FEATURE
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Nevertheless, the bulk of Thurnwald’s collection
today remains in the Ethnographic Museum of
Berlin. A more detailed account of the trajectories
of the Berlin feather mosaics is discussed
elsewhere (Boissonnas 2018).
Fedor Fiebig (fi g. 7), a machinist for the shipping
company Norddeutscher Lloyd, was hired
by the Kaiserin-Augusta-Fluss-Expedition in
1912 after their previous machinist died from
sun stroke (The Geographical Journal 1913:
170). He was a constant companion to the expedition
members and spent much time with
Thurnwald witnessing the barter for artifacts on
a daily basis.
FIG. 6 (above left): The
men’s house of Kambot
village. On the right of the
back wall is the entrance
to the room where sacred
objects such as feather
mosaics were stored.
From Thurnwald 1917: 165, fi g. 17.
FIG. 7 (left): Fedor Fiebig
surrounded by men from
Tjamangai. Photograph by
Richard Thurnwald.
Thurnwald, R., 1917: 154, fi g. 3.
FIG. 8 (below left): Fr. Franz
Kirschbaum with three local
boys in front of the mission
station of Tumleo, the
fi rst SVD mission in New
Guinea, founded in 1869.
Photo Archive, SVD General Archive,
Rome.
After the internment of Thurnwald in 1915,
Fiebig slipped away and set up camp in Angoram
village (Schindlbeck 2012: 112). From there
he started to collect artifacts that he sold to collectors
in Dutch New Guinea, where he resided
after the war until his premature death in 1922.
Four feather mosaics collected by him found
their way to the Museon of Den Haag and another
ten to the British Museum.
In 1913 and 1914, the Swedish diplomat Karl
Birger Mörner (1867–1930) sojourned on the
Sepik and collected two feather mosaics that he
later donated to the Världskulturmuseerna in