Engelbert Kämpfer

German explorer and writer

• Born: September 16, 1651
• Birthplace: Lemgo, Duchy of Lippe, Westphalia (now in Germany)
• Died: November 2, 1716
• Place of death: Lemgo, Duchy of Lippe, Westphalia (now in Germany)

Based on his own travels, Kämpfer wrote detailed and highly accurate accounts of Japan and other areas of Asia, the Middle East, and Russia. In addition, he wrote on Asian natural history, diseases, and medical practices.

Early Life

Born the son of Johannes Kämpfer, a teacher and minister, Engelbert Kämpfer (eng-ehl-behrt KEHMP-fehr) was provided ample opportunity to study. As a youth, Kämpfer studied the sciences and the humanities at a number of Swedish, Polish, German, and Dutch schools and universities. Enrolled at Danzig in 1672, he wrote a thesis on the politics of monarchy; the following year, he earned a degree in philosophy from Kraków. He then studied medicine and natural history at Königsberg. Although his early education included the study of medicine, he did not take a formal medical degree until some twenty years later.

Throughout his early education, Kämpfer was an avid student of foreign languages. He learned French, Greek, and Latin, the primary languages of intellectual discourse in his day, and also English, Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish, Aramaic, Russian, and Polish. In his later medical and scientific investigations, he often had occasion to draw on his multilingual background.

By 1681, Kämpfer had traveled to Uppsala, Sweden, to study medicine and anatomy with the famous physician Olof Rudbeck. His excellent scholarship and ties to Rudbeck and other professors presented him with the chance to travel to Persia, an opportunity that ultimately led him to journey to the Southeast Asian lands of Java and Siam (modern Thailand) en route to Japan.

Life’s Work

At the age of thirty-two, Kämpfer joined a Swedish embassy to Persia. Departing in 1683, he began a series of travels throughout the Middle East and Asia that continued for ten years. Serious illness during this time did not deter him from energetic investigation of the exotic lands he explored.

Throughout his travels, he wrote detailed diaries that proved useful sources of information for contemporary adventurers and later scholars alike. Prior to his travels through Russia and Persia, Kämpfer’s notebooks contained largely personal memorabilia—greetings from friends and relatives, fellow students, and famous people he had met. Beginning with his entry into Russia in 1683, Kämpfer’s diaries reveal a boundless curiosity about the lands and cultures through which he now passed.

Russian officials stalled the Swedish embassy because the Russian diplomatic ego was bruised by the fact that the embassy’s itinerary listed Persia before Russia. It took two months for Swedish officials to resolve the dispute. During this time, Kämpfer absorbed all the new information he could acquire. His diaries include descriptions of a meeting with the young man who became Czar Peter the Great , reports of conditions in Siberia, and copies of letters to Czarina Sophia.

In January, 1684, the embassy finally reached Persia. Although the official business of the embassy was delayed for several months while permission for an audience with the shah (king) was arranged, Kämpfer found plenty to occupy his time. At Baku, on the Caspian Sea, he collected specimens representative of the flora and fauna of the area, explored the local geographic wonders, and practiced medicine.

The embassy’s business was completed in a relatively short time, but when it returned to Sweden in 1685, Kämpfer decided to stay. He remained in Persia for three more years, working as an employee of the Dutch East India Company . While traveling to ports on the Strait of Hormuz, Kämpfer was stricken by serious illness—high fever, malaria, and dropsy. For a while, his life was clearly in danger, but he managed to recover by leaving the humid lowlands for the healthier climate of the hills.

Finally, in 1688, Kämpfer boarded ship for Southeast Asia. Traveling along the coast of Arabia, he crossed the Indian Ocean to Malabar, Ceylon, Bengal, and, ultimately, Sumatra. Throughout his voyage, he wrote a number of medical treatises. Among them, his essay on perical, the swollen foot ulcers unique to the inhabitants of Malabar, was the first to describe this ailment. In 1689, he arrived in Batavia (modern Jakarta). Staying there only a few months, he departed for Siam and Japan in May, 1690. He arrived in Japan that fall, on September 26, to spend a year as the resident physician to the Dutch trading community in Nagasaki.

At this time, opportunities for Europeans to travel to Japan were rare. After a major rebellion in which the Portuguese were implicated, Japan limited Western visits to Dutch traders in 1639—even the Dutch could enter and leave only on specified days of the year, regardless of weather conditions. Their business activity in Japan was restricted as well, and they could only establish an office (factory) on a small island (called Deshima) in Nagasaki harbor in southern Japan. Although the Dutch were allowed to trade with Japan, suspicion of them remained high, and it was difficult for the Dutch traders to become intimate with any Japanese.

At the time of Kämpfer’s arrival, Japan was enjoying a period of cultural expansion and economic prosperity. One hundred years of peace had given birth to bustling cities that supported an unprecedented array of poets, artists, bibliophiles, and theatrical troupes. Wealthy merchants as well as members of the ruling samurai (warrior) class supported the arts and demonstrated a high degree of intellectual curiosity.

Soon after his arrival, Kämpfer resolutely set about the task of overcoming Japanese reserve toward foreigners and began to explore the excitement of end-of-the-century Japan. Liberally dispensing European remedies to Japanese interpreters and their acquaintances, and treating them to large quantities of liquor, he gained their confidence. Through these people and in the course of his travels, he learned much about the natural history of Japan and its customs.

Kämpfer finally departed Japan in November, 1692. When he left, he took with him a wide variety of suspiciously acquired Japanese memorabilia, in addition to his extensive notes. During his stay, he had managed to obtain a substantial number of Japanese books and other materials, despite the fact that such purchases were flatly illegal. These treasures included maps of Japan—maps that foreigners were not permitted to have because they provided information that the Japanese believed compromised their national security.

Upon his arrival in Europe, Kämpfer resumed his medical studies. In April, 1694, he received a doctorate in medicine from Leiden. His doctoral thesis was composed of ten essays based on his studies during his travels in Asia. Returning to his home near Lemgo, he engaged in the practice of medicine as physician to the prince of Lippe. His medical responsibilities made it impossible for him to prepare his journals for publication. Only one collection of essays was published before he died, Amoenitatum exoticarum , which appeared in 1712.

Kämpfer did not marry until he was fifty-one. The marriage appears to have been little more than an attempt to acquire his bride’s estate. He hoped that her wealth would provide him with the financial wherewithal to escape some of the burdens of his medical practice and free him to devote more time to his writing. His marriage to a woman thirty-five years his junior proved to be an unhappy one, and even Kämpfer’s financial expectations were disappointed when his bride’s estate proved to be considerably smaller than he had thought. The tragedy of his marriage was compounded by the deaths in infancy of each of his three children.

In 1716, at the age of sixty-five, Kämpfer died at Lemgo. His dreams of publishing the findings of his world travels remained unfulfilled. All of his books, artworks, maps, and notes were left with a nephew, Johann Herman Kämpfer, with whom they remained for almost a decade.

Significance

Kämpfer died an unhappy man. His life’s ambitions in many respects were unfulfilled. True, he ranked as one of the seventeenth century’s great explorers, but he had never had the opportunity to publish accounts of his travels and explorations in the depth and to the extent that he desired. Nevertheless, these pessimistic self-evaluations should not obscure the direct impact his travels, writings, and collections of Asiatica had in stimulating European curiosity about the Far East and the incisive understanding of Japan that he conveyed to his fellow naturalists and explorers. Unfortunately, much of the evidence of this success followed Kämpfer’s death. The spread of Kämpfer’s work and the preservation of his collections were almost accidental.

Kämpfer’s collections might have remained at Lemgo and his most famous work, The History of Japan , might never have been translated and published were it not for the efforts of Sir Hans Sloane. Sloane never met Kämpfer but knew of him through his one publication, Amoenitatum exoticarum. Seven years after Kämpfer’s death, Sloane negotiated with Johann Kämpfer for the purchase of the Kämpfer manuscripts, artworks, maps, books, and botanical specimens. Shortly thereafter, Sloane used his influence in the Royal Society of London to arrange for the translation of Kämpfer’s manuscripts on Japan into English. The work was first published in two volumes in 1727. Ultimately, the Kämpfer collection, plus others gathered by Sloane, became part of the founding collection of the British Museum in 1759.

The most accessible of Kämpfer’s work, The History of Japan, is much more than a survey of Japanese history and mythology. In addition, it includes an extensive, detailed account of Japan’s geography and climate, Kämpfer’s travels in Japan, and his experiences during audiences with the shogun, the most powerful man in the land. An appendix includes Kämpfer’s argument in favor of Japan’s policy of limiting contact with the West. When copies of The History of Japan entered Japan some years after it was published, it was translated into Japanese and used to bolster the arguments of political conservatives who wished to limit severely Japan’s relations with Western nations.

Bibliography

Bodart-Bailey, Beatrice M., and Derek Massarella, eds. The Furthest Goal: Engelbert Kämpfer’s Encounter with Tokugawa Japan. Sandstone, England: Japan Library, 1995. A collection of essays focusing on Kämpfer’s trip to Japan and his historical account of that country. Includes essays about his Japanese collaborator, the plants that bear Kämpfer’s name, the purchase and publication of his history book, and his drawings to illustrate his text.

Bowers, John Z. Western Medical Pioneers in Feudal Japan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970. Chapter 2, “The Early Years at Deshima: Willem Ten Rhijne and Engelbert Kämpfer,” presents a lively and descriptive account of Kämpfer’s life and travels. Bowers credits Kämpfer with being the first great German explorer and the scientific discoverer of Japan. Bowers is strongest in his assessment of Kämpfer’s impact on Europe as opposed to Japan.

Boxer, C. R. Jan Compaigne in Japan, 1600-1817: An Essay on the Cultural, Artistic, and Scientific Influence Exercised by the Hollanders in Japan from the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries. 2d rev. ed. The Hague, the Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950. Boxer’s book is a general treatment of Dutch activities and influence in Japan. He presents little material that concentrates directly on Kämpfer and his activities in Japan, but his work is useful background for understanding the impact Europeans such as Kämpfer made on Japan.

Gardner, K. B. “Engelbert Kämpfer’s Japanese Library.” Asia Major 7 (December, 1959): 74-78. Gardner identifies the specific parts of the British Museum collections that were the result of Kämpfer’s efforts and discusses the unique characteristics of these materials. Helpful in gaining an understanding of Kämpfer’s interests and the kinds of Japanese materials he introduced to Europe.

Goodman, Grant K. Japan: The Dutch Experience. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1985. Goodman devotes little space to Kämpfer’s activities but provides a good account of the Dutch scientific and medical impact on Japan. Because Goodman draws rather heavily on Kämpfer’s descriptions of Japan, this book itself is a good example of how Kämpfer influenced Western understanding of late seventeenth century Japan.

Haberland, Detlef. Engelbert Kämpfer, 1651-1716: A Biography. Translatedby Peter Hogg. London: British Library, 1996. An English translation of a modern German biography, recounting Kämpfer’s life and travels. Illustrated with some of Kämpfer’s drawings.

Kämpfer, Engelbert. The History of Japan. Reprint. Translated by J. G. Scheuchzer. 3 vols. Glasgow, Scotland: J. MacLehose, 1906. Originally published in 1727-1728, multiple reprints of this work are widely available. Kämpfer’s history is a remarkably accurate compendium of information and the most widely quoted source on seventeenth century Japan. Includes numerous illustrations, as well as extensive appendices discussing the history of tea in Japan, medical practices, and other interesting aspects of Japanese life and customs. The introductory material includes a biography of Kämpfer.