Contemporary Witnesses to Cultural Contact: New research and interpretive approaches to the material heritage of the indigenous people of the Amazon (Upper Rio Negro)
Freie Universität Berlin, Universität Bonn und Philipps Universität Marburg
Volkswagen Stiftung
Between 1903 and 1905, the German ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grünberg made a journey along the Upper Río Negro between Brazil and Colombia. The collection of 1,298 "objects" that he acquired, among others, in in communities of the Kotiria and Wira poná for the Ethnological Museum Berlin, formed the starting point to initiate a dialogue between indigenous experts of the original societies as well as scientists from Germany and South America within the framework of the project "Objetos como testigos del contacto cultural - perspectivas interculturales de la historia y del presente de la poblaciónes indígenas del Alto Río Negro (Brasil/Colombia)". It will focus on the history and current significance of this collection as well as on the history and present of intercultural contact and living conditions in the Upper Río Negro.