Barbara Freire-Marreco facts for kids

Barbara Freire-Marreco (born in 1879, died in 1967) was an English expert who studied people and their cultures, called an anthropologist. She also studied traditional stories and beliefs, known as a folklorist. She was among the very first students to finish an anthropology degree at Oxford University in 1908.

About Her Life

Barbara was born into a family from St Mawes in Cornwall, England. Her family originally came from Portugal. She spent her childhood in Horsell, Surrey.

During World War I, Barbara worked for a government department that dealt with trade. There, she met Charles Aitken, and they got married. Later, they moved to the county of Hampshire.

Her Studies and Work

Barbara became very interested in anthropology after listening to lectures by important scholars like John Linton Myres and Henry Balfour. She started studying ancient Greek and Roman history and culture, which is called a Classical education. She became very good at anthropology.

She continued to learn from Henry Balfour. She even had a special research position at Oxford and studied with Professor Hobhouse at the London School of Economics. Her writings were published in a journal called Man, and she shared her ideas at meetings of the British Association.

Barbara also worked at the Pitt Rivers Museum, where she studied for her diploma. She stayed connected with the museum even after she finished her studies. The museum still has some of the items she collected. In 1907, she became a member of the Royal Anthropological Institute, which is a group for anthropology experts.

From 1909 to 1913, she had a research position at Somerville College, Oxford. During this time, she researched how leaders like chiefs and kings gained and kept their power in different societies.

Studying Folklore

Barbara also loved studying folklore. She joined the Folklore Society in 1926, but she had already been writing articles for their journal before that. She continued to share "Scraps of English folklore" and other writings. In 1959, she published a study about how folklore stories change and spread in different places.

Research in America

Barbara traveled to America in 1910 and 1913 to study the Pueblo peoples. These are Native American communities in the southwestern United States. She collected information about their traditions and way of life. Her research was later published by the Smithsonian in a book called Ethnobotany of the Tewa Indians. This book focused on how the Tewa Pueblo people used plants.