Hans Cory

Hans Cory OBE (born Hans Koritschoner; 18 March 1889 - 24 April 1962) was a British colonial officer of Austrian descent, farmer and sociologist with a special interest in traditional lifestyles of ethnic groups in former Tanganyika, now Tanzania.

Born in Vienna, Austria, and having lived most of his adult life in Tanganyika, he died at age 73 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Hans Cory had arrived before the First World War in the former colony of German East Africa. After the German defeat in World War I, Great Britain took over Tanganyika as mandate territory, and Cory was sent to a British prison camp in Palestine as a prisoner of war. After this, he returned to Tanganyika and became a British colonial officer.

Speaking Swahili and several local dialects, he had a special interest in the cultural traditions of different ethnic groups, at the time called "tribes". A largely self-taught ethnologist, Cory collected extensive ethnographic field data, traditional paintings or sculptures. Based on this, he published several books in English about such subjects as traditional law, ethnic histories and beliefs, initiation rites, food and plants, traditional songs or poetry. From the 1950s onwards, he was conducting a government project to collect and codify the customary law of a number of ethnic groups, such as the Sukuma, Nyamwezi, Haya, Gogo and others. His unpublished papers are collected in the University College Library of the University of Dar es Salaam.

• African figurines: their ceremonial use in puberty rites in Tanganyika. London 1956
• Wall-paintings by snake charmers in Tanganyika. London 1953
• The indigenous political system of the Sukuma and proposals for political reform. Nairobi 1954
• Customary law of the Haya Tribe, Tanganyika territory. London 1945
• History of the Bukoba district. Mwanza 1959