author
Ernest William Hawkes
b. 1883
Known for early fieldwork with Indigenous communities in Alaska and northern Canada, this American anthropologist also moved through several other callings over the course of his life, including teaching and poetry.
1 Audiobook
The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo
by Ernest William Hawkes
About the author
Born on July 19, 1883, Ernest William Hawkes was an American anthropologist best remembered for studying the Indigenous peoples of Alaska and northern Canada. Records associated with his published work identify him with that 1883 birth year, and he died on March 13, 1957.
His name is especially linked to early twentieth-century research in the North, including work that led to books such as The Labrador Eskimo. A later biographical account describes him as a man with an unusually varied career, noting that he was not only an anthropologist but also at different times a schoolteacher, a professor of biology and anatomy, and a poet.
That mix of field research and wide-ranging interests gives Hawkes a distinctive place in the history of anthropology: he helped document northern Indigenous life during an important period, while also leading a life that did not stay neatly inside one profession.