HARRY TSCHOPIK, JR.

1915-1956
ARRP TSCHOPIK was an ethnologist interested in material culture and in the relationship between ethnology and archeology, a dedicated museum man with a flair for exhibits and a belief in the mission of museums to take anthropology to the general public, a pioneer student of Peruvian ethnology who trained the first generation of Peruvian ethnologists, and a scholar who stood uncompromisingly for the highest standards of recording and interpretation in anthropology. Into the scant twenty years of productive life which was all he had, Harry Tschopik crowded more outstanding accomplishments that most anthropologists manage in twice the span. Harry Tschopik was born on August 23, 1915, in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father, Harry Schlessinger Tschopik, was an executive of the American Radiator-Standard Sanitary Corporation. Harry was named for his father, but he disliked his middle name and never used it. A t least as early as high school days, Harry became interested in American archeology and decided to make anthropology his career. As a senior a t the Isidore Newman High School in New Orleans he applied for admission to the

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University of California a t Berkeley, but was rejected because some of his grades were too low. He therefore entered Tulane University in the fall of 1932 and did his first two years of college work there in general subjects. He was admitted to the University of California as a junior in 1934 and took his A.B. degree there in 1936 with honors in anthropology and a Phi Beta Kappa key. He was a member of Kappa Alpha fraternity and led an active social life, but a t the same time he made a brilliant record as a student. He had his first field experience in the summer of 1935 as a member of an archeological field crew working near Marysville in the Sacramento Valley under the direction of Waldo R. WedeI. Harrys plan was t o specialize in the archeology of Central America or the eastern United States, so he went on to do graduate work a t Harvard University where he could get specilaized instruction in these fields. Opportunities for summer field work in archeology were scarce in those days, so Harry accepted an invitation from Clyde Kluckhohn to try doing ethnographic work on Navaho material culture in the summer of 1937. This experience converted Harry to ethnology and give him a profound respect for Kluckhohn, who became one of the major intellectual influences in his career. Harry continued his Navaho field work in 1938 and published a series of papers on Navaho basketry and pottery (1938, 1940, 1941) which are outstanding for their technological competence, comparative perspective, and sense of theoretical problem. Equally noteworthy is his distribution study of Southwestern basketry techniques published as part of the archeological report on the 1937 excavations of the University of New Mexico in Chaco Canyon (1939). Meanwhile, with Marion Hutchinson, whom he married August 23, 1939, he assisted in the study of a mummy bundle from the Great Necropolis a t Paracas, Peru. This work, done under the direction of Alfred Kidder 11, reflected an interest in the Andean area which Harry owed to a course he took with Ronald L. Olson a t the University of California in 1935. Harry wrote a section on the basketry remains for the still unpublished report on this mummy bundle. I n 1940 Harry took his M.A. a t Harvard and left for Peru with his wife to undertake a study of a conservative Aymari community near Puno. The Tschopiks selected the village of Chucuito on the shores of Lake Titicaca for the proposed study and worked there for two and a half years. The Chucuito project was an exceptionally difficult one, and it inspired Harry to the finest field work of his career. The Aymari are proverbially hostile to outsiders, and the rigid class structure of Peruvian society made it impossible for the Tschopiks to attempt to establish familiar patterns of friendly equality with their informants. Nevertheless, they succeeded in earning the liking and trust of the townspeople to such an extent that the AymarL were willing to put on their most sacred ceremonies out of season so that Harry could photograph them. Harry applied to the Chucuito project the rigorous standards of field recording and documentation which he had learned under Kluckhohn and collected the materials for one of the most detailed studies of another culture ever under-

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taken by an ethnologist. He estimated that he had material for a t least six volumes of reports. Unfortunately, his death interrupted the publication of his Chucuito results. He had published a general summary of Aymari culture in the Handbook of South American Indians (1946), the texts of four AymarL folk tales (1948), a study of pottery making a t Chucuito in historical perspective (1950), and a detailed monograph on Aymari magic, written as his Ph.D. dissertation a t Harvard (1951); a second monograph, on AymarL material culture, was partly written when he died. He also published two popular articles on his adventures a t Chucuito (1955). I n 1942 Harry undertook some intelligence work for the U. S. government, and the Tschopiks moved to Arequipa. Harry continued to work on the Chucuito project, however, and made several further visits to the town. Early in 1945 Harry succeeded John Gillin as the Representative in Peru of the Institute of Social Anthropology of the Smithsonian Institution. The plans drawn up between Julian H. Steward, the Director of the Institute, and Luis E. Valcircel, Peruvian Minister of Education, called for a survey of highland communities in central Peru and an intensive study of one with a culture of mestizo type. Harry was in charge of the field program, assisted by Jorge C. Muelle, Gabriel Escobar, and JOSE M. B. Farfin. This team spent the months of April and May, 1945, visiting fourteen communities in the departments of Pasco, Junfn, Huancavelica, and Ayacucho to make a survey of regional cultural variation; Tschopik, Muelle, and Escobar then devoted about a year to a detailed study of the town of Sicaya near Huancayo. Harry published a report on the survey (1947) which attracted much favorable attention; the field work had been done with great skill and a surprising amount of valuable information collected. It was agreed by the three participants in the Sicaya study that Muelle and Escobar should write the report on that community. Muelle and Escobar showed me their notes in Lima in the summer of 1946 just after the close of the Sicaya work; both were full of enthusiasm and had found the experience an emotional as well as an intellectual adventure. Harry found field work exciting, and even to talk over field problems with him was an inspiration. During the work a t Sicaya Harry was told about two caves nearby in which stone implements had been found but no pottery. He made a small excavation in these caves and published an article on them (1946) which is a model of archeological reporting. These caves were the first preceramic sites in Peru to be adequately reported. When the Tschopiks returned to the United States in the summer of 1946 Kluckhohn was deep in culture and personality problems and wanted Harry to get some background in this field. Then it was decided that Harry should write his dissertation on Aymari magic as revealing the congruity between personality and the culture pattern (1951: 147). The plan called for a tour de force. The field work a t Chucuito had not been done with problems of culture and personality in mind,and Harry had to reinterpret his field notes without being able to go back and check questions with his informants. Few ethnologists

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could have met such a formidable challenge, but Harrys field record included so much detailed case material that he was able to write a very distinguished monograph along the lines set. Its publication in 1951, the same year his doctorate was awarded, prompted Kroeber to write a special letter of commendation to the AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST (55 :613). Nevertheless, Harry was not happy with the culture and personality approach and never published another paper which reflected it. In March, 1947, Harry became Assistant Curator of Ethnology a t the American Museum of Natural History in New York, filling a vacancy left by the retirement of Clark Wissler. I t was an admirable appointment from every point of view, and Harry wrote a t the time that it was his number one job preference in the whole United States. His museum duties left him time to complete his dissertation and stimulated him to do research in new fields. An invitation to install an exhibit of North American Indian material a t the Museo Nacional in San JosC, Costa Rica, in 1952 gave him an opportunity to make a field survey of Costa Rican rural communities. Meanwhile, Harry had developed a n interest in the Montaiia tribes of eastern Peru through his research for the great Men of the Montaiia exhibit which the American Museum installed in 1951. In 1953 he spent eight months exploring the Montaiia area and visited the Campa, Conibo, Shipibo, and Cocama. He brought back from this trip 4,500 feet of color-sound film and 50 rolls of tape recordings in addition to his own notes. In 1954 he published an album in the Ethnic Folkways Library containing selections of the music recorded on this trip, and the next year he published two popular articles on his experiences. He was working on a paper on Shipibo kinship a t the time of his death. As a result of the Montafia survey, Harry laid plans for a major research program centering on the Ucayali tribes. It was to involve a combination of archeological and ethnographic field work, with some background natural science studies, and was to emphasize the history of the cultures in the area and a relativistic approach to the cultural systems themselves. Harry wanted to assume personal responsibility for making a thorough study of the culture of the Conibo, a people whom he found particularly interesting and congenial, and he hoped to persuade others to undertake other parts of the general program. The first unit of his plan was carried out in 1956; in that year the American Museum sponsored a seasons archeological field work in the Pucallpa area by Donald W. Lathrap of Harvard University. Lathrap followed instructions and suggestions provided by Tschopik in this work and returned home in time to make a personal report on his results shortly before Harry died. In one of his last popular articles, Harry remarked, An ethnologist by profession, I am a photographer at heart (Natural History, January, 1955, p. 12). This statement reflected the fact that Harry was fascinated by the possibilities of using still photography and film to record ethnographic data in the held both for research analysis and to make the cultures he studied intelligible to a wider public. He was a superb photographer in both media. His death interrupted the final editing of a color film based on his Montaiia field work,

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but Harry had done enough so that the job could be finished by someone else. Harry held an appointment as Lecturer as Columbia University from 1949 to 1951 but taught only for one year; he gave a course in 1949-50 on Andean Indians. He was a good teacher and the students liked him, but he did not like academic teaching--a reaction that he predicted long before he actually tried it. The kind of teaching he liked was of an entirely different sort; he enjoyed reaching a nonacademic public through popular lectures, nontechnical articles and reviews, television, and strikingly original museum exhibits. He valued his museum position so highly because he believed that the mission of anthropological museums is to take the study of man to a public which the universities will never reach. I n this difficult field Harry was one of the greatest teachers of his generation. One cannot read his articles and reviews for Natural History without being struck by the artistry with which he made accurate and significant anthropological information intelligible and interesting to the general reader. He brought the same skill to bear on television presentations in his frequent appearances on the American Museum program Adventure; he insisted on the highest scientific standards but maintained that the scripts did not have to be dull just because they were accurate. He can ill be spared in a field which anthropology cannot afford to neglect. In museum exhibition, Harrys masterpiece was the Men of the Montaiia show for which he did the anthropological research (see The New Yorker, December 8,1951, pp. 33-34). With regard to this exhibit, Junius Bird writes: Since it was opened, I have talked with various Europeans on tour studying museum exhibition techniques. All were emphatic in agreeing that this hall is the greatest anthropological exhibit they had ever seen. In the manner of Harrys popular articles, this exhibit is an emotional experience for the visitor as well as a monument of scientific accuracy and clear presentation. Harry was keenly interested in anthropological theory and enjoyed discussing it with his professional colleagues. In his writings, however, he liked to make the theory, of which he was fully conscious, emerge from the selection, arrangement, and interpretation of data. It is a highly sophisticated method of scientific discourse which was not fashionable during Harrys lifetime-but Harry made few concessions to academic fashion. He always appeared concerned about other peoples reactions, but in his own research his judgment was independent, original, and sound. Harry Tschopik died of heart failure in his sleep on November 12, 1956. He is survived by his wife, a son Harry Tschopik 1 1 1 , and two daughters, Carolyn and Hope. JOHN HOWLAND ROWE University of California, Berkeley
BIBLIOGRAPHY

1938 Taboo as a possible factor involved in the obsolescence of Navaho pottery and basketry. American Anthropologist40:257-262. 1939 Artifacts of perishable materials. In Preliminary report on the 1937 excavations, Bc 50-51,

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1940 1941

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Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, with some distributional analyses, Clyde Kluckhohn and Paul Reiter, eds. The University of New Mexico Bulletin, Anthropological Series, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 94-130 (includes a long section on Coiled basketry techniques in the Southwest: distributions and continuities, pp. 105-130). Navaho basketry: a study of culture change. American Anthropologist, 42:444-462. Navaho pottery making; an inquiry into the affinities of Navaho painted pottery. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, XVII, no. 1. Cambridge. The AymarB. I n Handbook of South American Indians, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143, vol. 2: 501-573. Washington. Review of (1) Estudio familiar demogr&fico-ecol6gico,en estancias indias de la altiplanicie del Titicaca (Ichupampa). (2) La condici6n social del indio y su insalubridad: miradas sociogr6ficas del Cuzco (I). (3) El Instituto Mtdico-higiCnico-social del Sur: un proyecto organizador. By Maxime W. Kuczynski Godard. Geographical Review XXXVI: 509-511. Some notes on rock shelter sites near Huancayo, Peru. American Antiquity XII:73-80. Highland communities of central Peru; a regional survey. Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology, Publication no. 5. United States Government Printing Office, Washington. Review o f Apache land, by Ross Santee. Natural History, December, p. 464. Review o f Children of the people, by Dorothea Leighton and Clyde Kluckhohn. Natural History, September, p. 292. Review o f Chippewa village, by W. Vernon Kinietz. Natural History, November, pp. 390391. Review of First penthouse dwellers of America, by Ruth M. Underhill. Natural History, May, p. 197. Review of Santa Eulalia. The religion of a Cuchumathn Indian town, by Oliver L a Farge. Natural History, May, p. 240. Anthropology and archaeology. In 1948 Colliers year book, covering the events of the year 1947, pp. 29-30. Aymark texts: Lupaca dialect. International Journal of American Linguistics 14: 108-1 14. On the concept of Creole culture in Peru. Transactions of the New York Academyof Sciences, ser. 1 1 ,vol. 10,7:252-261. Review of The Eastern Timbira by Curt NimuendajC; Robert H. Lowie ed. and trans. American Anthropologist 50: 119-122. Review o f Throw me a bone, by Eleanor Lothrop. Natural History, April, p. 191. Anthropology and archaeology. In 1949 Colliers year book, covering the events of the year 1948, pp. 37-39. Music of Peru; mestizo: Aymara: Quechua: marinera, huayno, yaravi toril. Background notes. Ethnic Folkways Library, EFL 1415. Folkways Records and Service Corp., New York. On the identification of the Indian in Peru. In Indians of the Unikd States. Contributions by members of the delegation, and by advisers to the policy board of the National Indian Institute, for the Second Inter-American Conference on Indian Life convened a t Cuzco, Peru, June 2 4 J u l y 4,1949, pp. 93-98. Peruvian folk art. Magazine of Art, January, pp. 14-17. Review o f Archives Ethnos, W. A. Ruysch ed. American Anthropologist 51 :123-124. Review of Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, by Victor Wolfgang von Hagen. Natural History, June, p. 244. Review of Indians of the urban northwest, Marion W. Smith ed. Natural History, December, pp. 436,438. Rmm of The Tenetehara Indians of Brazil, by Charles Wagley and Eduardo Galvgo. Natural History, May, p. 197. Regew ofThe wolf and the r@ven,by Yipla E. Garfield and Linn A. Forrest. Natural History, May, p. 199,

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1950 An Andean ceramic tradition in historical perspective. American Antiquity XV: 196-218. Anthropology and archaeology. In 1950 Colliers year book, covering the events of the year 1949,pp. 33-37. Review of American Indian sculpture, by Paul Wingert. Natural History, February, p. 52. Rm*mof Art of the Northwest Coast Indians, by Bruce Inverarity. New York Herald Tribune Book Review, December 17. Rmew o f Brazilian culture, by Fernando de Azuevedo. Natural History, September, p. 293. Rm*ew o f Frederick Catherwood Archt., by Victor Wolfgang von Hagen. Natural History, April, pp. 1 8 8 1 8 9 . Revim of Hopi kachina dolls, by Harold S. Colton. Natural History, March, p. 100. Review of Indian art of the Americas, by Le Roy H. Appleton. New York Herald Tribune Book Review, December 17. Review o f The Indians of the Southwest: A century of development under the United States, by Edward Everett Dale. Natural History, January, p. 7. Review o f Native arts of the Pacific Northwest, introductory text by Robert Tyler Davis. Natural History, June, p. 288. Review of The Rio Grande: river of destiny, by Laura Gilpin. Natural History, June, p. 245. Rm*m o f Sun in the sky, by Walter Collins OKane. Natural History, June, p. 244. Review of Three worlds of Peru, by Frances Toor. Natural History, January, pp. 6-7. 1 9 5 1 Anthropology and archaeology. In 1951 Colliers year book, covering the events of the year 1950,pp. 28-33.P.F. Collier & Son Corporation, New York. The Aymarft of Chucuito, Peru: 1,Magic. AnthropologicalPapers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. 44,part 2, pp. 133-308.New York. Introduction. In Music of the American Indians, Southwest. Ethnic Folkways Library P420,Folkways Records and Service Corp., New York. Men of the Montana. Natural History, December, pp. 450-455. R.&ew o f Culture in crisis: a study of the Hopi Indians, by Laura Thompson. Natural History, April, p. 151. Rm%w o f Indian art of the Americas, by Le Roy H. Appleton. Natural History, January, p. 6. Review o f Indians of Peru, by Luls E. Valcarcel and Pierre Verger. Natural History, March, 0 3 . p. 1 Review o f The sculpture of Negro Africa, by Paul S. Wingert. Natural History, February, pp. 5 4 4 5 . Text for filmstrip Pueblo Indian prehistory, with suggested reading. Filmstrip FMS 801, Folkways Records and Service Corp.,New York. 1 9 5 2 Anthropology and archaeology. In 1 9 5 2 Colliers year book, covering the events of 1951, pp. 25-29. Foreword: The cultural background of Maori music. In Maori songs. Ethnic Folkways Library P433,pp. 1 4 . Folkways Records and Service Corp., New York. 9 1 . Indian sand painters. Natural History, September, p. 2 Indians of North America. Man and Nature Publications of the American Museum of Natural History, Science Guide no. 1 3 6 .New York. Indians of the Montafia. Man and Nature Publications of the American Museum of Natural History, Science Guide no. 1 3 5 .New York. Los indios de la Am6rica del Norte. Traducido por Ing. Alfonso Jim6nez Muiioz. Museo Nacional, Univenidad de Costa Rim, San Jod. On the identificationof the Indian in Peru. fn Acculturation in the Americas: proceedings and selected papers of the XXLXth International Congress of Americanists, Sol Tax, ed. Reuicw o f Araucanian culture in transition, by Mischa Titiev. American Anthropologist 54: 392-393. Review ojThe big sky (film). Natural History, October, p. 3 8 1 . Review of Growth and culture: a photographic study of Balinese childhood, by Margaret

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Mead and Frances Cook Macgregor. Natural History, October, pp. 343,382. Review ojThe Navajo (film). Natural History, April, p. 191. Review o f New Mexico: a pageant of three peoples, by Erna Fergusson. Natural History, November, pp. 391,429. 1953 Hot off the tape, deep in Peru. Natural History, September, pp. 335-336. (Transcription of a tape recording sent from the field.) Music of Peru. Introduction and notes on the recordings. Ethnic Folkways Library Album No. P415. Folkways Records and Service Corp., New York. Review of Hiawatha, an Allied Artists Picture ( f i l m ) .Natural History, February, pp. 92-93. 1954 In the jungles of Peru. Natural History, February, p. 96. Indian music of the upper Amazon: Cocama; Shipibo; Campa; Conibo. The setting. Ethnic Folkways Library, P458. New York. Review o f Back of history, by William Howells. Natural History, September, p. 292. Review of Culture and personality, by John J, Honigmann. Natural History, June, pp. 286-287. Review o f The eagle, the jaguar, and the serpent; Indian art of the Americas, by Miguel Covarrubias. Natural History, December, p. 436, R h oj Ensayos sobre indigenismo, by Juan Comas. American Anthropologist 56: 11401141. Review of Journey to the far Amazon; an expedition into unknown territory, by Alain Gheerbrant, translated by Edward Fitzgerald. Natural History, September, p. 293. Rcview o f Quest for the lost city (film). Natural History, November, pp. 426-427. Review o f The rivers ran east, by Leonard Clark. Natural History, June, p. 244. Review o f The southern Indians: the story of the civilized tribes before removal, by R. S. Cotterill. Natural History, May, pp. 197-198. Revieu, o f What the world showed me from the arctic to the jungle, by Per Hglst. Natural History, April, pp. 151,192. Reuiew ojZapotec, by Helen Augur. New York Herald Tribune Book Review, May 30. (with Donald Collier) The role of museums in American anthropology. American Anthropologist 56: 768-779. 1955 At home in the high Andes. The National Geographic Magazine, January, pp. 133-146. Dont call me Doctor! Natural History, September, pp. 382-388. Filming jungle fishermen. Natural History, January, pp. 8-19. Music from Mato Grosso, Brazil, recorded by Edward M. Weyer, Jr. Introduction. Ethnic Folkways Library Album P446. Folkways Records and Service Corp., New York. Review of All about language, by Mario Pei. Natural History, April, p. 174. Review o f A crossbowmans story of the first exploration of the Amazon, by George Millar. Natural History, May, pp. 228-229. Review of Estudios de etnologfa antigua de Venezuela, by Miguel Acosta Saignes. American Anthropologist 57:637. Review of Green magic (film). Natural History, June, p. 334. R e v i e w of Highway of the sun, by Victor W. von Hagen. New York Hera!d Tribune Book Review, November 6. Review o f The Indian and the horse, by Frank Gilbert Roe. The American Scholar, Summer, pp. 372-373. Rmew oj The Indian and the horse, by Frank Gilbert Roe. Natural History, September, p. 392. Review o f Indian sketches, taken during an expedition to the Pawnee tribes (1833), by John Treat Irving, Jr., John Francis McDermott ed. Natural History, November, p. 503. Review of Jivaro: among the head-shrinkers of the Amazon, by Bertrand Flornoy. Natural History, April, p. 172. Review o f Land of fury, J. Arthur Rank Presentation ( f i l m ) .Natural History, June, p. 334. Rmiew ojThe people of the sierra, by J. A. Pitt-Rivers. Natural History, November, p. 503.

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Review of Return to laughter, by Elenore Smith Bowen. Natural History, June, p. 284. Revinu o f The story of man, from the first human to primitive culture and beyond, by Carleton S. Coon. Natural History, January, p. 4. Reuinu (qWays of mankind: Thirteen dramas of peoples of the world and how they live, by Lester Sinclair, Lin Peterson, Eugene S. Hallman, George Salverson; Walter GoldSchmidt ed. Natural History, February, pp. 11e111. Review of White feather, 20th Century Fox Film Corp. (film). Natural History, April, p. 220. Who were the Old Men of the Mountains? Natural History, December, pp. 540-547, 552-554. 1956 R e h o j The fur hunters of the far west, by Alexander Ross; Kenneth A. Spaulding ed. Natural History, April, pp. 175,222. Review o f The Hopi Indians: their history and their culture, by Harry C. James. Natural History, May, p. 231. Review of The jungle is a woman, by Jane Dolinger. Natural History, February, p. 63. Review of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak: Black Hawk, an autobiography; Donald Jackson ed. Natural History, February, pp. 109-110. Review o f Me papoose sitter, by Gordon Langley Hall. Natural History, April, p. 175. Reuiew o f National Geographic on Indians of the Americas: a color-illustrated record, by Matthew W. Sterling and others. Natural History, January, pp. 7,52. Review of The Navajos, by Ruth M. Underhill. Natural History, May, p. 228. Rm'ew of The Nez-Percks: tribesmen of the Columbian Plateau, by Francis Haines. Natural History, March, p. 119. Review o f Primitive art, by Franz Boas; and Primitive art, by Erwin 0. Christensen. Natural History, February, p. 61. Review o f The Pueblo Indians in story, song and dance; music by Swift Eagle, description by Charles Gallenkarnp (recording). Natural History, February, p. 110. Revim of World beyond the horizon: the great age of discovery from Columbus to the present, by Joachim G. Leithauser. Natural History, January, p. 7. R m ' m of Ancient arts of the Andes, by Wendell C. Bennett; and 32 Masterworks of Andean art. Preface by Rent5 d'Harnoncourt. American Anthropologist 59: 149-150.