IX — Foelsche, The Anthropologist Paul Foelsche arrived in Port
Darwin just as the study of other peoples and cultures was being
recognised as a new field of Western science, 'Anthropology'.
Foelsche contributed to this study, by recording vocabularies
and making observations on the culture of the Larrakia, Woolna
and Iwaidja peoples. His portrait photographs became a crucial
element in this anthropological record. Foelsche's first
anthropological records were his 1874 photographs of Larrakia
camps. His portrait photography was initially made with a
measuring scale, but his participation in the photography
sections of International Exhibitions gave his photographs a
broader appeal. He began carefully recording the names of his
sitters, and their personal details. This was quite unusual for
nineteenth-century anthropology. During 1880 Foelsche responded
to E.M. Curr's Australia-wide survey, supplying descriptions of
the Larrakia and the Unalla (Iwaidja) peoples, together with
samples of their vocabularies. Enc