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Horns, antlers, skins: colonial hunting trophies as symbols of injustice?
Image: Hans Paasche"Corporal Lauer looks at the horns of my buffalo shot at Rufiyi." Photograph by Hans Paasche, around 1905, from Hans Paasche: Im Morgenlicht. War, hunting and travel experiences in East Africa, Berlin 1907, p. 197.
Image: Lukas JankHunting trophies from the colonial era: holdings of the Ethnological Museum Witzenhausen, photographed as part of the predecessor project "What remains are wood and bones" in 2022.
Over the next two years, the research team will be examining collections and estates of various hunters from the colonial era. In doing so, they will address a variety of questions: Where was hunting carried out and under what circumstances? Who did what work, i.e. reading tracks, shooting or preparing game? Was this work remunerated? "Hunting in the German colonies was associated with the exploitation of resources - of nature, people and land - and served, among other things, to seize colonial land," explains project team member Linda-Josephine Knop. "The trophies of this colonial hunt can bear various testimonies to this, but so far little research has been done into whether or to what extent they represent symbols of colonial injustice." This is where the researchers come in: They are looking at animal objects, i.e. animal remains such as antlers, horns or hides, in order to further examine German and European colonialism.
The project, which was launched in mid-June, also deals with the origin and - as part of the culture of remembrance - the handling of hunting trophies. "These animal objects can be found in a large number of museums in Germany, but are currently rarely exhibited. Their origins and how they ended up in the collections are rarely reflected upon," emphasizes project manager Dr. Marion Hulverscheidt. The researchers therefore also want to investigate how the animal remains were transported, how the objects came to the museums and how they have been exhibited to date.
Some regional cooperation partners have already been confirmed: the Ottoneum Natural History Museum in Kassel with the Rabe von Pappenheim Collection, the Archive of the German Youth Movement at Ludwigstein Castle with the estate of Hans Paasche, the State Museum of Hanover with the Gustav Cohrs Collection and the Hesse Museum Association. The researchers are also cooperating with decision-makers in possible societies of origin of the trophies - fahari yetu in Iringa, Tanzania, Yimtubezina Museum and Cultural Center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Namibia Nature Foundation and Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
Part of the project will also be to formulate recommendations for the handling of animal objects. The researchers will develop corresponding guidelines in consultation with the interest groups from the communities of origin and German museums.
The project with the full title "Between Perplexity, Triumph and Shame: Provenances and Trajectories of Trophies of Colonial Hunting in German Museums" is located at the Department of Modern and New History, under Prof. Dr. Hubertus Büschel. The project is funded by the German Lost Art Foundation and the Museums Association of Hesse. More information on the research project can be found on the website and in the blog.
In the course of the project, a public conference and probably also public lectures on the topic are planned. The first event will be a reading by the author Gaea Schoeters from her novel "Trophäe": This will take place on 13.03.2025 at 7 pm in the UNI:Lokal at Wilhelmsstraße 21.
Background
The project that has now been launched builds on the department's previous project "What remains is wood and bones" in cooperation with the German Institute of Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture (DITSL) in Witzenhausen. In the first project, the research team examined collections from the Ethnological Museum in Witzenhausen. You can find an article on this previous project here: https://www.uni-kassel.de/uni/aktuelles/meldung/2022/03/01/Krokodile-im-Keller
Information on the 3D digitization of the Witzenhausen holdings from the first round of the project under the leadership of the Kassel University Library can be found here: https://www.uni-kassel.de/ub/ueber-uns/projekte/hokbit-von-holz-und-knochen-zu-bits-and-bytes
Contact:
Dr. med. Marion Hulverscheidt
Project Leader
Department of Modern and New History
E-mail: hulverscheidt[at]uni-kassel[dot]de
Linda-Josephine Knop
Research assistant
Department of Modern and New History
E-mail: knop[at]uni-kassel[dot]de