Joseph Rock facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Joseph Francis Charles Rock
Born	(1884-01-13)January 13, 1884 Vienna, Austria
Died	December 5, 1962(1962-12-05) (aged 78) Honolulu, Hawaii, United States
Nationality	Austrian (by birth)
Citizenship	naturalized American (May 1913)
Alma mater	Vienna Schotten Gymnasium
Scientific career
Fields	Botany
Institutions	College of Hawaii
Author abbrev. (botany)	Rock

Joseph Francis Charles Rock (1884 – 1962) was an amazing botanist, explorer, geographer, linguist, ethnographer, and photographer. He was born in Austria but later became an American citizen. He spent many years exploring and studying plants and cultures, especially in Hawaii and China.

Life's Journey

Joseph Rock was born in Vienna, Austria. When he was a teenager, he decided to travel around Europe. In 1905, he moved to the United States. He eventually settled in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1907, where he lived for 13 years. Even though he didn't go to college, he was very good at learning languages. He knew more than six languages, including Chinese, by the time he reached Hawaii.

Hawaii Adventures (1907-1920)

In Hawaii, Rock started teaching Latin and natural history at Mills College. He quickly taught himself about plants and became a top expert on Hawaiian plants. In 1908, he helped create the first plant collection (called a herbarium) in Hawaii for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He collected many plants from his trips around the islands.

In 1911, this plant collection moved to the College of Hawaii (now the University of Hawaii). Rock became its first leader and Hawaii's first official botanist. During his time in Hawaii, he wrote many articles and five books. His book Indigenous Trees of the Hawaiian Islands (1913) is still considered a very important work. In 1913, he also joined a trip to Palmyra Atoll and wrote a detailed description of its plants.

Exploring China (1920-1933)

In 1920, Rock left Hawaii and moved to Asia, mostly living and exploring in Western China for decades. The U.S. Department of Agriculture hired him to find new plants. He went to Southeast Asia to find seeds of the Chaulamoogra tree, which was used to treat leprosy.

This success led him to more trips in Southwest China. In 1922, Rock first arrived in Lijiang in Yunnan province. This area was home to the Nakhi people. Rock made his home in a village called Nguluko, near the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. This became his main base for 27 years. From here, he organized plant-collecting trips across Western China, near the border of Tibet. This was a large, wild, and remote area.

Even though China was going through difficult times with different groups fighting, Rock managed to collect many plant and bird specimens. He also took thousands of photos of places, plants, people, and history. He worked with Nakhi assistants, some of whom stayed with him for many years. Rock was excellent at collecting plants and seeds. He found many high-quality plant samples that were new to Western scientists.

His trips were often very big, like a caravan. Besides food and equipment for his specimens and photography, he brought a personal cook, a full dinner setting, a portable bathtub, and a record player! He often needed armed guards to protect against bandits or unfriendly tribes. These trips were funded by famous groups like the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution.

For a few years, Rock explored northern Yunnan. Then, in December 1924, he started his biggest trip, which lasted over three years. This trip was sponsored by Harvard's Arnold Arboretum. His main goal was to collect plants and birds in Gansu province, around Kokonor (Qinghai Lake) and the Amnye Machen mountains. He stayed in Choni (Jonê County), Gansu, as a guest of the local prince. He visited famous Tibetan monasteries like Kumbum and Labrang.

During this time, he bought complete sets of important Tibetan Buddhist scriptures, called the Kanjur and Tanjur, from Choni's famous printing press. These were 317 volumes printed from old wood blocks. Later, the monastery and its press were destroyed. Rock also collected other important Tibetan texts for the Library of Congress.

When the Arnold Arboretum couldn't fund another trip, Rock got support from the National Geographic Society. He made several trips to southwest Sichuan to explore the Konkaling range and Minya Konka. Mount Gongga is one of the highest mountains outside the Himalayas. Rock got closer to Minya Konka than any other Westerner at the time. During these trips, he stayed in the lama kingdom of Muli. He also often visited Yongning near Lugu Lake, home of the Mosuo people. These explorations led to many articles in National Geographic magazine, filled with his excellent photographs.

Studying the Nakhi People

Even though he collected many plants, Rock didn't publish much about Chinese plants. By the late 1920s, he became very interested in the culture of the Nakhi people. He wrote a two-volume history of the Nakhi and many studies about their texts and ceremonies.

The Nakhi had special religious leaders called Dongba priests, who wrote many texts using a unique picture-like script. This script was difficult to read and was mainly used for religious purposes. Rock worked with several Dongba priests to write down and understand these important texts. He also created a dictionary and encyclopedia of their culture. His work is still very important for anyone studying the Nakhi. He collected many Nakhi manuscripts, and thanks to him, a large number of these texts (over 7,000) are now outside China. Many other Nakhi texts were destroyed later.

During World War II, Japanese forces pushed the Chinese government inland, and Yunnan became a key supply area. Rock was in and out of Lijiang during the war. In 1944, the U.S. Army Map Service hired him for his knowledge of the Yunnan area. He helped with the dangerous "The Hump" route, where supplies were flown from India to China. Rock sent his writings and collections to Europe for safety, but they were lost when the ship was attacked. Luckily, the Harvard-Yenching Institute helped him return to Lijiang to rewrite his lost work on the Nakhi. He worked very hard, even though he had health problems. After the war, communist forces took control of Lijiang, making it hard for foreigners to stay. Rock left China for the last time in August 1949 with his collections and writings.

Final Years (1949-1962)

After leaving China, Rock first stayed in Kalimpong, India, hoping to return to Lijiang. When he realized he couldn't go back to China, he spent his last years traveling between Europe, the U.S., and Hawaii. He often sold his large personal library and collections to support himself and get his work published. He finally settled in Honolulu. There, he continued his Nakhi research and renewed his interest in Hawaiian plants. He finished his huge A Nakhi-English Dictionary Encyclopedia, which was both a dictionary of the Dongba script and an encyclopedia of Nakhi culture. It was published in 1962, the year he passed away in Honolulu. He is buried there.

His Personality

Joseph Rock never married. He kept detailed diaries throughout his life, often writing about feeling lonely. This isn't surprising, as he chose to live in remote, faraway places. But he really valued his freedom and self-worth more than close personal relationships. He was known for being a bit difficult, but he was also very effective at doing challenging and often dangerous projects. His work as a collector, photographer, and scholar was always of high quality. He often preferred the non-Han peoples he lived among, who had been pushed into remote areas. He developed a true fondness and respect for the Nakhi people. In his later years in China, he often said he wished to live out his life in Lijiang.

His Legacy

Many plant species are named after Joseph Rock. These include the Hawaiian plants Brighamia rockii and Peperomia rockii. Also named after him are the Pandanus Rockii Martelli from Palmyra Atoll, the beautiful Rock's Tree Peony (Paeonia rockii) from the Gansu mountains, and the yellow-berried mountain ash Sorbus 'Joseph Rock'. In March 2009, the University of Hawaii at Manoa named its plant collection (herbarium), which he had started, in his honor.

Rock's old home in Nguluko (Yuhu) village in China has been turned into a museum to remember him.

The American poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972) learned about Rock's work on the Nakhi in the 1950s. He included details from Rock's studies in his long poem, The Cantos, and even mentioned Rock himself: "And over Li Chiang, the snow range is turquoise / Rock’s world that he saved us for memory / a thin trace in high air."

His Works

Here are some of Joseph Rock's major writings:

Hawaiian Plants:

• The Indigenous Trees of the Hawaiian Islands (1913). Honolulu.
• The Ornamental Trees of Hawaii (1917). Honolulu.
• The Leguminous Plants of Hawaii (1920). Honolulu.

Expeditions in Western China and National Geographic Magazine articles:

• "Hunting the Chaulmoogra Tree" (1922)
• "Banishing the Devil of Disease Among the Nashi: Weird Ceremonies Performed by an Aboriginal Tribe in the Heart of Yunnan Province" (1924)
• "Land of the Yellow Lama: National Geographic Society Explorer Visits the Strange Kingdom of Muli, Beyond the Likiang Snow Range of Yunnan, China" (1924)
• "Experiences of a Lone Geographer: An American Agricultural Explorer Makes His Way through Brigand-Infested Central China En Route to the Amne Machen Range, Tibet" (1925)
• "Through the Great River Trenches of Asia: National Geographic Society Explorer Follows the Yangtze, Mekong, and Salwin Through Mighty Gorges" (1926)
• "Life among the Lamas of Choni: Describing the Mystery Plays and Butter Festival in the Monastery of an Almost Unknown Tibetan Principality in Kansu Province, China" (1928)
• “Butter as a Medium of Religious Art” (1929). Illustrated London News
• “Choni, the Place of Strange Festivals” (1929). Illustrated London News
• "Seeking the Mountains of Mystery: An Expedition on the China-Tibet Frontier to the Unexplored Amnyi Machen range, One of Whole Peaks Rivals Everest" (1930)
• "Glories of the Minya Konka: Magnificent Snow Peaks of the China-Tibetan Border are Photographed at Close Range by a National Geographic Society Expedition" (1930)
• "Konka Risumgongba, Holy Mountain of the Outlaws" (1931)
• ”The Land of the Tebbus” (1933). The Geographical Journal
• "Sungmas, the Living Oracles of the Tibetan Church" (1935)
• The Amnye Ma-Chhen Range and Adjacent Regions: A Monographic Study (1956).

Nakhi Studies:

• “Studies in Na-khi Literature: I. The Birth and Origin of Dto-mba Shi-lo, the Founder of the Mo-so Shamanism, according to Mo-so Manuscripts. II. The Na-khi Ha zhi P’i, or the Road the gods decide” (1937). Bulletin de l’École française d’Extréme-Orient
• “Romance of K'a-mä-gyu-mi-gkyi: a Na-khi Tribal Love Story Translated from Na-khi Pictographic Manuscipts” (1939). Bulletin de l’École française d’Extréme-Orient
• “The Muan Bpö Ceremony or the Sacrifice to Heaven as Practiced by the Na-khi” (1948). Monumenta Serica
• The Ancient Na-khi Kingdom of Southwest China. 2 vols. (1948). Harvard Univ. Press.
• The Na-khi Nagag Cult and Related Ceremonies, 2 vols. (1952).
• “The D’a Nv Funeral Ceremony with Special Reference of the Origin of Na-khi Weapons” (1955). Anthropos
• “The Zhi-ma Funeral Ceremony of the Na-khi of Southwest China” (1955). Anthropos
• “Contributions to the Shamanism of the Tibetan-Chinese Borderland” (1959). Anthropos
• A Na-khi-English Encyclopedic Dictionary, 2 vols. (1963, 1972).
• Na-Khi Manuscripts (1965), comp. Rock, ed. Klaus L. Janert.

Images for kids

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  Joseph Rock with the Prince of Choni in Gansu, 1925

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  A photo from Rock's book The ornamental trees of Hawaii (1917)

See also

In Spanish: Joseph Rock para niños