Gerd Koch was a German cultural anthropologist best known for his studies on the material culture of Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Santa Cruz Islands in the Pacific.
25 Facts About Gerd Koch
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Gerd Koch was associated with the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.
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Gerd Koch collaborated with Dieter Christensen, a music-ethnologist, on The Music of the Ellice Islands and Koch published the Songs of Tuvalu.
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Gerd Koch joined the German Navy in 1941 and was trained as a radio operator.
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Gerd Koch was accepted at Gottingen University in the winter term of 1945 where he studied ethnology.
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Gerd Koch was interested in the subject of acculturation, the process of cultural change that results following meeting between cultures.
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In 1951 Koch carried out field studies in Tonga and visited Samoa, Fiji and New Caledonia.
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Gerd Koch lectured at the Free University of Berlin.
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Gerd Koch returned to the Ellice Islands in 1964 then he carried out research in the Gilbert Islands.
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Gerd Koch received assisted from the Crown Prince who arranged for Koch to stay with relatives on Nomuka in the Ha'apai group of islands.
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Gerd Koch developed techniques in the recording of culture, including the use of tape-recorders and cinematographic cameras.
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The films that Gerd Koch completed were made available for public exhibition in 1954 by the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica in Gottingen, with the films now held by the German National Library of Science and Technology in Hanover.
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Gerd Koch visited the atolls of Nanumaga, Nukufetau and Niutao, which resulted in his publication of a book on the material culture of the Ellice Islands.
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Gerd Koch filmed men of Niutao engaged in mock battles in which traditional styles of combat and self-defence called failima were displayed.
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Gerd Koch made recordings of traditional songs on the islands of Niutao, Nanumaga and Nukufetau.
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Gerd Koch returned to the Ellice Islands, where he showed the films he made on his previous visit and made further film documentaries.
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Gerd Koch then carried out research continued on the Gilbert Islands, and in 1965 he published a book on the material culture of the Gilbert Islands.
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Gerd Koch then spent four months in the Solomon Islands, carrying out research at Graciosa Bay on Nendo Island in the Santa Cruz Islands and on Pileni and Fenualoa in the Reef Islands and returned with documentary film, photographic and audio material.
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In 1971 Gerd Koch published Die Materielle Kultur der Santa Cruz-Inseln.
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Gerd Koch did not collect artefacts that were of importance to the inhabitants.
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Gerd Koch was the co-publisher of the Baessler-Archiv Beitrage zur Volkerkunde Neue Folge, which published articles on social anthropology.
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Gerd Koch retired from the Museum in 1985, although he continued to lecture at the university until 1990.
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Gerd Koch returned to Tuvalu and Tonga in 1996, where he met islanders who were children when he visited in the 1960s.
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Gerd Koch brought his life to a self-determined end on 19 April 2005 off the coast of Newfoundland when travelling by boat to New York.
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Gerd Koch planned the permanent Pacific Exhibition at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin that opened in 1970 and which continued in the form he designed for over 30 years.