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Felix Speiser
1880–1949
A Swiss ethnologist and museum director, he is remembered for fieldwork in the South Pacific and for helping document cultures of Melanesia in the early twentieth century.
3 Audiobooks
Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific
by Felix Speiser
In het Oerwoud en bij de Kannibalen op de Nieuwe Hebriden
by Felix Speiser
About the author
Born in Basel in 1880, Felix Speiser studied chemistry before turning toward ethnology. His career shifted from the natural sciences to anthropology, and he became closely associated with the Museum of Ethnology in Basel, where he later served as director.
He is best known for research in the New Hebrides, now Vanuatu, and for broader work on Melanesian societies. His field studies and publications helped introduce European readers to the languages, customs, and social life of Pacific communities at a time when ethnographic documentation was rapidly expanding.
Speiser died in 1949. Today he is chiefly remembered as part of the early generation of Swiss anthropologists who combined museum work, collecting, and field research.