The epistemological partition in scientific thought between zoology, botany, and ethnology was established in the early nineteenth century and then increasingly manifested itself in knowledge-holding institutions as well as collections (Craciun and Schaffer 2016; Craciun and Terrall 2019; Klemun et al. 2018; Marr 2006). In the face of ecological disasters around the globe, doubts are growing stronger about technology being the superior solution; technology that was facilitated by this epistemological division. The conceptual split also manifests within scientific collections in their inherent organization as natural sciences versus the humanities or anthropology (Hirst and Woolley 1985; Te Heesen 2019).
The basic idea of the project presented in this text is to question the established allocation of separated disciplines in the context of scientific collections and cautiously develop methodological approaches for practical museum concepts. “Thinking through exhibitions”1 is a viable way to bring together different materials from distinct historical collections and match them in a seemingly contradictory way in order to overcome the dogma of disciplinary division. The aim is to achieve new and clear analytical results that will inform a compendium of materials for a broader presentation, probably in the form of a digital exhibition.
The program “Museum Futures: Material Cultures of Ethnography and Natural History as Archives of Environmental Knowledge” at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich,2 which hosts my project, has set itself the goal of reactivating historical collections using fresh perspectives. In the given case, we turn to items that were brought to Munich from Brazil more than two hundred years ago: the botanical and ethnographic collections of Johann Baptist von Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius.3 Their expedition, which has become known as the “Reise in Brasilien”—the Journey through Brazil—not only provided rich holdings for the Royal Bavarian collections, but also resulted in extensive publications. The three-volume report “Reise in Brasilien” (1823–1831) was highly influential for further explorations of Brazil by European scientists and travelers (Ehrenreich 1891: 82–83; Feest 2012: 31; Hoppe 1986; Sepúlveda dos Santos 2014: 49).
The two researchers set out on behalf of the Bavarian King Maximilian I Joseph and were commissioned to collect according to the scientific differentiation within the Royal Bavarian Academy, which reflected the diversification of the fields of knowledge at that time. Both naturalists adhered to the Mathematical-Scientific Class of the Royal Academy. Spix had become the first curator of the zoological-zootomical State Collection in 1811. He was mainly responsible on the journey for collecting fauna while Martius focused on flora (Grau 1994; Schönitzer 2011). Apart from all aspects of zoology and botany the naturalists were furthermore to explore geology, mineralogy, geomorphology, climate data, magnetic fields, and hydrobiology. In addition to this scientific workload, the Philosophical-Philological Class of the Royal Academy entrusted them with the task of investigating the culture, history, and ethnography of Brazil (Bujok and Helbig 2014: 110–111; Spix and Martius 1823–1831: I:7).
Indigenous artifacts were collected during their journey as specific forms of samplings, distinct from the botanical and zoological specimens. After their return to Munich, all their collections were initially stored in the Academy building “Wilhelminum” in the city center. The items were divided and housed apart from each other in the following years in the respective collection sites: the Royal Zoological Collection and the Botanical Garden and its corresponding collection (Fittkau 1994; Grau 1994). The objects of ethnographic interest moved between different places, as the anthropological collection was established much later. When the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, today the Museum Fünf Kontinente, was inaugurated in 1862 as the first ethnological museum in Germany, the Spix and Martius collection was a major contribution to its foundation (Helbig 1994; Zerries 1980). The Spix and Martius botanical and zoological collections were also fundamental to today's Bavarian State holdings: Zoologische Staatssammlung and Botanische Staatssammlung, which are both part of the Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen München, SNSB.
The project presented here restricts itself to interlinking the ethnographic and botanical collections. This link is exemplified by a complex artifact, a ritual mask. The zoological collection has not been included in the analytical work discussed here. However, the zoologist on the team plays an important role in this research project, as the travelers cooperated closely during the journey as well as after their return, and Spix collected important ethnographic objects.
The majority of the several hundred ethnographic artifacts from the entire journey through Brazil were collected in the Amazon, and among them are some spectacular ritual masks of the Ticuna people. One particular mask, which was acquired by Spix at the furthest point of the journey, is formed like a helmet to be worn on top of the head and has the shape of a monkey. Similar to others in this collection, this mask is quite elaborate, combining several different plant materials. This monkey mask is analyzed in more detail as representative of the whole collection for this project.
The project concept entails bringing the botanical and ethnographic collections of Spix and Martius “into dialogue” using the notions of networking, connecting, and linking. The idea is modeled on the tangled vegetation of the rainforest, prototypical for the geographical space, from whence the Amazonian collection items came and which also echoes the artifact's morphology. Choosing this approach means transferring the technological principle filtered from the “material culture” of Amazonian societies and the imaginaries associated with their rainforest habitat, namely the vegetation, onto a conceptual framework. The interconnectedness, emblematic of the “Amazon wilderness,” so to speak, is linked to the idea of reconnecting two collections that traveled together from Brazil to Europe more than two centuries ago.
The mask in the shape of a monkey was fabricated to be used in a performance on the occasion of a Ticuna rite-of-passage ritual. The view from below shows the mask's base construction in a hexagonal mesh covered with bark bast. Several masks of this kind were gathered by the Bavarian researchers Spix and Martius in the early nineteenth century.
Figure 1a:Courtesy of Museum Fünf Kontinente München, photo by Marietta Weidner.
Figure 1b: Courtesy of Museum Fünf Kontinente München, photo by Swantje A.-Mulzer.
Citation: Museum Worlds 12, 1; 10.3167/armw.2024.120107
The monkey mask, inventory number 379 in the ethnographic collection, is chosen as a “personalization” of the project's parameter of ethno-botanical intertwining; its construction shows the technical interweaving of different plant materials that in themselves offer a whole bouquet of meanings, forms of usage and metaphorical content. Three types of plant tissue will subsequently be subject to closer analysis. The depiction of the plant materials in question, some of which are threatened with extinction, and the indication that ritual masks are still being used today by the Ticuna society from which the monkey mask originated, make the ancient artifact a materialization of the relationship between humans and the environment.
So far, the project has been developed via field research in the Bavarian scientific collections and by analyzing diverse archival documents. Various strands of thought are interwoven according to the project idea. At the end of this article, suggestions for a possible implementation in the form of a digital exhibition are proposed for a continuation of the project.
“Reise in Brasilien”: Journey in Brazil
Brazil at the very beginning of the nineteenth century was an overseas colony of its motherland Portugal; this colonial status was revoked in 1815, and Brazil became an equal partner of Portugal and the Algarves. As relations with the “Old World” of Europe were to be maintained, a marriage was arranged between the Austrian Archduchess Leopoldine and Crown Prince Pedro who was to become the first Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro I. The aristocratic wedding ceremony took place in May 1817 in Vienna in the absence of the bridegroom, and soon after the newlywed Habsburg Archduchess prepared to travel to Brazil (Augustat 2012: 15; Feest 2014: 1). A well-equipped group of Austrian naturalists and artists formed part of the entourage that was to accompany the Archduchess Leopoldine to Brazil. The researchers were meant to explore the still largely unknown continent. Leopoldine's father, the Habsburg Emperor Franz I, through his marital union with his third wife, was the son-in-law of the Bavarian King Maximilian I Joseph. Maximilian valued science and campaigned for Bavarian researchers to be allowed to travel to Brazil together with the Archduchess's entourage. Two scientists were selected from the members of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Bavaria: the zoologist Johann Baptist Spix (1781–1826) and the botanist Carl Friedrich Philipp Martius (1794–1868), both hailing from Franconia.
Spix was the official leader of the Bavarian expedition. He was 36 years old at the time of departure and considerably older than Martius, who was only 23 at the start of the journey. Spix and Martius had both studied natural sciences and medicine and only subsequently turned to their respective specialties: Spix had specialized in zoology and Martius in botany, but without losing sight of other scientific disciplines (Bujok and Helbig 2014; Tiefenbacher 1994).
They set off on an expedition to Brazil under a Royal commission early in 1817 (Wesche 2022: 521). Spix and Martius started their journey in Munich, traveled via Vienna to Trieste and—after a turbulent crossing of the Atlantic—they landed in Rio de Janeiro in July 1817. They met up with other Europeans in and around Rio de Janeiro in the first few weeks after their arrival in the so-called New World, particularly with scientific colleagues and researchers. They then turned south to São Paulo and—travelling independently from their Austrian fellows—moved northward, beginning their extensive expedition into the interior of the country in January 1818.
The time was right for scientific exploration. Only some 10 years earlier, the Portuguese court had fled across the Atlantic from Napoleon's troops and as long as Brazil was confined to the status of a Portuguese colony, its borders were carefully guarded and protected against unwanted intruders. Naturalists were mistrusted, which explains why, in 1800, Alexander von Humboldt, traveling in the south of Venezuela, was denied permission to cross the border into Brazil (Hemming 2015: 24). Captain James Cook had already been refused entry to Brazil on his way to Australia and the Pacific Islands (Sepúlveda dos Santos 2014: 44). Once the colonial status was lifted and Brazil was incorporated into the United Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves, the country opened for exploration, and it was precisely at this time that the two Bavarians set foot in Brazil.
The coastal region of Brazil was hardly known in Europe. The interior of Brazil, namely, Amazonia, remained largely unknown to the European public. However, despite this knowledge gap, the colonial penetration of the hinterland coupled with extractive economic processes had already been in full swing for some time (Kümin 2007: 7; Sepúlveda dos Santos 2014: 43–44). The systematic scientific survey of the region, which was in vogue in Europe in the nineteenth century, had only just begun and the journey “Reise in Brasilien,” namely, the Amazonian stage, had been one of the first scientific expeditions ever undertaken (Hoppe 1986; Sepúlveda dos Santos 2014).
The first year and a half of the Spix and Martius enterprise will be omitted in this very brief account, that is, the traverse through the provinces of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Goiás, Bahia, Pernambuco, Piauí, and Maranhão. In July 1819, they reached Belém do Pará, in the delta of the Amazon River, and from here they started their tour into Amazonia (Spix and Martius 1823–1831: III). It should not go unmentioned that the Indigenous groups, such as the Coroados, Purí, or Botocudos, whom the researchers encountered during the first stage of the journey when traveling through Central and Eastern Brazil, often appeared to be disintegrated and uprooted due to their ominous contact with the colonial power (Helbig 1994). The focus here is on the stage at which Spix and Martius travel and explore the huge river of the Amazon where the travelers hoped it would give them the chance to meet relatively isolated Indigenous people.
In August 1819, Spix and Marius started from the mouth of the Amazon. They set off westward in a large rowing boat crewed by locals to explore the gigantic waterway. After several stopovers—mostly at the mouths of the mighty streams, such as in Porto Móz on the tributary of the Rio Xingu or in Santerem, where the Tapajós flows into the Amazon River—they reached Fortaleza da Barra do Rio Negro after two months. Here, the Rio Negro flows into the upper Amazon, the Solimões, coloring half of this river dark for kilometers. At the time, this estuary—today the metropolis of Manaus—was a tranquil place. Several days later and further above the mouth of the Rio Negro, they reached Egá (today Tefé), near the confluence of the Rio Japurá (then Yapurá). Here they felt “in the center of Brazil” and were convinced that this is where “a lot of important facts for ethnography and natural history can be collected”4 (Spix and Martius 1823–1831: III:1173).
In order to meet the great challenge of collecting as many specimens and as much data as possible for the zoological, botanical, ethnological and other scientific collections as had been specified in the Academy's mission statement (Spix and Martius 1823–1831: III:1), the naturalists decided to continue their voyage in separate expeditions. Spix continued traveling up the Solimões to the Brazilian border with Peru and Colombia (Spix and Martius 1823–1831: III:1173–1174). On this part of the journey, Spix came into contact with several Indigenous peoples, such as the Cauixana, Passé, or Ticuna, who previously had little contact with the colonial powers, some of whom, for example the Juri/Juri-Taboca, have meanwhile been considered extinct (Zerries 1961: 361). His destination was Tabatinga in the border triangle. Here Spix happened to witness the procession of a group of masked Ticuna—then called Tekuna or Tecuna—their self-denomination today is Magütá. Spix managed to acquire the masks which were used in the ritual, particularly the monkey mask that is central to the present project (Spix and Martius 1823–1831: III:1188). It should be pointed out here that it is customary in Amazonia to leave the ritual masks to decay after use, so we need not fear that this is a case of cultural theft.
While Spix went westward, Martius traveled with a large group up the Japurá River in a northwesterly direction until he reached Colombian soil (Bujok and Helbig 2012: 55; Spix and Martius 1823–1831: III:1197–1290). Along the way, he also met Indigenous people of diverse societies, among whom were the Coëruna, Passé, Cauixana, Mayuruna, Miranha, and Juri. All these groups lived in a largely “traditional way” at the time. Martius also succeeded in expanding the collection in botanical, zoological, and ethnographic terms (Fittkau 1994; Grau 1994; Zerries 1980: 15–26).
The two explorers met again after four months and soon traveled back toward the mouth of the Amazon. Martius made a few smaller detours, such as to the Rio Madeira, where he had an encounter with the Mundurucú and Mauhés (Mawé). Here, he obtained utilitarian and ritual artifacts, among which are impressive feather works, some of which show the application of the tapirage technique (Schlothauer 2014: 133; see also the article by Anita Herle in this volume).
The naturalists arrived back in Munich in December 1820 with their extensive luggage, which was added to the samples they had already sent home during their excursion.5 Their return from the four-year journey was duly celebrated, and Spix and Martius were soon after elevated to the peerage by the Bavarian king (Helbig 1994).
The Spix and Martius Collections in Bavarian State Holdings in Munich
In 1813, Maximilian I Joseph von Bayern, King of Bavaria, founded the Botanical State Collection in Munich as an institution for the preservation and maintenance of the royal herbarium. . . . In 1817, Maximilian I Joseph sent the young botanist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius on a four-year expedition to Brazil. After his return in 1820, the king appointed him curator of the royal herbarium. Martius worked at the Botanical State Collection for thirty years (until 1854), and the approximately 25,000–30,000 specimens (7,300 species) in his official Brazilian herbarium form an unrivalled basis for the taxonomic study of South American vascular plants.6
After some odysseys, the ethnographic collection moved in 1867 from the Academy of Sciences to the Royal Ethnographic Museum in the gallery building in the courtyard garden; subsequently, it was transferred to Munich's anthropological museum, today the Museum Fünf Kontinente (Helbig 1994: 165; Zerries 1980: 11).
Spix and Martius immediately set about their extensive publication work, starting with their report “Reise in Brasilien” in three volumes, including an “Atlas” that contains many illustrations (Spix and Martius 1823–1831), one of them being the lithograph by Philipp Schmid, “Festive procession of the Tecunas” (figure 2). They also published scientific descriptions of numerous types of specimens that they had found in the context of zoology and botany. Spix was also active in this work during the first years, however, he had returned from the voyage severely ill. After he died in 1826, his travel companion Martius completed volume II and III of their report; he also edited Spix's zoological data and used his colleague's ethnographic notes for his ethno-linguistic work (Martius 1863, 1867).
“Festive procession of the Tecunas.” Lithograph by Philipp Schmid after a drawing by Spix and masks from the collection (Spix and Martius 1823–1831: Atlas, plate 13). The masks shown in this image are kept in the Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich. The monkey mask can be seen in the center. In contrast to this illustration, the dancers were not naked, but wore cloaks made of plant material, which were, however, not collected.
© Museum Fünf Kontinente München, photo: Marianne Franke.
Citation: Museum Worlds 12, 1; 10.3167/armw.2024.120107
Martius published widely in his own field on newfound plants—one focus was on palm trees (Nova genera et species plantarum 1823–1832; Historia naturalis palmarum, 1823–1853)—and from 1840 on, he set about the monumental botanical work Flora Brasiliensis (1840–1906). Its fifteenth volume was only finalized many years after his own death; the complete oeuvre can be consulted online.7
Martius enriched the botanical garden with numerous living plants as well as many seeds and herbarium specimens, which he managed to bring back to Munich. He became the second director of the Royal Botanic Garden in 1832. As was mentioned earlier, in accordance with the scope of this project, the zoological assemblage, with which the State Zoological Collection was also comprehensively expanded, can only be touched on here. It must, however, be given consideration in a potential continuation and extension of this project, possibly in the form of a digital exhibition.
In addition to the collections corresponding to their professional specializations, the two Bavarian naturalists brought an assemblage of five hundred to six hundred items of ethnographica back to Munich, and this assemblage was a founding collection of the scientific institution, presently the Museum Fünf Kontinente (Zerries 1980). Data surveys conducted in 1920, 1980, and 1994 provide an overview of the ethnographic collection as a whole (Helbig 1994; Hörschelmann 1920; Zerries 1980). It goes back to the entire Brazil journey and comprises 442 numbers, which can today be assigned to 510 objects, compared to about 600 in 1820. Twelve objects have been transferred to the British Museum in London; these can be consulted online. Some minor losses are due to the long period of time—and two world wars. This shows that the collection, which came to Munich in 1820, is practically complete, apart from the dozen objects in London mentioned above and one small item which was found recently in the Berlin ethnographic collection.8
The first part of Spix and Martius's journey, until reaching the mouth of the Amazon, primarily yielded objects that reflect the colonial reality of Brazil at the time. However, most of the ethnographic collection originates from the voyage in Amazonia. All the artifacts collected here are of Indigenous origin and they can be assigned to around 40 ethnic groups (Spix and Martius 1823–1831: III; Zerries 1980: 273). This assemblage—together with the collectors’ commentaries and information on customs and language—represents an important contribution to the knowledge of native Brazil in the nineteenth century (Baldus 1954: 13, 29; Ehrenreich 1891). Due to the climatic advantages of Munich and careful conservation treatment, these artifacts of world culture have been well preserved over the past two hundred years. Some pieces, such as the elaborate masks collected from the Ticuna and the Juri, are quite unique and rarely seen elsewhere (Bujok and Helbig 2014: 119; Zerries 1961).
As mentioned above, the project's concept—echoing the meshwork of the tropical rainforest vegetation—is characterized by the interweaving of different data strands: the historical background, particular ethnographic objects and their documentation, botanical samples and respective herbarium documents, certain selected plant specimens and specific ethnographies, to name the most eminent ones. These different strands and their interconnectedness are exemplified through investigating the Ticuna monkey mask more closely.
Field Work and Questions
Field work for this project has been conducted at the storage sites of the Museum Fünf Kontinente, Munich, and the Herbarium of the Botanische Staatssammlung München. As explained at the outset, the guiding idea of this project is to bring back into a relationship with each other the objects that had traveled together to Munich and were then split up according to the respective disciplines.
The attempt to re-establish relations between the diverse types of collection items was undertaken with regard to the following questions:
To what extent and in which ways are these objects really essentially different? On the one hand, the ethnographic artifacts have been recorded as “culturally produced artifacts,” whereas botanical evidence has been taken “directly from the natural environment.” However, through classification, pressing, drying, and further archival processing, the plant materials have now also become culturally produced objects. The fundamental differences lose their distinctness on closer examination.
Which materials were used to produce the artifacts? Can the fibers employed still be determined today and how? Did the botanist Martius mention the materials, which were used to construct certain artifacts, as botanical or herbarium specimens?
Some hints are given to answer these questions in Martius's “Contributions to the Ethnography and Linguistics of America, especially Brazil” (Martius 1867: 445) when he describes the Ticuna masks.
How and when were these plant materials scientifically identified as botanical species?
Which of the plants employed in the production of the historical artifacts of Indigenous origin are preserved as specimens in the Herbarium of the Botanische Staatssammlung? This is only true in one case: the bark bast of the tree Couratari tauari.
Did Martius himself collect the kind of material that is processed in some of the artifacts? Did the botanist refer to the material when commenting on the ethnographic items and did he consider the botanical components when dealing with “cultural objects”?
The field work in the State Collections herbarium led to a number of responses, some of which had been hinted at already. As a general finding, it can be stated that very little information about the raw botanical material used in the construction of the objects can be found in the original ethnographic documentation. Moreover, the sparse data that exists is often extremely vague. Thus, the material for the internal hexagonal structure of the ritual head mask is named: “Rohr / Rohrgeflecht,” which means “reed or cane / wickerwork” in English. Concerning the other materials which are used in the Ticuna monkey mask, only the bark bast was collected by Martius as a plant sample. We get deeper insights when conferring on Couratari tauari, Ischnosiphon and, later, when considering Araceae Heteropsis.
Linking the Archival Material to Today's Reality in Amazonia
The practical work, basic for the project, was achieved via observations comparing collection items from the anthropological museum and samples in the herbarium, and by consulting corresponding documentary material. The main work has been done on the very material “souvenirs” from Brazil. In a further step of the project, links are made between the historical materials and the contemporary Amazon region. Thus, we introduce two Indigenous societies, the Ticuna, the source community of the monkey mask, and the Yanomami, who were not encountered by Spix and Martius because they were practically unknown until the mid-nineteenth century (Herzog-Schröder 2012).
The Ticuna or Magütá, as they prefer to be called today, are one of the largest Indigenous societies of Brazil; they live in the border triangle with Peru and Colombia (Oliveira 2002; Soares 2018). They are of interest because ethnographical materials—the Ticuna masks—had been collected by Spix, and corresponding botanical raw material—Couratari tauari—gathered by Martius is in the herbarium.
The Yanomami are forest dwellers of the borderland between Venezuela and Brazil. Ethno-botanical data on these contemporary Indigenous people will inform the historical archives and, thus, enable their reactivation. The histories of the Ticuna/Magütá and the Yanomami are fundamentally different. While the Yanomami succeeded in evading the monstrosities of the rubber boom in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by retreating to rough terrain in the mountains, the Ticuna suffered enormous damage from the exploitative regime (Goulard 2009; López Garcés 2014; Oliveira 2002). However, the Yanomami these days are facing major challenges in large areas of their territory due to the relentless encroachment of gold excavators (Herzog-Schröder 2015; Kopenawa and Albert 2013; Marcelino 2024; Ramos 1990). Some Yanomami communities still organize their lives in remote regions of their settlement area—away from the precarious contact zones—in such a way that they are largely self-sufficient, dwelling in small groups in the forest, with a subsistence diet and their long-established technology. In this project, we will investigate the material resources available from the forest under today's conditions, concentrating on the vine Heteropsis, a plant component that stabilizes the construction of the mask and models its facial features.
The Ticuna historically fabricated impressive masks, which are part of the ethnographic collection gathered by Spix and Martius. The most spectacular ones were worn on the top of the head, as was the monkey mask. It is important to understand that the wearers of the head masks always wore costumes that covered the entire body. Contrary to what the lithograph of the Ticuna procession shows (Spix and Martius 1823–1831: Atlas, plate 28, see figure 2), these were necessarily part of the ritual equipment. However, the body costumes were not collected by the travelers or became lost on the journey to Europe.
The Ticuna descendants living today still produce similar masks and use them on ritual occasions, namely, the puberty rites of young women (Faulhaber 2004; Vieira et al. 2017). Nowadays, such rituals are posted on social media, such as YouTube. Their present-day ritual masks are generally less complex compared to the historical samples. However, they are often slip-on masks that lack the contouring structure of Heteropsis. The collection stores of the Museum Fünf Kontinente also contain 15 of these slip-on masks acquired by Spix and Martius as well as numerous others collected in the twentieth century (Herzog-Schröder 2015). The Ticuna masks are usually made from a bark cloth that has been carefully beaten into a thin fabric. One species of bark cloth—Couratari tauari—a woody plant species from the Lecythidaceae family—is often used in these slip-on versions, and Couratri tauari was also used to cover the monkey mask. This material is now collected as botanical specimens and can be found in the Bavarian State Herbarium.9 Couratari tauari is an Amazon rainforest plant, endangered by the loss of its habitat and now listed as being “vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species (2024).10
Viewing Botanical Materials
We turn to the practical implementation and interweaving of ethnographic artifacts and botanical examples and relate the data to different perspectives on the historical and contemporary botanical material used by the people of Amazonia. Baskets, masks, and other handicraft products made using techniques such as weaving, knotting and braiding various materials fall into this category. Within the ethnographic collection of Spix and Martius the monkey mask, which was produced using an elaborate technique, was selected as it shares the characteristic of being composed of different elements. When looking into the monkey mask from below, we detect its stabilizing structure of a hexagonal mesh (figure 1). The mask is then built up with bark bast covering the basket-like frame mesh. A long twig expands through the upper part of the mask and radiates to the left and right. Bast threads are attached to the ends of the twig and form grotesque ears.
A study was carried out on seven of the 15 masks of the collection by two trainee conservators, Kathrin Adelfinger and Ina Meißner, between 2007 and 2008. Working in collaboration with the Herbarium of the Botanische Staatssammlung München, they documented a wide range of technological information (Adelfinger and Meißner 2008). The major result of this analysis, based on Adelfinger and Meißner's groundwork, is that there are very few correspondences between the documentation of the ethnographic material and its botanical substances. In general, the botanical materials used in fabricating the artifacts were not named or identified by the collecting naturalists. There is no evidence that these items were considered products containing materials of botanical value that could, therefore, be analogously collected as plant samples for the herbarium. Of course, it is understandable that the researchers’ way of traveling, the relatively rapid progress, and their way of grabbing of objects from the Indigenous people or intermediate agents corresponds to this deficiency. Whatever the case may be, this finding reinforces an already established fixation on a concept of divided scientific collecting, be it natural science or that belonging to the humanities.
Ischnosiphon arumã grows as shrub in the tropical Amazonian Forest. The long stems are dried and then woven into flat surfaces using the twisting technique in many regions of the South American lowlands. Courtesy Marie Claude Mattéi Muller.
Citation: Museum Worlds 12, 1; 10.3167/armw.2024.120107
We now take a closer look at the monkey mask and try to identify the materials used in the construction of this mask: Ischnosiphon, Couratari tauari, and Heteropsis.
The Leaf Stalks Ischnosiphon (arumã)
The literature on South American arts and crafts states that arumã or aroumã is used by the Indigenous peoples and the Riveriños, the local river dwellers of Brazil, as a generic name for all species of Ischnosiphon, a herbaceous perennial the stems of which are used widely by Indigenous artisans. The same plant and the stalks it provides are called itiriti or tiriti in Venezuela. It is known as guarumo in the Colombian Amazon.11 Ischnosiphon is frequently mentioned for the weaving of baskets and strainers, and it occupies a prominent position as a construction element in Amazonian handicrafts (inter alia: Athayde et al. 2006: 39; Mattéi Muller 2009, 2023: 202; Ribeiro 1985: 20).
Traveling through Northwest Amazonia, Martius collected samples of Couratari Tauari bark cloth. This fiber was frequently used to cover ritual masks like the one in the shape of a monkey. The botanical specimens collected during the Brazil voyage are stored in the SNSB-Botanische Staatssammlung München. Courtesy SNSB-Botanische Staatssammlung München.
Citation: Museum Worlds 12, 1; 10.3167/armw.2024.120107
Martius mentions Scitamin stalks as the basic material in his description of the Ticuna mask (Martius 1867: 445; Zerries 1961). The botanical order Scitaminee was later reclassified and divided into four families, one of which is described in Flora Brasiliensis with numerous genera; one of the latter being Ischnosiphon.12 It belongs to the genera Marantaceae; there are again several subspecies within the class of Ischnosiphon; the native range of this genus being tropical America.
We find the reference on Scitaminee in the Flora Brasiliensis (vol 3, part 3, 134) and here, Martius himself makes a connection between the art of the Juri—a then neighboring tribe of the Ticuna—and the botanical species Ischnosiphon arumã. Martius found Ischnosiphon arumã near the Rio Japurá and mentions its occurrence: “Habitat in sylvis inter Coari et Ega prov. Alto Amazonas.” This translates as: “It exists in the forests between Coari and Ega, Upper Amazon Province.”
This quote is one of the very few records found in which the botanical and ethnographic collections touch each other. Provided now that the Scitamin stalks, as Martius mentions, prove to be Ischosiphon—which could be examined with the help of an Indigenous expert from the Amazon region—then we would have a positive result to show here. Ischnosiphon /Ischnosiphon aromã is most probably constitutive in several other ethnographic objects in the collection and we also find it in the botanical-herbarium collections that date back to the “Reise in Brasilien.” Thus, we have here a positive correlation between the ethnographic and botanical parts of the historical Spix and Martius collection.
The Bark Bast Couratari tauari
Bark cloth or bark bast is used in many ways in Lowland South America, particularly in the upper Amazon region. The bark basts of various tree species, particularly fig trees, are called tururi in the Upper Solimões region as a generic term. Couratari tauari13—tauari being a variant of tururi—is one type of bark tissue widely utilized to provide strips for binding. Another form of use is also common: The bark bast is soaked in water and made into a thin fabric by carefully beating the material. As bast cloth it provides the tissue to form mask costumes or to cover the constructions of built-on masks.14 Couratari tauari was used to cover the Ticuna monkey mask. Botanical specimens of this tissue were also collected during the Brazil voyage and these are now stored in the Munich herbarium. In addition to this concurrence, we also find tauari or its variant tururi mentioned in Martius's treatise on the ethnography and languages of the Indigenous Brazilian peoples. He lists tauari/tururi as a Tupi word and gives Couratari variae sp. as the botanic term (Martius 1867: 407–408).
There are several ways to link Couratari tauari bark to local mytho-cosmological concepts, as this fiber comes up in many reports on ritual equipment such as head masks and full body suits. Transformation through costuming, more specifically the revival and renewal of forest spirits through masquerades, has been and still is expressed in several Amazonian societies in communal ritual practices. Masks and masquerade suits made from bark cloth are frequently used in these performances, as has been mentioned above with respect to the Ticuna rituals (Goulard 2009; Goulard und Karadimas 2011; Koch-Grünberg 1923; Nimuendajú 1952; Spix and Martius 1823–1831; Suhrbier 1992).
The Aerial Root Heteropsis
A third plant species is considered here, although there are no directly formulated references in any of the Spix and Martius collections. It is Heteropsis flexuosa or Heteropsis spp., which I got to know thoroughly during my research in southern Venezuela. I could not find any mention of Heteropsis either in the description of the monkey mask or other collected items or in Martius's botanical notes. The field work in the Spix and Martius collections did not uncover any evidence either that could be used to relate the ethnographic collection to the herbarium information in order to, thereby, reconnect the historic collections in this context. This is surprising, as the so-called vine Heteropsis is abundant in many areas of Lowland South America. Furthermore, it is of eminent importance to past and present Indigenous technology in Amazonia. In a strict botanical sense Heteropsis is not a “vine” but a climbing arum plant (Araceae), the meter-long aerial roots of which are used whole—just like a strong cord or cable—or are split up into fine strips for further processing. The material is greatly appreciated for its stability, versatility, and resistance to termites. The actual epiphytal plant sits high up in the forks of mighty trees. Heteropsis is known by the names sipó or cipó in Brazil and mamure in Venezuela. It is referred to as yaré in the Colombia–Brazil border region.
Heteropsis/Heteropsis spp. is widely used in Indigenous technology. Here, a man uses it to lash several beams together to build a high platform in the forest. Courtesy of the author 1996.
Citation: Museum Worlds 12, 1; 10.3167/armw.2024.120107
I identified this material in the monkey mask in the lower rim of the construction as well as in the contours of the mouth, the eyes, and the nostrils. Here I draw on information on the Yanomami of the upper Orinoco region with whom I have lived and worked for many months in the 1980s and the 1990s and where I got to know this aerial root and its use quite well. A visit to some Yanomami settlements in and near Maturacá in the upper Rio Negro area in Northern Brazil in 2022 deepened and enhanced my understanding of the life of the Yanomami as forest communities. I had a particularly keen eye for the presence of Heteropsis in the forest and its use in everyday activities. Yanomami people can aptly be presented in terms of their craftsmanship, in which Heteropsis, here called masimasi, plays a significant role, as the Yanomami not only fabricate smaller objects from Heteropsis, such as baskets and strainers, but also use it to tie together large poles and beams and fortify their entire dwellings and large lean-to roofs (Mattéi Muller 2023; Milliken et al. 1999).
As the epiphyte takes a long time to grow and the plant likes to seek out tall and therefore old trees as hosts, Heteropsis functions as an indicator of primary forests. Heteropsis is not found in secondary forests, and people need to walk long distances to it when the primary forest is damaged (B. Albert et al. 2002). Beyond the technological aspects, Heteropsis is also used in other ways. The Murui, historically known as the Uitoto, know how to extract vegetable salt from Heteropsis spruceana (Román Jitdutjaaño et al. 2020). This information points to the wide range of ecological knowledge held by traditional land users who care for and manage natural resources.
The Yanomami region has become particularly well-known because of the poisoning of the soil and water with chemicals and mercury by outsiders, with serious consequences for the biodiversity in the Amazon generally and some of their territories in particular. Yanomami living in areas predominantly affected by the invasion of intruders have to travel long distances to collect this eminently important fiber, or they have to resort to alternative materials, as Heteropsis is depleted in some places (Milliken, Albert, and Gomez 1999; Milliken, Albert, Ruivo et al. 2002).
It is most probable that Heteropsis occurs not only in the monkey mask but in quite a lot of other ethnographic objects in the Spix and Martius collection, namely, in the fabrication of other masks and the rims of some quivers. This will be investigated soon with the assistance of Indigenous Amazonian researchers as part of the project team.
One early Heteropsis specimen was found during field work in the herbarium in Munich. It goes back not to Martius but to the British botanist Richard Spruce, a significant source within this project as there is a close association between Cambridge University and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Kew holds Amazonian assemblages of an ethnographic and botanical nature that were collected by Spruce about 50 years after Spix and Martius traveled the zone (Martins 2021). Weaving this Heteropsis herbarium sampling, which was delivered from England, into the tangle of diverse argumentative strands as yet another thread, further enriches the intertwined mesh that constitutes the project's concept.
From Research Project to Exhibition
The idea of this article was to trace the unfolding of a research concept that emerged from skepticism toward the epistemic separation of natural sciences and the humanities. Directly addressing this split in knowledge-holding institutions, which manifest itself in ethnographic and botanical collections, an effort was made to construct a re-encounter between the botanic and ethnographic assemblages of the Spix and Martius collection. The considerations for reactivating these historical collections follow the image of the intertwined tropical vegetation and the complexity of some artifacts from the Amazon region, which are composed of different plant materials. The idea of entanglement was transferred metaphorically to the necessary interweaving of the botanical and ethnographic collection ensembles and further strands of thought.
The investigation of a mask in the shape of a monkey collected on the “Reise in Brasilien” from the Ticuna people at the beginning of the nineteenth century was central to this concept. The example of this mask and three plant elements, which are essential to its construction, shows how the idea of interweaving can work in practice. The project was meant to contribute ideas and thoughts to fundamental questions of this publication by uprooting the division between the ethnographic–anthropological collection in the Museum Fünf Kontinente and the nature–science collection in the herbarium of the Botanische Staatssammlung. It also included botanical information from Martius's Flora Brasiliensis, his ethno-linguistical data (1863) and his ethnographic accounts (1867).
Dealing with these two-hundred-year-old collections and matching the dissimilar parts in an unprecedented way has proven to be productive as it opens up novel perspectives through historical scholarly lenses. As one of the vegetal materials has not been identified at the time of collecting, my personal expertise, acquired while living with the Yanomami, and my understanding of the raw material of Heteropsis and its technical use, were also woven into the web of information.
Thinking further along this line—beyond the monkey mask—and exploring other material things such as baskets or quivers of the Spix and Martius collection, incites reflections and multiple strands within the relationship between humans and the environment at the time of collection, but it also throws light on the climatically and ecologically precarious present. Presenting ethnographic and botanic collections in an “intertwined” manner can highlight their implications for pressing environmental issues (J. Albert et al. 2023; Brandão et al. 2023). This particularly refers to the loss of primary forest in Amazonia, while the problem of increasing drought continues to be disturbing, issues that are problematic for the global climate, that is, for “us,” first and foremost, affect the local populations, some being descendants of the communities of origin of the respective collection.
Ideas for an expansion of this work arose and the vision of a digital exhibition emerged while developing the project presented in this text. The ideas outlined here—along with the example of the monkey mask—could be fruitfully implemented visually in a digital presentation, possibly even acoustically, and comparable examples could be developed for other artifacts from the collections; such an exhibition could be widely disseminated.
Regarding further development, it will be essential to include Indigenous knowledge holders from Amazonia. Additionally, research in the Indigenous “Museu Magütá,” which is run by the Ticuna in Brazil,15 and the Colección Museo Etnográfico Magütá de Mocagua (www.facebook.com/museo.maguta),16 organized by a Ticuna group in Colombia, could be of great benefit for knowledge-sharing and contemporary self-representation (França 2020). It would add current aspects of Indigenous knowledge to the perspectives gathered here, which have a European historical bias. Linking aspects developed from a nineteenth-century historical collection with the ontological values of Indigenous forest dwellers today would be stimulating in a digital exhibition and serve to raise awareness of the interconnectedness of people and the environment. It would also be feasible for a digital exhibition to include samples from the Spix and Martius zoological collection for a crossover, comparable to what has been shown regarding ethnography and the herbarium. Several monkeys and birds can be traced back to Spix as first collector and the respective samples are kept in the State Zoological Collection as type specimens. Establishing a link between monkey samplings and particular masks would enhance the context in terms of further linking the different parts of the collection.
Such considerations point to the profound ecological knowledge of Indigenous societies living today who are currently under enormous pressure and struggling to survive in large parts of their territories. Thus, we deal here with two, if not three, two-hundred-year-old collections and their intertwining with the present, reaching out to the future. At the same time, it is well suited as a practical example to achieve one of the goals of our project and this publication: to illustrate how the division between “natural” and “cultural” knowledge has been manifested in historical scientific collections. As we claim, knowledge is linked to collection objects that are stored in separate institutions in Munich. Since their division after their arrival in Munich, they have, however, not yet been able to engage with each other again. In this regard, and based on what has been achieved in this project, it would not be difficult to imagine how this division could be practically addressed and possibly healed in a pluri-scientific concept of a digital exhibition.
Acknowledgments
This study was carried out as part of the project “Museum Futures: Material Cultures of Ethnography and Natural History as Archives of Environmental Knowledge.” It was funded through “Cambridge–LMU Strategic Partnership.” My thanks go to Philipp Schorch and Nicholas Thomas, who spearheaded this program, for their helpful comments during the formation of the manuscript. Field research was made possible due to the hospitality of Museum Fünf Kontinente and of Dr. Hajo Esser from the Herbarium of the Botanische Staatssammlung München.
Notes
Drawing on Schorch, McCarthy, and Dürr (2019).
Nicholas Thomas and Philipp Schorch. “Museum Futures: Material Cultures of Ethnography and Natural History as Archives of Environmental Knowledge.” IndiGen. https://www.indigen.eu/projects/affiliated-projects/museum-futures (accessed 18 August 2024).
The two explorers were ennobled and knighted by the Bavarian king after returning from their journey to Brazil and from then on, their names were “von Spix” and “von Martius.” (Bujok and Helbig 2014: 121; Helbig 1994: 68).
In the German original it is: “Der Aufenthalt in Ega und Nogeira überzeugte uns täglich lebhafter, dass hier, gleichsam im Mittelpuncte Brasiliens, eine Menge für Ethnographie und Naturgeschichte wichtiger Thatsachen zu sammeln seyen.”
A very problematic facet of the journey is the fact that Spix and Martius brought two Indigenous children aged between 10 and 14 with them to Munich, who did not survive for long. These circumstances can only be understood from the perspective of the time and will not be discussed further in this project. For more detailed background information on this, consult Schönitzer (2015).
Die Botanische Staatssammlung München. Homepage. https://bsm.snsb.de/about-us/history/?lang=de (accessed 4 April 2024).
The herbarium of the Flora Brasiliensis is, however, not kept in Munich but in the botanic garden Meise, Brussels. Flora Braziliensis. Homepage. http://florabrasiliensis.cria.org.br/ (accessed 18 August 2024).
My thanks for this information go to Dr. Manuela Fischer, Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin.
For first botanical information on Couratari tauari consult Flora Brasiliensis (online): “Vol. XIV, Part I, 18: 2, 509, published 01-Feb-1858.” More information can be found at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Plants of the World online. The entry for Couratari tauari: “First published in C.F.P. von Martius & auct. suc. (eds.), Flora Brasiliensis 14(1): 509 (1858).” https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:592380-1, accessed 4 April 2024; also look at endnote 13.
Red List. 2024. “The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.” The Red List. http://www.iucnredlist.org (accessed 18 August 2024).
For further information on Indigenous terms for arumã consult: “The Project Digital Repatriation of Biocultural Collections.” Digital Repatriation of Biocultural Collections: Rio Negro, Amazonia. http://en.biocultural.wpengine.com/ (accessed 18 August 2024).
Flora Brasiliensis. Homepage. http://florabrasiliensis.cria.org.br/ (accessed 18 August 2024).
Couratari tauari O. Berg is mentioned in Flora Brasiliensis 14(1): 509 (1858). Martius describes the masks of the Ticuna as a wickerwork of scitamineen stems, covered with bast from Couratari trees (Martius 1867: 445).
Tururi is also the name given to the paintings on bark bast, which are today sold as handicrafts, following earlier techniques. Historically, tururi, tururí or tauari, was used to produce masks (See Martius 1863–1867; Soares 2018). In their description of the Ticuna monkey mask Bujok and Helbig call the covering tissue of the mask tururí (Bujok and Helbig 2014: 123; Zerries 1961: 375).
It does not seem possible currently to establish contact with the Museu Magüta on Brazilian ground in Benjamin Constante; Nilza Silvana Nogueira Teixeira's investigations on this museum, however, can fill this gap (2022). And the author has received an invitation from the Museo Magüta, Colombia, near Leticia. “Magüta Museum, the First Indigenous Museum in Brazil.” Magüta Museum. https://museumaguta.com.br/ (accessed 18 August 2024).
“Museo Magütá.” Facebook. www.facebook.com/museo.maguta (accessed 18 August 2024).
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