Karl Weule (29 February 1864, in Alt-Wallmoden – 19 April 1926, in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

) was a German

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

ethnologist Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...

and museum director.

Biography

Weule studied history, geography and

German philology German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, German hi ...

at the universities of

and

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

. In 1891, he moved to Berlin, where he served as assistant geographer to Ferdinand von Richthofen, followed by work as assistant to

Adolf Bastian Adolf Philipp Wilhelm Bastian (26 June 18262 February 1905) was a 19th-century polymath best remembered for his contributions to the development of ethnography and the development of anthropology as a discipline. Modern psychology owes him a great ...

at the

Ethnological Museum of Berlin The Ethnological Museum of Berlin (german: Ethnologisches Museum Berlin) is one of the Berlin State Museums (german: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), the de facto national collection of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is presently located in ...

. In 1899, he was appointed assistant director at the

Leipzig Museum of Ethnography The Leipzig Museum of Ethnography (german: Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig) is a large ethnographic museum in Leipzig, Germany, also known as the Grassi Museum of Ethnology. Today it is part of the Grassi Museum, an institution which also in ...

(Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig).SP Karl Weule - Interviews with German Anthropologists
(biographical information) In 1906, he traveled to

German East Africa German East Africa (GEA; german: Deutsch-Ostafrika) was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozam ...

, where he made use of photography,

cinematography Cinematography (from ancient Greek κίνημα, ''kìnema'' "movement" and γράφειν, ''gràphein'' "to write") is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography. Cinematographers use a lens to focu ...

and the

phonograph A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

for his ethnological research. In 1907, he returned to Germany and was appointed director of the Leipzig museum. The report about his travels and research was published in German in 1908 and the following year in English as ''Native life in East Africa; the results of an ethnological research expedition''. In 1914, he was named head of the ethnographic department and the anthropological research center at the University of Leipzig. In 1920, he became full professor, and in 1923/24, he became Dean of the Department of

Philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...

and History at the Faculty of Philosophy in Leipzig. GrabstätteKarlWeule

Publications

* ''Der afrikanische Pfeil : eine anthropogeographische Studie'', 1899 – The African arrow: an anthropogeographical study. * ''Negerleben in Ostafrika. Ergebnisse einer ethnologischen Forschungsreise'', 1908; Translated into English by Alice Werner as: "''Native life in East Africa; the results of an ethnological research expedition''" (1909). * ''Die Kultur der Kulturlosen; ein Blick in die Anfänge menschlicher Geistesbetätigung'', 1910 – The culture of the uncultured; A look at the beginnings of human mental activity. * ''Leitfaden der Völkerkunde'', 1912 – Guide to ethnology. * ''Kulturelemente der Menschheit, Anfänge und Urformen der materiellen Kultur'', 1910 – Cultural elements of humanity, beginnings and original forms of material culture. * ''Die Urgesellschaft und ihre Lebensfürsorge'', 1912 – The primitive society and its life maintenance. * ''Vom Kerbstock zum Alphabet; Urformen der Schrift'', 1915 – From the notched stick to the

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...

; Original forms of writing. * ''Der Krieg in den Tiefen der Menschheit'', 1916 – The war in the depths of humanity. * ''Die Anfänge der Naturbeherrschung'', 1921 – The beginnings involving the mastery of nature. * ''Chemische Technologie der Naturvölker'', 1922 – Chemical technology of primitive peoples.HathiTrust Digital Library
(published works)

Biography

Publications

References

Further reading