luschan's African and Oceanic Division at the Royal Ethnographic Museum in Berlin. Luschan approved his application by hoping Roesicke could participate in and potentially provide some of his father's wealth to the Berlin-backed large-scale exploration of the Sepik Basin.
Although the German administration was aware of the Sepik River and explored it on several journeys since annexing the northeastern corner of New Guinea (then called Kaiser Wilhelmsland), the region fell into relative administrative neglect from about 1890 until 1907. In the early twentieth century, the New Guinea Company (NGC) attempted to exploit the Sepik human resources for their plantations throughout Kaiser Wilhelmsland. The NGC steamer Siar, frequently captained by the enterprising Hermann Voogdt (see biography in Provenance section), undertook extensive journeys up the river, returning not only with potential labor recruits but also with examples of a radically different material culture. Especially Carvings and pottery ware from the region galvanized the ethnographic community in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to pay close attention to the Sepik.
Numerous ethnographers took advantage of the Siar and other steamers to travel the river and collect examples of its unique material culture. The Sepik River became such a popular destination that in 1909 ethnographer Augustin Krämer equated the region with Berlin’s Friedrichsstrasse, a desired shopping destination. Unfortunately, from a German perspective, among the passengers of the steamers were two prominent Americans, George Dorsey and A. B. Lewis, who collected for the Field Museum in Chicago. German authorities grew increasingly concerned that many of the Sepik objects would be exported to non-German museums and floated the idea of a Pan-German expedition to salvage the last vestiges of the supposed dying Sepik cultures. The interest in securing the Sepik for German museums coincided with an important conference at the German Colonial Office. In 1889 the German Federal Council decreed to forward all ethnographic and natural science collections assembled by colonial officers and federally sponsored expeditions to the Berlin museums. Many institutions not located in the German capital objected to what they perceived to be a monopoly. The vociferous protest of their officials ultimately resulted in a 1910 Conference at the German Colonial Office. Most attending parties agreed to lift the collecting restrictions on colonial officers stationed in Africa and the Pacific but could not concur on a reasonable solution for federally sponsored expeditions. The Sepik venture then became a test case for such expeditions, and the German Colonial Office inquired with all interested German states about financial support of such an undertaking in return for a share of the collected artifacts. To the great disappointment of the Colonial Office, most German states declined any financial participation, except for the tiny city-state of Lübeck, whose officials vowed the largely symbolic contribution of 1,000 marks (out of a total cost that well exceeded 500,000 marks). The funding for the Sepik Expedition thus hailed largely from Prussian and Federal sources.
Adolf Roesicke's dispatch to the Sepik Expedition was essentially a compromise resulting from the other available ethnographer's, Richard Thurnwald, supposed reluctance to collect artifacts. In the end, both ethnographers would join the venture, with Roesicke collecting along the expedition and its steamer Kolonialgesellschaft while Thurnwald, who only connected with the Sepik undertaking in 1913, would largely explore the region between the river and the coastal areas of Kaiser Wilhelmsland. Roesicke collected a large part of the over 5,000 artifacts returned from the expedition.
When Roesicke returned from the expedition to Berlin, he sought to publish his results. However, limited funds, bouts of malaria, and the impending outbreak of the First World War complicated this pursuit. The conflict's bloodletting triggered Roesicke’s draft in 1915; he was first ruled ineligible for combat due to his reoccurring malaria sickness. He survived the war and attempted to resume his work at the Berlin museum in 1918. However, since this was impossible, Roesicke left the ethnographic field to dedicate himself entirely to chemistry. In April of 1919, he would become a victim of the flu pandemic engulfing the globe. The results of the Sepik Expedition would eventually be published in three volumes a good fifty years after the venture. Roesicke's Sepik diaries were finally published in 2015.
Roesicke's diaries, letters, and publications surrounding the Sepik Expedition provide a detailed picture of the exchanges involving Europeans and the inhabitants of this mighty river taking place. Deeply steeped in the salvage paradigm guiding ethnographic endeavors in the early twentieth century, the participants of the Sepik Expedition believed that they would be among the last to collect "authentic" artifacts. For instance, the geographer attached to the expedition, Walter Behrmann, observed firsthand the iron-age transformation in this river's basin. He noted the ease with which a former stone tool adze could be refitted with a plane iron: "[The plane iron] is in its form similar to the cultured stone adze. [The natives] only have to take out the polished stone and replace it with the plane iron. Consequently, an efficient ax has replaced the primitive stone implement." The Sepik expedition, which meant to salvage heritage before it expired, also had to be careful with the introduction of iron which Behrmann postulated as leading to dangerous cultural erosion: “[b]ecause with the more convenient production process through the assistance of iron the art of carving declines rapidly.” Later in his text, Behrmann does present some evidence by telling his reader that the inhabitants of the Sepik who had been exposed to iron were surprised that expedition members rejected the poor carvings made with iron tools. Fortunately, Behrmann continued in true salvage fashion that the expedition still contacted enough pre-iron villages to collect representations of old material culture. He also set the stage that subsequent expeditions would never replicate this collection because, ironically, the Sepik Expedition was greatly complicit in saturating the area with iron tools.
The arrival of Roesicke and the Sepik Expedition to their destination also meant that the ethnographic acquisition process went into overdrive. An example of the rapidly expanding Sepik exchanges is provided by Birger Mörner, who traveled to New Guinea for the Stockholm museum with the support of local business tycoon R. H. Wahlen shortly before the outbreak of the Great War. Surrounded by all sides by willing local participants in the barter, he nearly was overwhelmed by the constant cry of “kurra, kurra,--iron, iron” and there was seemingly never an end to the exchanges: “My cabin is so full [of artifacts] I can hardly get in, and outside on the deck is a pile of many cubic meters in volume.” Along with ethnographer Richard Thurnwald and the ship’s crew, Mörner created a seemingly uninterrupted human chain feeding artifacts unto the ship. Finally, he could only exclaim about the collection spectacle absorbing him: “The Sepik has occurred.”
Roesicke and the Sepik expedition participants also attempted to monopolize collection activity along the river but to no avail. Thus, for example, Reinhold Hollack, the captain of the expedition steamer Kolonialgesellschaft, acquired artifacts much to the chagrin of the organizers of the Sepik venture. Similarly, the NGC steamer Madang's crew, which replaced the Siar and was in charge of bringing in much needed supplies for the expedition, equally collected with impunity. Captain Voogdt was the well-known captain of this vessel, but his first officer, Joseph Hartl, busied himself in acquiring objects for the Munich Ethnographic Museum. In his correspondence with the Munich institution, Hartl almost mocked the expedition's members' attempt to control collection efforts: "The expedition has forbidden other [ethnographic] trade on the river. Obviously, nobody respects this arrangement."
Roesicke's participation in and his observations of the 1912-1913 Sepik Expedition indicated that exchanges in the region were well into the iron phase, with prices for indigenous objects trending upwards. Even with increasing prices, the ethnographer noticed that he could not obtain some objects, including older carvings associated with ceremonial houses. Frustrated about the prospect of not receiving all the desired artifacts, Roesicke decided to resort to two barter strategies. He either informed the trading parties that he would move on to the neighboring village or decided to unilaterally suspend exchanges in hopes that the indigenous people would agree to his terms the next day. Roesicke delighted when his strategies were successful and interpreted the transaction through the prism of colonialism of having taught a valuable lesson to the indigenous peoples he encountered. There are other possibilities at play here. It is essential to realize that when Roesicke’s exchange with the Sepik population was at an impasse, the ethnographer would not resort to violence or superior firepower emanating from the German colonial authorities. Roesicke exchange strategies were characterized by flexibility and resulted from the situation he encountered in any given village. Of course, one can only speculate about the indigenous participants' thought processes involved in such transactions. In contrast, while Roesicke thought his strategy of interrupting negotiations with interested parties was largely successful, the lull in the transactions may have afforded the Sepik inhabitants the chance to check their stores on the availability of similar objects. Alternatively, they could have commissioned new items, ironically employing the very iron tools obtained from their exchanges with the ethnographer.
On at least one occasion Adolf Roesicke was blamed for oversaturating the Sepik with iron. In December of 1912, the Sepik Expedition received the visit of the German warship SMS Condor. Roesicke gave its captain, Mommsen, an extensive tour of Timbuke, one of the largest villages located along the river. Mommsen noted that all indigenous people he met immediately assumed that every European was a collector since everywhere they went, the landing party of the Condor found itself surrounded by foodstuff and ethnographic objects. European goods were in exceptionally high demand, and the captain observed how Roesicke resorted to offering plane iron for essential artifacts. Mommsen concluded that while some areas of the Sepik expressed interest in trinkets, especially glass beads and empty bottles, the parts contacted by the ethnographer desired mainly desired iron. In the captain's view, Roesicke, unlike the Americans or ship captains, became the guilty party for flooding the region with ironware.
Mask collected by Roesicke, foto by Heinz-Günther Malenz, VI 48048,
Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preuβischer Kulturbesitz
Dance Mask collected by Roesicke, photographer unknown, VI 48057,
Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preuβischer Kulturbesitz
Hook collected by Roesicke, foto by Heinz-Günther Malenz, VI 48181,
Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preuβischer Kulturbesitz
Decorative board collected by Roesicke, foto by Claudia Obrocki, VI 46172,
Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preuβischer Kulturbesitz
