John Stanislaw Kubary (13 November 1846 in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...

– 9 October 1896 in

Pohnpei Pohnpei (formerly known as Ponape or Ascension, from Pohnpeian: "upon (''pohn'') a stone altar (''pei'')") is an island of the Senyavin Islands which are part of the larger Caroline Islands group. It belongs to Pohnpei State, one of the fou ...

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

) also stated as Jan Stanisław Kubary, Jan Kubary, or Johann Stanislaus Kubary, was a Polish

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

and ethnographer.

Biography

Kubary was born in Warsaw on 13 November 1846, where he was raised by his stepfather and studied at the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public university, public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well ...

. A participant in the

January Uprising The January Uprising was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at putting an end to Russian occupation of part of Poland and regaining independence. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last i ...

of Poles against Russian rule, Kubary ultimately fled to Germany after it failed, and in 1869 he signed a five-year contract to collect for the Museum Godeffroy in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

. He first spent six months living in

Apia Apia () is the Capital (political), capital and largest city of Samoa. It is located on the central north coast of Upolu, Samoa's second-largest island. Apia falls within the political district (''itūmālō'') of Tuamasaga. The Apia Urban A ...

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and known until 1997 as Western Samoa, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu), two smaller, inhabited ...

and making trips to

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

and

Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...

while also learning Samoan and sending items back to the museum. In 1870 he traveled to the Ellice Islands (today Tuvalu),

Gilbert Islands The Gilbert Islands (;Reilly Ridgell. ''Pacific Nations and Territories: The Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.'' 3rd. Ed. Honolulu: Bess Press, 1995. p. 95. formerly Kingsmill or King's-Mill IslandsVery often, this name applied o ...

, and

Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is an island country west of the International Date Line and north of the equator in the Micronesia region of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. The territory consists of 29 c ...

, where he compiled a dictionary of the dialect spoken in the Ebon Islands. He led a successful response to an

influenza Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These sympto ...

epidemic in

Palau Palau, officially the Republic of Palau, is an island country in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania in the western Pacific Ocean. The Republic of Palau consists of approximately 340 islands and is the western part of the Caroline Islands ...

, which created good relations between himself and the Palauans and assisted his ethnographic research. In 1873 he arrived in the

and

Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the cen ...

and wrote a description of the

Nan Madol Nan Madol is an archaeological site adjacent to the eastern shore of the island of Pohnpei, now part of the Madolenihmw district of Pohnpei state in the Federated States of Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean. Nan Madol was the capital o ...

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

. He collected a hundred crates of material, but most of it was lost in a shipwreck on Jaluit. A small amount was salvaged, and after more collecting on Jaluit and Samoa he sent 23 crates of material back to the museum. He arrived in Australia in 1875, and quickly became a naturalized citizen. He returned to Hamburg, lectured in Lwów (

Lviv Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

), and renewed his contract for another five years. He made a home on the island of

, and used it as a base for his collecting. While collecting in Truk, he was informed that the Museum Godeffroy had released him from his contract due to a shortage of funds. He then returned to his plantation home and married Anna Yelliot. After a hurricane destroyed his home in 1882, he moved to Japan and worked for museums in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

and

Yokohama is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...

, along with collecting for museums in Leiden and Berlin. In 1885 he found work as an interpreter on the German warship ''Albatros'' and took over management of a plantation on Matupit. He traveled to Europe in 1892 and again lectured in Lwów but returned to

Polynesia Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in ...

after he failed to find work. He died in 1896, either on his plantation in Pohnpei, or in Manila, Philippines.

Legacy

Kubary documented at least four bird species: the Samoan wood rail (''Gallinula pacifica''), the Mariana crow (''Corvus kubaryi''), the Caroline Islands ground dove (''Gallicolumba kubaryi''), and the Pohnpei fantail (''Rhipidura kubaryi''), as well as numerous insects, among them the paradise birdwing butterfly ('' Ornithoptera paradisea''). The peak Mount Kubari on

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

is named after him.

Works

*with

Alfred Tetens Alfred Tetens (1 July 1835, in Wilster – 13 January 1903, in Hamburg) was a German captain, South Seas explorer Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observa ...

and Eduard Gräffe ''The Carolines island of Yap or Guap according to the reports of Alfred Tetens and Johann Kubary'' "Die Carolineninsel Yap oder Guap nach den Mittheilungen von Alf. Tetens und Johann Kubary" Microform Reprint New Haven, Conn. *Die Palau-Inseln in der Suedsee: Das Palau Geld, 49–53. ''Journal des Museum Godeffroy'', I, 4. Hamburg (1873) *Weitere Nachrichten von der Insel Ponape (Carolinen-Archipel) ''Journal des Museum Godeffroy'' Heft VII. Hamburg, L. Friedrichsen & Co. pp. 129–135 (1875) *''Ethnographische Beitraege zur Kenntnis des Karolinen Archipels'', Heft 1:'' Ueber das Einheimische Geld auf der Insel Yap und auf den Palau-Inseln'' Leiden (1889)

References

External links

Biography
* Johann Schmeltz 1897. "Johann Stanislaus Kubary, der Erforscher der Südsee-Inseln, gest. im Oktober 1896 auf der Insel Ponape." ohann Stanislaus Kubary, the researcher of the South Sea Islands, who died in October 1896 on the island of Pohnpei Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie 10, pp. 132–136.Long obituary of Kubar

1846 births 1896 deaths Naturalists from the Russian Empire Ethnographers from the Russian Empire Polish naturalists Polish ornithologists Polish ethnographers Scientists from Warsaw {{ethnographer-stub