Fuegian collections in Central Europe: formation process, international circulation and repatriation issues about ethnographic objects gathered by Martin Gusinde

ANA BUTTO; DANAE FIORE

Praga

Congreso; 9° World Archaeological Congress; 2022

World Archaeological Congress

In this presentation we will describe, analyze and discuss the formation process and the history of international circulation of Martin Gusinde´s Fuegian ethnographic collection. Martin Gusinde was a German priest and ethnographer, who carried out four field works among the indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego -Selk´nam, Yagán and Kawésqar- between 1918 and 1924. During his stays Gusinde gathered photographs, audios, texts and objects from all Fuegian societies, becoming a key individual in the formation of ethnographic knowledge about the Indigenous societies from Tierra del Fuego. Such collecting activities became a trademark for the colonial intellectual tradition, focused in recording all kinds of information from native societies in the verge of “extinction”, rescuing such information for the scientific knowledge of future generations, but, as we will notice, not for their original owners, the Indigenous groups. The objects gathered by Gusinde in Tierra del Fuego were dismembered into five museums in different countries. Here we will report the finding of one key collection that contains the largest number of artefacts known up to the moment (N=161) guarded in Sainkt Gabriel Monastery, Austria; which we add to other previously known collections: Musei Vaticani, Vatican (N=4), Welt Museum Viena, Austria (N=111), Museo de Historia Natural Santiago, Chile (N=151), Museo Antropológico Martin Gusinde, Chile (N=22). We intend to provide a thorough panorama of the location, provenance and contents of this dismemebered collection, which are preliminary and necessary steps for the engagement of the Fuegian Indigenous Communities in future repatriation claims in their own terms.