Eva Verbitsky Hunt facts for kids

Muriel Eva Verbitsky de Hunt (1934–1980) was an important cultural anthropologist, a university teacher, and a writer. She was born in Argentina but moved to the United States in the late 1950s. People remember her for her work in symbolic anthropology (which studies how people use symbols to understand their world) and ethnohistory (which combines history with the study of cultures). With her husband, Robert Hunt, she did interesting research in Oaxaca, Mexico, during the 1960s.

Her Early Life and Studies

Eva Verbitsky was born on 12 April 1934, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her father, Alejandro Verbitsky, was a screenwriter, and her mother, Josefa Plotkin, was a child educator. Both of her parents were Jewish, and their families had moved from Russia.

When Eva was 17, her family moved to Mexico City. There, she became skilled as a painter. In 1953, she finished her anthropology studies at the Universidad Femenina de México. After that, she became a researcher. She worked with Roberto Weitlaner at the Escuela Nacional de Antropología and the Museo Nacional de Anthropología.

In the 1950s and 1960s, she did fieldwork in Oaxaca, Mexico. First, she studied the Cuicatec Indians. Later, she researched in the Mixtec region with Kimball Romney.

University and Research in the U.S.

In 1957, Kimball Romney helped Verbitsky continue her studies. She went to the University of Chicago to research Mexican anthropology. Her teachers included Robert McCormick Adams Jr., Fred Eggan, and Eric Wolf. She earned her master's degree in 1959 and her Ph.D. in 1962. Her Ph.D. paper was about family groups in two Tzeltal villages.

In 1960, she married Robert Hunt. From 1963 to 1964, they lived in Mexico. They did more research on the Cuicatec Indians together. In 1961, she spent some time at Northwestern University. Then, in 1965, she started teaching at the University of Chicago.

Later Work and Legacy

In the mid-1970s, Eva Hunt emphasized how important kinship (family relationships) was for studying the cultures of Mesoamerica. She focused more and more on studying entire regions. In 1977, she published a book called "The Transformation of the Hummingbird: Cultural Roots of a Zinacantecan Mythical Poem." This book used ideas from Claude Lévi-Strauss about structural anthropology, which looks for patterns in human thought and culture.

Eva Hunt became a professor at Boston University in 1978. Sadly, she died from cancer on 29 February 1980. To honor her, the Eva Hunt Teaching Fellowship was created.

See also

In Spanish: Eva Verbitsky Hunt para niños