author
Jesse Walter Fewkes
1850–1930
A pioneering American anthropologist and archaeologist, he helped bring the cultures and ancient sites of the American Southwest to a wider public. His career began in zoology, but his best-known work grew from years of field research with Indigenous communities and at major archaeological ruins.
17 Audiobooks
Catalogo de los Objetos Etnologicos y Arqueologicos Exhibidos por la Expedición Hemenway
by Jesse Walter Fewkes, Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier, Spain) Exposición Histórico-Americana (1892 : Madrid, United States. Commission to the Madrid Exposition (1892- )
Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
The feather symbol in ancient Hopi designs
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
Antiquities of the Mesa Verde National Park: Cliff Palace
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
The Katcina altars in Hopi worship
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
Prehistoric villages, castles, and towers of southwestern Colorado
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
The Tusayan ritual : A study on the influence of environment on aboriginal cults
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
The Alósaka cult of the Hopi Indians
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
Preliminary report on a visit to the Navaho National Monument, Arizona
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
Archeological investigations in New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
Tusayan katcinas
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
Antiquities of the Mesa Verde National Park : Spruce-tree House
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
Types of prehistoric Southwestern architecture
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
Archeology of the lower Mimbres valley, New Mexico
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
The Winter Solstice Altars at Hano Pueblo
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
Designs on prehistoric Hopi pottery
by Jesse Walter Fewkes
About the author
Born in Newton, Massachusetts, in 1850, Jesse Walter Fewkes studied at Harvard, earning degrees in natural history and marine zoology before shifting the course of his career. Early on he worked in zoology, including at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, but he later turned toward anthropology and archaeology.
Fewkes became an important researcher of Indigenous cultures in the American Southwest and beyond. He is especially known for work with Hopi and Zuni communities, for recording traditional songs and ceremonies, and for archaeological studies at sites including Mesa Verde and Casa Grande. His writing helped shape early American anthropology, even as modern readers may approach some of his era's methods and assumptions with caution.
He later served as chief of the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology from 1918 to 1928. By the time of his death in 1930, he had built a wide-ranging legacy as a naturalist, writer, and investigator of both living cultures and ancient ruins.