Wanda Hanke’s Ethnological Collections in South American Museums

In 1934, the Austrian ethnologist Wanda Hanke (1893-1958) came to South America for the first time. She had a plan to develop studies on indigenous groups and was initially in Argentina, where she met the Cainguá. A few years later she came to the southern region of Brazil where she wrote studies on the Kaingang. Hanke continued engaged in these trips for over 20 years and gathered objects from different ethnic groups. She sent part of these collections to European museums and part remained in South America.

In this presentation, Sombrio will address the collections kept in three museums: Museum of Paraná (Museu Paranaense, Brazil), Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (MAE-USP, São Paulo-Brazil), and Archaeological Museum of Cochabamba (Museo Arqueológico de Cochabamba, Bolivia), approaching the history of these collections from records left by Wanda Hanke and museum data.

Mariana Sombrio is a historian (State University of Campinas, 2004), PhD in Science and Technology Policy (State University of Campinas, 2014), and currently a Professor at the Federal University of ABC (São Paulo-Brazil). Also took a Postdoctoral in Museology (2015-2019) at the University of São Paulo. Trained as a historian of science, my research focuses on the social history of sciences in Brazil, gender and science studies, and museology.