The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer

Abstract

Documentary history of the world's largest nineteenth-century ethnographic collection from Brazil, assembled between 1817 and 1835 by Johann Natterer, Johann Emanuel Pohl, Wilhelm Schott, and Archduchess Leopoldina.

Full text

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Fig. 1 Mask costume of a Storm Spirit, bark cloth, reed, resin, vegetable fibers, feathers, mother-of-
pearl, seed shells. Ticuna, upper Amazon River, c. 1830. Weltmuseum Wien 1477, 1493–1495 (Johann
Natterer coll.).

The ethnographic collection assembled by Johann Natterer and his colleagues during
their journeys in Brazil between 1817 and 1835 and mostly preserved at the Weltmu-
seum Wien (the former Museum of Ethnology Vienna) is the largest group of materi-
al documents relating to the indigenous peoples (and their non-indigenous neighbors)
of Brazil of the first half of the nineteenth century and certainly also one of the most
important one of all times. That such a collection should go nearly unnoticed for
almost two centuries is the result of a combination of various factors, including Nat-
terer’s biography, the institutional history of the museum in Vienna, language barriers,
and not the least the very size and complexity of the collection itself.
The following account will attempt to summarize the history of this collection, its ori-
gin, preservation, and partial dispersal on the basis of the available documentary evi-
dence.1
What is often referred to as the “Natterer collection” is in fact the result of the com-
bined efforts of the Austrian naturalists Johann Natterer, Johann Emanuel Pohl, and
Heinrich Wilhelm Schott as members of the Austrian expedition to Brazil in the years
1817 to 1835, and also includes a group of objects donated by the Archduchess
Leopoldina; the by far largest part of this material, however, was collected by Johann
Natterer. After their arrival in Vienna these objects were first exhibited together with the
natural history specimens collected by the Austrian travelers in the Brazilian Museum
from 1821 to 1836 and became part of the short-lived Imperial Ethnographic Museum
from 1838 to 1840 before being packed away for several decades.
This material was properly cataloged only in 1882/83, long after all the expedition
members had passed away, by the young geologist Franz Heger for the newly created
Anthropological-Ethnographic Department of the new Imperial Museum of Natural His-
tory. This inventory provides the baseline for any account of the scope and contents of
the “Natterer collection,” and will here be compared to the earlier evidence supplied by
letters and packing lists sent from Brazil on which it was based.
Between 1881 and 1895 additions to the collection were received from various
individuals and institutions who had independently perserved ethnographic materials
collected by Natterer.
Archiv Weltmuseum Wien 63–64 (2013–2014): 60–95 61
The Ethnographic Collection of
Johann Natterer and the Other
Austrian Naturalists in Brazil
A Documentary History
Christian Feest
Christian Feest was Director of the Museum für Völkerkunde Wien and Professor of Anthropology at the
Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. He is now an independent scholar and curator.
Address: Fasanenweg 4a, 63674 Altenstadt, Germany
E-Mail: christian.feest@t-online.de
For a different version of this paper see Feest (2012).
1For a brief comparison with the other ethnographic collections from Brazil of the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries (Ferreira, Spix and Martius, Langsdorff) see Feest (2012: 30–31).

Ethnographic Collecting of the Austrian Expedition to Brazil, 1819–1835
When in January 1817 Karl von Schreibers finished the “Service Instructions for the
Naturalists Designated to Travel to Brazil” the primary goal of the Austrian expedition
was defined as “contributing as much as possible to the exploration and knowledge of
this large and most remarkable part of our planet and thereby enriching with their col-
lections the sciences and the respective public institutions of the monarchy”
(Schmutzer 2011: 31–32; Dienstinstruktion 1817). As director of the Natural History
Cabinet, the interest of this institution was probably foremost in his mind, especially
since some key participants in the expedition (notably Johann Natterer) were also
employees of this institution. But while the Service Instructions were quite specific as
far as bureaucratic procedures and disciplinary matters were concerned, they were
quite vague with respect to collecting. The travelers were reminded to make written
records of the “natural products” collected, including the place of their provenance,
their local designation, and associated observations, and they were encouraged to col-
lect multiple examples – the less common, the more examples;2everything that had
been collected had to be delivered to the Imperial Cabinet of Natural History
(Schmutzer 2011: 49–55, esp. 53). In addition to specimens of natural history, atten-
tion was to be given to useful trade goods and raw materials, especially lumbers.
Ethnography features only marginally in the Service Instructions, which enjoined the
naturalists to pay some attention to the manners and customs of the indigenous popu-
lations and to make verbal and visual records of them. The only specimens specifically
mentioned by Schreibers to be collected were, “if possible,” human skulls. This had been
proposed by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, the founding father of physical anthropolo-
gy, who advised the Austrian expedition and in return asked for skulls of Indians and
mixed-bloods for his collection in Göttingen (Schmutzer 2011: 61, 64).
As for the collecting of human crania, Natterer’s writings include only one refer-
ence to his efforts in this direction. A passage in a letter of 17 October 1828 to José
Gomez da Silva is also of interest in illustrating one of Natterer’s techniques for col-
lecting ethnographic artifacts – by proxy:
For this reason I ask you that in case you should encounter some Cabexis killed in
battle, to have cut off the head of one or two adult Indians and to have the brains
removed without disturbing the skull and have them dried near a fire so that they
would not rot so much. I oblige myself to give to those who provide this service 4/8
per skull as a gratification. Moreover, I would like to have everything the Indians
possess of weapons, stone axes, ornaments, and whatever utensils, that would not
be tedious to transport, both of men and of women, for the same purpose of col-
lecting, and I would also not fail to compensate the bearer with gratifications.3
Given the obvious difficulty in obtaining skulls – both because of the need to explain
the scientific purpose, which was then probably still largely unknown in Brazil, and
because this practice may have appeared in violation of ideas about the sanctity of
the dead – it may be questioned how successful Natterer could have been in fulfilling
this request of the Service Instructions. An overview of the collections of the Austri-
an naturalists compiled in 1837 by Johann’s brother Josef, lists indeed 192 skulls
2The Service Instructions also included contradictory sentiments, such as the higher value placed
upon collecting a diversity of species and genera, rather than a large number of individuals
(Schmutzer 2011: 56). Schreibers likewise compiled from the published literature a “shopping list”
of the “natural products” known to exist in Brazil, but not in the collections in Vienna, although in
the end the most valuable collections made by the Austrian naturalists were, of course, those of
“natural products” that had not yet been known to exist in Brazil (Schmutzer 2011: 59).
3Johann Natterer, draft of letter to José Gomez da Silva, 17 October 1828, Vila Bela de Santissima
Trindade (Matogrosso). Weltmuseum Wien, Archiv, Natterer 27/3–4 (see also Feest 2012: 25).
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Christian Feest

(Natterer 1837). 81 of these were collected on his first three journeys in the vicinity
of Rio de Janeiro, Ilha Grande, the eastern and southern parts of the province of São
Paulo, and Paraná between 1817 and 1821, 74 in Mato Grosso between 1825 and July
1829, and 39 on his trip from Cidade de Mato Grosso to Borba and near Borba
between July 1829 and June 1830 (Natterer 1832, 1833).
But while various skeletons and anatomical preparations of monkeys, other mam-
mals, and alligators could be seen in the Brazilian Museum in Vienna, no human cra-
nia were shown at all (Isis 1823a, 1825; Schreibers in Isis 1833: 305–310, and in
Schmidl 1837: 182–193). The fact that Josef Natterer’s tabular view places the col-
umn “skulls” between the columns for “preparations” and “eggs,” also suggests that
these were the crania of animals, which a contemporary reviewer of the Brazilian
Museum regarded as more important for the development of zoology than other col-
lections (Isis 1823a). That these were not human skulls is finally indicated by Pelzeln
(1883: 93), who refers to three manati skulls sent to Vienna by Natterer, “which how-
ever in the year 1848 were unfortunately destroyed by fire together with the whole col-
lection of skulls” when on 31 October of the year of the Revolution of 1848 the
“friendly fire” of the Imperial artillery destroyed the attic of the Imperial Cabinet of
Natural History.
One human cranium, however, did survive – as part of the ethnographic collection,
where curator Franz Heger catalogued it in 1882/83 on the basis of a label written by
Natterer, which is still preserved in the museum’s archive:
Cranium of a Schamucoco [Chamacoco] Indian.
“This nation lives below Coimbra in the province Chaco, is hard pressed and
enslaved by the Guaicurus. This one, of whom the head is, was about 20 years old
and died in the local hospital, he belonged to the city commander Tenente Coronel
Jeronymo Joaquim Nunes, who received him as a gift from the Schamucocos when
he was commander at Forte Coimbra on the occasion when they came to ask him
for protection” (Heger 1882: cat.no. 600/966).
According to a note in the museum’s inventory the cranium was transferred to the
Anthropological collection of the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, where it was cata-
loged in 1890 as number 2890 (without reference to many of the details offered by Nat-
terer; Maria Teschler-Nicolai, pers. inf. 2012). There is no information on the available
packing lists as to when the cranium was received, and it appears to have been sent orig-
inally with the animal skulls, rather than with the ethnographic material. The only known
letter by Natterer to Tenente-Coronel Nunes, then president of the province Mato Grosso,
dates from 1828 and relates to the naturalist’s planned voyage on the Madeira.
In the absence of any other evidence, however, it is possible that crania were sent to
Blumenbach in Göttingen, who had expressed an interest in such specimens and who
died only in 1840.
The lack in the Service Instructions of any reference to the collecting of ethno-
graphic artifacts may seem surprising in view of the fact that a separate Imperial
Ethnographic Collection had been established in 1806 with the purchase of 250
objects, mostly procured on the three circumnavigations of James Cook, at the sale
of the Leverian (or Parkinson’s) Museum, and which had since been enriched by dona-
tions from the public (cp. Kaeppler 2011). But it should be remembered that this
acquisition had probably not been planned, and that Leopold von Fichtel, who had
been sent to London by Emperor Franz I, was supposed to buy primarily natural his-
tory specimens. Since the ethnographic material created a problem of physical space
in the Natural History Cabinet, Karl von Schreibers had them moved in 1820 to
Belvedere Castle, where they were displayed together with what had remained of the
Ambras collection, one of the most important Kunst- and Wunderkammern of the six-
teenth century (Feest 1978: 98, note 9). Thus, there was clearly no interest on the part
The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists in Brazil
63

of Schreibers to enlarge the ethnographic collection. In his summary account of
Brazilian collections received, Schreibers notes the ethnographic material only very
briefly at the end of the list (Schreibers 1820–1822, 2: app. 113–114).
It could be said that the acquisition of the Brazilian ethnographic material repeat-
ed the story of the 1806 purchases at the Leverian Museum sale. Like Leopold von
Fichtel, Johann Natterer, and to a lesser extent Johann Emanuel Pohl and Heinrich
Schott became intrigued with the material documents illustrating cultural diversity
and collected them without being specifically instructed to do so.
Ethnographic objects from Brazil were sent to Vienna between 1821 and 1836 by
the Archduchess Leopoldina, Heinrich Schott, Johann Emanuel Pohl, and Johann Nat-
terer. Documents relating to the collecting of these artifacts include published and
unpublished letters and reports, packing lists,4 and labels attached to objects. This
evidence will now be presented and discussed separately for each of the collectors.
Archduchess Leopoldina
The fourth shipment, received in October 1821, included the only group of ethno-
graphic artifacts sent by the daughter of the Austria emperor, who otherwise is on
record only as a donator of specimens of natural history, dead or alive. These items
were first reported, immediately upon their arrival in Vienna, as “a no less remarkable
addition” to the fourth shipment, being “weapons and utensils of the by now some-
what refined Puris, an ancient South American tribe on the Paraiba river in the capita-
nia Rio de Janeiro already better known through the Prince of Neuwied, Lt. Col.
Eschwege, and our Schott [for whom see below]. This collection is a present of H.I.H.
the Serene Archducal Crown Princess” (Schreibers 1821: 1129). A compilation of the
ethnographic collections contained in shipments III to V (Natterer n.d. a) specifies the
contents as seven bows (three large, three medium, three small) and one hundred and
forty arrows (three lots of 22, 20, and 12 pointed with reed splits; two lots of 9 and
3 of blunt arrows for hunting birds; four lots of 4, 10, 6, and 3 with barbed wooden
points of jacaranda wood; three lots of 15, 14, and 4 of plains wooden points of
4A total of twelve shipments was sent from Brazil: (I) sent on the ships “Austria” and “Augusta” with
the returning expedition members Mikan, Ender, and Raddi; received in Vienna November 1818,
including collections by Mikan, Pohl, Natterer, and Schott; no ethnographic material (Schreibers
1820–1822, 1: 146–191; Natterer 1833: 546); (II) sent on the ship “Iginio” in April 1819 with
returning expedition member Kammerlacher, received in Vienna in November 1819, including col-
lections by Kammerlacher, Leopoldina, Pohl, Natterer; no ethnographic material (Schreibers
1820–1822, 2: 16; Natterer 1833: 546); (III) received in Vienna January 1821, including collections
by Natterer and Schott; ethnographic material collected by Schott (Schreibers 1820–1822, 2: app.
98; Natterer n.d., 1833: 546); (IV) sent in April 1821 on the ship “Northumbria” with returning
expedition members Pohl and Schücht, received in Vienna in October 1821, including collections
by Pohl, Natterer, Leopoldina, all of them including ethnographic material (Schreibers 1820–1822,
2: app. 99; 1821: 1221, 1225–1229; Natterer n.d., 1833: 546); (V) sent May 1821 on the ship
“Egmont” with returning expedition member Schott, received in Vienna January 1822, including
collections by Pohl and Schott, ethnographic material by Schott (Schreibers 1820–1822, 2: app.
102–103; Natterer n.d.); (VI) sent October 1821, received in Vienna March 1822, including collec-
tions by Natterer and Pohl; no ethnographic material (Schreibers 1820–1822, 2: app. 105–106;
Natterer 1833: 546); (VII) received in Vienna March 1823, Natterer collection, no ethnographic
material (Natterer 1833: 546); (VIII) sent on the ship “Dolphins”, received in Vienna September
1827, Natterer collection, including ethnographic material (Natterer 1827, 1833: 546–547); (IX)
received in Vienna November 1830, Natterer collection, including ethnographic material (Natterer
1830, 1833: 547); (X) received in Vienna May 1831, Natterer collection, including ethnographic
material (Natterer 1833: 547); (XI) sent in October 1834 from Belém, received in Vienna April
1835, Natterer collection, including ethnographic material (Anonymous 1835; Schmutzer 2011:
245), (XII) sent in 1835 with returning expedition member Natterer, Natterer collection.
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Christian Feest

jacaranda wood; and finally 3 small, 11 smaller, and 4 very small arrows). Thus,
Leopoldina sent only weapons and no utensils.
Since the Archduchess is not known to have visited or otherwise encountered her-
self any Puris, the question of her source for this material must be raised. As will
be seen immediately, Heinrich Schott did collect among the Puris in 1819, but the
one bow and a very much smaller number of arrows collected by him came to Vien-
na under his own name. Leopoldina’s most likely source for the Puri bows and
arrows was Friedrich Sello(w), a Prussian naturalist and painter who had come to
Brazil in 1814 at the invitation of Heinrich von Langsdorff, and who in 1815 togeth-
er with the ornithologist Georg Wilhelm Freyreiss had accompanied Prince Maximil-
ian zu Wied-Neuwied to the Puri (Hackethal 1995, Hermannstädter 2002).
In a letter, dated Rio de Janeiro, 4 July 1818, Natterer tells Schreibers of a meet-
ing with Sellow, who had recently returned from Bahia and was about to travel to
Minas Gerais in the company of Ignaz von Olfers, the later director of Royal Muse-
ums in Berlin; in a second communication to Schreibers of 22 August 1818, Nat-
terer reports that Sellow had given to “H.I.H. the Crown Princess a significant col-
lection of bird and mammal skins, also insects” (Schreibers 1820–1822, 1; 140; 2:
11–12). By 1820 Schreibers had learned that Leopoldina had given Sellow’s present
to her doctor, Johann Kammerlacher, who upon his return to Vienna had disposed
of these items, together with his own collection, to the Imperial Cabinet of Natural
History, where the association with Sellow continued to be noted (Johann Natterer
to Wenzel Philipp Leopold Baron von Mareschal, draft of letter sent from Ipanema,
5 July 1820; Weltmuseum Wien, Archiv, Natterer; cp., e.g., Pelzeln 1871: 79, 80, 82,
et passim; 1883: 19, 79). Although we are lacking positive proof, it is very likely that
the Puri bows and arrows had also been given by Sellow to Leopoldina.
Heinrich Schott
The ethnographic objects collected by Heinrich Schott, the gardener, derive from the first
of his two expeditions in the province of Rio de Janeiro from 4 June to 1 October 1819.
On 15 July he had learned at the Fazenda of Luiz Lazar about a group of 70–80 Puris
living in the vicinity and recorded from Lazar a short Puri word list. Leaving Lazar on the
16th for the Registro Porto da Cunha on the Rio Paraíba do Sul, he encountered about
10–15 Puris near the Fazenda, signaled to them that he wished to buy their weapons,
and succeeded in obtaining from an old man a bow and two arrows in exchange for a
hat full of farinha. Schott’s attempt to exchange more bows and arrows for farinha met
The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists in Brazil
65
Fig. 2 Arrows with points of reed
splint, jacaranda wood, and blunt
head; tangential fletching. Puri, c.
1815. Weltmuseum Wien 540, 561,
604 (Archduchess Leopoldina coll.;
ex-coll Friedrich Sellow [?]).

with the disapproval of the Puris, who (as Schott was told later) apparently wanted a
knife in exchange; in the end they agreed to part with two more arrows for another hat
full of farinha. The detailed description of the Puri bows and arrows takes up the better
part of Schott’s Puri ethnography (Schott 1822: 21–26).
On 11 August 1819 Schott arrived at the Aldeia da Pedra, a Capuchin missionary vil-
lage with a mixed population of Coroados and Koropós. Here he was able to record more
extensive vocabularies5and even short texts in both languages. A Coroado song recorded
by the Viennese gardener was accompanied by “rattles and several kinds of trumpets.
One of the latter, which I had the opportunity to acquire, is made of a bamboo reed, the
bones rings of a tatu tail, and wax” (Schott 1822: 32–51, esp. 47–48). At the end of his
account, Schott summarizes the collections made on this trip, including “bow, arrows,
and trumpet of the Indians” (Schott 1822: 65).
The lists of ethnographic objects, excerpted around 1838 from the packing lists
(Natterer n.d. a), shows that Schott’s collection partly came with the third, and part-
ly with the fifth shipment. It is tempting to assume that the items arriving in January
1821 were the ones that Schott had collected in 1819: “3 bows, 10 arrows, and 1
trumpet of the Coroados”6would indeed fit the descriptions found in the travel
account, except that Schott mentioned only one bow and four arrows of the Puri. The
fifth shipment, accompanied by Schott himself, included further ethnographic objects:
in addition to some bundles of caravata and tucum fibers as examples of processed
raw materials there were two burden baskets (attributed in a later hand, probably
Heger’s, to the Coroado), a stone axe, a Chinese umbrella, three bows of jacaranda
wood, three arrows with points of reed splints, and two arrows with barbed wooden
points. While none of these items had any provenance, there was finally “a whole bun-
dle of hunting arrows of the Coroados on the Rio Preto.” Although no Koropó objects
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Christian Feest
Fig. 3 “Burden basket of the
Indians of tucum leaves” [later
attributed to the Coroado on a
label in the Brazilian Museum].
Sent with the fourth shipment
in April 1821. Weltmuseum
Wien 631 (Heinrich Schott coll.)
Fig. 4 “Die Hacke Coi der Paragramacras” [The hatchet coi of the
Porekamekran]. Collector’s object label for Weltmuseum Wien 475
(Johann Emanuel Pohl coll.). See Augustat 2014: 105–106.
5Loukotka (1968: 383) reports a vocabulary of the Gueren or Borun language recorded by Schott as
being in his possession.
6In the German text the attribution to the Coroados does not necessarily also refer to the bows and arrows.

appear on the packing lists, a Viennese newspaper account published after the arrival
of shipment III refers to “the weapons and utensils of the Coroados and Coropos”
(Wiener Zeitschrift 1921: 1129), perhaps on the basis of Schott’s published account
rather than upon physical evidence.
Johann Emanuel Pohl
Johann Emanuel Pohl’s ethnographic collection was assembled on his trip from Rio de
Janeiro to the provinces of Minas Gerais and Goiás between September 1818 to Feb-
ruary 1821. His published account (Pohl 1832–1837) provides an excellent contextu-
alization especially of the artifacts he collected among the Southern Kayapó,
Porekamekran, Krahó, and Botocudo, and to a lesser extent of those of the Xavante,
Xerente, Apinayé, Avá-Canoeiros, Maxakali, and of the non-indigenous populations of
the region. The process of collecting itself is generally not described, other than when
it had to be done through intermediaries or when he failed in his attempts to acquire
certain objects (Augustat 2014). An exception is provided by Pohl’s purchase in Sta.
Luzia of a pair of boots of the skin of the giant snake (Pohl 1832–1837, 1: 268).
All the ethnographic objects arrived in Vienna together with Pohl himself as part of
the fourth shipment. On the earliest list in the archive of the Vienna museum (Anony-
mous n.d.), 31 items were designated as Kayapó, 22 as Botocudo, 9 as Xavante and
Xerente, 9 as Krahó, 7 as Apinayé, 2 as Porekamekran, 1 each as Canoeiro and Max-
akali, and 21 as “Creole,” but the total number is given as 115 instead of 103 objects,
with the wrong number later entered into the summary of the Austrian collections
from Brazil by Josef Natterer (1837, see note 3). A further and more serious problem
is that three of the original labels attached to the objects provided a provenance of
certain objects from the Krahó rather than the Xavante, Canoeiro, or Porekamekran as
given on the list.7
Johann Natterer
During Johann Natterer’s third trip (July 1820 to February 1821), which took him to
the southern part of the province of Sao Paulo and to Paraná, he met during his stay
in Curitiba in November 1820 “a young Cameh [Kaingán] Indian woman, who belonged
to the judge. She was formerly called Ninschirim, but had now been baptized Rufina.
With her and with a Portuguese who had lived for a long time in Guarapuava I was lucky
enough to collect the enclosed words.” At the same time, he was able to obtain from
Dr. Renow in Curitiba one of the “gigantic” Kaingán bows, an arrow, and two stone
axes.8These were sent with the fourth shipment, received in Vienna in October 1821,
which also included six archaeological stone implements (four from a sambaqui at Rio
de las Pedras near Paranagua) and 18 objects (including processed raw materials)
from the non-indigenous peoples of the region (Natterer n.d. a, 1832). The latter
included a box with a set for drinking mate – “although they belong to me,” Natterer
instructed his brother, “give it to the collection.”9
The encounter with Ninschirim was Natterer’s first personal contact with an indige-
nous Brazilian and marked the beginning of his collection of linguistic material, but
it also must have triggered his interest in collecting ethnographic data and objects.
The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists in Brazil
67
7These differences were noted by Heger when cataloging the collection (Heger 1882). More than twenty
of the original labels have survived in the archive of the Weltmuseum Wien (Fig. 3).
8Johann Natterer, draft of letter to Karl von Schreibers, Rio de Janeiro, 2 March 1821. Weltmuseum
Wien, Archiv, Natterer 4/1-8, 5/1-4 (Wiener Zeitschrift 1825: 939).
9Johann Natterer, draft of letter to Josef Natterer, Rio de Janeiro, 13 April 1821. Wienbibliothek, HS
Natterer 7878.

Although he could have easily collected non-indigenous ethnographic objects in the
first two years after his arrival in Brazil, he started to do so only after this “primary
ethnographic experience.”
In his letter to Schreibers quoted above, Natterer also provided whatever historical
and ethnographic information (“extremely poor,” as he noted), which he had been able
to obtain on the “Caméh” and their neighbors, which was published by Schreibers
(Wiener Zeitschrift 1825) four years later.10
Information on his ethnographic collecting and the cultural context of his collections
is contained in Natterer’s surviving letters and diary fragments as well as in his ethno-
graphic notes assembled together with the wordlists of indigenous languages (Kann
1989), and last, but not least in the lists accompanying his shipments (Fig. 5) and relat-
ed documents, such as the original labels attached to the objects (which with some minor
variations duplicate the information on the lists) (Fig. 6; cp., e.g., Natterer 2014a, b).
In addition to his own field collecting, Natterer used every opportunity to acquire
ethnographic materials from other sources. In the case of the Bororo do Cabaçal
objects, he had asked the captain of a military party against this “unpacified” group
to “bring back everything possible, [but] he brought nothing, and I received the things
from other people, mainly from 3 Guanás of Albuquerque, my acquaintances from
Cuiabá, who were with the troop” (Natterer 2014b: 201). One of his Guaná (or rather
Choarana [“Tschåvårånô”]) friends also brought him a tobacco pipe, a bag, and a
feather ornament taken from a Lilei whom he had killed. These Guanás likewise sup-
plied him with the Guató objects in his collection (Natterer 1825; Höldrich 2002: 94).
Most of Natterer’s Munduruku and Apiaká collection (as well as the Bakairi material)
was obtained from his “student” Capitão Antonio Peixoto de Azevedo, a Brazilian army
officer, irrespective of the fact that Natterer was intending to visit the Munduruku him-
self at a later point of time. Thus, he argued, these objects would “arrive much soon-
er in Vienna, where they will surpass in beauty everything that is already there”11 (cp.
Schlothauer 2014).
Natterer’s ethnographic collection was sent to Vienna as part shipments IV and VIII
through XII. (No ethnographic collecting took place between November 1820 and Nat-
terer’s arrival in Mato Grosso.) The ethnographic contents of shipment IV already
referred to are known from an undated copy of the packing list made by his brother (Nat-
terer n.d. a). Natterer’s original list has survived only for shipment VIII, featuring 127
objects from the Guaná, Guató, Bororo, Chamacoco, Lilei, Bakairi, Mauhé, Munduruku,
Apiaká, and “Portuguese Brazilians.” Copies made upon receipt in Vienna by Josef Nat-
terer exist for shipment VIII through X (Johann Natterer 1825, Josef Natterer 1827,
1830, 1831). Shipment IX included 263 artifacts from the Bororo, Guaná, Pareci, Cabixi,
and from the Provincias de Moxos and Chiquitos; shipment X had a total of 150 objects
from the Munduruku, Pama, Tora, Arara, Quatia, Uauirivait, Matanau, Parintintin,
Maraua, Mura, Karipuna, Baure, Provincia de los Moxos, Itonomas, and Miranha.
No lists appear to exist today for shipments XI and XII, on which almost two thirds
of Natterer’s ethnographic collection (924 objects from more than thirty indigenous
peoples and neo-Brazilians) was sent.12 The major documentary evidence relating to
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Christian Feest
10 Publication had already been promised in 1821 (Wiener Zeitschrift 1821: 1229).
11 Johann Natterer, draft of letter to Josef Natterer, Cuiabá, 16 December 1824/18 February 1825.
Wienbibliothek, HS Natterer 7882; draft of letter to Karl von Schreibers, Cuiabá, 18 December
1824. Weltmuseum Wien, Archiv, Natterer (Wiener Zeitschrift 1825: 958).
12 The figures for the earlier shipments are from the lists as summarized by Josef Natterer (1833), the
figures for the last three shipments results from subtracting this subtotal from the total given by Nat-
terer (1838). The eleventh shipment alone included more than 400 ethnographic items from some
twenty indigenous peoples (Anonymous 1835); Schreibers (in Schmidl 1837: 193) gives the number
as 500 items from 32 tribes or bands.

The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists in Brazil
69
Fig. 5 First page of Natterer’s list of ethnographic objects sent on shipment VIII (Natterer 1825).

specific objects in these shipments is found on the original labels. But there is also a
summary list of the tribes represented in three boxes of ethnographic specimens of
shipment XI, including not only the new material collected since 1829, but also more
Munduruku, Arara, Matanau, and Parintintin objects, some of them probably collect-
ed before 1829 (Natterer n.d. b). The Natterer papers at the Naturhistorisches Muse-
um Wien include what appear to be drafts of the shipping list XI and some informa-
tion on XII as well, from which it appears that some material collected by Natterer in
Mato Grosso in the 1820s was sent to Vienna as late as 1835.
Not everything that was collected was shipped to Vienna.13 Boxes were occasional-
ly – rarely enough – damaged or lost on their way from the interior to the coast, and
while Natterer stayed in Pará (Belém) in 1836 his living quarters were plundered dur-
ing the Revolta dos Cabanos, leading to the loss of part of what had been collected
since the thirteenth shipment in the fall of 1835 or what had not been sent at that
time (Anonymous 1835).
Brazilian Museum, 1821–1836
Although the Austrian expedition to Brazil had been in part designed to enrich the
collections of the Imperial Cabinet of Natural History, nobody had apparently given
a thought on how to accommodate the new accessions. After the arrival of the first
shipments from Brazil, it turned out that there was not enough space for them in the
70
Christian Feest
Fig. 6 Original object labels from the
Johann Natterer collection. Those
marked “9” and “X” correspond to the
packing lists IX and X (Natterer 1830,
1831), the unmarked ones are of
material from shipment XI (and possi-
bly XII) for which no lists exist. Weltmu-
seum Wien, Archiv, Etiketten.
13 In the 1820s, Natterer had sent a collection of birds from Mato Grosso to the Museu Imperial (now
Museu Nacional) in Rio de Janeiro, but there is no evidence that he ever sent ethnographic objects
to this institution (Johann Natterer, draft of letter to Rochus Schüch, Vienna, 27 March 1839, Wien-
bibliothek, HS Natterer 7888, 8r–9r).

Natural History Cabinet, and Director Schreibers soon found his living quarters being
filled up with the fruits of the labors of the Austrian naturalists across the Atlantic
Ocean. In 1821, he was finally able to convince the Emperor to make rooms for a new
“Brazilian Museum” available in a building in the city, which already housed the Impe-
rial Mummy Cabinet. The Emperor made it clear, however, that this was only a tempo-
rary solution, since he ultimately wanted the Brazilian collection, “once the discover-
ies made have been described,” to be integrated into his Natural History Cabinet (cp.
Schmutzer 2011: 110–115; Schmutzer and Feest 2014: 278–280).
There is no evidence that there ever was a true inventory of the Brazilian Muse-
um in Vienna and particularly of its ethnographic collections. With the thousands of
new zoological, botanical, and mineralogical specimens to be studied, nobody was
interested (or able) to even describe the discoveries from the realm of cultural diver-
sity. In actual practice, clean copies of the numbered shipping lists, arranged by
object class (mammals, birds, minerals, plants, ethnography, etc.) serves as inven-
tories, but the objects were never numbered and thus made clearly identifiable.
These copies are kept in the archive of the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, with the
exception of the ethnographic material from shipments VIII, IX, and X, which are at
the Weltmuseum Wien.
From the moment the museum was set up in April 1821, after the receipt of
shipment III, both natural history and ethnographic objects were put into museum
cases for preservation, study, and the enjoyment of the interested public on Satur-
day mornings (Isis 1823a). Schreibers’s obvious skepticism with regard to the role
of ethnographic specimens in a natural history museum may stand behind the curi-
ous juxtaposition in his description of the museum: “In addition to these intrinsical-
ly worthy collections of the natural products of nature in Brazil, the artificial prod-
ucts, dresses, weapons, tools, and utensils of the indigenous peoples of this conti-
nent are also here preserved” (Isis 1833: 310). While Schreibers devotes only a
paragraph to ethnography (as compared to more than four columns on natural his-
tory), a reviewer for a German journal clearly expresses the public’s fascination with
the peoples in foreign lands and gives about half of his text to a discussion of their
manufactures (Morgenblatt 1825; Schmutzer and Feest 2014: 278–279).
The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists in Brazil
71
Fig. 7 Object labels from the Brazilian Museum
(pencil numbers in upper right corner, added by
Franz Heger, are the 1882/83 catalog numbers of
the Anthropological-Ethnographic Department of
the Natural History Museum).
(top left) “Jaguar skin to lie on; at dances sus-
pended from the neck (Adugå böli) of the Bororo
da Campanha. N[atterer].” (now Weltmuseum
Wien 890).
(top right) “Buccina, war and dance horn of
gourd, of the Chavantes [Xavante]. P[ohl].” (now
Weltmuseum Wien 670; cp. p. 105, Fig. 14).
(bottom) “Trumpet of the Coroados. Sch[ot]t.”
(now Weltmuseum Wien, cat.no. 670).

The only new records produced at the Brazilian Museum were exhibition labels with
information taken from the lists accompanying the shipments, to which the abbreviat-
ed names of the collectors provided a useful cross-reference (Fig. 7).
The closing of the Brazilian Museum more or less coincided with the death of Emper-
or Franz I and the enthronement of his successor Ferdinand I, but it was also the result
of Johann Natterer’s return from Brazil in 1836. There now was no more reason to delay
the integration of the Brazilian material into the Natural History Cabinet that Emperor
Franz had requested when accepting the Brazilian Museum as a temporary necessity.
Johann Natterer was obviously and uniquely qualified to implement this integration,
since his own collections dominated the Brazilian Museum, and he was assisted in this
task by his brother Josef (Fitzinger 1856–1868, 2: 69).
Imperial-Royal Ethnographic Museum, 1838–1840
But what to do with the ethnographic material, for which there seemed to be no place
in the Natural History Cabinet? As pointed out above, the ethnographic collections of
the Natural History Cabinet had been moved to Belvedere Castle in 1820 and (at
least in Schreibers’s mind) ceded to the Ambras Collection. On the occasion of the
donation by the Austrian fur trader Josef Klinger of a North American Indian collec-
tion to the Emperor in 1825, however, it was decreed that these objects were to be
kept, however separately, at the Brazilian Museum, and that Schreiber was to cata-
log them in the inventory of this institution (Feest 1978: 98, note 9). Since there was
no inventory of the Brazilian Museum, nothing happened, especially because the
other ethnographic collections were still displayed at Belvedere Castle up to 1837
(Schmidl 1837: 214). All the ethnographic collections received between 1820 and
1836 were hastily cataloged by Schreibers only in 1836, the display at Belvedere
Castle was taken down, and the objects were united in a new Imperial-Royal Ethno-
graphic Museum, located in the so-called “Emperor’s House” outside the city, which
Schreibers in 1821 had first suggested to the Emperor as a possible site of the
Brazilian Museum (Hebenstreit 1840: 178–179; cp. Schmutzer and Feest 2014:
279–280).
Johann Natterer was put in charge of this museum and its first installation, which
began in 1838, and in preparation of this task his brother Josef, who assisted him in
the installation, compiled lists of the ethnographic material in the Brazilian Museum
(e.g., Natterer n.d.), as well as inventories of the crates into which the objects had
been put when the Brazilian Museum was dismantled. An incomplete set of these
crate lists survives in the archives of the Weltmuseum Wien (especially relating to
Munduruku, Makuxi, Baniwa, Uaupés, Ticuna, and Tukano objects).
In the first four and a half rooms Natterer installed the Brazilian collections, and
it appears that even the cases used for the Brazilian Museum were re-used on this
occasion. Strangely enough, the large ethnographic collection from Guiana donated in
1838 by Robert Schomburgk was not exhibited, even though it had obviously been
given to Vienna to supplement the Natterer collection with which it overlapped in part.
In the other half of the fifth room the Giesecke collection from Greenland was shown
together with the Cook voyage material from North America (Kaeppler 2011: 194, fig.
6.1) and the Josef Klinger collection. The remaining space was to be devoted to the
Pacific collections from Cook’s voyages and the large Asian collection donated to the
Emperor by Baron Karl von Hügel (Hebenstreit 1840: 178–179). This, however, never
came to pass, since the Imperial-Royal Ethnographic Museum was closed again in 1840.
Among the exhibition labels of the “Natterer collection” preserved in the archive of
the Weltmuseum Wien, there are a few that were obviously used in the Ethnographic,
rather than in the Brazilian Museum, since some of them refer to the non-Brazilian
72
Christian Feest

portion of the exhibition (Fig. 8). All of them merely identify ethnic groups, rather than
specific objects, and thus no new information is supplied.
The most stunning (and useful) record of this institution is a set of twenty-two
watercolor drawings showing the arrangement of the artifacts in the cases finished in
1840 (i.e., the Brazilian material as well as the North American collections of Cook,
Giesecke, and Klinger). Franz Heger (1908: 10, right col., note 1) mistakenly attributes
the unsigned and undated drawings to the “dexterous hand” of Thomas Ender, the
major artist of the Brazilian expedition, who by that time had become professor at the
Academy of Arts in Vienna and was specializing in landscape painting. But there were
enough capable draftsmen in the Natural History Cabinet who would have been able
to do the job. Although we neither know who commissioned these drawings, nor for what
purpose they were intended, they provide invaluable visual evidence of the Natterer
collection only a few years after having been collected.14
In the absence of a written inventory of the Brazilian Museum, the Ethnographic
Museum drawings can serve as a visual inventory, also in view of the objects that may
have been lost between 1840 and 1876 or later put into an “exchange reserve” (see
below), even if upon closer inspection it appears that not all of the objects had been
put on display.
A look at the “Bororo case” (Fig. 9) illustrates some of the problems and possibilities
associated with these drawings. In terms of representing the totality of the collection, it
can be shown that the representation is not complete; although virtually all the arrows
are shown, this is not true of other artifact types. Of the head ornaments of human or
horse hair, for example, only five are shown (identified rather arbitrarily as cat.nos.
774–778), whereas the present collection in Vienna includes thirteen examples (cat.nos.
774–786), and at least one additional one was traded to Dresden in 1882 (see below).
The arbitrariness of the identifications is rooted in the generic, rather than the individual
quality of the representations. Horse hair and human hair cannot be distinguished in the
drawings, but the different sizes of the one shown in the top center and the one at the
bottom reflect an actually existing difference: the ornaments made of human hair meas-
ure between 25 and 32 cm in length (with the exception of 774, which is 57 cm long),
whereas those of horse hair measure either between 40 and 42 cm or 50 and 55 cm.
A total of five bows is shown, which corresponds to the number of bows cataloged
in 1882/83 (cat.nos. 724, 725, 748, 754, 755). The 42 arrows represented in a sym-
metrical arrangement are of three different types: (1) on the outside, with alternating
bamboo points and feathers, there are 10 and 8 arrows with a short reed shaft, long
wooden shaft and bamboo point; only 14 were cataloged by Heger, two of which had
lost their points (cat.nos. 749–753, 756–764); (2) in the middle, with bamboo points
pointing downward, 8 and 9 are represented; 16 of these were cataloged in 1882/3
(cat.nos. 726–739, 746–747), one was traded to Dresden in 1882; (3) on the inside,
The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists in Brazil
73
14 The fact the drawing were made exactly at the time when the museum had to be closed in an unfin-
ished condition suggests that they were intended to provide a record that might be useful for a rein-
stallation at another location. When the museum was closed in 1840, the cases were indeed also
saved and packed in 8 boxes (Heger 1908: 4, note 1).
Fig. 8 Two labels from the Imperi-
al-Royal Ethnographic Museum in
Vienna, 1838–1840, one of them
relating to the Natterer collection,
the other to the Klinger collection
from North America. Weltmuseum
Wien, Archiv, Etiketten.

with wooden points armed with bone pointing downward, 4 and 3 arrows are shown,
six of which were cataloged (cat.nos. 740–745).
Several Bororo artifacts types represented in the collection in Vienna do not appear
at all in case XVII. These include most notably the painted jaguar skin (cat.no. 890),
which was probably left out for reasons of space; the women’s breech clouts (cat.nos.
860–865) and the men’s penis sheath (cat.no. 880), perhaps for reasons of modesty;
the stone axes (cat.nos. 479–480), perhaps because they were considered archaeolog-
ical; the wooden club (cat.no. 765), combs (cat.nos. 787–788), forehead ornaments of
cattle teeth (cat.nos. 803–804), jaguar teeth necklaces (cat.nos. 850–851), women’s
necklaces of tatu teeth (cat.nos. 852–853), several types of strings for tying up the
penis (cat.nos. 869–879), ornaments of snake skin (cat.nos. 881–883), strings made
of human hair (cat.nos. 884–886), a gourd rattle (cat.no. 889), whistles (cat.nos. 904-
906), a fire fan (cat.no. 896), and various ornaments and a clarinet of the Bororo do
Cabaçal (cat.nos. 913–924).
Also missing from the drawing are one of the feather headdresses (cat.no. 771),
eight single and four double shell ear ornaments (from the cat.nos. 809–840 series),
and one of the sets for sharpening arrowheads (from the cat.nos. 897–902 series).
74
Christian Feest
Fig. 9 Anonymous drawing of case XVII of the Imperial-Royal Ethnographic Museum in Vienna, 1840.
Annotations in ink by Franz Heger, c. 1882, supplying title (“Ethnographic objects of the Bororós in
Mato Grosso. Only the large flute with the gourd [1187] is by the Uairiviat [sic]”) and summarily indi-
cating the new catalog numbers given to the objects in 1882/3 (“Bows and arrows nos. 496–504” [left
and right] and for the rest “See nos. 505–566”). Weltmuseum Wien, Bildarchiv. Present catalog num-
bers are superimposed in white. For details, see the text.

But there are also some items no longer in the Vienna collection: six additional arrows,
one bone labret, one woman’s guariba teeth necklace, one string for tying up the
penis, and one jaguar teeth head ornament.
In summary it may be stated that of the 203 Bororo items cataloged in Vienna in
1882/83, 126 are recognizably shown in the drawing of case XVII, two artifacts
shown cannot be identified, while ten are shown that can be identified, but were not
cataloged.
The annotations of the drawing by Heger must have been made in the course of
cataloging the collection. In many cases the lower 1882/83 catalog numbers are writ-
ten next to the objects, but they are lacking for the higher numbers, and instead we
find numbers referring to the labels attached to the objects. While in the Bororo case
the objects selected for the exchange reserve are not separately marked, one of the
Kayapó pieces in case XV is designated as a “Tauschobjekt” [exchange object] and
four Munduruku feather wrist bands are marked “abg[egeben].” [given away].
A Time of Troubles, 1840–1876
The Imperial-Royal Ethnographic Museum was closed in 1840 because the building was
needed for the Lombardian-Venetian Life Guard. Ethnography had apparently no priority
either for the government or for the Natural History Cabinet. Together with the other ethno-
graphic material the Natterer collection was packed in crates and moved back and forth
across Vienna: first to the attic of the Natural History Cabinet, then to the suburban Impe-
rial Augarten palace, then in 1847 back to a location in the inner city, and in the same year
to a dark and moist room in the depot of the Imperial Library building. This seemingly
pointless migration at least saved the ethnographic material from the fate of the skeletal
materials and some of his manuscripts that had inadvertently been destroyed in 1848 by
the Imperial artillery. Natterer himself died in 1843 and did not have to live through the
anguish of seeing an important part of his life’s work endangered, but with him passed
away the living memory of all the knowledge about the collection that he had never found
the time to put into writing (Fitzinger 1856–1868, 2: 69–70; Heger 1908: 10).
With the death of his brother Josef in 1852, the collection lost the last person who
cared about it not only for sentimental reasons, but because he was convinced of its
significance and lasting importance.
Anthropological-Ethnographic Department of the
Museum of Natural History in Vienna, 1876–1928
The Brazilian ethnographic collection assembled by Natterer and his colleagues was
rescued from oblivion by the creation of a separate Anthropological-Ethnographic
Department in the new Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, founded in 1876. The muse-
um’s founding director, Ferdinand von Hochstetter, a geologist, had become interest-
ed in ethnography during a sojourn in New Zealand as a member of the expedition of
the Austrian ship “Novara.” Contrary to the zoologists, Hochstetter recognized the
increasing importance of the anthropological disciplines and made sure that they
were to be prominently represented in the new museum. Since there had so far been
no academic training of anthropologists, Hochstetter chose as his assistant for the
day-to-day operations of the new department Franz Heger, also a geologist and
Hochstetter’s assistant at the Technical University of Vienna. Together, Hochstetter
and Heger surveyed the ethnographic collections existing in Vienna, and together they
recognized the importance of the Natterer collection, which was then left to Heger to
be cataloged. As for the significance and quality of the material, Heger (1908: 10–11)
quotes from an unpublished manuscript by Hochstetter:
The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists in Brazil
75

Fortunately the [Brazilian] collections have not suffered any damage [...] in the
course of their wanderings [across town]; they were found intact and especially
also all the magnificient pieces of featherwork have been optimally preserved so
that this collection, which today hardly could be assembled in this manner, is a
major ornament of the museum.
The merit of the Austrian naturalists to whom we owe this collection must be espe-
cially commended as well as the excellent understanding with which they assem-
bled it at a time when ethnography was still being little regarded, just as the care-
ful labeling of each individual object, which is so often missed in older collections.
The presence of labels together with the availability of packing lists and the drawings
from the old Ethnographic Museum were indeed of great help to Heger in his cata-
loging of the collection. Heger in turn must be commended for carefully preserving
the original labels as an important part of the collection’s documentary record.
The overall structure of the inventory produced by Heger in 1882/3 to some extent
reflects the structure of the department, which Hochstetter had proposed on the basis
of French ideas about the anthropological disciplines. Here the complementary per-
spectives on humans as biological beings (physical anthropology), as the bridge
across the time gap between geological time and the present (prehistory), and as liv-
ing representatives of cultural diversity (ethnography) were dealt with by specialized
disciplines under one common roof.
Had there been a Natterer collection of crania they would have become part of the
anthropological collection; stone tools (only a few of them actually of prehistoric manu-
facture or recovered archaeologically) were put into the separate category “Ancient and
modern stone weapons and tools of the Indians of Brazil and Bolivia” preceding the sec-
tions on “A. Wild Indian tribes,” “B. Tame Indian tribes, which have nearly completely
given up their original culture,” and “C. Of the Whites of Brazil and adjoining countries.”
The sections on Indians are principally arranged by “tribe,” with regional manufactures
(such as “hammocks from the Rio Negro”) providing additional categories in section B.
Section C is arranged by provinces and followed by an appendix on “Processed and
unprocessed raw materials from Brazil” and finally “Ethnographic objects from other
countries.” Thus, objects from the same “tribes” are sometimes separated from one
another under the different subheadings. The different collectors (Leopoldina, Schott,
Pohl, Natterer) are always identified. Typologically similar objects are generally cata-
loged under the same number. Leopoldina’s Puri 113 Puri bows and arrows, e.g., thus
occupy only eight catalog numbers, resulting in a grand total of 1169 catalog numbers.
After Hochstetter’s death in 1884 Heger became head of the Anthropological-
Ethnographic Department and immediately began to reorganize the unit on the basis
of the experiences of the past eight years. From the very beginning, the physical
anthropology collection had been cataloged separately, whereas the prehistoric and
ethnographic collections had shared the same inventory. A separate inventory of the
prehistoric collection was started in 1885 by transferring the respective objects from
the shared catalog into a new one. The ethnographic inventory was continued in the
old book, but the series had to be renumbered in order to fill the gaps resulting from
the removal of the prehistoric objects. On this occasion, Heger decided to introduce a
new standard for assigning numbers to objects – one number per object, except for
things that come in pairs (such as shoes). The new numbers were added in red ink
both to the book inventory as well as to the object labels (Fig. 10). Renumbering
brought the number of objects in the “Natterer” collection to a grand total of 2124.
A special problem is posed by the group of “Ethnographic objects from other coun-
tries,” which include items from Mexico, China, Japan, and Thailand – places not visited
by Natterer or the other Austrian naturalists. With one exception, Heger credits all of
them to Johann Natterer. The exception is the Chinese umbrella (cat.no. 2566) collected
76
Christian Feest

by Schott, found on the packing list of shipment V from Brazil, and clearly representing
an object reflecting the Chinese presence in Brazil. This is also true of some, if not all of
the other Chinese objects, two mats said to have been made in Canton, two pairs of
ladies’ slippers and one pair of men’s shoes said to have been made in Macao (cat.nos.
2564–2565, 2567–2569). In the entry for 2569, Heger apparently copied information
from a label, now lost, stating that they “were made in Macao and brought to Rio Janeiro.”
In the case of the twelve Japanese objects (cat.nos. 2570–2581), all of them bas-
kets or basketry trays, no such helpful annotation is given, and the collection date
would appear to be too early to reflect a significant Japanese presence in Brazil. There
is no indication of any Japanese material on the packing lists, and perhaps for a good
reason. In a report written by Johann Natterer to Karl von Schreibers on 20 July 1836
during a stop on his return trip from London to Vienna, he tells about his visit to the
Japanese ethnographic collection of Philipp Franz von Siebold in Scheveningen and
Leiden in the Netherlands, and although this is not specifically mentioned, we may
assume that the Japanese basketry in the Natterer collection did derive from a gift by
Siebold to Natterer.15
As noted above, however, the Pohl collection included a rain coat said to have been
made of the leaves of the buriti palm tree and used by the “Creoles” of Minas Gerais
(cp. Pohl 1832–1837, 1: 246), which has since been identified as Japanese. Because
it is unlikely that the inhabitants of Minas Gerais had been using imported Japanese
rain coats, it seems that either the re-identification as Japanese was mistaken or that
at some point the Brazilian rain coat was exchanged for a Japanese one.16
The Mexican item in the Natterer collection is a painted Otomi basket, probably
from Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo (Feest 1983: 22). A very similar basket was part of the
transfer in 1837 of Natterer material to the Technological Cabinet (now Weltmuseum
Wien 12082; see below). No intelligent suggestion can be made regarding the manner
in which two baskets from the Mexican backcountry came into Natterer’s possession
before 1837, except that during his stay in London after arriving from Belém he made
purchases there of birds from Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Guiana (see note 15). The
The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists in Brazil
77
15 Excerpt from Johann Natterer’s report to Mr. Privy Councilor von Schreibers of 20 July 1836 from
Frankfurt/Main. Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, Wissenschaftsarchiv, Brasilianum.
16 A similar case is supplied by a Japanese rice straw mat, which was presumably part of the fitting
of an altar from a remote Ottawa mission chapel in Cross Village, Michigan, in 1851, and which at
some point must have been substituted for the original rush mat (Martin Pitzer collection, Weltmu-
seum Wien). Other than the Pohl collection, however, the Pitzer collection has a history of nearly
100 years before coming to the museum.
Fig. 10 “Arrow for shooting fish. Vuai-ai-já at the sources of
the Rio Capim. Prov. Pará. Johann Natterer.” Object labels of
the Natterer collection with 1882/83 numbers (A. 1307) in
black and 1885 number (2140) in red. Weltmuseum Wien,
Archiv, Etiketten.

same is true of the Siamese pair of men’s slippers (cat.no. 2582), but it is notable
that all of the Chinese objects collected by Natterer were also footwear.
A comparison between the 1883 figure (1169) and the 1885 figure (2124) with the
number of ethnographic objects in the Brazilian Museum in January 1837 (1650
according to Natterer 1837) raises not only the question about methods of counting,
but also about potential losses between 1837 and 1883.
From the records available it is possible to document two major de-accessioning
events. One occurred in March 1837, when the Imperial Natural History Cabinet trans-
ferred 143 objects, the majority of them of modern American or British manufacture,
but also 31 from Brazil, to the Royal-Imperial Technological Cabinet. The second one
came between 1876 and 1882, when 223 items from the “Natterer” collection (includ-
ing some collected by Leopoldina, Schott, and Pohl) were not cataloged as part of the
collection of the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, but put aside into an “exchange
reserve.” Both will be discussed in some detail below, prior to a final account of the
numbers.
Technological Cabinet
Another institution besides the Natural History Cabinet, which early on became a
recipient of Brazilian material, was the Technological (or Technical) Museum (or Cab-
inet), founded in 1819 by Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, who later succeeded his
father Franz I as Emperor Ferdinand I, and reorganized in 1835 by its founding direc-
tor Stephan Ritter von Kees, before becoming in the 1850s the Technological Cabinet
of the Polytechnical Institute (the precursor of the present Technical University of
Vienna). Located in the Imperial castle, this museum consisted of collections of raw
as well as processed materials and of models of machines, tools, and utensils
(Schmidl 1837: 249–250). Two lacquered gourds from Brazil (resembling cat.nos.
2445–2473) may already have been acquired in 1819,17 and if so, it is probable that
they arrived with one of the shipments from Brazil in 1819, most likely as a gift from
Leopoldina to her brother.
After Natterer’s return from Brazil and the dissolution of the Brazilian Museum, a
much larger transfer of material to the Technological Cabinet is documented in March
1837, when Kees signed a receipt for objects received from the “curator of the Imperial
Natural History Cabinet Joh. von [sic] Natterer” (Technologisches Kabinett 1837). In
addition to various items made in Boston, New York, and London, the list included:
2 cuias or gourds from Brazil
1 bowl of horn, made in St. Paul in Brazil
1 cooking vessel from the Rio negro in Brazil
1 piece of jatai resin, which is used for the glazing of these pots
2 bundle of tucun [tucum] fibers, tucun is a kind of palm
1 rope from these tucun fibers
1 bundle caraguata fibers, a species of Bromelia
1 bundle of piaçaba fibers, piaçaba is a kind of palm
1 broom from piaçaba fibers
1 piece estoha or Brazilian oakum, the inner bark of the tucóari tree
[...]
2 baskets made by the wild Banivas of Brazil
1 basket made of tucuman fibers from the Rio negro;– tucúman is a Brazilian plant
78
Christian Feest
17 The 1819 accession date is found in the book inventory of the Weltmuseum Wien, which also gives
an 1837 accession date for the Mexican basket found on the 1837 transfer list discussed below;
this list likewise includes two cuias from Brazil.

2 wooden spoons made by Indians near Para
2 pcs of tanned leather of the cutia (Cavia-aguti), have been tanned with the extract
of leaves
1 taitetu skin or Brazilian pig skin (Sus taiaffée)
1 skin of the desert deer Veado branco (Cervus mexicanus)
2 pairs of women’s shows of elastic resin made near Para
2 bouquets of birds’ feathers made in Para
Pucheri beans
Castanhas de Maranhas – or jucoare beans
1 half length portrait of the Werner [?], cast in S. João de Ypanema in the Provinzia
[sic] de São Paulo
1 piece of an abdominal belt of cotton, made in the Provincia de São Paulo
1 specimen of a cotton fabric from Brazil
1 pair of boots made from linen and in Para covered with elastic resin
Almost thirty pieces of “pressed glass made in Boston and New York in North Ameri-
ca,” which on first sight do not appear to relate to Brazil, turn out to have indeed been
part of Natterer’s Brazilian collection. In a draft of packing list XII composed in Pará
the collector notes: “40 mil reis pressed glass wares made in Boston bought for myself.
If in Austria this kind of glass ware is not yet made they may be ..... for the Technolog-
ical Cabinet or to make casts from them” (Natterer 1835). The material from London,
however, was probably purchased there by Natterer during his stay in 1835/6.
Of non-Brazilian material, the list includes a “basket (painted) from Mexico” and
“4 baskets of bamboo reed from Japan,” very similar to material in the main Natter-
er collection.
In 1864 part of the collection of the Technological Cabinet was transferred to the
recently created Museum of Arts and Industries (Museum für Kunst und Industrie, the
present Museum of Applied Arts). From there some of the ethnographic items were
transferred in 1881 to the Anthropological-Ethnographic Department of the Naturhis-
torisches Museum Wien (Heger 1908: 24). Seven of these are Brazilian items, including
the two lacquered gourds (said to have been accessioned in 1819), the Mexican basket
(said to have been collected in 1837), as well as the pot from the Rio Negro, one Bani-
wa and one Rio Negro basket, the wooden spoon from Pará, and (less likely) two of the
Japanese baskets of bamboo found on the 1837 list quoted above. None of these items
had retained their association with the Natterer collection, to which they clearly belong.
Exchange Reserve
When after 1876 the huge Brazilian collection was for the first time cataloged in the con-
text of the newly established Anthropological-Ethnographic Department, it was decided
that there were enough what were considered “doublets” among the specimens, which
would serve a better purpose by being sorted out for exchanges with other museums in
order to build up a balanced collection. The advantage in not cataloging these pieces was
that there would be no tedious bureaucratic de-accessioning process in the case of an
exchange; but this also meant that such exchanges had to be more or less informal,
since only what was owned could be formally exchanged, yet without cataloging there
was no proof of ownership. The practical solution for this problem of undocumented
ownership was solved by having Franz Heger appear in the records as donor of the mate-
rial for which appropriate materials were given in exchange to the museum.
In hindsight the other problem caused by this procedure is the lack of documen-
tary evidence for the items put into the exchange reserve, as well as for the exchanges
themselves. If a separate listing of the items kept in the reserve ever existed, it has
apparently not survived; also the museum records in Vienna about the exchanges
The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists in Brazil
79

make no reference to what was given in exchange, since technically these things were
not given by the museum, but by Heger. We thus have to rely on the records kept by
the recipient institutions (which first need to be identified) in order to reconstruct the
contents of the exchange reserve.
The best information on the contents of the exchange reserve is offered by Heger
(1908: 11–12), who lists the contents of Natterer’s ethnographic collection both by
ethnic origin and by collector, including those sorted out for exchange. In both cases
the total comes to 223 items.18 The other source are the watercolors showing the
Brazilian materials in the Imperial Ethnographic Museum, which Franz Heger annotat-
ed in part in the preparation of his cataloging of the collection in the 1882/1883.
Of the 223 items sorted out for exchange presently only 106 (or 108) can be
accounted for, which were exchanged with three different German institutions. In
1882, 74 Brazilian objects from the “Natterer collection” (including two from Pohl and
eight from Leopoldina) were transferred to the Royal Anthropological-Ethnographic
Museum in Dresden (the present Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden);19 in 1886 the
Royal Museum of Ethnology in Berlin (today: Ethnologisches Museum Berlin) received
24 (or 26) pieces (including six of Leopoldina’s Puri arrows);20 and in 1887 the Muse-
um für Völkerkunde in Hamburg was given eight items (including three by Leopol-
dina).21 The Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde München and the Field Museum in
Chicago, which are known to have exchanged material with Vienna in the late nine-
teenth century, have no information that these trades involved Natterer material. The
Museu Paulista is known to have exchanged in 1907 Brazilian material with Vienna
under Heger’s name (Ihering and Ihering 1911: 2–3, 11), but in 2009 neither perti-
nent documents, nor the objects themselves could be located at its successor, the
Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia in São Paulo.
In his 1886 letter to Bastian, Heger wrote: “I am sorry that I am presently unable
to send more, but our exchange reserve is presently rather exhausted” (even though a
few Natterer pieces still went to Hamburg in the following year). It thus seems likely
that the majority of Natterer collection exchange objects were traded before 1886.
Some of the largest exchanges of this period were with private collectors (such as
George Engelman in St. Louis22), and it is possible that this was where the unaccount-
ed-for objects went.
While the de-accessioning of artifacts into the exchange reserve reduced the
number of pieces in the Brazilian ethnographic collection by about 10 percent,
80
Christian Feest
18 The number is mistakenly given as 247 in Heger (1908: 15, right col., note 1), where the non-Brazil-
ian part of the collection is added to the exchange reserve to bring the total number to the 2400
established by him a few pages earlier. But there is also room for doubt regarding the figure 223.
In two cases we can document (Table 1) that more objects of certain ethnic origin were traded that
were said to be in the exchange reserve.
19 Exchange list (“Verzeichnis der ethnographischen Gegenstände”) prepared by Franz Heger, dated
17 May 1882. Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden, Archiv. The 74 items are grouped into 55 lots.
Thanks to Klaus-Peter Kästner for making this document available and for giving me access to the
objects surviving in Dresden in 2008. Eleven of the 74 pieces could not be located in 2008.
20 Letter from Franz Heger to Adolf Bastian, Vienna, 22 October 1886, with list of exchange objects;
Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, Archiv. Thanks to Richard Haas for providing a transcription of this
letter and for the information that while the document lists 20 objects, 24 were in fact received. But
some of them consist of two parts, which Heger counted as two when cataloging them in Vienna,
such a pair of earrings or a device for sharpening arrowheads; if these are counted separately, it
would bring the number of items exchanged up to 26.
21 Information from the Hamburg museum’s data base kindly provided by Bernd Schmelz in 2009. Of
these objects, listed as a gift from Franz Heger, five were found in storage in the course of a revi-
sion in 1952.
22 Another exchange partner, the Missouri Historical Society Museum in St. Louis, has preserved no
exchange records, but there are no Brazilian artifacts in its collection.

additional material came to the museum during the same period from two or three
sources: the return of some of pieces given to the Technological Cabinet in 1837;
possibly the collection of Johann Georg Schwarz; and the objects that had remained
in Johann Natterer’s private possession and had been passed on to his daughter
after his death.
Johann Georg Schwarz Collection
Johann Georg Schwarz (1800–1867), a Viennese furrier, had traveled in North America
in 1820–1821 and in 1829 had become secretary of the Leopoldine Foundation of the
Archduchy Austria, established by Franz I in memory of his daughter who had died in
far-away Brazil and destined to support missionary work in the Americas. Thanks to
Schwarz, the money exclusively went to North America (principally the Diocese of
Detroit). But during his visit to North America Schwarz had also started to assemble
an ethnographic collection, which was later supplemented by donations from the mis-
sionaries supported by the Leopoldine Foundation (cp. Kasprycki 2007), as well as
other Austrian travelers. That Schwarz knew Natterer appears from a letter23 in which
Natterer requests Schwarz to collect for the Natural History Cabinet in England or the
United States hides of the bison and of other mammals, “other rare animals or birds,”
as well as ethnographic specimens from North America.
It is unknown whether this actually came to pass, but it is likely that some items
collected by Natterer did enter the Schwarz collection. After Schwarz’s disappoint-
ment with the Emperor’s role in the Revolution of 1848, he declared in his will that
his collection was to go to the Austrian state and not to an Imperial collection. At
the time of his death in 1867 the only non-Imperial museum in Vienna operated by
the state happened to be the Museum of Arts and Industries, where apparently a
significant part of Schwarz’s ethnographic collection was discarded, because it did
not fit the museum’s profile. What remained was transferred in 1880/1 together
with the material formerly in the Technological Cabinet to the Anthropological-
Ethnographic Department of the Naturhistorisches Museum. Nine objects were
identified as coming from Brazil (cat.nos. 12055–12062, 12065), and some of
them may have been collected by Natterer. But Schwarz obviously also had other
sources for the Brazilian material in his collection, and in the absence of specific
documentation it is almost impossible to say which of the surviving pieces (if any)
came from Natterer.
Gertrude von Schröckinger Bequest through Erich von Schröckinger, 1895
The fact that Johann Natterer retained for himself a small but representative sample
of his ethnographic collection is an indication for his personal interest in the ethnog-
raphy of Brazil and its material manifestations. It seems likely that he used some of
it for exchange purposes or as gifts to friends and colleagues, although so far nothing
has been identified in other collections that could have come from this source.
After Natterer’s death, the collection passed on to his daughter Gertrude, whose hus-
band Julius Ritter von Schröckinger-Neudenberg, a civil servant and amateur naturalist,
had contributed to the preservation of his father-in-law’s memory (Schröckinger 1855;
and in Goeldi 1894–1896). After Gertrude’s death in 1895 her son, Erich von
Schröckinger, executed her will and delivered an ethnographic collection to the Anthro-
pological-Ethnographic Department of the Naturhistorisches Museum (Heger 1908:
The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists in Brazil
81
23 Johann Natterer, draft of letter to Johann Georg Schwarz, Wien, 17 February 1838. Wienbibliothek, HS
Natterer 7888, 6r–6v.

38). According to a list of the acquisition written by Michael Haberlandt, one of the
department’s curators, dated 18 May 1895 (Weltmuseum Wien, Archiv), 27 of the
objects still had labels in Natterer’s hand attached to them, identifying them as Boro-
ro (12), Uaupé (6), Baniwa (3), Munduruku (2), and Makuxi, “Mandanen,” Wapexana,
and Guaná (1 each), 62 were from Brazil but unlabeled, eight were from the “Indian
Ocean” (mostly from China and Sri Lanka),24 and there were also a few fruits and
seeds, nine stuffed birds, and a bird of paradise – the ethnography far outweighing
the natural history. An additional gift was received on 14 June 1895, which (according
to another list by Haberlandt) included 16 artifacts, one hummingbird, and two
books.25
When Haberlandt cataloged these items (minus the natural history specimens) before
21 August 1895 as collection IV/1895, he grouped the Brazilian material by ethnic origin
under 87 catalog numbers:26 38 were easily identifiable as Munduruku (cat.nos.
53473–53510), 12 were cataloged as Uaupé (53511–53521), eleven as Bororo da Cam-
panha (53522–53532),27 four as Baniwa (53533–53536),28 and one each as Mainatàri
(53537),29 Wapexana (53538), Makuxi (53539), and Guanà (53540). The remaining 19
items (53541–53559) were said by Haberlandt to have been made by “Whites,” which
Heger appropriately corrected to Natterer’s category “tame Indians and Creoles.”
Counting and Accounting for the Collection
Heger carefully drew all available information from the packing lists and object labels,
frequently explicitly making reference to them, and also made good use of the drawings
of the display at the Ethnographic Museum, especially of those parts of the collection,
for which no packing lists had survived. A comparison of the existing packing lists with
82
Christian Feest
24 A calling card of Baron Schröckinger in the archive of the Weltmuseum Wien identifies these as hav-
ing been collected on the circumnavigation of the Austrian ship “Novara” (1857–1859) and present-
ed to Natterer’s daughter by the naturalist Georg von Frauenfeld who had accompanied the expedi-
tion. This information was never entered into the museum’s inventory. The items were thus never in
Johann Natterer’s possession and will not be listed as part of his collection below (Table 1).
25 According to two lists (here referred to as A and B) prepared by Haberlandt prior to cataloging the col-
lection one of the books was an anonymous biography of Alexander von Humboldt (Kassel 1853: Ernst
Balde) with a portrait by Heinrich Zeiss, which of course could never have belonged to Natterer him-
self. The other was a Nouveau dictionnaire de poche français-portugais (Bordeaux 1811: Pierre Beaume).
The list also says that the gift includes two sheets of a manuscript in Natterer’s hand.
26 Franz Heger, Haberlandt’s boss and perennial critic (cp. Feest 2006), added a pencil note to the inven-
tory: “Which of the following determinations are according to Natterer, and which after the defective,
superficial, and bad identifications by Haberlandt?” Although Haberlandt explicitly refers to compara-
tive material in the main Natterer collection only infrequently, most of his identifications are correct;
but see the following notes. Heger was correct in criticizing Haberlandt for not mentioning in the inven-
tory Gertrude as the testator of the collection, but only Erich Schröckinger.
27 Heger correctly pointed out that one item was a pair of ear ornaments (each consisting of 6 tucum
nut rings and feathers) from the Bororo do Cabaçal (cat.no. 52525). This is the only ear ornament
catalogued, even though Haberlandt’s accession list recorded 10 Bororo ear ornaments. Haber-
landt’s list A speaks of 6 pairs of ear ornaments, list B reduces this to two pairs. In other instances,
Heger referred to these examples of flexible mathematics as “Haberlandtian numerical order.”
28 Lists A and B identify the four Baniwa objects as “three feather ornaments for the head” and “one
quiver for poisoned arrows”; the inventory has the quiver, but only two feather ornaments, and a
pouch of vegetable fibers, which A and B identify as from the Botocudo.
29 Heger (in an annotation of the inventory) questions the identification, even though it was based on
a label in Natterer’s hand, “because similar pieces from the Mainatari are missing in the main Nat-
terer collection. … A Matanaui tribe does not appear in the main collection.” He suggests a Maku-
na provenance, and “Matanaui” is indeed nothing but a misreading for “Macuná-uis” (already mis-
read in Graeffer and Czikann [1835, 1: 372] as “Marunáui”). Heger quotes the original label (now
missing) as reading “Nation Mainatari or Maranàui – for Johann Natterer.” The item thus would
seem to be identified as a gift to Natterer, although no giver can be suggested.

The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists in Brazil
83
IMPERIAL NATURAL
HISTORY CABINET
Johann NATTERER
1818–1835
Shipments IV,
VI–XII
Johann Emanuel
POHL
1818–1821
Shipment IV
Wilhelm SCHOTT
1818–1821
Shipments III, V
Archduchess
LEOPOLDINA
(before 1821)
probably gift of
Friedrich Sellow
Shipment IV
Brazilian
Museum
1820–1836
Ethnographic
Museum
1838–1840
TECHNOLOGICAL
CABINET
MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY VIENNA
(NATURHISTORISCHES MUSEUM WIEN)
MUSEUM OF ETHNOLOGY
(MUSEUM FÜR VÖLKERKUNDE
(1928–2013)
WELTMUSEUM WIEN
(2013–)
cataloged
Anthropological-Ethnographic
Department (1876–1884)
Ethnographic Collection
(1884–1928)
uncataloged
Exchange Reserve
(1876–??)
Johann Natterer
private collection
(–1843)
Gertrude von
Schröckinger
private collection
(1843–1895)
?
Johann Georg
Schwarz
private collection
Dresden
1819 –1843?
MUSEUM OF ARTS
AND INDUSTRIES
1864
1868
Ethnographic
Collection
1806–1836
1843
1837
1895
1881
Berlin
Hamburg
??
1882
1885
1886
Vatican
Basle
1828
1967
Fig. 11 Diagram illustrating the history of the ethnographic collection of Johann Natterer and the
other Austrian naturalists in Brazil, 1817–1835.
1887

the 1882/3 and 1885 inventories permits us to gain some insights into the relationship
between the collection harvest in the field and its transformation into a museum collec-
tion. This has never been done, except by Heger in cataloging the material, who howev-
er explicitly commented on possible discrepancies only in his annotations of the pack-
ing lists. Because of the size of the collection the task will also not be performed here
in full, but a few examples will be indicative both of some of the problems encountered
in any such attempt, and of the general tendency that more objects came to Vienna than
the packing lists would indicate.
As far as the collections of Leopoldina, Schott, and Pohl are concerned, the story is
made simple by their small size. Leopoldina’s shipment consisted of seven bows and
140 arrows. Heger cataloged five bows and 108 arrows and reports that 47 items were
put into the exchange reserve, which would give a total of 160 (rather than 147) pieces.
In his annotation of the packing list, Heger claims that he found 34 more arrows than
had been listed (rather than just 13, the difference between 147 and 160).
Of the Schott collection, packing list III enumerates three bows, ten arrows, one trum-
pet (all from the Coroado), and specimens of caravata and tucum fibers; except for the
trumpet, the same items (probably by mistake) reappear on packing list V, which in addi-
tion features two baskets, one stone axe, five more arrows, and the Chinese umbrella.
Heger cataloged the trumpet, stone axe, baskets, umbrella, and fiber specimens, as well
as one bow and 14 arrows, and reports having put four items (presumably the two miss-
ing bows, one missing arrow, and probably another arrow30) into the exchange reserve.
According to packing list IV, Pohl sent a total of 115 items, all of which can be
accounted for in Heger’s inventory, except for one Kayapó garter (which was put into the
exchange reserve and traded to Dresden in 1882) and a cuia from Pará (which is likely
to have been one of two cuias given to the Technological Cabinet in 1837). But whereas
there were only 15 Kayapó arrows on the list, 18 were cataloged by Heger and another
one went to Dresden from the exchange reserve, which also included another unidenti-
fied Kayapó item (probably yet another arrow) and two unidentified Botocudo objects.
For the Natterer collection, the present investigation will be limited to the Bororo
material, for which in addition to packing lists VIII and IX another undated list is avail-
able, which appears to predate list IX and contains slightly different information (Nat-
terer 2014b: 210–215). With a few exceptions there is a close match between these
lists and the Heger inventory.31 The only artifact types appearing on the undated list,
which were apparently never shipped to Vienna, are two small baskets and a piece of
red stone used as pigment, both from the Bororo do Cabaçal. In some cases, a larg-
er number of specimens were cataloged than appear on the packing lists, as in the
case of the head ornaments of human or horse hair (twelve on packing lists VIII and
IX, thirteen cataloged, at least one in the exchange reserve) or the bone labrets (three
on packing list IX, five cataloged). Whenever fewer specimens were cataloged than
sent (as in the case of the arrows, ear ornaments, penis strings of cotton or palm
leaves, women’s breechcloths, or clarinets) there is evidence that they were put into
the exchange reserve. Using this method it is at least partly possible to reconstruct
the contents of the exchange reserve.
84
Christian Feest
30 Heger’s annotation of packing list III suggests that nine arrows were missing out of a total of what
he thought should have been twenty-five. Having cataloged fourteen, this would leave two to be
accounted for.
31 A minor exception is provided by two stone tools from Mato Grosso, presumably of Bororo origin.
Already in December 1824, Natterer noted “stone axes” in his collection; they summarily appear
on packing list VIII as “2 stone axes” (Natterer 1825). Packing list IX (Natterer 1830) describes in
greater detail the two items now cataloged in Vienna (479, 480). While it is possible that four stone
tools were sent, of which only two have survived, it is also possible that this is another case of a
double-listing of ar tifacts as with respect to the Coroado objects sent by Schott.

In the few cases where the number on the undated list is larger than that on the
packing list, it seems that at least some of the missing items were retained by Nat-
terer for his private collection, which came to the museum with the Schröckinger dona-
tion. Given the large number of objects, the long ways of transportation from the inte-
rior of Brazil to Austria, and the somewhat erratic movements of the objects in Vien-
na, the close correspondence between what was collected and what became the muse-
um’s collection is quite remarkable. The Bororo case confirms the evidence supplied
by the Leopoldina, Schott, and Pohl collections that the number of objects received by
the Brazilian Museum was larger than that found on the packing lists.
If little was done to make the collection better known, it must be blamed on the
lack of time and the specialized knowledge needed. When the Naturhistorisches Muse-
um Wien opened to the public in 1889, much of the collection was put on display in
Hall XVIII. The accompanying guide to the museum made explicit reference to Natter-
er and Pohl and called their collection “one of the outstanding treasures of our ethno-
graphic collection, which herein probably surpasses all other museums in Europe”
(Hauer 1889: 187–193). As the collection continued to grow (and especially after the
acquisition of the large Loreto/Paranagua collection of Brazilian ethnography in
1907), the significance of the Natterer collection retreated to the background. The
second edition of the guidebook no longer mentions Natterer or Pohl as collectors
(Hauer 1902: 199–205); neither edition included any illustration of Brazilian items.
In a survey of the museum’s American collections published on the occasion of the
International Congress of Americanists held in Vienna, Heger (1908: 9–12) provided at
least an overview of this important collection, but the fact that it was published only in
German did not help to spread the knowledge to the international scientific community.
Among the exceptions had been Herrmann Meyer, who in his study of bows and
arrows from central Brazil (1891) had made extensive use of the Natterer collection,
recognizing the importance of the early date of collecting for any study dealing with
changes in (material) culture. Theodor Koch-Grünberg, who probably saw the collec-
tion during a visit to Vienna in 1903, borrowed in 1906 from Heger some of Natter-
er’s manuscripts preserved in Vienna and later made reference to them in his writings
(Koch-Grünberg 1911: 50; 1922: 249–250).
Heger’s summary, which reflects the organization of the museum’s inventory (except
in combining the ethnographically collected stone tools with the other ethnographic arti-
facts) remains an important tool of reference, but has some almost unavoidable errors
in the numbers and does not include the additional material received in the late nine-
teenth century. Table 1 is a revision, correction, and specification of Heger’s overview. It
eradicates Heger’s distinction between “wild” and “tame” Indians, makes some
rearrangements in the sequence (including a few new subdivsions), and adds several new
categories of information, such as catalog numbers, collection dates, and cross-refer-
ences to Natterer’s lists of the location of the ethnic groups.
Museum für Völkerkunde, 1928–2013
In 1928 the ethnographic collection of the Anthropological-Ethnographic Department
of the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien was transformed into a separate Museum of
Ethnology (Museum für Völkerkunde). The collections were gradually moved across
the street from the Natural History Museum to the Neue Burg, the nineteenth-century
addition to the Imperial Castle, which after the end of the monarchy in 1918 was to
be used for purposes of the new Republic emerging from the ashes of the Empire.
By the beginning of World War II preparations were under way for a permanent
installation of the South American collections, which because of the war was never
finished. Like most of the other collections the Brazilian material was moved to a safe
The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists in Brazil
85

86
Christian Feest
Provenance List 1885 Additions 1881, 1895
cat.nos cat.nos
Archaeological Artifacts 8
Sambaqui Rio das Pedras [PR] 467–470 4
Paraná 472–473 2
Mato Grosso 471, 474 2
Indigenous Artifacts 1901 70
Puri [RJ] 499–611 113
Coroado [RJ] 476, 612–633 23
Kayapó (Cayapó) [GO] 634–664 31
Xavante, Xerente (Chavante,
Cherente) [GO] 664–673 10
Avá-Canoeiro (Canoeiro) [GO] 674 1
Porekamekran (Paragramacra) [GO] 475, 675 2
Apinayé (Apinajé) [TO] L91 676–680, 682–683 7
478, 681 2
Krahó/Makamekran (Crahão/
Macamecran) [TO] 684–692 9
Krenak (Botocudo) [MG] 693–719 27
Maxacari (Maxacali) [MG] 720 1
Carijó, Karischó [SP] 2147–2149 3
Kaingán (Caméh) [PR] W1 477, 721–723 4
Bororo (Bororó da Campanha) [MT], W3 479–480, 724–747, 53522–53524,
756–906 177 53526–53532 10
Bororó do Cabaçal [MT] W4 748–755, 907–924 26 53525 1
Kinikinao (Guaná) [MT, Pa.] W5 925–950 26 53540 1
Lilei [Pa.] L71 951–953 3
Guató (Vuató) [MT] W10 954–965 12
Chamacoco (Schamucoco) [Pa.] W11 966–967 2
Cabixi (Cabischi) [MT] W15 968–972 5
Pareci (Paressi) [MT] W14 973–1007 35
Bakairi (Bacairi) [MT] L72 1008–1012 5
Karipuna do Rondônia [RO] W16 492–493,
Caripuna, Schacáre, Saunàvo) 1013–1052 42
Pama (Pamma) [RO] L79 483, 1053 2
Torá (Torà, Turrà) [RO] L80 1054–1060 7
Arara do Rio Branco (Kabanaé) [MT] W19 490–491,1061–1100 42
Parintintin (Parentintin) [MT] W22 484–485, 487,
1121–1156 39
Marawa (Marauá) [AM] L81 486, 488–489,
1157–1158 5
Matánaú [MT] W20 494, 1101–1120 21 53537 1
Apiaká (Apiacá) [MT] W22 1159–1186 28
Uaurivait [MT] L73 1187 1
Munduruku (Mundrucú) [MT, AM] W21 1188–1327 140 53473–53510 38
Mawé (Mauhé, Maué) [PA] W69 1328–1384, 1382a 58
Quatia (Quatihà) [AM] L74 1385–1301 7
Mura (Murà) [AM] W17 1393–1427 35
Purupurú (Porupurú, Pamoarì) [AM] W67 1428–1439 12
Yuberí, Xubiri (Jubirí, Schubiri) [AM] W70 1440–1441 2
Schauerì, Jauerì (Jubirí?) [P.] C32 1392 1
Catauixi (Cataú-ichi) [AM] W68 1442–1453 12
Table 1 Summary of the ethnographic collection of Johann Natterer and other Austrian naturalists in

Exchange Reserve TOTAL Collectors Date
in out
Dr Be Ha ? Leopoldina Schott Pohl Natterer
88
4 4 1820
2 2 1820
2 4 1824–29
220 2193 160 27 93 1913
47 8 6 3 30 160 160 1815?
4 4 27 27 1819
3 2 1 34 34 1819
10 1819
1 1819
2 2 1819
7 1819
9 2 1825
9 9 1819
2 2 29 29 1820
1 1 1821
4 3 1819–22?
4 4 1820
30 8 3 1 18 217 217 1824–29
1 1 28 28 1826–29
27 27 1825–29
3 3 1825
2 1 1 14 14 1825
2 2 1825
5 5 1828–29
35 35 1824–29
5 5 1825
2 2 44 44 1829
2 2 1829
2 2 0 9 9 1829
4 2 1 1 46 46 1829–30
1 1 0 40 40 1825–30
5 5 1825–30
4122+1 26 26 1830
2 1 1 0 30 30 1824–31
1 1 1824–30
15 4 11 193 193 1824–30
11 3 1 7 69 69 1824–33
7 7 1829
6 2 1 3 41 41 1828–29
2 1 1 14 14 1833
2 2 1833
1 1 1833
4 1 1 1 1 16 16 1833
The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists
87
Brazil (continued on pp. 88–91; for explanations see pp. 90–91).

88
Christian Feest
Provenance List 1885 Additions 1881, 1895
cat.nos cat.nos
Naú-a [AM]] L83 1454 1
Kulina (Culino, Kulino) [AM] C38 1455 1
Matsés (Manjerona
) [AM, P.]
L85 1456–1463 8
Omagua (Omaúa) [AM, P.] L84 1464–1467 4
Ticuna (Tecuna, Tacuna) [AM, P.] W65 1468–1509 42
Miranha (Miranja) [AM, C.] W60 1510–1529 20
Urequena (Orelhudos) [C.] W24 1530 1
Kaixana (Caixana) [AM] W64 1531–1537 7
Passé [AM] W57 1538–1539 2
Juri (Jurí, Schuripischuna) [AM] W61 1540–1549 10
Jucuna [AM, C.] W40 1550–1563 14
Makú (Macú) [AM] W37 496 1
Uaupés (Vaupé) [AM, C.] C49 497, 1564–1613,
1623, 1625–1669,
1672–1677, 1682–
1692, 1694–1717,
1724, 1726–1781 194 53511–53521 11
Tukano (Tocanna) [AM] W29 1614–1622, 1624,
1663, 1670–1671,
1678–1681, 1693,
1718–1723, 1725 25
Kubeo (Kobéu, Köbeu) [AM, C.] W36 1782–1790 9
Baniwa (Baniva, Banniva) [AM, C.] W23 1791–1905, 12085,
2584 116 53533–53536 5
Warekena (Varequena) [AM, C., V.] W25 1906–1908 3
Yabaána (Jabaháni) [AM, V.] W44 1909–1911 3
Curivaurana [AM, V.] L87 1912 1
Uirina [AM] W41 1913 1
Mainatári [V.] W45 1914–1922 9
Macuná-ui [V.] W39 1923–1929 7
Pauixana (Pauschiana) [RR] L88 1930–1945 16
Porocoto [V.] L89 1946–1979 34
Wapixana (Vapeschana) [RR, G.] W52 0498, 1980–2016,
2260–2263 42 53538 1
Makuxi (Macuschi) [RR, G.] W48 2017–2114 98 53539 1
Kinná, Tarumá [G.] L90 2115–2116 2
Calipuna, Caripuna [G.] W53 2117 1
Tembé [PA] L93 2118–2136 19
Vuaiaijá [PA] L92 2137–2142 6
1663, 1670–1671,
Arauaqui (Aròaquì, Aròakì) [AM] W50 2150–2154 5
Manáo (Manaos, Manau) [AM] W42 2155–2164 10
Baré [AM] W30 0495, 2165–2170 7
Makiritári (Maquiritári) [V.] C70 2171–2173 3
Sacaca (Sacacca) [PA] C71 2174–2175 2
Rio Negro hammocks [AM] 2334–2340 7
Barcelos pottery [AM] 2341–2356
2583, 2585–2589 22 12084 1
Barcelos and Borba baskets [AM] 2357–2371 15
“civilized” Indians, Rio Negro [AM] 2264–2333 74
Brazil, unknown provenance 2143–2146 4
Table 1 Summary of the ethnographic collection of Johann Natterer and other Austrian naturalists in

Exchange Reserve TOTAL Collectors Date
in out
Dr Be Ha ? Leopoldina Schott Pohl Natterer
1 1 1833
1 1 1833
8 8 1833
1 1 5 5 1833
2 2 1 1 45 45 1833
20 20 1833
1 1 1831
7 7 1833
2 2 1832–33
10 10 1833
14 14 1831
1 1 1831
35 10 3 22 240 240 1831
25 25 1831
9 9 1831
18 1 1 2 14 139 139 1831
3 3 1831
3 3 1831–32
1 1 1831–32
1 1 1831
9 9 1831–32
7 7 1831
16 16 1832
34 34 1832
3 1 2 45 45 1832
7 3 4 106 106 1832
2 2 1832
1 1 1832
1 1 20 20 1834–35
1 1 7 7 1834–35
5 5 1832
2 1 1 12 12 1831
7 7 1831
3 3 1831–32
2 2 1834–35
1 1 8 8 1830–34
23 23 1831–34
15 15 1829–34
64 2 80 80
4 4 1818–35
The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists
89
Brazil (continued; for explanations see pp. 90–91).

Provenance List 1885 Additions 1881, 1895
cat.nos cat.nos
Provincia de Moxos, Caiaoava [B.] L78 2179–2191 13
Itonoma L76 2176–2178 3
Mojo (Moxos, Mochus) L77 2192–2194 3
Baure L75 481–482, 2242–2244 5
Cochabamba [B.] 2255–2259 5
Provincia de Chiquitos [B.] 2215–2241 27
Guasaroca W12 2195–2214 20
Provincia de Maynas [P.] 2250–2254 5
Moyobamba 2250–2254 5
Chachapoia (Chacapoia) 2245–2249 5
Non-indigenous Artifacts 152 21
Rio de Janeiro 2372–2375, 2377 5
2376 1
São Paulo 2378–2392
2397–2412 35
Paraná 2393–2396 4 53545 1
Goiás 2413, 2418 2
2414–2417,
2419–2422 8
Minas Geraes 2423–2430 8
Mato Grosso 2431–2444 14
Pará 2445–2471 12089, 53553,
2477–2490 41 53541–53544 6
2472–2476 5
Chinese in Brazil 2564–2565,
2567–2569 5
2566 1
Brazil without provenance 2498–2511, 2590 16 12087–12088
53546–53552,
53554–53558 14
Bolivia 2491–2497 7
Processed Raw Materials 51 2
Brazil 2515–2517, 2519–
2520, 2522–2535,
2538–2562 44 53545, 53559 2
2518, 2536–2537 3
2512–2514, 2521 4
Non-South American Artifacts 2563, 2570–2581 14 12082 1
TOTAL 2126 94
Table 1 Summary of the ethnographic collection of Johann Natterer and other Austrian naturalists in
Brazil
Provenance: Ethnonyms of identifiable groups have been modernized following conventions established
by pib.socioambiental.org or Loukotka (1968). Unidentified or variant forms given by Natterer, Pohl,
and Schott are in italics. Added in brackets: present Brazilian state in standard abbreviation and/or
neighboring country: B. = Bolivia, C. = Colombia, G. = Guiana, Pa. = Paraguay, P. = Peru, V. = Venezuela.
List: Codes refer to Natterer’s listing of wordlists (W) and objects (L) collected by himself (pp. 176–183
below), which provide information on the location of tribes in the 1820s and 1830s.
1885 cat.nos.: Presently used catalog numbers of items in the original collection (derived from the
Brazilian Museum) in the Weltmuseum Wien, followed by the sum of items per line.
90
Christian Feest

Exchange Reserve TOTAL Collectors Date
in out
Dr Be Ha ? Leopoldina Schott Pohl Natterer
13 13 1828–29
3 3 1828–29
3 3 1828–29
5 5 1828–29
5 5 1828–29
27 27 1828–29
20 20 1828–29
5 5 1828–29
5 5 1828–29
1 1 6 6 1828–29
3 176 1 23 152
5 1818–21
6 1 1818–21
35 35 1819–21
5 5 1820
2 1822–23
10 8 1819–20
8 8 1818–19
14 14 1824–25
2 2 49 –1835
54 5 1820
5 1818–21
6 1 1818–21
1 1 31 1 30 1818–35
7 7 1828–29
53 4 3 46
46 1818–35
3 1818-20
52 4 1818-21
15 15
225 74 24 8 117 2445 160 32 119 2134
Additions: Catalog numbers of items added from Technological Cabinet collection (1881) and Gertrude
von Schröckinger bequest (1895), followed by the sum of items per line.
Exchange Reserve: Data on items sorted out for exchange (“in”) before cataloging, based on Heger; the
two corrections noted in the text only corrected under “Total.” Deduction of documented exchanges
(“out”) to Dresden (Dr), Berlin (Be), Hamburg (Ha) results in items presently unaccounted for (?).
Total: Items documented as having been sent or taken from Brazil by the Austrian naturalists and Arch-
duchess Leopoldina, equals the total of 1885 cat.nos., additions, and exchange reserve items “in.”
Collectors: Division of total by individual collector: Leopoldina, Schott, Pohl, Natterer.
Date: Collection date, based on documentary evidence or inferences based upon such evidence.
The Ethnographic Collection of Johann Natterer and Other Austrian Naturalists
91

storage outside Vienna during the war, and after 1945 apparently came back without
having suffered major damage.
There was nevertheless a reduction of the Natterer collection through two
exchanges with other museums. In 1928, Father Wilhelm Schmidt, who had played a
major role in Austrian anthropology for nearly three decades and who had recently
been appointed director of the ethnological collections of the Vatican in order to
organize their exhibition at the Lateran, initiated an exchange with the Museum für
Völkerkunde in Vienna, which included seven items collected by the Austrian natural-
ists in Brazil: a Kayapó and a Botocudo bow collected by Pohl (cat.nos. 635, 693), and
a Mundururku trumpet, a Ticuna blowgun, and Baniwa, Pauixana, and Wapixana bows
collected by Natterer (cat.nos. 1219, 1471, 1808, 1932, 1981). A second exchange,
this time in 1967 with the present Museum der Kulturen in Basle, involved another
Munduruku as well as a Baniwa trumpet (cat.nos. 1215, 1848).
The latter exchange may also have been motivated by an exhibition project. Etta Becker-
Donner, the director of the museum in Vienna, who had herself done ethnographic field-
work in Brazil in the 1950s (Plankensteiner et al. 2011: 63–71), was at that time plan-
ning to redo the museum’s South American ethnographic displays, replacing a tempo-
rary solution put in place after the end of World War II with an exhibition on the indige-
nous peoples of Brazil. When the museum in Basle offered an Aparai collection that
Becker thought would add to the encyclopedic approach of her planned show, she was
willing to part with the two “duplicate” items from the Natterer collection.
The exhibition “Brasiliens Indianer” [Brazil’s Indians] opened in 1971 and was
accompanied by a catalog (Becker-Donner et al. 1971), which not only reminded the
public about the importance of the “Natterer collection,” but for the first time also
described and illustrated a significant number of its pieces.32 Material from this col-
lection was also shown in the following year in another exhibition of the museum deal-
ing with Latin American folk art (Becker-Donner et al. 1972), although the collection
was not identified by the collector’s name.
During the same period of time some research on the collection began to be con-
ducted by other museum personnel. In recognition of its importance for the historical
ethnography of Brazil, Karl Anton Nowotny (1949) had already published Natterer’s
list of the indigenous peoples he had encountered during his travels. In the late
1950s, the museum’s chemist Wilhelm P. Bauer used samples of the curare collected
by Natterer for his dissertation on South American arrow poisons and for subsequent
publications (Bauer 1962, 1965, Bauer and Fondi 1962) illustrating the potential of
historically collected substances for ethnobiological research. Etta Becker-Donner
(1971) suggestively linked ethnographically unique forms of decoration on pottery
collected by Natterer on the Rio Negro to archaeological forms.
Being published in German (only Becker-Donner 1971 had at least an English sum-
mary) did not help these contributions to be widely read. The same is unfortunately
true of the work on Natterer in the 1980s and 1990s, such as the publication of the
ethnographic notes contained in Natterer’s rediscovered wordlists of indigenous
Brazilian languages (Kann 1989) and the results of a research project focusing on Nat-
terer’s ethnographic collections from the Mato Grosso (Kann 2002).
Individual pieces lent to various exhibitions, including, e.g., “Unknown Amazon”
(McEwan et al. 2001) at the British Museum and “Natterer – um naturalista austríaco
na Amazônia 1825–1835” in São Paulo, did arouse some interest in Brazil (Dorta 1997)
92
Christian Feest
32 Strangely enough, except for an almost hidden reference on page 61, neither the catalog entries,
nor the illustrations are clearly associated with this collection.
One illustration had appeared earlier in a small booklet accompanying an exhibition on the “Brazil-
ian Museum” in the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (Becker-Donner 1954: 26).

as did the book by Riedl-Dorn (2000), which was also published in a Portuguese version
but focused largely on natural history. It was only in 2012 that the then Museum für Völk-
erkunde Wien finally produced the first representative exhibition of this material, accom-
panied by a catalog published in German, English, and Portuguese versions (Augustat
2012).
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