Constance Goddard DuBois (died 1934) was an American novelist and an ethnographer, writing extensively between 1899 and 1908 about the native peoples and cultures of

southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

. DuBois was born in

Zanesville, Ohio Zanesville is a city in and the county seat of Muskingum County, Ohio, United States. It is located east of Columbus and had a population of 24,765 as of the 2020 census, down from 25,487 as of the 2010 census. Historically the state capita ...

, and settled in

Waterbury, Connecticut Waterbury is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut on the Naugatuck River, southwest of Hartford and northeast of New York City. Waterbury is the second-largest city in New Haven County, Connecticut. According to the 2020 US Census, in 20 ...

, in 1889. Her published fiction included several short stories plus six novels (DuBois 1890, 1892, 1895a, 1895b, 1900, 1907). Luiseno drawing early 1800s

DuBois' most enduring contribution was as a self-taught ethnographer, doing pioneering studies in a period when professional academic anthropology was just becoming established in the United States. Starting in the late 1890s, she made summer trips out west to see her sister who lived in the

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

area. She began making treks into the San Diego backcountry, to meet the surviving communities of

Diegueño The Kumeyaay, also known as Tipai-Ipai or by their historical Spanish name Diegueño, is a tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Americas who live at the northern border of Baja California in Mexico and the southern border of California in the Unit ...

and

Luiseño The Luiseño or Payómkawichum are an indigenous people of California who, at the time of the first contacts with the Spanish in the 16th century, inhabited the coastal area of southern California, ranging from the present-day southern part of L ...

Indians. Soon she was writing about their traditional and contemporary lifeways, promoting traditional crafts (particularly basketry), and helping with financial and political assistance. DuBois' longest ethnographic work was a detailed monograph on "The Religion of the Luiseño Indians of Southern California" (1908), edited by

Alfred L. Kroeber Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first ...

. In addition, she published 23 shorter articles about the region's native peoples, with particular emphases on their mythology, ceremonies, and crafts (Laylander 2004). Her manuscript papers are on file at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

,Guide to the Constance Goddard DuBois Papers, 1897–1909
/ref> and the

San Diego Museum of Man The Museum of Us (formerly known as the San Diego Museum of Man) is a museum of anthropology located in Balboa Park, San Diego, California and housed in the historic landmark buildings of the California Quadrangle. History The museum traces it ...

has a collection of her photographs.

Works

*''Martha Corey: A Tale of the Salem Witchcraft''. A. C. McClurg, Chicago, 1890. *''Columbus and Beatriz''. A. C. McClurg, Chicago, 1892. *''The Shield of the Fleur de Lis: A Novel''. Merriam, New York, 1895 *''A Modern Pagan: A Novel''. Merriam, New York, 1895 *''A Soul in Bronze: A Novel of Southern California''. H. S. Stone, Chicago, 1900. *"The Raven of Capistrano: A True Wonder Tale". ''Out West'' 26:430-437, 537-544, 27:57-64, 152-157, 227-233, 343-351, 415-421, 523-531 (1907). *"The Religion of the Luiseño Indians of Southern California". ''University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology'' 8:69-166 (1908).

References

*Laylander, Don (editor). 2004. ''Listening to the Raven: The Southern California Ethnography of Constance Goddard DuBois''. Coyote Press, Salinas, California, 2004. *Laylander, Don (editor). 2006. Early Ethnographic Notes from Constance Goddard DuBois on the Indians of San Diego County. ''Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology'' 26:205-214.

External links

* Year of birth missing 1934 deaths American anthropologists American ethnologists American folklorists American women anthropologists Women ethnologists Ethnographers People from Zanesville, Ohio Women folklorists {{ethnographer-stub