Alberto Vojtěch Frič

Alberto Vojtěch Frič (September 8th 1882, Prague - December 4th 1944, idem) is a Ethnographe, Voyageur, Botaniste and Czech writer . The Indians sudaméricains whom it met it called Karaï Pukû (Long hunter), in Europe it is also known like the “hunter of cactus”.

Youth

Vojtěch junior (Alberto is the Portuguese or Spanish equivalent Czech first name Vojtěch) is born in a family from the upper middle class praguoise. His/her father, Vojtěch Frič is city council man and assistant to the mayor of Prague, his uncle Jan Václav Frič (1829-1890) is a politician and key actor of the revolution of 1848. Another of his/her uncles Antonn Jan Frič (1832-1914) is zoologist and director of the national Natural history museum, finally, another of his uncles is Václav Frič, owner of a department store of food bearing his name in Prague.

As of its childhood, it shows gifts for the natural science. Still child, it brings back to the house a Cactus, Echinopsis eyriesii named at the Pfeiff beginning. & Otto to be avenged for a gendarme who showed it to fly of eggs. The cactus, abandoned on an edge of window, flowers and draws the attention of the grass botanist… which writes, well later on this subject: “that a as formless and uninteresting plant as a cactus which was for me not to be that a tool of revenge can give rise to such an amount of beauty fascinated me”. At 15 years, he is already regarded as a specialist in the cacti in Central Europe, one calls upon him to consult a question on the matter and one invites it to the scientific conferences.

It starts, of course a collection of cactus which freezes in 1899. It decides to renew it and to supplement it and, with this intention, undertakes five voyages, between 1901 and 1929 in Americas where it is devoted, not only with the harvest of cactus but also with the geographical and ethnographic discovery of the tribes of Amerindian S which civilization did not touch yet or very little.

The traveller

First voyage: May 1901 - August 1902

The first voyage of Frič brings it to the borders of the Mato Grosso where it meets the Indians of Chavantès the phonetic tribe of the Czech text: '' Šavantes ''. It must shorten its stay following its unfortunate meeting with a Jaguar which attacks it. Frič wounds the animal while drawing to him above but does not leave itself the duel without serious wounds. It is looked after by the Indians during a few weeks then it turns over to Europe. This mishap will have unhoped-for consequences in fact: he becomes a hero for the Indians. He is not only the man who killed a jaguar, which either is a very admired act of bravery, but he is especially that which survived the pressure of the animal. Such a man is regarded as out of the commun run among the Indians. A respect quasi-monk is then dedicated to him which enables him to achieve unrealizable goals without that.

Second voyage: August 1903 - September 1905

At the time of its second voyage, Frič explores, on behalf of the Paraguayan government the course of the river Pilcomayo. He traverses it over all his length, which, apparently had never been carried out. By doing this, he discovers fall it from the Spanish explorer Enrique de Ibarreta there Uhagon (1859-1898) and that he died of the continuations of a dispute that he itself had caused because of his not very respectful behavior of the habits aboriginals.

At the time of this voyage, it spends the time near the tribe of Chamacoco which lives along the river Paraguay and takes there for wife a woman of the tribe, Lora there (Duck-Black). From this union is born a girl, Hermina (born about September 1905) which is still in life (March 2006). It will never re-examine them after its departure for Europe at the summer 1905.

Third voyage: August 1906 - August 1908

Of its third voyage, it brings back to Europe the son of a chief of tribe Chamacoco Tcherwouish (Small-Worm) Piochado Mendoza of which the stay sometimes cocasse inspired to Jaroslav Hašek (1883-1923) for the writing of the news the Indian and the police force praguoise . Frič uses it at the time of conferences like “accessory of demonstration”. However, the true object of its arrival is the desire of Frič to make it examine by specialist physicians, Tcherwouish suffering of a strange disease which then decimates its tribe and which the South American doctors are unable to identify. In Tchéquie, the cure took place: it is discovered that this disease is caused by a worm nematode hitherto unknown (a Ankylostomose caused by Ancylostoma duodenale ) and that she is cured by powerful a Laxatif.

Frič draws a book from this history (see will infra Bibliographie).

Fourth voyage: at the beginning of 1909 - 1912

In 1909, Frič accompanies back Tcherwouish at Chamacoco and brings back drugs for all the tribe.

Fifth voyage: May 1919 - June 1920

In 1919, Frič travels not only as a scientist and a writer-traveller but as a diplomat of the any news Czechoslovakian République. One then plans to appoint it ambassador but there was not following a conflict with the Foreign Minister of then and future president of the Republic, Edvard Beneš (1884-1948).

Family life

On its return of its fifth voyage, Frič marries Draga Janáčková with which it has a Ivan son (born in 1922). Its grandson Pavel Frič and the wife of this one, Yvonne endeavors to diffuse the memory of their ancestor. They republish the books of A.V. Frič or publish new works based on its files. One of them, Guido Boggiani fotograf (1861-1901) , reproduced the photographic archives of exceptional stereotypes of the Indian tribes taken by a photographer-traveller killed by the Indians and whose negative ones on glass had been recovered by A.V. Frič. This work was crowned Czech price of the best book of photography in 1998.

The two branches of the family, Amerindian and the European one, were by chance following the voyage of two Czech documentarists, Alice Růžičková and Martin Číhák left, in 2000, on the traces of Tcherwouish which met Hermina, the girl of Alberto Vojtěch and of Lora there which had been entrusted to the good care of the Magpiota chief and whose eight children bear the name of Money proudly.

The botanist

Frič became gradually a world specialist in the cactus and recognized like the expert on the matter of its time. It described tens of species and joined together the most complete collection in Europe (it disappeared in the storms from the Second world war, because in spite of all its efforts, Frič did not succeed in finding and to finance a means of adequate heating and its fragile cacti have cold). It collected them everywhere: Mato Grosso with the Gran Chaco while passing by the steep slopes of the the Andes until 5 000 meters of altitude.

It fascinated the specialists when, within the botanical garden of Mexico City, it discovered the Astrophytum asterias which one thought extinct and which the Mexican botanists paradoxically had under their eyes.

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