Lorna Marshall (born Lorna Jean McLean; September 14, 1898 – July 8, 2002) was an anthropologist who in the 1950s, 60s and 70s lived among and wrote about the previously unstudied
!Kung people of the
Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa.
It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal d ...
.
[Douglas Martin, "Lorna Marshall, 103, Early Scholar on Africa's Bushmen"]
obituary
in the New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
, July 30, 2002.[Expeditionary notebooks and journals of Lorna and Laurence Marshall, 1928, 1951–1968 : A Finding Aid]
. Peabody Museum Archives. Harvard University. October 2004
Background
Marshall was born in Morenci, Arizona territory. She married Laurence Kennedy Marshall in 1926; they had a daughter
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (born September 13, 1931) is an American author. She has published fiction and non-fiction books and articles on animal behavior, Paleolithic life, and the !Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert.
Early life and education ...
(born 1931) and a son
John Kennedy Marshall (1932–2005). Marshall received a BA in English Literature from UC Berkeley in 1921 and an MA from Radcliffe College in 1928, and before 1926 worked as an English instructor at
Mount Holyoke. Later she took
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
courses at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
and had a second career as an ethnographer. Her husband was born in Medford, Massachusetts in 1889, studied at Tufts University, and co-founded the
Raytheon Company
The Raytheon Company was a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft unti ...
in 1922 where he worked until 1950.
[
In 1951, the Marshall family went to South-West Africa (now ]Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
) to conduct an ethnographic study of the !Kung of Nyae Nyae (also known as the Ju/'hoansi or Ju/'hoan Bushmen). The family became deeply engaged in this work and returned to Africa on several expeditions throughout the 1950s and 1960s, each lasting from a few months to a year and a half. As Elizabeth Marshall Thomas explains in her book, ''The Old Way'', Laurence Marshall attempted to recruit an anthropologist to join their expeditions, but no one was interested. It then fell to Lorna Marshall to conduct ethnographic interviews and compile fieldnotes, despite the fact that she had no formal anthropological training.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Marshall published numerous articles on !Kung culture and religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
. Her first book, ''The !Kung of Nyae Nyae'', was published in 1976 to positive reviews including one by Alan Barnard, who called Marshall "one of the most sensitive, meticulous and unpretentious ethnographers of all time." Marshall enjoyed a long career, publishing her second book, ''Nyae Nyae !Kung Beliefs and Rites'', in 1999 when she was 101. In addition to written ethnography, Lorna Marshall also collaborated on several ethnographic films about the !Kung of Nyae Nyae with her son, John Kennedy Marshall (1932–2005), a documentary and ethnographic filmmaker.
She died at her daughter Elizabeth's home in Peterborough, New Hampshire
Peterborough is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 6,418 at the 2020 census. The main village, with 3,090 people at the 2020 census, is defined as the Peterborough census-designated place (CDP) and ...
, where she had lived since 1996, in 2002 at the age of 103; she had previously lived in the same house in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...
, since the late 1920s.
Books
* ''The !Kung of Nyae Nyae''. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976.
* ''Nyae Nyae !Kung Beliefs and Rites''. Peabody Museum Monographs no. 8, 1999.
Film Credits
* ''First Film'' (1952), Editing and Narration
* ''!Kung Bushman Hunting Equipment'' (1966), Ethnography and Script
* ''Bitter Melons'' (1971), Ethnography
* ''A Kalahari Family'' (2002), Executive Producer
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marshall, Lorna
1898 births
2002 deaths
American anthropology writers
American centenarians
American documentary filmmakers
American ethnographers
American expatriates in Namibia
American film editors
Film producers from Massachusetts
American women academics
American women screenwriters
Screenwriters from Massachusetts
Teachers of English
Mount Holyoke College faculty
People from Morenci, Arizona
Radcliffe College alumni
Raytheon Company people
University of California, Berkeley alumni
American women anthropologists
Women science writers
American women non-fiction writers
Screenwriters from Arizona
Film producers from Arizona
Women centenarians
American women film editors
American women documentary filmmakers
20th-century American women writers
20th-century American screenwriters
20th-century American anthropologists