Carl Gunnar Feilberg (October 22, 1894 – January 6, 1972) was a Danish

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

ethnographer Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

and explorer of

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. He was a professor of human geography at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

, known for his ethnographic fieldwork among the Lur pastoralists in

Luristan Lorestan province () is one of the Provinces of Iran, 31 provinces of Iran. Its capital is the city of Khorramabad. Lorestan is in the Western Iran, western part of the country in the Zagros Mountains and covers an area of 28,392 km2. In ...

, Iran. His research focused on

nomadism Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, Nomadic pastoralism, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and Merchant, trader nomads. In the twentieth century, ...

and material culture, particularly the structure and distribution of black tents. Feilberg collected extensive ethnographic materials, now housed in the

National Museum of Denmark The National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet) in Copenhagen is Denmark, Denmark's largest museum of cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures, alike. The museum's main building is located a short distance from S ...

and

Moesgaard Museum Moesgaard Museum (MOMU) is a Danish regional museum dedicated to archaeology and ethnography. It is located in Beder, Denmark, Beder, a suburb of Aarhus, Denmark. MOMU cooperates with the Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology, Medieval and Renaiss ...

. His major works include ''La Tente Noire'' (1944) and ''Les Papis'' (1952).

Life

Feilberg was born in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

on October 22, 1894. His father was Henning Frederik Feilberg (1865 - 1940) and his mother Anny Caroline Louise Olsen (1867 - 1934). His paternal grandfather was the pastor and folklorist

Henning Frederik Feilberg Henning Frederik Feilberg (6 August 1831 in Hillerød – 8 October 1921 in Askov), was a Danish pastor, author and folklorist. His research and publications represent significant contributions to the field of Danish folklore. Biography Feilber ...

. He graduated from the Østersøgades Gymnasium, Copenhagen in 1912. He attended the

and in 1919 he was awarded a

Master of Theology Master of Theology (, abbreviated ThM, MTh or MTheol, or ''Sacrae Theologiae Magister''; abbreviated STM) is a post-graduate degree offered by universities, divinity schools, and seminaries. It can serve as a transition degree for entrance into a ...

( Candidatus theologiæ) with excellence for the university's historical prize essay. He married Martha Siegumfeldt and they had a son Anders F S Feilberg. He died in

Hellerup Hellerup () is a very affluent district of Gentofte Municipality in the suburbs of Copenhagen, Denmark. The most urban part of the district is centred on Strandvejen and is bordered by Østerbro to the south and the Øresund to the east. It compr ...

in Denmark on January 6, 1972.Danish Biographical Lexicon, available at http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Dansk_Biografisk_Leksikon/Naturvidenskab_og_teknik/Geograf/C._G._Feilberg?highlight=Carl%20Gunnar%20Feilberg ''Accessed 2012-07-18''

Work

Feilberg was appointed to the Chair of

Human Geography Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of geography which studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment, examples of which include urban sprawl and urban ...

in 1949. By the help of the Danish company
Kampsax
Feilberg travelled in 1935 to

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

, where he carried out ethnographical fieldwork in Bala Geriveh among the Papi tribe in Southern

from the end of March to the end of July. Feilberg, who carried out fieldwork among the Lur pastoralists, dealt with the history of nomadism through an intricate analysis of the structure and distribution of the black tent (''La tente Noire'', Copenhagen, 1944). During his stay in the district of

he gathered the huge number of material cultures of the nomads of

and gave them to the

. Feilberg, funded by the

Carlsberg Foundation Carlsberg Foundation () is a not-for-profit organization that was founded by J. C. Jacobsen in 1876, by allocating some of his shares in the Carlsberg Brewery to fund and operate the Carlsberg Laboratory and the Museum of National History at ...

, stayed with KAMPSAX engineers (in Bala Gariveh, southern Luristan) who had been contracted during the mid-1930s to build the

Trans-Iranian railway The Trans-Iranian Railway () was a major railway building project started in Pahlavi Iran in 1927 and completed in 1938, under the direction of the then-Iranian monarch Reza Shah. It was entirely built with indigenous capital, and links the capit ...

. He made collections of ethnographic materials and took many pictures of people, working and relaxing; of tents and winter dwellings; of tools, rugs, carpets, and other domestic equipment; of animals; and of weddings and musical instruments. The photographs and collections are curated at the

Danish National Museum The National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet) in Copenhagen is Denmark's largest museum of cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures, alike. The museum's main building is located a short distance from Strøget ...

(Copenhagen) and at the Prehistoric Museum (Moesgaard).

Publications

* "Bidrag til de afrikanske Agerbrugsredskabers Kulturhistorie. Nogle Hakketyper i Belgisk Congo." ('' Geografisk Tidsskrift'', Bind 37; 1934) * ''La Tente Noire: Contribution Ethnographique à l'Histoire Culturelle des Nomades.'' Published 1944 by mpr. par B. Lunos Bogtr.in Kobenhavn.Contents: Introduction; Les sources; Terminologie et genre de vie des nomades; Principaux types de tentes noires: Maroc, Zone transitoire entre le Maroc et le Sahara; Mauritanie; Algérie; Tunisie; Tripolitaine; Libye; Égypte; Arabie et régions périphériques; Anatolie; Kurdes; Iran; Afghanistan et Baloutchistan (Touran); Nord-Ouest de l'Inde; Tibet; Europe; Distribution géographique de la tente noire; Types de tentes de la culture citadine dans le domaine de la tente noire; Tente de peau des Touaregs; Analyse des éléments de la tente noire; La kibitka; Formes primitives de huttes et de tentes illustrant l'évolution de la tente noire; Le tente dans l'art miniaturiste musulman, spécialment persan; Le tente chez les géographes arabes du moyen age; La tente dans l'antiquité classique et orientale; * ''Les Papis: Tribu Persane de Nomades Montagnards du Sudouest de l'Iran.'' Published 1952 by I kommission hos Gyldendal in København . * ''Afrika. En Verdensdel lukker sig op.''Det Danske Forlag, København 1945. * ''Hovedlinier i vor tids kulturgeografi'' by Carl Gunnar Feilberg (1963)

References

General references

*Concise Biographical Companion to Index Islamicus, Volume 1 Bio-Bibliographical Supplement to Index Islamicus, 1665-1980, Volume One. A-G: {{DEFAULTSORT:Feilberg, Carl Gunnar 1894 births 1972 deaths Danish geographers Danish ethnographers University of Copenhagen alumni Carl Christian Feilberg 20th-century geographers