Carl Friedrich Phillip von Martius – författare

Beiträge zur Ethnographie (1867) is Carl von Martius' colourful and personal memoir of his travels to Brazil in the years 1817-1820. Although better known as a botanist, Martius here ventures into the territory of ethnographic and linguistic studies, writing about the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Brazil. Volume 2 is a dictionary of different dialects of the Tupi language as well as various other South American dialects, as encountered by Martius himself, with Portuguese and German equivalents. A dictionary of the Tupi language was first compiled by the Jesuits who wished to establish a common language for various groups of the native population. As a botanist Martius was particularly interested in collecting the names of various animals and plants, and these were included by him together with the names of the locations in which the Tupi Indians settled.