Early German Legal Anthropology: Albert Hermann Post and His Questionnaire

Abstract

AbstractAlbert Hermann Post (1839–95) is an almost forgotten figure in the history of legal anthropology, yet he was the first anthropologist to propose the study of the legal relations of indigenous peoples. His questionnaire is presented here in English for the first time. It was distributed in the 1890s and the answers, from Cameroon, Mali, Western Sudan, Uganda, German East Africa, German South West Africa, Madagascar, and the Solomon and Marshall Islands, were published by Steinmetz in 1903, after Post's death. The questionnaire gives an insight into the state of German anthropology at the time and, however naïve the method, the answers provide in many cases the only written evidence for the period on the societies studied. This article also considers Hildebrandt's reassessment of Post and gives an account of the circumstances leading up to the distribution of Josef Kohler's later questionnaire.