Hour 1:
Hour 2 :

Listener response: TELL US
what you think of this program

Purchase the CD

The late 19th century saw the rise of scientific racism in Europe, and those who flocked to the zoo exhibit expected to gape at "exotics" from some "primitive race". What they found instead were Labradorimiut who spoke 3 languages, played German hymn tunes on violin, and who were keeping their own ethnographic notes on the "uncivilised" Europeans. Tragically, both families died of smallpox, but not before Abraham Ulrikab wrote his impressions of the trip in a remarkable diary.

Poster advertising the Labrador Inuit in
Hagenbeck's Tiergarten, Hamburg 1880

For more information about this story try these resources:

Hagenbeck Tiergarten, Hamburg, with bronze statues of zoo exotica: elephants, lions, bears, African and American humans.