Karl von den Steinen

Karl von den Steinen (1855 to 1929) was a German physician, ethnologist, explorer and author who laid the permanent foundations for Brazilian ethnology. Trained in medicine with an emphasis on psychiatry, he first travelled around the world, then took part in the first German International Polar Year expedition to South Georgia. In 1884 and again in 1887 to 1888 he led expeditions into the Xingu River region of central Brazil, where he studied the cultures and the Bakairi language of the Indian peoples there, publishing Durch Central-Brasilien and Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens. An expedition to the Marquesas Islands in 1897 and 1898 led to his three-volume study Die Marquesaner und ihre Kunst, which covers Marquesan tattooing, plastic art and material culture.