Anne Chapman facts for kids
Anne MacKaye Chapman (born January 27, 1922 – died June 12, 2010) was a French-American ethnologist. An ethnologist is a scientist who studies different cultures and peoples. Anne Chapman focused on the people of Mesoamerica, a historical region in North and Central America. She wrote many books, helped make movies, and recorded rare languages. Her work covered a huge area, from Central America all the way to the southern tip of South America.
Contents
Life and Discoveries
Anne Chapman was born in 1922 in Los Angeles, California. In 1940, she moved to Mexico City. There, she studied at the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia (ENAH). She learned from famous teachers like Paul Kirchhoff and Miguel Covarrubias.
Inspired by her studies, Anne and her friends started a journal called Anthropos. It combined art with articles about anthropology and politics. Only two issues were ever published in 1947 because they didn't have many resources.
Early Fieldwork
As a student, Anne did her first fieldwork among Mayan communities in Chiapas, Mexico. Fieldwork means living with a group of people to learn about their culture. She worked with the Tzeltales and later the Tzoziles.
In 1951, she earned her Master's degree in Anthropology. Her thesis looked at how the Aztecs defeated the Tepanecas in the early 1400s.
Studying in the U.S.
Anne returned to the U.S. in the 1950s. She earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Columbia University in New York City in 1958. Her Ph.D. paper was about the history of tribes in the tropical forests on the southern border of Mesoamerica.
At Columbia, one of her professors, William Duncan Strong, introduced her to the Tolupan people of Honduras.
Working with the Tolupan People
With funding from the Fulbright Foundation, Anne began her fieldwork with the Tolupan people in Montaña de la Flor, Honduras, in 1955. She returned for several months each year until 1960. She kept a close connection with the Tolupan community for the rest of her life.
During her fieldwork, Anne worked closely with a man named Alfonso Martinez. He helped her study the Tolupan's oral traditions and how their society was organized. Oral tradition means stories and histories passed down by speaking, not writing. She also created detailed family trees for the community.
Her research led to a book called Les Enfants de la Mort in 1978. A revised English version, Master of Animals: Oral tradition of the Tolupan Indians, Honduras, came out in 1992. Sadly, Alfonso Martinez died in 1969.
Researching the Lenca People
Anne also studied the Lenca people of Honduras. She started this work in 1965-66 and continued into the 1980s. She wanted to find out if the Lenca should be considered a Mesoamerican group. She confirmed they were in an article published in 1978. In 1985-86, she published a two-volume study about Lenca rituals and traditions.
Joining the French Centre
In 1961, Anne Chapman joined the French National Centre for Scientific Research. She worked there until 1987. She also worked with other research centers in Europe and the Americas. These included the Musée de l'Homme in Paris and institutes in Honduras and Argentina.
Discovering the Selk'nam and Yahgan People
In 1964, Anne was invited to join an archaeology project in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. She wasn't an archaeologist, but she accepted because she wanted to meet Lola Kiepja and Ángela Loij. They were some of the last living Selk'nam (also known as Ona) of Tierra del Fuego.
After the archaeology project, Anne met Lola and recorded her speaking and singing in the Selk'nam language. She also recorded Lola's memories of Selk'nam life. Lola passed away in 1966, but Anne continued working with other Selk'nam people. In 1976, she helped make a film about the Selk'nam called The Onas: Life and Death in Tierra del Fuego.
In 1985, she also began studying the remaining Yahgan people in Tierra del Fuego, Chile.
Important Books and Films
Anne Chapman wrote many important books about anthropology. One of her most important works about the people of Tierra del Fuego was Drama and Power in a Hunting Society: The Selk'nam of Tierra del Fuego (1981).
She also wrote:
- La Isla de los Estados en la prehistoria: Primeros datos arqueológicos (1987)
- El Fin de Un Mundo: Los Selk'nam de Tierra del Fuego' (1990)
She contributed to Cap Horn 1882-1883 (1995). This book included old photographs of the Yahgans and Alakaluf people. It also had some of Anne's own photos of the last Yahgans.
In 1990, she made a film about the Yahgan tribe called Homage to the Yahgans: The Last Indians of Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn. This film was a finalist at a film festival in New York.
Later, she wrote Hain: Selknam Initiation Ceremony and End of a World: The Selknam of Tierra del Fuego. Both books included a CD with Lola Kiepja's special chants. In 2004, she published El fenómeno de la canoa yagán. In 2006, she released Darwin in Tierra del Fuego and Lom: amor y venganza, mitos de los yámana.
Her last book, European Encounters with the Yamana People of Cape Horn, Before and After Darwin (2010), tells the story of the native people, explorers, missionaries, and other Europeans in the Cape Horn area from 1578 to 2000.
Towards the end of her life, Anne Chapman lived and worked mostly in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She passed away at age 88 on June 12, 2010, in a hospital in Paris.
Awards
- Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile (2003). This is an honorary degree.
- Orden José Cecilio del Valle in the rank of Knight from the Foreign Relations Ministry in Tegucigalpa, Honduras (2005). She received other honors for her work with the Tolupan and Lencas of Intibuca people.
- Orden al Mérito Docente y Cultural Gabriela Mistral in the rank of Commander from the Chilean Ministry of Education (2005).
See also
In Spanish: Anne Chapman para niños
