author
Washington Matthews
1843–1905
An Army surgeon turned pioneering ethnographer, he became one of the most important early writers on Navajo life, language, and ceremony. His work also helped preserve knowledge of the Hidatsa people through careful study and translation.
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, Washington Matthews immigrated to the United States as a child and later earned a medical degree from the University of Iowa. He served as a surgeon in the U.S. Army, and his postings in the American West opened the way for the research that shaped his reputation.
Alongside his medical career, Matthews devoted himself to studying Native American languages and traditions, especially those of the Navajo and Hidatsa. He became known for unusually close, respectful observation for his time, and for books and reports on Navajo chants, weaving, mythology, and social life that remained influential long after his death.
Matthews died in 1905. He is still remembered as an important early ethnographer and linguist whose writing preserved cultural and ceremonial knowledge that might otherwise have been lost.