Turin, Mark

Name not available

In Memory of Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf

DigitalCommons@Macalester College

Himalaya, the Journal of theAssociation for Nepal andHimalayan StudiesVolume 17Number 2 Himalayan Research Bulletin: Solukhumbuand the SherpaArticle 61997In Memory of Christoph von Furer-HaimendorfMark TurinFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalayaThis Other is brought to you for free and open access by theDigitalCommons@Macalester College at DigitalCommons@MacalesterCollege. It has been accepted for inclusion in Himalaya, the Journal of theAssociation for Nepal and Himalayan Studies by an authorizedadministrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For moreinformation, please contact scholarpub@macalester.edu.Recommended CitationTurin, Mark (1997) "In Memory of Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf," Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal andHimalayan Studies: Vol. 17: No. 2, Article 6.Available at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol17/iss2/6In Memory of Christoph von Fiirer-HaimendorfProfessor Christoph von Flirer-Haimendorf, who died on June II, 1995 at the age of 85, was Professorof Asian Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (London), where he built the largestdepartment of anthropology in Britain by the time of his retirement in 1976. For over forty years hetraveled, filmed and wrote extensively on the peoples of the Central and Eastern Himalayas and CentralIndia. It is difficult to think of any other European anthropologist who could rival his 3,650 pages ofpublished ethnography describing a dozen tribal groups.Christoph yon Flirer-Haimendorf was born in Vienna on June 22, 1909. The future anthropologist wasbrought up in a cultured atmosphere where he developed a passion for the surrogate travel afforded by theopera and for Indian classics, such as Tagore, which he read in his early adolescence. Members of hisfamily had served the Hapsburg Dynasty since the year 1273 and one of them had been a famous travelerthrough Egypt, Palestine and Arabia in the early 16th century. His father held a senior position in theAustrian Civil Service, as the Governor of Sudetenland.In 1927 he entered the Theresianische Akademie of the University of Vienna to follow courses inanthropology-then ethnology-as well as in archaeology and physical anthropology. In Vienna during the1920s, anthropology was under the influence of the "Kulturkrieslehre" school and under the direction oflinguist Wilheim Schmidt and the head of the Institute of Ethnology, Professor Koppers. Haimendorf wastrained in anthropology by Schebesta and Frobenius, but the most lasting influence was Professor HeineGeldern, whose archaeological research in Southeast Asia later inspired Haimendorf to choose the NagaHills of Northeast India as the site for his first fieldwork.Haimendorf received his Dr. Phil. in 1931, for a doctoral thesis comparing the social organization ofthe hill tribes of Assam and Northwest Burma. Because of financial constraints, his thesis was based purelyon book research-the opportunity for fieldwork came only later with funds from the RockefellerFoundation, when Haimendorf worked as a research assistant in Vienna between 1931 and 1934. Beingprimarily interested in India, he decided to forgo the opportunity of studying in America in favor of theLondon School of Economics, where he hoped to attend the famous seminars of Bronislaw Malinowski, andwas to meet many future British anthropologists, such as Raymond Firth and Audrey Richards. Althoughintellectually stimulated and inspired by Professor Malinowski, Haimendorf was not uncritical of therecommended functional approach. He left London in 1936 to work among the Nagas of Assam, along theNortheastern frontier of India.Upon arrival, Haimendorf was nelped greatly by both the District Officers and anthropologist J.P. Mills,the then Deputy Commissioner of the Naga Hills District, who soon became a close friend. Together theydeparted on a punitive expedition to the unadministered tribal areas which lay between the Naga Hills andthe frontier of Burma where there had been a recent spate of tribal raids. They were accompanied by twoplatoons of the Royal Assamese Rifles as well as several hundred coolies, and survived a serious ambush toreturn with a number of dried skulls as trophies for the delighted Nagas. Although he had studied Assamesewhilst in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies (and Chinese in Vienna), it was only duringthis first expedition with Mills that Haimendorf became convinced of the importance of linguisticcompetence for successful ethnography. After only five months among the little-known Konyak Nagas, hemanaged to acquire enough Nagamese to dispense with his interpreter.Alice 13 mOHI!IS of fieldwork, [lai,ncndorf returned to Austria but soon left again for India, and was enIOUl<: to the Na,'!'] JlJlls for a scuHid [krlOd of research when the Second World \Var broke out. Being inpossessiun of a German passport, he was arrested by the authorities---albeit with great courtesy due to hisexcellent connectio!lO in the British colonial administration--and was promptly interned as an enemy alien.He was confined Ie liyderatnd State, under the jurisdiction of the Nizam, but was able to undertake some ofhis best fieldwol k among such groups as the Chenchus, Reddis and Raj Gonds. Many of the tribalpopulations that Ilaimendorf rcsearetwd at this time were little known and poorly described, and theChenchu gathCi hunters provided him with a point of contrast and comparison to the splendidly decoratedNagas. In his flillrth year of Slay in Ilyderabad, he was offered curiously the post of Special Officer andAssistant Political Officer to the North East Frontier Agency, and was thereby permitted to do fieldworkamong the remote and war-like Apa Tanis of the Arunachal Pradesh area of Assam. Although the scope ofhis official pOSition IVas to monitor the security threat posed by the partial occupation of neighboringBurma by J;;pan, the posting really afforded HairnencIorf the opportunity to conduct in-depth fieldwork fortwo years, 1944 and 1945.At the end of the war, Haimenclorf was appointed to the position of Advisor for Tribes and BackwardClasses to the NiLam's Government of Hyderabad to deal with the complicated issue of land reform. In thecourse of his "york, he set up various educational and other schemes for tribal peoples, all with the aim ofpreserving and safe-guarding indigenous cultures and languages. He also accepted a teaching appointment atOsmania University which he later relinquished, after 10 years in India, to accept a lectureship at the Schoolof Oriental and African Studies in 1949. Within months of his initial appointment he was made Reader andin 1951, Chair of Asian Anthropology. During his 25 years as Professor, until his retirement in 1976,Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf saw the department through a period of exceptional growth. He alwaysencouraged his staff and students to conduct fieldwork as frequently and intensively as possible.In 1953, on a trip to the Gonds of Anelra Pradesh, the Kingdom of Nepal was officially opened tooutsiders and Professor Haimendorf took the opportunity to visit the country and thereby added a third areaof expertise (to Assam and Hyderabad). In each area he studied the languages and culture of between threeand six societies. He published ten ethnographic monographs based on his fieldwork, including TheChench/ls (1943), The Reddis of the Bison Hills (I (45), The Rilj GUilds of Adilibad (l94R), The Sherpas ofNepil/ (1964) and the KOI1Wlk NagaI' (1969). He also published several other volumes of essays andtheoretical works, including Morals alld Merit (1967) and The Tribes of india: Struggle for Survival (1982),which drew heavily on his fieldwork.Professor Haimendorf was the first foreign anthropologist allowed to work in Nepal. He was drawn tothe Sherpas of Eastern Nepal, partly due to their reputation in the scaling of Everest, but more so becauseof the stark contrast they provided in terms of religion and culture to the populations of tropical India withwhom he had previously lived. Until the mid 1960s, Haimendorf concentrated almost exclusively onNepal, during which time he walked the length and breadth of the country, often in the company of DorBahadur Bista, noting down what he saw and encouraging his students to return to these areas for moredetailed study.Haimendorfs puhlished v,'ork is only the surface of his achievement. As well as his meticulous anddetailed field-notes and diaries, he was one of the few anthropologists of the great inter-war generation inBritain to realize the importance of visual documentation. His collection 01 ,lack-and-white photographsextends to over 10,000 images, capturing memorably many aspect,; of tribal culture. They wereaccompanied hy an equal number of color slides, documenting worlds \\'hich have since changed beyondrecognition. lie was also one of the most prolific of British ethnographic film-makers, starting to film inthe 1940s and shooting over 100 hours of 16mm. film. A numher of his films were used for BBCtelevision documentaries, such as The Land of The Gurkhas (1957) and The Land of Dolpo (1962). Hemade many hundreds of hours of tape recordings to accompany the films. He also provided extensivecollections of artifacts to the anthropology museums in Vienna, Cambridge and elsewhere.A number of factors help to explain his ability as an ethnographer. There was his curiosity; he wasclearly interested in people, in exploring, in wanting to know and understand and then to move on to a newencounter. There was his aesthetic ability and appreciation of beauty, which lay behind his photographyand his delight in the graceful peoples with whom he worked. There was his photographic memorycombined with self-discipline, which fill his notebooks and diaries with thousands of pages of vivid andinsightful comment. There was his obvious sympathy for tribal peoples and their increasingly difficultposition. There was his linguistic tlair and his intelligence.Haimendorf received numerous academic honors. As well as the Sykes and Roy Medals, he was awardedthe RAI Rivers Memorial MeJal in 1949, and was President of the Royal Anthropological Institute from1975 to 1977. He was especially pleased to be awarded the King Birendra Prize by the Royal NepalAcademy in 1976 anJ the Austrian Order of Merit for Art and Science in 1982. However, the mostimmediate prizes in academic life go to those who engage in abstract theory. While he put forward someexciting ideas, particularly on morality and religion in his Frazer Lecture on "The After Life in IndianTribal Religions" anJ his Henry Myers Lecture on "The Sense of Sin in Cross-Cultural Perspective," hismain interest was in understanding and describing how societies work. Good fieldwork and writingethnographic texts require a special form of intelligence which he showed in large measure, as well as agenuine skill which is different from comparative theoretical work, but equally difficult. Haimendorf s greatability to make friends and to manage human relationships, especially in difficult situations, won him thetrust of both Europeans and his many non-European co-workers and colleagues. In all this he dependedheavily on his wife Betty Barnado, whom he married in 1938. She was a co-worker, organizer of hisexpeJitions, inspiration, anJ herself a notable ethnographer. His own autobiography was a tribute to her,published in 1989 in his 80th year, with long excerpts from her diaries and a moving account of her death.Haimendorfs four thousand pages of published ethnography, the unpublished notes and diaries, thephotographs and films provide invaluable insights into a number of tribal worlds. He had the sense, energyand ahility to record for posterity a little of what is now lost. When many smaller peaks have faded fromview, his work and life will stand out as one of the major ethnographic contributions of all time.As a person, Christoph von Ftirer-Haimendorf was courteous, genial, charming and extremelypersonable, with a wide circle of friends. After anthropology, his second love was the classical music of hisnative Austria, which helped to give him solace in old age though he was never reconciled to modern stylesof opera proJuction.Most of his colleagues were unaware that he was a committed Catholic who went to Mass every Sundaywhen in London. After Betty's death in 1987, he suffered a slow and distressing decline. His Requiem Massat the Cannelite Church in South Kensington on June 23rd of last year included an address by his successorat the School of Oriental and African Studies, Professor Adrian Mayer, a translation of the song "Happy WeAre" written by Gond villagers about the return of the Haimendorfs and read by his grandson Max, andsuperb choral renderings of Bach and Mozart.Himalayan Research Bulletin thanks Mark Turin for sharing this memorial piece with our readers; an earlierversion was published in the Bulletin of The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London,Vol. Lix, Part 3, 1996.

http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1549&context=himalaya

In Memory of Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Name not available

DigitalCommons@Macalester College