author
Washington Matthews
1843–1905
An army surgeon turned pioneering ethnographer, he became one of the earliest non-Navajo scholars to study Navajo language, ceremony, and storytelling in depth. His writings helped preserve traditions and opened a wider audience to Navajo culture in the late 19th century.
3 Audiobooks
Navajo Silversmiths Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-1881, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1883, pages 167-178
by Washington Matthews
About the author
Born in Killiney, Ireland, in 1843, he came to the United States as a child and later studied medicine at the University of Iowa. He served as a surgeon in the U.S. Army, and his military postings in the American West brought him into close contact with Indigenous communities, especially the Navajo.
Matthews is best remembered for his careful studies of Navajo life, language, weaving, silversmithing, ceremonies, and oral tradition. Works such as Navaho Legends and The Mountain Chant made him an important early recorder of Navajo stories and ceremonial knowledge, and he was widely respected for taking Navajo belief and art seriously at a time when many outsiders did not.
Although his work reflects the limits of its era, it remains historically important in the study of the Navajo Nation and the development of American anthropology. He died in 1905, leaving behind a body of writing that still draws interest from readers, historians, and scholars of Indigenous cultures.