Early Modern Low Countries | |
Repackaging East Indies Natural History in François Valentyn’s Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën | |
Siegfried Huigen1  | |
[1] Wrocław University; | |
关键词: François Valentyn; natural history; colonialism; indigenous knowledge; amateurs; compilation; | |
DOI : | |
来源: DOAJ |
【 摘 要 】
More than five hundred folio pages of François Valentyn’s multivolume description of the trading empire of the Dutch East India Company, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën (Old and New East Indies, 1724-1726, five thousand pages in toto), are devoted to the natural history of Amboina. This essay contends that Valentyn’s nature description is not the work of a field naturalist, but rather of a scholar ordering and repackaging existing information, which was already available in a different textual format and in drawings. While the focus of this essay is on Valentyn’s compilation strategy, which targeted a non-expert readership of ‘liefhebbers’, the role of indigenous knowledge in his nature description is also discussed, arguing that it was generally subordinated to a European perspective in Valentyn’s book.
【 授权许可】
Unknown