Egon von Eickstedt was a German physical anthropologist who conducted expeditions to India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and Burma in the 1920s, specifically between 1926 and 1929. During this time, he took approximately 12,000 photographic images and collected 2,000 objects, focusing on Adivasi (indigenous) communities. His work in India included studies in South India, and specifically Kerala, where he documented and photographed indigenous people, including Dalit communities. He was particularly interested in what he termed “primitive peoples” and their cultural practices.
Eickstedt’s research was driven by his theories on racial classification, and he aimed to validate his anthropological theories through measuring and photographing India’s indigenous population. He later published his findings in works such as “Rassenkunde und Rassengeschichte der Menschheit” (Ethnology and the Race History of Mankind), where he classified human populations into various “races” and types. His photographs and collected artifacts were intended to support his “racial history of mankind” theories.
It is important to note that Eickstedt’s anthropological work is viewed through the lens of racial anthropology prevalent in his time, and he later became a leading racial theorist in Nazi Germany. His photographic collection, while extensive, is embedded in a colonial and racial context, reflecting asymmetric power relations between the anthropologist and the subjects.
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