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of the Histories of Anthropology

Erhard Eylmann (1860-1926) was a German ethnologist who carried out fieldwork in Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A qualified medical doctor, Eylmann had no formal qualifications in ethnology, but after the death of his first wife devoted himself to the study of the discipline and developed a particular interest in Australia. On three separate visits he travelled extensively in Central Australia, from the far south to the far north, collecting artefacts and making detailed observations of the indigenous inhabitants, their material culture and their beliefs. The major outcome of his Australian fieldwork was his 1908 book Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien (The natives of the colony of South Australia).

Keywords: Amateur ethnographer | Ethnography | Christian missions | Missionary | Doctor | Second half of the 19th century | First quarter of the 20th century | Australia | Australian studies | Australian languages | Religion | Material culture | Belief | Cosmologies

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