Walter Kaudern's geographical distribution of Babirusa, 1920

Abstract

This extract (pp. 5361) of a typed manuscript held at Göteborgs Naturhistoriska Museum (GNM Arkivnr 608) has been translated from German into English; editorial insertions to the text have been indicated by square brackets e.g. [Fig. 1]. The modernisation of village, island or species spelling occurs after the first correction, and these are also within square brackets. Where Kaudern had left gaps in the text, e.g. with respect to reference details, these have been retained as found. Where possible reference materials have been traced and these have been indicated by superscript numbers, and are listed sequentially at the end. Walter Kaudern was born near Stockholm on March 24, 1881, and obtained his PhD at Stockholm University in 1910 (Wassén 1942; Lindberg 2006). In December 1916, together with his wife, Teres, and their two young boys, Sven and Walter, he set off for North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Part of their aim was to carry out a zoogeographical study of the island, but increasingly he came to focus on anthropology. In March 1917 they established their first home base at Gurupahi in North Sulawesi. Their second home base was in Kulawi one year later. In January 1920 they sailed to the Banggai islands and then made their way by sea to Buton island. The family left Sulawesi in July 1920. Kaudern's studies enabled him to make contact with many hunters in villages on Sulawesi. Having his wife and young children with him perhaps enabled the family group to make very close contact with the people and the way that they lived on the islands. He travelled extensively, and published the results of his various studies (Kaudern 1921a; Kaudern 1921b; Kaudern 1925a; Kaudern 1925b; Kaudern 1927; Kaudern 1929; Kaudern 1938; Kaudern 1944).