Carl Haug - Problematic Captain and Occasional Ethnographic Collector Carl HaugProblematic Captain and Occasional Ethnographic Collector By Rainer Buschmann Carl (sometimes Karl) Haug was captain of the steamer Siar for the Neu Guinea Compagnie. His mission was to recruit Indigenous people for plantation work, mainly along the coastal regions of Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, the part of New Guinea under German colonial control. During his wide-ranging journeys, Carl Haug collected nearly 1,000 artifacts, more than half of which were from the German colony, currently housed in the Dresden Ethnological Museum, Linden Museum in Stuttgart, and the Australian National Museum. Haug’s early life is little known besides hailing from the German town of Alzey near Darmstadt in Hesse. His father’s family came from the university city of Tübingen in Württemberg. He was probably related to Carl Friedrich Haug (1795-1869), a long-time professor of history in this town. Around the turn of the century, Haug moved to Australia, where he attempted to reach the Pacific Islands, his childhood dream. Deemed too young to serve on the schooner Alexandra, Haug returned to Germany via San Francisco. Haug obtained his master’s certificate in his native country, and in 1907, he was offered to take the helm of the Siar, taking over from Captain Hermann Voogdt (see Provenance Section). In a dark uniform, Carl Haug is surrounded by the crew of the Siar. Photography copyrighted by Carsten Brekenfeld, do not reproduce. The Siar (325 tons) was a steamer built in Bremen in 1902, named after an island north of Mandang. It was placed in the service of the New Guinea Company (NGC) to alleviate the transportation problems of the German essentially waterlogged colony. The vessel shuttled copra from plantations to the principal shipping harbors, recruited and shipped Indigenous laborers, and distributed mail to far-flung stations. Haug’s predecessors, ship captains Alfred Knoth and Hermann Voogdt, acquired copra and recruits and traded for and hoarded artifacts in the Siar’s hold. Haug would later keenly adopt this practice. Between Haug, Knoth, and Voogdt, an estimated 6,000 artifacts were returned from German New Guinea, mainly to Germany and the United States. Although shipping gradually improved in the colony, the Siar remained in service until the outbreak of World War One. During the Sokehs Rebellion in Pohnpei (1910/1911), the vessel was employed as a troop transporter. When the First World War broke out, the Australian Navy located and confiscated the steamer hiding in the Gardner Islands off the coast of New Ireland. The Australian authorities kept using the Siar until 1924, when the steamer was deemed unseaworthy and sold at auction. According to the Pacific Island Monthly, the Siar stayed afloat as a hulk for another twenty years, operating as a store ship and a houseboat in Rabaul Harbor. When the Japanese occupied the city in early 1942, the Siar remained in place. As a frequent target of Allied air attacks, the ship’s frame did not survive the Second World War. The Siar docking in Friedrich Wilhelmshafen (Madang), the first decade of the twentieth century, Wikipedia. Carl Haug discovered his passion for ethnographic collection through the captains who preceded him. Nevertheless, his interest in acquiring artifacts peaked when, in 1909, Ferdinand Hefele (see Provenance Section), as First Officer of the Peiho, the ship transporting the Hamburg South Sea Expedition to the German colony, recommended that Haug donate his ethnographic trove to Karl von Linden in Stuttgart in exchange for a Württemberg decoration. Writing to Linden, Haug promised to collect artifacts from remote places for the Stuttgart curator. He declined payment for the artifacts and only asked Linden to assist with freight costs. Haug’s ethnographic collection must have been vast. The same year he wrote to Linden, he divided his assemblage into two parts. One share contained showier pieces he had reserved for Stuttgart, which had received close to 300 artifacts from the captain as an initial donation for future decoration. He sold another equal (302 pieces) portion with more commonplace weapons—such as arrows, clubs, and spears—from the coastal regions of New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Solomon Islands through a Sydney-based trader, E. Schmidt, to the Australian Museum. Malagan, Tabar, collected by Haug and donated to Stuttgart in 1909, Linden Museum Digital 062885, photograph by Dominik Drasdow. Malagan, Tabar, collected by Haug and donated to Stuttgart in 1910, Linden Museum Digital 063213, photograph by Dominik Drasdow. Based on his careful decision to either monetize or donate portions of his collection, Haug must have been aware of the fluctuating value of ethnographic artifacts. While malagan figures, such as the ones displayed above, were much sought after by ethnographic institutions, arrows, and spears indicated a much more reduced market. Arnold Jacobi, Director of the Dresden Ethnological Museum, would later (1920) comment on such commonplace artifacts: “[B]ows, thick bundles of bamboo arrows, and room-high lances from Melanesia [are known as] the ‘firewood’ of the experts. The tropical loot may harbor the occasional treasure, and that is why one should never look a gifted horse in the mouth, at least not during the magnanimous donor’s presentation.” Haug hosted and conversed with numerous ethnographers on the Siar, honing his collecting skills. He took Otto Schlaginhaufen (see Provenance Section) and Richard Neuhauss (see Provenance Section) up the Sepik and, according to Edgar Walden, did much to support the Naval Expedition to New Ireland. In gratitude, the expedition members entrusted him with a malfunctioning cinematograph. Regrettably, concrete insights into Haug’s collection methods are absent. While acquiring most of his artifacts while traveling on the Siar, it is conceivable that he also traded with other ship captains, merchants, and colonial officials, as customary among ship captains. We gain glimpses into Haug’s collecting when, from late July to early August 1909, his eight-day journey up the Sepik was chronicled by Neuhauss and Schlaginhaufen. Although neither of these ethnographers mentions the captain by name, they both recount the many artifacts exchanged with the inhabitants of the Sepik through trading with approaching canoes. Trade continued in a few places, such as Pangali, where the expedition landed. There must have been competition among the collectors. Schlaginhaufen, for instance, writes that Rudolf Schlechter assisted his collection activity but fails to reference Haug or Neuhauss. Neuhauss even accused recruiting captains like Haug of indiscriminately introducing ironware—especially plane iron—to the Sepik, thus accusing the captain of inflating and spoiling barter exchanges. To the early twentieth-century anthropologist’s mind, the shift from stone or shell implements to those made of steel was equivalent to a decline in artistic output. With iron, Indigenous people produced fast-paced copies of their former glorious material culture meant for a quick sale rather than any cultural ritual. When Otto Reche (see Provenance Section) published his monograph on the material culture of the Sepik River in 1913, his estimation of Haug’s navigational skills was low. He maintained that the captain underestimated the length of his trip up the Sepik—187 nautical miles or 346 kilometers—while repeatedly mislabeling Indigenous villages along the way. The Sepik excursion at Pangali. From left to right, in the lower row of Europeans, Schlaginhaufen, Haug (with binoculars), Governmental Surgeon Hoffmann, and Neuhauss. The Indigenous people remain unidentified. Collection Haug Linden Museum Stuttgart, sch-21-s-33. Haug in front of a Sepik structure he identified as located in Kadja Village, Collection Haug, Linden Museum Stuttgart, sch-21-s-10. Haug (second from left) in front of a spirit house he identified as Matembe Village. The Indigenous individuals remain unidentified. The structure was 60 meters in length, 15 meters wide, and 35-40 meters high to the point. Collection Haug, Linden Museum Stuttgart, sch-21-s-12. Longboat Stem collected by Haug, Pangali, Sepik River, Linden Museum Digital, 061730, photography by Dominik Drasdow. Gable Mask collected by Haug, Angerman, Iatmul, Linden Museum Digital, 063214 In a letter to Linden following the trip up the Sepik, Haug expressed disappointment about his collection activity. He promised to return to the region in February of 1910. However, in the fall of 1909, he traveled with the Siar to Sydney for a badly needed overhaul. The captain had already informed a close associate that he was considering quitting his service with the NGC. April 1910 still finds Haug at the helm of the ship as during a return voyage from Brisbane to the German colony, he reported a potential smuggling incident in the British-controlled Trobriand Island to the authorities. In June of 1910, he left the colony and ended employment with the NGC. The very same year, Morobe Station official Klink leveled serious recruiting abuse charges against Haug and his first officer, Eduard Jochens. The accusation continued that Jochens and Haug had used beatings against local headmen and had taken hostages to secure laborers. Haug maintained his innocence in a sworn deposition at a German embassy in Australia. Jochens, who served a six-month prison sentence in Australia associated with a suicide attempt, paid a fine to atone for his offense. In 1911, the NGC sued Haug over unpaid debts of 7,000 Marks. The former captain, who was by now a manager of a Petroleum Concession Company in Timor, first denied the charges but, a year later, settled with the NGC out of court. Between 1911 and 1912, Haug attempted to drum up Australian investment in Portuguese Timor, which he represented as the paradise of cheap labor in the Australian press. In the same years, he became a prominent Australian informant during the large-scale Manufahi District Rebellion directed against the Portuguese colonial establishment of a head tax. Throughout 1911, Haug intended to reconnect with the Stuttgart authorities by sending Southeast Asian artifacts to the city. However, his ambitions to obtain a Württemberg decoration were cut short when Karl von Linden passed away a year earlier, effectively reducing the flood of Stuttgart decoration to a trickle. According to Edgar Walden, Haug returned to Australia, where he lived under precarious circumstances. In June of 1912, possibly because his attempts to secure a medal at Stuttgart had failed, Haug forwarded about 60 artifacts to the Dresden Ethnological Museum from Sydney. The objects came from East and Southeast Asia, and Haug, in an accompanying letter, informed the Dresden authorities about the rarity of his collection. Haug’s donation suggests that he attempted to secure a Saxon order. Nevertheless, the museum authorities decided only to retain 36 of his 59 donated artifacts, damning Haug’s second attempt at obtaining a state decoration. When the war broke out, Haug was probably interned by Australian authorities. A photo dated 1920 or 1921 shows Haug on the steamer Brumo heading to Dili on Timor, suggesting that the former captain was reconnecting to his search for fortune in Southeast Asia following the war’s end. How long Haug resided in Asia cannot be discerned from the sources. Still, he relinquished ethnographic acquisition at this point since no additional collections are connected to his name. Haug (middle) flanked by former Siar First Officer Ratjen (left) and Captain of the Brumo, P. Schmidt. Photography copyrighted by Carsten Brekenfeld, do not reproduce. Haug would eventually return to Germany, where he resided near Darmstadt. In the early 1930s, he considered but never executed the writing of his memoirs. A brief newspaper article, "A Dream Becomes Reality” (Ein Traum wird Wirklichkeit), appeared in a Hamburg paper in 1956, almost fifty years after he arrived in New Guinea. In the 1950s, Haug became a frequent correspondent for Pacific Island Monthly (PIM). In his communications, he identified himself as a captain and a true New Guinea “old-timer.” In one contribution, Haug asked for assistance locating obscure writings by George Lewis (Louis) Becke, who wrote extensively about the Pacific. The PIM still listed him alive in 1965 but characterized him as “an unhappy man with eye cataracts.” Four years later, a German translation of a collection of Becke’s stories appeared credited to Captain Carl Haug. Over the last two decades, the Pacific artifacts collected by Haug regularly appear at prominent auctions. Their repeated high prices reflect the captain’s early keen eye for rare artifacts, despite the criticism leveled against him by the ethnographic community. Objects with Haug’s provenance can be found at museums around the world. War shield, Sepik River, collected by Haug, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, UMFA 1983.001.006 Malagan, Tabar Island, collected by Haug, Sotheby's Auction Harry A. Franklin Collection, 2019, Lot 22
