William Scranton Simmons (September 10, 1938 – June 2, 2018)
was an American anthropologist specializing in the culture and history of the
Narragansett people
The Narragansett people are an Algonquian American Indian tribe from Rhode Island. Today, Narragansett people are enrolled in the federally recognized Narragansett Indian Tribe. They gained federal recognition in 1983.
The tribe was nearly lan ...
.
Life and career
Born in Rhode Island, Simmons attend
Classical High School
Classical High School, founded in 1843, is a public magnet school in the Providence School District, in Providence, Rhode Island. It was originally an all-male school but has since become co-ed. Classical's motto is ''Certare, Petere, Reperire, ...
. He subsequently enrolled at
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
where he received a degree in human biology in 1960. During his undergraduate studies he carried out archeological fieldwork in Alaska with archaeologist
J. Louis Giddings
James Louis Giddings Jr. (April 10, 1909 – December 9, 1964) was an American archaeologist who made significant contributions to Arctic archaeology.Henry B. Collins,"Obituaries" 12 February 2015 During three decades of his fieldwork in Northwest ...
. Simmons completed his M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology 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 higher le ...
, and took a position at the
University of California Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...
from 1967 to 1998. First as a professor in the Department of Anthropology, and then as Dean of the Division of Social Sciences.
In 1998 Simmons returned to Brown University as Professor of Anthropology, and as Provost and also served as Acting Director of the
Haffenreffer Museum from 2012–2013. He was known among his friends and students for his trademark cowboy boots.
He was married to Cheryl Simmons, and had two daughters.
Research
He wrote three books and numerous articles and chapters on Native American religion, including studies of mortuary ritual, religious conversion, mythological narrative. He also worked intensively with the Native groups of southern New England including Narragansett,
Pequot
The Pequot () are a Native American people of Connecticut. The modern Pequot are members of the federally recognized Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, four other state-recognized groups in Connecticut including the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, or th ...
,
Mohegan
The Mohegan are an Algonquian Native American tribe historically based in present-day Connecticut. Today the majority of the people are associated with the Mohegan Indian Tribe, a federally recognized tribe living on a reservation in the east ...
,
Massachusett
The Massachusett were a Native American tribe from the region in and around present-day Greater Boston in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name comes from the Massachusett language term for "At the Great Hill," referring to the Blue Hills ...
, and
Wampanoag
The Wampanoag , also rendered Wôpanâak, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands based in southeastern Massachusetts and historically parts of eastern Rhode Island,Salwen, "Indians of Southern New England and Long Island," p. 17 ...
, and also in California among the
Northern Maidu. He frequently worked collaboratively with Native scholars on topics related to petitions for
federal recognition
This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...
.
He also worked in Africa doing field research with the
Badyaranke of Senegal, publishing a book and several articles on traditional religion, witchcraft, and conversion to
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
.
Selected publications
*Simmons, W. S. (1988). Culture theory in contemporary ethnohistory. Ethnohistory, 35(1), 1–14.
*Simmons, W. S. (1981). Cultural Bias in the New England Puritans' Perception of Indians. The William and Mary Quarterly: A Magazine of Early American History, 56–72.
*Hammel, E. A., & Simmons, W. S. (1970). Man makes sense: a reader in modern cultural anthropology. Little, Brown.
*Simmons, W. S. (1986). Spirit of the New England Tribes: Indian History and Folklore, 1620–1984. UPNE.
*Simmons, W. (1979). The Great Awakening and Indian Conversion in Southern New England. Algonquian Papers-Archive, 10.
*Simmons, W. S. (1997). Indian peoples of California. California History, 76(2/3), 48–77.
*Simmons, W. S. (1985). Anthropology, history, and the North American Indian. A review article. Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan., 1985), pp. 174–182
*Simmons, W. S., & Speck, F. (1985). Frank Speck and" The Old Mohegan Indian Stone Cutter". Ethnohistory, 155–163.
*Simmons, W. S., Morales, R., Williams, V., & Camacho, S. (1997). Honey Lake Maidu Ethnogeography of Lassen County, California. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, 2–31.
*Simmons, W. S. (2002). From Manifest Destiny to the Melting Pot: The Life and Times of Charlotte Mitchell, Wampanoag. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, (44).
*Simmons, W. S. (1980). powerlessness, exploitation and the soul‐eating witch: an analysis of Badyaranke witchcraft. American ethnologist, 7(3), 447–465.
*Simmons, W. S. (1983). Red Yankees: Narragansett Conversion in the Great Awakening. American Ethnologist, 10(2), 253–271.
*Simmons, W. S., & Aubin, G. F. (1975). Narragansett kinship. Man in the Northeast, 9, 21–31.
*Simmons, W. S. (1982). Return of the Timid Giant: Algonquian Legends of Southern New England. Algonquian Papers-Archive, 13.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Simmons, William
1938 births
2018 deaths
20th-century American anthropologists
21st-century American anthropologists
Classical High School alumni
Brown University alumni
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
University of California, Berkeley faculty
Brown University faculty
People from Rhode Island