Vol. 6 No. S3 (2022): Di Pedalaman Sulawesi

Walter Kaudern (1881-1942) was a Swedish Zoologist and Ethnographer who made a research trip to North and Central Sulawesi between 1917 and 1921. The trip began with a focus on Zoological questions largely pursued in North Sulawesi, but quickly shifted to ethnographic concerns in Central Sulawesi. Here, he worked for extensive periods in Kulawi, and Loinang, with comparative side excursions in Pipikoro, Bada' and Ondae, collecting an extensive 3000 artifact collection which now resides in the Swedish Museum of World Culture (Gothenburg). He published the results of his fieldwork in English in an extensive 6 volume "Kajian Ethnografi di Sulawesi: Hasil Ekspedisi Penulis ke Sulawesi 1917-1920 (1925-45), several volumes of which have already been translated in LOBO.

Di Pedalaman Sulawesi, however, is an initial survey work published in Swedish and thus largely inaccessible. The importance of this work is not its reports of zoological and ethnographic findings which are reported at length elsewhere, but its intimate personal reflections on his research and methods, and in particular, his interactions with the Dutch colonial government, the Salvation Army Missionaries, and especially the inhabitants of Central Sulawesi. It is not a flattering self-portrait.

This work will be published in three volumes, and contains extensive links to the collection of photographs available from the Museum of World Culture.

Readers are warned that this work contains racist language.