Weule, Karl (1864-1926)*

Karl Weule in Tanganyika, German East Africa (Tanzania) in 1906.

Karl Weule was a German geographer and ethnologist. Having studied at Leipzig and Göttingen Universities, he became an assistant to Adolf Bastian at the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin. In 1899, he was appointed the assistant director of the Museum für Völkerkunde in Leipzig (today part of the Grassi Museum complex), and in 1907, he became its director.

The year before, in 1906, Weule went on a research expedition to Lindi in what is today southern Tanzania, during which he shot 38 short films and made phonograph sound recordings. In making these films, he concentrated particularly on dances, performed for the camera at his request.

However, Weule had had no prior training, nor any previous experience, and from the description of his film work provided by Wolfgang Luhrmann, it is clear that the technical quality of his film-making was very limited.

TextFuhrmann 2015, pp. 133-148.

© 2018 Paul Henley