Manuel Gamio
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Manuel Gamio (1883–1960) was a Mexican
anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
,
archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
, sociologist, and a leader of the ''
indigenismo ''Indigenismo'' () is a political ideology in several Latin American countries which emphasizes the relationship between the nation state and indigenous nations and indigenous peoples. In some contemporary uses, it refers to the pursuit of great ...
'' movement. Although he rejected full sovereignty for indigenous communities in Mexico, he argued that their self-governing organizations, such as tribal governments, municipal organizations, and elected community leaders should be recognized and respected. He is often considered as the father of modern anthropological studies in
Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
. He devised a well-known system for classifying the
hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
s of Central America.


Education

Gamio was born in
Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
, where he studied engineering at the School of Mining. He studied archaeology, ethnology, and anthropology with Nicolás León and Jesús Galindo y Villa at the International School of American Archaeology and Ethnology (established on 11 January 1911 at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City).Manzanilla, Linda. "Gamio, Manuel." In Davíd Carrasco (ed).
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures
'. : Oxford University Press, 2001.
At age 19 he left his studies to work on a family rubber plantation, where the states of
Oaxaca Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...
,
Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...
and
Puebla Puebla ( en, colony, settlement), officially Free and Sovereign State of Puebla ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 217 municipalities and its cap ...
join. There he learned
Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...
from the plantation workers and developed a strong interest in Mexico's indigenous cultures. He returned to study at the National Museum under
Zélia Nuttall Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall (6 September 1857 – 12 April 1933) was an American archaeologist and anthropologist specialised in pre-Aztec Mexican cultures and pre-Columbian manuscripts. She discovered two forgotten manuscripts of this type i ...
, who in 1909 sent him to study under
Franz Boas Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...
at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
. There he earned a Ph.D. From Boas he adopted the cultural approach characteristic of the anthropology of the United States in the twentieth century. Boas considered Gamio one of his best students.


Work in Mexico and Guatemala

He returned to Mexico in 1910 and the following year he was among the founders of the Escuela Internacional de Arqueología y Etnología Americana (International School of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Americas) in Mexico City, with funds obtained from Germany and the United States. Other individuals associated with the school included
Eduard Seler Eduard Georg Seler (December 5, 1849 – November 23, 1922) was a prominent German anthropologist, ethnohistorian, linguist, epigrapher, academic and Americanist scholar, who made extensive contributions in these fields towards the study of ...
, Alfred M. Tozzer and Boas. This was during the
Mexican Revolution The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
, and thus was a difficult time to establish new scientific institutions. Gamio was director of the school from 1916 through 1920, when it closed for lack of funds. In 1911 he established a ceramic sequence for the
Valley of Mexico The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico wa ...
based on earlier stratigraphic excavations at
Azcapotzalco Azcapotzalco ( nci, Āzcapōtzalco , , from ''wikt:azcapotzalli, āzcapōtzalli'' “anthill” + ''wikt:-co, -co'' “place”; literally, “In the place of the anthills”) is a Boroughs of Mexico City, borough (''demarcación territorial'') i ...
,
Distrito Federal A federal district is a type of administrative division of a federation, usually under the direct control of a federal government and organized sometimes with a single municipal body. Federal districts often include capital districts, and they ...
. Between 1913 and 1916 he was inspector general of archaeological monuments of the Mexican Ministry of Public Education. He performed field work at various places in the Valley of Mexico, including
Copilco Copilco was an important Mesoamerican ceremonial center, southwest of Mexico City, Mexico. Copilco is located approximately four kilometers north of Cuicuilco. Both were covered by lava from several eruptions of the Xitle volcano three thousand ...
,
Cuicuilco Cuicuilco is an important archaeological site located on the southern shore of Lake Texcoco in the southeastern Valley of Mexico, in what is today the borough of Tlalpan in Mexico City. Some historians believe this settlement goes back to 1400 B ...
and the
Templo Mayor The (Spanish: Main Temple) was the main temple of the Mexica people in their capital city of Tenochtitlan, which is now Mexico City. Its architectural style belongs to the late Postclassic period of Mesoamerica. The temple was called ' in ...
(all in the Distrito Federal);
Chalchihuites Chalchihuites is a municipality in the Mexican state of Zacatecas in northwest Mexico. The archaeological site of Altavista, at Chalchihuites, is located 137 miles to the northwest of the city of Zacatecas and 102 miles southeast of the city of Dur ...
,
Zacatecas , image_map = Zacatecas in Mexico (location map scheme).svg , map_caption = State of Zacatecas within Mexico , coordinates = , coor_pinpoint = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type ...
;
Yucatán Yucatán (, also , , ; yua, Yúukatan ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán,; yua, link=no, Xóot' Noj Lu'umil Yúukatan. is one of the 31 states which comprise the political divisions of Mexico, federal entities of Mexico. I ...
;
Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...
and Miraflores, Guatemala. He was the first scientific investigator to explore
Teotihuacan Teotihuacan (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is ...
. A result of these investigations was the book ''La población del valle de Teotihuacan'' (The Population of the Valley of Teotihuacan), published in 1922. A revision of his Columbia thesis, this work is still an important source for ethnographic information on the northern zone of the
State of Mexico The State of Mexico ( es, Estado de México; ), officially just Mexico ( es, México), is one of the 32 federal entities of the United Mexican States. Commonly known as Edomex (from ) to distinguish it from the name of the whole country, it is ...
. He also produced some documentary films. He estimated the maximum population of Teotihuacan at 300,000. He criticized the Mexican census for classifying Spanish-speaking Indians as whites and those married by traditional rites as single. Earlier, in 1916, he had published the important book ''Forjando patria: pro nacionalismo'' (Mexico City: Libreria de Porrúa Hermanos) (Forging a Fatherland), a treatise on
cultural assimilation Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially. The different types of cultural assi ...
of indigenous Mexicans into the racially mixed society of the country. Other works in Spanish include ''Hacia un México nuevo'' (1935) and ''Consideraciones sobre el problema del indigenismo'' (1948). In the 1920s he investigated the highlands of
Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
, near the cities of
Quiche Quiche ( ) is a French tart consisting of pastry crust filled with savoury custard and pieces of cheese, meat, seafood or vegetables. A well-known variant is quiche Lorraine, which includes lardons or bacon. Quiche may be served hot, warm or co ...
,
Huehuetenango Huehuetenango () is a city and municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The city is situated from Guatemala City, and is the last departmental capital on the Pan-American High ...
and
Quetzaltenango Quetzaltenango (, also known by its Maya name Xelajú or Xela ) is both the seat of the namesake Department and municipality, in Guatemala. The city is located in a mountain valley at an elevation of above sea level at its lowest part. It may ...
, concentrating on pottery styles. Due to the similarity of pottery from Guatemala and central Mexico, Gamio believed the latter area to be the original source of
Maya civilization The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, archit ...
. He hypothesized that some of the early natives of central Mexico abandoned that area in search of a place free of earthquakes and volcanos. Gamio's publications on Mexico's indigenous was important for "reinstating Anahuac as the glorious foundation of Mexican history and culture." Gamio was one among many, including President
Lázaro Cárdenas Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (; 21 May 1895 – 19 October 1970) was a Mexican army officer and politician who served as president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940. Born in Jiquilpan, Michoacán, to a working-class family, Cárdenas joined the M ...
in the 1930s, who worked for the integration of the indigenous into national life.


Work in the United States

In 1925 he emigrated to the United States after denouncing corruption in the Mexican Ministry of Education. He concentrated on the subjects of migration and labor involving Mexicans in the United States, for the
Social Science Research Council The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is a US-based, independent, international nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines. Established in Manhattan in 1923, it today maintains a he ...
in Washington, D.C. Gamio published two books on this research – ''Mexican Immigration to the United States'' (1930) and ''The Mexican Immigrant: His Life Story'' (1931) – this time in English. These books have only recently been translated into Spanish for the use of present-day Mexican anthropologists and sociologists. He returned to Mexico in 1930, where he held various government positions, conducted sociological and applied anthropological investigations, and directed the Inter-American Indian Institute from its foundation in 1942 until his death in 1960.


References


Further reading

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gamio, Manuel 1883 births 1960 deaths Mexican anthropologists Mexican archaeologists Mexican sociologists Mexican Mesoamericanists Mesoamerican archaeologists Mesoamerican anthropologists Aztec scholars 20th-century Mesoamericanists 20th-century archaeologists 20th-century anthropologists