The Hamburg South Seas Expedition or the German South Seas Expedition (German: Ergebnisse der Südsee-Expedition) was an ethnographic expedition to

German New Guinea German New Guinea (german: Deutsch-Neu-Guinea) consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and several nearby island groups and was the first part of the German colonial empire. The mainland part of the territory, called , ...

, specifically the

Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the centra ...

and

Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Internati ...

. It was funded by the

Hamburg Scientific Foundation The Hamburg Scientific Foundation (german: Hamburgische Wissenschaftliche Stiftung) was founded in Hamburg in 1907 to support academic research and its dissemination in that city. Werner von Melle promoted the project from early 1907, raising 3.8 ...

. It lasted from 1908 to 1910. The professed goal of the expedition was "to observe and record the final phases of an old, indigenous culture as long as it still had vitality and still retained as many remnants as possible of the old times, which were little changed." The Melanesian wing was led by

Friedrich Fülleborn Friedrich Fülleborn (September 13, 1866 – September 9, 1933) was a physician who specialized in tropical medicine and parasitology. He was a native of Kulm, West Prussia, which today is known as Chełmno, Poland. He studied medicine and natura ...

, and the Micronesian wing by Augustin Krämer. Much of the collected artifacts are in the collections of the Museum am Rothenbaum. Ethnographic films made have preserved the dances of the Melanesia and Micronesian cultures/

References

Oceanian expeditions {{Oceania-stub