Early life Christian Theodor Koch was born in Grünberg. Following his studying
humanities at the
University of Tübingen. He then taught at schools in the state of Hessen. In 1896, he travelled to Brazil for the first time as a volunteer member of an expedition led by Hermann Meyer in search of the source of the
Xingu River, a tributary of the
Amazon River. In 1901 he resigned from school teaching and became a research assistant at the Royal Museum of Ethnology in Berlin under
Karl von den Steinen (1855-1929). He then obtained a doctorate in philosophy at
Würzburg with a thesis on the
Guaicuruan languages.
First expedition From 1903–1905, Koch explored the
Yapura River and the
Rio Negro up to the border of
Venezuela. In 1906, he published photogravures of a number of natives he encountered on the expedition in his monumental "Indianertypen aus dem Amazonasgebiet nach eigenen Aufnahmen während seiner Reise in Brasilien" (1906). After his travels he added the name of his birthplace to his name. A written account of Koch-Grünberg's trip, which included his study of the
Baniwa, was published in two volumes in 1910-11 under the title of
Zwei Jahre Unter Den Indianern. Reisen in Nord West Brasilien, 1903-1905 (
Two Years Among the Indians. Travels in North-West Brazil). He illustrated his account with photographs and his descriptions of Brazilian tribes are still used by anthropologists and ethnologists to this day.
Second expedition and later career Koch-Grünberg's second major expedition started in 1911. It took him from
Manaus, up the
Rio Branco to
Mount Roraima in
Venezuela, where he documented the myths and legends of the
Pemon and took many photographs. He incorrectly used the local names Arekuna and Taulipang to describe the indigenous groups he studied, but these are local names for the
Pemon. He then explored the
Sierra Parima, the
Caura River and the
Ventuari River, before reaching the
Orinoco River on January 1, 1913. After spending a short time in
San Fernando de Atabapo, at that time the capital of
Amazonas Federal Territory, Koch-Grunberg continued his journey along the
Casiquiare canal, which links the
Orinoco River system with the Amazon, via the
Rio Negro. He then returned to Manaus, before returning to Germany to produce his most important work,
Vom Roraima Zum Orinoco (
From Roraima to the Orinoco), published in 1917.
Later career and death Koch-Grünberg does not, in his writing, often complain about privations regarding food and shelter. Based on his account
Two Years Among the Indians... he appeared not to have taken precautions against
malaria, but in
From Roraima to the Orinoco (page 88, German edition), he describes how he protected himself with
quinine, following a German tropical medicine handbook for non-doctors (A. Plehn:
Kurzgefasste Vorschriften zur Verhütung und Behandlung der wichtigsten tropischen Krankheiten bei Europäern und Eingeborenen für Nichtärzte). He was the director of
Berlin's Ethnographic Museum, where many of the items he collected on his travels are stored. Koch-Grünberg died suddenly in Brazil in 1924 after contracting malaria on an expedition with the American explorer, geographer and physician
Alexander H. Rice Jr., and the Portuguese-Brazilian cinematographer
Silvino Santos to map the upper reaches of the Rio Branco. The film of the expedition was entitled
No Rastro Do Eldorado. ==References==