Heinrich (Henry) Richert Voth (15 April 1855 – 2 June 1931) was an

ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

and

Mennonite Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radic ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

and minister. He was born in Alexanderwohl, Southern Russia. Voth was sent by the Mission Board of the

General Conference Mennonite Church The General Conference Mennonite Church (GCMC) was a mainline association of Mennonite congregations based in North America from 1860 to 2002. The conference was formed in 1860 when congregations in Iowa invited North American Mennonites to join ...

to work among the

Arapaho The Arapaho (; french: Arapahos, ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho ba ...

and the Hopi people.

Life and career

Voth learned the

Arapaho language The Arapaho (Arapahoe) language () is one of the Plains Algonquian languages, closely related to Gros Ventre and other Arapahoan languages. It is spoken by the Arapaho of Wyoming and Oklahoma. Speakers of Arapaho primarily live on the Wind Ri ...

and customs at Darlington,

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United St ...

, near Fort Reno, where he worked from June 1882 to January 1892. Voth was made superintendent in 1884. He married Barbara Baer from the mission the same year, they had a daughter, Frieda. His wife died in 1889. Voth married Martha Moser, who had also worked at Darlington, in 1892 and they both went to work at

Oraibi Oraibi, also referred to as Old Oraibi, is a Hopi village in Navajo County, Arizona, United States, in the northeastern part of the state. Known as Orayvi by the native inhabitants, it is on Third Mesa on the Hopi Reservation near Kykotsmovi Vi ...

with the 3rd mesa Hopi, Northern Arizona the next year. Martha Voth died in 1901. Henry Voth had witnessed the Ghost Dance revivalism among his Arapaho congregation. He collected objects and later sold them to the

Bureau of American Ethnology The Bureau of American Ethnology (or BAE, originally, Bureau of Ethnology) was established in 1879 by an act of Congress for the purpose of transferring archives, records and materials relating to the Indians of North America from the Interior D ...

.Book of Cheyenne drawing by Yellow Nose, enter Voth
/ref> At Oraibi Voth supported many anthropologists from around the world in their

Pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

studies and collected objects for many institutions, for Fred Harvey, but also for the Hamburg and Berlin anthropological museums. His closest collaboration was with George A. Dorsey from Chicago. The Field Museum published Voth's series of precise descriptions of Hopi ceremonies and folklore, illustrated with his Kodak No. 1 photographs. Voth was one of very few non native writers on the Hopi fluent in the Hopi language. Among his papers at Bethel College are his studies in the Arapaho language, Hopi religion, and a Hopi dictionary. Voth left the Hopi and the Heathen Mission field in 1903. He married Katie Hershler in 1906 and from 1914 to 1927 served the Zoar Mennonite Church in

Goltry, Oklahoma Goltry is a town in Alfalfa County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 249 at the 2010 census. Goltry shares the Timberlake school district with the nearby towns of Helena, Jet, and Nash. Geography Situated in far southeastern Alfalfa ...

as its resident minister. He died in 1931 in Newton, Kansas.

Works

The

Field Columbian Museum The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...

, Chicago, published Voth' s papers in its Anthropological Series, Vols. 3, 6 and 11: * ''The Oraibi Powamu Ceremony'', 3(2), 64- 158, 1901 * ''The Oraibi Summer Snake Ceremony'', 3(4), 263- 358, 1903 * ''The Oraibi Oaqöl Ceremony'', 6(1), 1- 46, 1903 * ''The Traditions of the Hopi'', 1905 * ''Oraibi Natal Customs and Ceremonies'', 6(2), 47- 61 * ''The Oraibi Marau Ceremony'', 11(1), 1- 81, 1912 * ''Brief Miscellaneous Hopi Papers'', 11(2), 89- 149, 1912 In the same series, together with George A. Dorsey: * ''The Oraibi Soyal Ceremony'', 3(1), 1901 * ''The Mishongnovi Ceremonies of the Snake and Antelope Fraternities'', 3(3), 1901

References

External links

Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online entry

Henry R. Voth with Arapaho children, 1893, photo

''Every Beginning Is Hard'', essay
{{DEFAULTSORT:Voth, Henry 1855 births 1931 deaths Russian Mennonites American Mennonites Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Russian people of German descent Mennonite missionaries Russian Protestant missionaries German Protestant missionaries American Protestant missionaries Protestant missionaries in the United States

Life and career

Works

References

Further reading

External links