anthropos 
101.2006: 3-7 
100 Years of Anthropos 
Anton Quack 
The first issue of Anthropos, a hefty 163 pages, 
appeared in the middle of February 1906. 1 From 
all sides it was very well received. First of all, 
as might be expected, it received good marks 
from those German religious orders and congrega 
tions who were directly or indirectly involved with 
mission work and their publications. Praise and 
approval also came from professional anthropolo 
gists. One of these was the French anthropologist, 
Arnold van Gennep, who wrote in his first review 
that he did not think anybody would suspect him 
of standing on the side of religious and missionar 
ies. He was well-known for being anticlerical and 
himself made no secret of the fact. Yet he hopes 
that Anthropos achieves what it promises. Indeed, 
he holds Anthropos up as a model for the various 
branches of anthropology to imitate and even, out 
of a sense of competition, to improve upon it as 
much as possible, all for the benefit of ethnography 
(van Gennep 1906; 317-319). 
A year later in a review of issues 2-4 of the 
first volume of Anthropos, van Gennep returns to 
his first judgement: “Les fascicules suivants de 
1 Anthropos ont tenu ce que promettait le premier 
• • • Il est certain, en tout cas, que les quatres 
fascicules parus placent dès à présent cette revue 
parmi les publications ethnographiques du premier 
rang” (van Gennep 1907; 186 f.). 2 
The first reviews praise the goal and intention of 
the new journal, which they welcome wholeheart 
edly, sometimes almost poetically, as in the case 
of Paul Staudinger in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 
a time-honored, already well-established journal. 
The same was true of Johannes Ranke’s review 
in Archiv für Anthropologie. Charlotte Burne was 
positive but somewhat more reserved in Folk- 
Lore as was Ferdinand Bork in the Orientalische 
Litteratur-Zeitung. It should come as no surprise 
that the Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Ge 
sellschaft in Wien enthusiastically welcomed the 
new work of their enterprising and highly es 
teemed (“rührigen” und “hochgeschätzten”) mem 
ber “Prof. P. W. Schmidt.” 3 * 
1 In a letter of February 11, 1906, W. Schmidt writes the 
following to Baron Georg von Hertling: “... because I 
wanted to send also the first issue of the ‘Anthropos’ 
immediately or shortly afterwards. The publication of it 
has taken longer than expected, but it should appear now 
on Tuesday or Wednesday” (cf. Rivinius 1981: 123). Baron 
Georg von Hertling was the president of the Görres- 
Gesellschaft from 1876 until his death in 1919. This 
society, together with the Leo-Gesellschaft in Vienna, gave 
substantial financial support to the new journal in the 
difficult early years (Rivinius 1981). 
2 “The subsequent issues of the Anthropos have kept the 
standard promised by the first issue ... We take it, in 
any case, for granted that the four issues published have 
already assured this journal thus far a respectable place 
among the ethnographic publications of highest ranking.” 
Van Gennep’s review of the first issue of the Anthropos 
journal appeared in the Revue des Traditions Populaires 
(July 1906:316-319). W. Schmidt (1908:383) cites these 
encouraging words of van Gennep in a review of van 
Gennep’s own journal, Revue des Etudes Ethnographiques 
et Sociologiques, which appeared for the first time in 1908. 
Van Gennep’s review of the other three issues of the first 
volume of Anthropos quoted here appeared in the May 1907 
issue of the same journal. 
3 Cf. Staudinger 1906; Ranke 1906; Burne 1906; Bork 1908; 
Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien 
1906.