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German Names in the Kilimanjaro Region

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Mapping Empires: Colonial Cartographies of Land and Sea

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography ((ICA))

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Abstract

When the colonial powers finally divided up East Africa, in 1885 the Kilimanjaro volcano massif fell to the German Empire. At the time, the assault on the summit of Kilimanjaro was regarded as an important national task and tackled as a scientific research project. For various reasons, its first climber Hans Meyer had given numerous names to landscape elements in the higher uncultivated and uninhabited summit region. These names became part of the international nomenclature. In addition to descriptive toponyms, there are mainly names of individuals with added generic terms on his maps. Subsequent explorers have continued to apply the practices introduced by Meyer for naming prominent landscape elements. The designations have been included on official topographic maps as well as on current trekking maps.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ‘The deduction of the mountain’s name Kilimanjaro would be made from Kilima da Aro, i.e. mountain of greatness or great mountain’ (translated by the author).

  2. 2.

    For the German version see Krapf (1858, 2: 73), where he explains his addition in a footnote: ‘“Berg der Karawane” (Kilima = Berg, Dscharo Karawane)’.

  3. 3.

    ‘verbal images in adequate map elements’ (translated by the author).

  4. 4.

    Hans Meyer (1858–1929) was a member and at times director of the publishing house Meyer in Leipzig, the family wealth permitted the financing of his expeditions.

  5. 5.

    Further information on the history of mapping the Kililmanjaro s. Brunner (1989, 2004), Demhardt (2000), Pillewizer (1941), Sriguey and Cullen (2014) and Uhlig (1909). General information on colonial cartography s. a. Crom (2003), Demhardt (2006), Eckert (1924), Finsterwalder and Hueber (1943), Hafeneder (2008), Obst (1921) and Sprigade and Moisel (1914).

  6. 6.

    Compilations of first ascents and pioneers at Kilimanjaro s. Meyer (1891: 6–20) and http://kilimanjaro.bplaced.net/wiki/index.php?title=Erste_Besteigungen. Accessed 27 November 2018.

  7. 7.

    Map without scale. Supplement to: Meyer (1887) Vorläufiger Bericht über meine Besteigung des Kilimandscharo, Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 33: 376–378).

  8. 8.

    Shortly after the German edition Meyer also published an English edition of this expedition which is the basis of the following examination (Meyer 1891).

  9. 9.

    A Map of Kilimanjaro. 1:250.000. In: Meyer, Hans: Across East African Glaciers, 1891. Originally published as: Originalkarte des Kilima-Ndscharo 1:250.000. In: Meyer, Hans: Ostafrikanische Gletscherfahrten, 1890. https://archive.org/details/acrosseastafrica00meye/page/n501. Accessed 27 November 2018.

  10. 10.

    A Map of the Upper Kilimanjaro. 1:85.000. In: Meyer, Hans: Across East African Glaciers, 1891. Originally published as: Spezialkarte des oberen Kilimandscharo. 1:85.000. In: Meyer, Hans: Ostafrikanische Gletscherfahrten. 1890. https://archive.org/details/acrosseastafrica00meye/page/n175. Accessed 27 November 2018.

  11. 11.

    Instead of Schira, the government used the landscape names of Kibonoto or Kibongoto of the Swahili people (Meyer 1900: 186).

  12. 12.

    Cf. Heymons (1891) (after Höhnel/Meyer), Hassenstein (1893) (after Meyer/Höhnel/Baumann) and Baumann (1894) (after Fischer/Spring/Werther).

  13. 13.

    Erich von Drygalski (1865–1949); Hermann Credner (1841–1913); Albrecht Penck (1858–1945).

  14. 14.

    For translations of the generic names see the list at the end.

  15. 15.

    On the special map of 1890, this gully is still called Westspalte (Western Branch).

  16. 16.

    Jaeger (1909: 129) speaks out in favour of the term Breschengletscher.

  17. 17.

    Johann Rebmann (1820–1876) ‘Discoverer’ of Kilimanjaro; Carl Claus von der Decken (1833–1865) explorer; Otto Kersten (1839–1900), geographer; Albert Heim (1847–1939) geologist, glaciologist.

  18. 18.

    Hauptmann (captain) Kurt Johannes (1864–1913) climbed Kilimanjaro in 1898 to Kibo’s rim. He made his own mapping surveys available to Hans Meyer.

  19. 19.

    Ernst Platz (1867–1940).

  20. 20.

    Bruno Hassenstein (1839–1902). When talking about Ravenstein a whole dynasty of cartographers has to be mentioned: Friedrich August (1809–1881), Ernst-Georg (1834–1913), Ludwig (1838–1915), Simon (1844–1932), Hans (1866–1936), probably referred to is Ernst-Georg. The observations of Geierraben, White-necked raven (Corvus albicollis), may have been decisive for this naming, which inspired the word game.

  21. 21.

    Carl Lent (1867–1894).

  22. 22.

    Hermann von Wissmann (1853–1905) Africa explorer, Reich Commissioner and Governor of German East Africa; Eduard von Liebert (1850–1934) Governor of German East Africa; Johan Ludwig Krapf (1810–1881) missionary and philologist; Georg Volkens (1855–1917) geobotanist; Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) Reich Chancellor; supposedly Helmuth von Moltke (1800–1891) General Field Marshal, Chief of the Prussian General Staff.

  23. 23.

    ‘Jedenfalls erscheinen mir diese Ausblicke weitreichend genug, um die Entdeckung der einstigen großen Kibovergletscherung für das wichtigste Ergebnis meiner diesjährigen Expedition zu halten’ (Meyer 1900: 227). ‘In any case these views seem to be far-reaching enough, in order to convince me that the discovery of the former large glaciation of Kibo is the most important event of my expedition in this year’ (translated by the author).

  24. 24.

    For example, Heymons (1891 First naming), Höhnel (1892) and Hassenstein (1893), the endonym names e.g. Sprigade and Moisel (1910: 18).

  25. 25.

    Officially the name exists until the Independence of Tansania in 1961. In this connection a new name is given as late as 1963, since then the toponym is, strange in a linguistic sense, as it is a mixture of an endonym and an English generic term: Uhuru-Peak (Freedom Peak).

  26. 26.

    Kaiser-Wilhelm-Spitze (Kaiser Wilhelm’s Peak), Ratzel-Gletscher (Ratzel Glacier), Credner-Gletscher (Credner Glacier), Hans-Meyer-Scharte (Hans Meyer Notch).

  27. 27.

    D.O.S. 422 East Africa 1:50.000 (Tanganyika); Series Y 742. Flyings occured in the 1950s and 1960s, the map sheets were published since 1963.

  28. 28.

    As map supplement in Klute (1920) and also in Klute (1921).

  29. 29.

    The Arrow Glacier is a remnant of the Kleine Barranco-Glacier, whereas Diamond- and Balletto-Glacier are above Heim-Glacier near Breschenwand (Cullen et al 2013: 424 ff.).

  30. 30.

    On his ascent in 1926 he discovered the frozen cadaver of a leopard. In 1936 Ernest Hemingway used this motif in his short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Hemingway 2004).

  31. 31.

    For caves, which served as his expedition camps and where he discovered traces of a temporary use by indigenous hunters, he used endonym names of his carriers or named them after local chiefs.

  32. 32.

    See: Loch (2007), Greulich (2008), Wirth (2011) and Szyczak (2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Wolfgang Crom

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  1. Wolfgang Crom
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Correspondence to Wolfgang Crom .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Human and Life Sciences, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, Kent, UK

    Alexander James Kent

  2. Department of Art Sciences and Archaeology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Soetkin Vervust

  3. Department of History, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA

    Imre Josef Demhardt

  4. Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK

    Nick Millea

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Crom, W. (2020). German Names in the Kilimanjaro Region. In: Kent, A., Vervust, S., Demhardt, I., Millea, N. (eds) Mapping Empires: Colonial Cartographies of Land and Sea. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23447-8_13

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