Wilhelm Joest on Nendö – An Early Malinowski? Wilhelm Joest on Nendö – An Early Malinowski? Carl Deussen Portrait of Wilhelm Joest, 1890 © BGAEU, FS 214. Wilhelm Joest (1852-1897), German anthropologist and collector, had wanted to see Oceania all his life. Heir to his family's sugar trading fortune, Joest had travelled since his youth and dreamed of doing so for the rest of his life. In 1880 he met Adolf Bastian, the founding father of German anthropology, while both were on Java. Bastian implored Joest to become a collector, and Joest happily accepted. From that moment on, he knew he could fulfil his dream by becoming an anthropologist himself. He continued his extensive travels through Asia, but it was clear to him that his career would eventually take him to the Pacific. On his way back to Germany, he wrote to Bastian about "a voyage to the South Seas, which I am determined to undertake". In 1884, after circumnavigating Africa, Joest attempted to reach Australia, but in Aden, Yemen, he contracted malaria. Desperate, he wrote in his diary: "Better to endure + die than to go back + surrender to fate". His condition, however, quickly deteriorated and he had to return to Europe and abandon his plans - for the time being. After his return, Joest's marriage to Clara vom Rath and his academic and social commitments in Berlin left him little time for extended travels. He completed his doctorate and was awarded a titular professorship, but the dream of his youth would have to wait. This changed abruptly in September 1896, when Clara vom Rath divorced Joest. Such a separation was a rarity at that time, which shows how precarious vom Rath's position must have been: contemporary sources suggest that domestic violence was an important reason for the divorce. Joest, however, placed all the blame on his former wife and decided - finally 'free' - to leave Berlin for his long-planned voyage to the South Seas. This was his dream come true, but also a possible escape: Letters from Joest's colleague, the anthropologist Georg Schweinfurth, show that Joest's violent behaviour had become known in Berlin social circles, threatening his reputation. Joest made no comment and instead left for Australia. On 13 May 1897, he set off on his first expedition to the Bismarck Archipelago. There he visited the German colonial town of Herbertshöhe (now Kokopo), met the famous Samoan-American plantation owner 'Queen' Emma Kolbe and made rather superficial collections. But an interview Joest gave to the Sydney Morning Herald reveals that he had much bigger plans: he wanted to expand on his monograph on tattooing techniques – Tätowiren, Narbenzeichnen und Körperbemalen - by staying on a single island for an extended period and by hiring his own ship to sail to islands beyond the reach of commercial liners. When Joest reached the Santa Cruz Islands on 13 August 1897, he made a momentous decision: he would stay on the main island, Nendö, for three months. In his diary he describes the scene on his arrival: The Santa Cruz Islands are famous for their curios. […] I wanted to see something of the country + the people, so I immediately went ashore at the mouth of the Granville River on the north coast of Santa Cruz. There, in a magnificent native house, I met the almost completely dark-skinned Mr. Actaeon Forrest, now a merchant + formerly a missionary for 10 years, who immediately made an impression on me by claiming that he was indeed born on board the warship Actaeon, but nevertheless had the firm conviction that the ship was named after him, not the other way round. He told us such crazy paradoxes by the dozens, so that I asked him if he wanted to take me in as a guest for 3 months. Of course I'll pay for everything. Deal. (p. 58) Upon arriving on the island, Joest spent most of his days talking to Forrest and the locals who gathered around his house, learning as much as he could about Nendö’s society and customs. This was a change for Joest, who had previously only visited places for short periods of time to collect artefacts and move on. During his last research trip to Surinam, however, he began to question the superficiality of this method. In Suriname, he was on a tight schedule and still prioritised the extensive collection of artefacts and photographs, but in his published account of the trip, he envisioned a new kind of research practice: In order to really get to know these [local] conditions, one would have to live among the people for years, immerse oneself in their language, concepts and views – a rewarding and worthwhile task for every ethnographer. (64) And here he was on Nendö, with the time and resources to pursue this idea. He only intended to stay for three months, but that was already much longer than anything he did before. And given the grand plans he had told the Sydney Herald about, the stay on Nendö might have been just the beginning, a test of how such immersion might work. Wilhelm Joest with an anonymous man on Nendö © Arthur Baessler, Neue Südsee-Bilder Still, ethnographic collecting remained the central purpose of his stay, which is reflected in this short description of Joest’s daily routine: We get up between 6 + 7, have 1 brandy + soda, then 1 cup of van Houten Cacao, which gets you very hot. Then we loiter in pyjamas, I write, until 11. […] In the meantime, the Natives have arrived, squat under the veranda roof and wait for Forrest. He then graciously lies down in the hammock, calls one of the servants with trade over + the business begins. He buys yams + creos for himself + curios for me. He pays the Natives well + evenly. If a fellow is not quite satisfied, he gets another book of matches. Then it's usually sleep from 1-2. Then maybe trading again or reading or diary writing or arranging the collection until sunset. (67) The description shows that Joest's contact with the local people was initially limited to their commercial interactions with Forrest. This was acceptable to Joest because his own purpose was also commercial - trading tobacco, matches and cloth for a wide range of artefacts. These interactions were, of course, a challenge in themselves, firstly because Joest did not know the local valuation of artefacts and could only guess at what exchange value would be appropriate, and secondly because the locals knew how to use this strange visitor's desire for their artefacts to their own advantage. As Joest has noted, they were 'very shrewd hagglers and traders', (92) 'never quite satisfied and always demanding another piece of tambagu [tobacco] or another bokis matchi [matchbook]'. (69) And there was another problem: using trade items to acquire artefacts meant that Joest had a limited supply. Within two weeks of his arrival, he noted in his diary: "Buying objects with trade goods is easier said than done, I have enough £ but Forrest's trade is coming to an end". (73) Joest's mention of these restrictions shows the considerable agency that the people of Nendö had in the composition of Joest's collection. Joest was a committed imperialist who valued his own academic career over the cultural autonomy of the people from whom he collected. This meant that he never shied away from using intimidation and theft as collecting strategies. Here on Nendö, however, still outside imperial influence, the balance of power was reversed: it was Joest who had to wonder "why these guys don't think of shooting us. No one would find out later if the boys retreated into the bush once a warship arrived in a year or so". (82) This meant that Joest had to play by the rules of those who sold him his artefact and could not force his way to objects of high cultural or personal significance. Joest's Santa Cruz collection contains what the people of Nendö were willing to give, either because they had made it especially for Joest, because they no longer needed it, or because wanted him to have certain pieces. This diversity is reflected in the collection that Joest managed to acquire. Among the most striking objects in the collection are the various male adornments, most notably the nelo nose ring worn by fully initiated men. Joest refers to them colloquially as 'Papageno padlocks', (62) referring to Mozart's Magic Flute. He also writes of the ornaments: When the boys are very young, their nasal septum is pierced by one of the pointed and thin hairpins (made of sago palm leaf rings) + the tortoiseshell padlock is clipped in, later they buy bigger ones. These, like all earrings, have a split + are elastic. A hole is then drilled in both nostrils on the right + left, decorated with either wax strings or small (European) pearl necklaces. (62) Any wax match used immediately transforms + ends up in a nostril. (70) Joest's description shows an interesting mix of European and indigenous materials used to create socially significant ornaments. Just as Joest searched for rare Nendö artefacts that would set him apart in Europe, Nendö men saw European trade goods as valuable beyond their immediate utility and imbued them with additional meanings. How they saw them precisely is unclear, however, as Joest never inquired into the precise reasons for the use of either material. This is also true for his account of clothing. Here, the material seems to have been more traditional, as Joest does not mention the use of European fabrics, at least for men. All natives wear a shell on a bast thread just below the knees, also braided rings around the ankles + arm joints, rings on the upper arm, a rattan or braided black belt, in it the wonderful banana leaf apron niwega, on the chest or back the bag beli niwega with areca nuts, betel + the lime calabash. (63) In this case, Joest was able to pick up the names of the items in one of the languages spoken on Nendö. He also noticed the gendered division of labour in the production of cloth materials: "All the things woven from banana bast, the belts, bags, etc., are made by the men. The women work in the patches". (71) Indeed, the making of cloth played a central role in Nendö society, as evidenced by the elaborate bags in Joest's collection. Discussing Joest's collection, the German anthropologist Fritz Graebner wrote in 1909: The knowledge of weaving gives the culture of Santa Cruz a special character compared to the rest of Melanesia. [...] Such fabrics are used for the production of the well-known men's bags, which are carried hanging on the chest or back, and in which everyone carries the articles of daily use, such as betel and betel utensils, nautilus spoons for scraping coconuts, and so on. (123-4) Graebner goes on to give a detailed description of the looms used to weave these fabrics. Curiously, Joest makes no mention of weaving techniques or looms, although he did collect what Graebner considers to be a rare example of a loom. Men’s bags from Nendö, depicted in Fritz Graebner’s Völkerkunde der Santa-Cruz Inseln Equally rare was a piece of Nendö’s feather money, or tevau. When Joest first encountered this extraordinary form of currency, he had to admit his own ignorance, noting that "they brought me a splendid piece of feather money (belts with the red feathers of the honeysucker), about which I knew nothing". (65) During his stay, he learnt about the role of this currency in the payment of bride prices and the acquisition of concubines for men’s associations. Describing the formalities of a marriage proposal, he writes: When a mother wishes to marry off her son, she has usually already chosen a girl who can work hard. In the evening she leaves 2 coconuts and some feather money in front of the door of the chosen girl or her parents. If they disappear the next morning, the proposal is accepted, in the other case it is rejected. In the former case, the protracted negotiations between the two families about the final purchase price begin. (84) Joest probably got some of the details wrong - it is highly doubtful, for example, that the son's mother would have taken feather money anywhere, because it was considered a male object forbidden to women. But the detailed description shows that Joest, though initially ignorant, was both willing and able to learn about the uses of tevau. That he managed to buy four was also remarkable. The production of this currency was very labour-intensive, and even in the 1960s, buying them in Australian dollars was an expensive proposition. That Joest was able to acquire four pieces with his limited trading reserves shows both his interest in these artefacts and the good relationship he had with Nendö's men. Finally, Joest was able to acquire some objects used in ritual. For example, he got hold of a set of dance clubs that had been used in an earlier dance ceremony and could now be sold. He notes: "Clubs (dance hall dances) are very rare. One had taken place just before I arrived, so I got the beautiful pieces, but almost all of them show signs of use". (88) Joest also acquired a series of figurines of Nendö deities called dukna. He was convinced that they were originals with spiritual power, so he noted in his diary: Bought a beautiful very rare fetish “Menata”, who looks after the welfare of the women. He is not a god, but a portrait of an ancestor. The name Menata is quite common. The painting = tattooing, which is known but not very common. The plait of hair is made of common palm leaves + the like, which are put into the hair, e.g. when fishing, to protect against the sun. (89) However, in his discussion of Santa Cruz Island Figure Sculpture, anthropologist William Davenport discusses precisely these figures and writes that eight specimen were never intended to be used in religious rituals. Three of those were collected by the anthropologist W. Joest […]. In a strict sense, these eight are ethnographic curious, imitations, as it were, of objects that in their original context became sacralised through ritual use. As it often is with curios of this kind, especially those made before a curio industry has developed, they possess the same style features found on genuine artifacts that were made for and used in traditional contexts. (11-12) For one thing, this underlines the agency of the people of Nendö in dealing with visiting collectors. They knew what kind of objects could be traded, and even with such a small presence on the island and irregularly visiting ships, they had already begun to produce 'curios'. Joest, on the other hand, seems to have been unaware of this, and although he praised the trading skills of his interlocutors on Nendö, he was still too trapped in his colonial mindset to imagine such elaborate trading strategies. He thought he had collected a rare 'fetish', when in fact the people of Nendö had quickly identified and capitalised on the Western collecting fetish. Legacy Joest's stay on Nendö and all his other grand travel plans were cut short by illness. By the time Joest arrived on the island, he was already in bad shape after a life of travelling and alcoholism, and two previous accidents in the Bismarck Archipelago. But having turned back in Aden more than 10 years earlier, Joest was determined to go through with his plan this time. But after a few weeks of fruitful research, Joest fell seriously ill. His last diary entry is dated 10 September, after which he was too weak to write. By the time he boarded a steamer for Sydney, it was too late. He died on 25 November 1897 and was buried on the island of Ureparapara (Vanuatu). After his death, his friend Arthur Baessler published his field notes in his own book, Neue Südsee-Bilder, but without Joest's presence in Berlin, they received little attention. Fritz Graebner wrote the quoted article on Joest's collection, but made little reference to Joest's writing. Some of Joest's notes appeared in W.H.R. River's The History of Melanesian Society (1914), but his observations were subsequently forgotten. What remains is his collection of about 5000 surviving artefacts, held in museums across Europe and especially in the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne, founded by Joest’s sister Adele Rautenstrauch in their names. Of these artefacts, 421 can be linked to the Santa Cruz Islands. How should Joest's observations and collection be judged today? It is certain that Joest's extended stay on Nendö was unusual, both for his time and in comparison with his previous collecting strategies. It falls into the category of 'pre-Malinowski fieldwork' described by Rainer Buschmann in The Ethnographic Frontier in German New Guinea, 1870-1935, and more recently by Frederico Rosa and Han Vermeulen in Ethnographers Before Malinowski. At times, Joest achieved a remarkable degree of intimacy, especially with the men of Nendö, as evidenced by anecdotes such as the following: This morning after the stormy night we went to the clubhouse, next to the copra shed + drying house + it was quite cosy there, thanks to a bright fire. Outside we froze in the fullest sense of the word at 77° [Fahrenheit], albeit before sunrise + in very damp condition. The bellboy Yambalo sometimes tenderly stroked my beard like a shy young girl. (83-4) The men with whom Joest interacted were as interested in this strange visitor as he was in them, and that they were willing to invite him into their lives. However, this should not lead to a glorification of Joest. While he wrote about Nendö with more appreciation and open-mindedness than about the other places he visited, many of his comments remain firmly in the colonial and racist zeitgeist, especially regarding Nendö women. Moreover, it is doubtful whether Joest would have been able to adequately describe his changes in methodology had he survived. Joest had always been an anecdotal writer with little interest in theory, so it is unlikely that his publication on Nendö would have made a significant contribution to the history of anthropology. Nevertheless, Joest left behind a significant body of artefacts and observations about Nendö, many of which have turned out to be surprisingly accurate. These remain valuable resources for our current understanding of the island’s history, thanks to the work and dedication both of Wilhelm Joest and those on Nendö who took an interest in this strange visitor from the world of anthropology. Works Cited Buschmann, Rainer F. Anthropology’s Global Histories. The Ethnographic Frontier in German New Guinea, 1870-1935. University of Hawaii. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009. Davenport, William. Santa Cruz Island Figure Sculpture and Its Social and Ritual Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2005. Graebner, Fritz. “Völkerkunde der Santa-Cruz Inseln.” Ethnologica 1, no. 2 (1909): 71–184. Joest, Wilhelm. “Wilhelm Joest’s Letzte Weltfahrt.” In Neue Südsee-Bilder, edited by Arthur Baessler, 276–403. Berlin: A. Asher, 1900. Joest, Wilhelm. Ethnographisches und Verwandtes Aus Guayana. Leiden: P. W. M. Trap, 1893. Joest, Wilhelm. Tätowiren, Narbenzeichnen und Körperbemalen: Ein Beitrag Zur Vergleichenden Ethnologie. Berlin: A. Asher, 1887. Rivers, W. H. R. The History of Melanesian Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914. Rosa, Frederico Delgado, and Han F. Vermeulen, eds. Ethnographers Before Malinowski: Pioneers of Anthropological Fieldwork, 1870-1922. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2022. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3167/9781800735316.
