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Contents

Foreword

TIBOR CZAKÓ - JÓZSEF HÁLA: Biography and geological work of Horst von Bandat
HORST VON BANDAT: Recollections of my New Guinea trip
JUDIT ANTONI: Horst von Bandat's collection from Western New Guinea in the Ethnographical Museum, Budapest

List of figures
Figures

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Foreword

The fourth volume in our series is published jointly by the Ethnographical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Hungarian Geological Survey. The cooperation is justified by the somewhat exceptional nature of the subject: in this issue we are publishing the memoirs of travel in West New Guinea in 1936-38 and the ethnographical collection of the geologist Horst von Bandat who, despite his German name, was Hungarian-born.

As the father of photogeology, von Bandat's name is known among petroleum geologists rather than among anthropologists. Nevertheless, his name means a great deal to those acquainted with the Oceanian collections of the Ethnographical Museum, Budapest: he has earned a place in the history of the museum as the sole donor of a South-west New Guinea collection. Although this collection may not be very large, it is of special interest because of the early date of the collection and the exceptional value of a few of the items. Strangely enough, the circumstances under which it came into being and, in general, von Bandat's travel and activity in West New Guinea remained obscure right up to the present. It was a source of great pleasure for us when József Hála approached us on behalf of the board of trustees of the Hungarian Geological Survey's "von Bandat Foundation" with the manuscript in the hope of a possible joint publication.

The date of origin of the manuscript has not been fully clarified. All we know is that it was written not long before von Bandat's death, that is, some 40 years after the expedition. However, this fact detracts nothing from its value. His description provides us with the first authentic and abundantly detailed eye-witness account of the BACOPA expedition which played an important role in both the history of the discovery and colonization of South-west New Guinea and in the history of petroleum and photogeology, of the circumstances of this expedition and its sporadic contacts with the local population. In this respect, von Bandat's description in many ways resembles the subject of the first volume in our series and - mutatis mutandis - can also be regarded as its continuation.

However, as editor of the OPA, it seemed to me at least as important to compare the von Bandat photographic material which has now come to light with the collection of objects preserved in the Ethnographical Museum, Budapest, and to publish them together since the manuscript and the description of the attached photographs not only throw light in general on the circumstances under which the objects were acquired but in a number of cases also produce data of source value on the individual objects. All this confirms the importance of publishing von Bandat's complete material - the manuscript, photographs and the collection of objects - together in a single volume.

Nevertheless, the manuscript - which was presented to the "Horst von Bandat Foundation" of the Hungarian Geological Survey by Mrs. Jessie von Bandat, von Bandat's widow, and which is preserved in the Survey's Archives - required a certain amount of editing. Although von Bandat's work was written in the 1980s, its style, attitude and knowledge of ethnography in many respects reflects and recalls the time of the expedition, the 1930s. Moreover, the publication of the full travel journal would have exceeded the frame of our series and also departs from it in character. As a result, to our deep regret, we have been forced to leave out the greater part of the manuscript which runs to several hundred pages: all those sections in which the author presents the geography and history, flora and fauna, etc. of the islands visited in the course of the boat trip from Makassar to Sorong. We have also left out the similar chapters on New Guinea, including, for example, an amateur survey of the ethnographic conditions in West New Guinea and reflections on the subject of cannibalism. These latter chapters are now obviously outdated. However, we have retained all the passages of source value dealing with the BACOPA expedition, the geological exploration and, in this connection, the exploration of the islands, including of their ethnography.

All this represents largely the last few chapters of the manuscript. The division of the chapters for the most part follows the manuscript. However, we have given the chapter titles as well as the title of von Bandat's travel report. (The author did not give his manuscript a title.) We have also preserved von Bandat's original text for the photographs (with occasional deletions). For the sake of the unity of the text, the place of the deletions has not been indicated.

We would like to take this opportunity to express our thanks to all the individuals and institutions who have contributed to the publication of this volume. Our special thanks are due to the Ethnographical Museum, Budapest, for the photographs of the objects and for authorizing their publication. The text was typed by Nóra Rozmaring, the word processing and preparation for printing was done by Ildikó Tiefenbachcr and the typographical design of the volume is the work of János Romvári, who also designed the cover, as he has done for the other volumes in the series. The printing films were produced by Éva Kelemen. In the absence of the (ethnographic) editor, Mihály Sárkány took over the task of editing and also gave the editor valuable friendly advice. We extend our sincere gratitude to all of them.

Gábor Vargyas
editor

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