author
Frank Hamilton Cushing
1857–1900
A pioneering American anthropologist, he became famous for living among the Zuni and learning their culture from the inside at a time when that approach was almost unheard of. His work helped shape the idea of participant observation in modern anthropology.
4 Audiobooks
A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth. Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1882-83, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1886, pages 467-522
by Frank Hamilton Cushing
Zuñi Fetiches Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-1881, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1883, pages 3-45
by Frank Hamilton Cushing
Outlines of Zuñi Creation Myths Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-1892, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 321-448
by Frank Hamilton Cushing
Zuñi Folk Tales
by Frank Hamilton Cushing
About the author
Born in Pennsylvania in 1857, Frank Hamilton Cushing showed an early gift for studying Native American material culture and joined the Smithsonian at a remarkably young age. He went on to become one of the most noted American ethnologists of the 19th century.
Cushing is best known for his years with the Zuni people in New Mexico, where he immersed himself in daily life, language, and ceremony rather than observing from a distance. That unusually close fieldwork made him a groundbreaking figure in anthropology, even as later readers have also examined his work through the ethical questions that surround early ethnographic research.
He also carried out archaeological work in the American Southwest and later in Florida, and he remained active as a writer, lecturer, and museum scholar until his death in Washington, D.C., in 1900. Though his life was relatively short, his influence on American anthropology was lasting.