science · 12 April 1963 · 61 years ago
death
Died 12 Apr 1963 at age 60 (born 5 Nov 1902).
Swiss anthropologist noted for his pioneering contributions to South American ethnohistory and the examination of African culture in Haiti. While director of the ethnological institute at the University of Tucumán, Argentina, (1928-34) he wrote two classic works on the ethnohistory of the extinct Tupinambá Indians of Brazil. He made an expedition to Easter Island (1934-35), after which he argued that Easter Island's indigenous population is Polynesian, both culturally and physically, and that the island's well-known monolithic sculptures are native creations rather than Asian or American Indian ones. After travelling the Amazon (1947-48) he studied the Haiti island culture (1949-50). He viewed voodoo as a structured, complex religious system with African origins.
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