Description

Carl Sofus Lumholtz (1851-1922) was a Norwegian discoverer and ethnographer, best known for his meticulous field research and ethnographic publications on the indigenous cultures of Australia and Mesoamerican, central Mexico. Born in Faberg, Norway, he graduated in theology in 1876 from the University of Christiania, now the University of Oslo. He travelled to Australia in 1880, where he spent ten months from 1882-1883 amongst the indigenous inhabitants of the Herbert-Burdekin region in North Queensland. The resultant book, Among Cannibals: An Account of Four Yearsâ€(TM) Travels in Australia and of Camp Life with the Aborigines of Queensland (1888), is regarded as the finest ethnographic research of the period for the northern Queensland Aborigines. He later travelled to Mexico, where he stayed for many years and conducted several expeditions from 1890 through to 1910. One result of these expeditions was a twovolume book called Unknown Mexico (1902). He then briefly explored India from 1914-1915, followed by Borneo from 1915-1917 which was to be his last expedition, resulting in the publication of Through Central Borneo (1920).