Back to the Future of Humboldtian Museums 1

• Published in: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 2023-07, Vol.148 (2), p.323-326
• Main Authors: Penny, H Glenn, Schorch, Philipp
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: American Indians; Anthropology; Archives & records; Collaboration; Cultural groups; Cultural heritage; Debates; Ethnography; Founding; Indigenous peoples; Interconnections; Knowledge; Museums
• ISSN: 0044-2666

On Sep 2, 2018, the importance of collections originating from present-day Brazil and currently housed in European museums dramatically increased when the Brazilian National Museum in Rio de Janeiro went up in flames. Most of the twenty million items were destroyed. Many, stemming from South American Indigenous societies, which had accumulated in the museum since its founding in 1818, were lost forever. The information that anthropologists (ethnologists) and other scholars had collected about and with these groups were, in many cases, unique records of societies that have been subjected for centuries, and in some cases until today, to unspeakable violence and devastation. The destruction of the world's largest archive of Brazil's Indigenous cultures and histories was not only a devastating blow to the Indigenous groups who had been using these materials to obtain information about their ancestors and revitalize their cultures: it was also a tremendous loss for the world and what is often called 'world cultural heritage.' As a result of this calamity, it has not only become more difficult to preserve and understand these groups' histories and cultural practices, but a critical means of reconstructing the history of many Brazilian and global interconnections was also lost.