Martha Warren Beckwith

Martha Warren Beckwith (January 19, 1871 – January 28, 1959) was an American anthropologist, ethnographer, folklorist, author, and translator. In 1918 she received from Columbia University a Ph.D. in anthropology under the supervision of Franz Boas. In 1920, based upon the philanthropy of Annie Montague Alexander, Beckwith was hired as a research professor in folklore at Vassar College. She thus became the first person to hold a professorial chair in folklore at any college or university in the United States.

Quotes

• The hula, in its ancient and classical form, is analogous to the Japanese Noh dances and to other like institutions throughout the South Sea Islands. It was conventionalized into a real school of dramatic art. ...
  A hula performance consisted in a series of dramatic dances accompanied by song, sometimes by rhythmical instruments. It was given under the patronage of a chief, often to celebrate some event, like the birthday of a son. It was dedicated to some god, generally to Laka, the goddess of co-ordinated movement, and was bound under a strict decorum to rigid ceremonial conventions. ...
  The hula company might consist of several hundred persons, men and women, boys and girls, with a retinue of followers to secure and prepare the food-supply.
  • (1916). "The Hawaiian hula-dance". Journal of American Folklore 29 (113): 409–413.

• Much in the psychology of the Polynesian has been shown to resemble closely that of the prehistoric civilizations which grouped around the Mediterranean. The taste for riddling is a minor but no less interesting example of this parallelism in mental habit and training, and the part played by the riddling contest in Hawaiian story is directly comparable with that which it plays in old European literary sources like the Scandinavian Edda or the Greek tale of Oedipus and the riddle of the Sphinx. ... In some Hawaiian stories of the ancient past, the contest of wit is represented as one of the accomplishments of th chiefs, taking its place with games of skill like arrow-throwing or checkers, with tests of strength like boxing or wrestling, and the arts of war such as sling-stone and spear-throwing as a means of rivalry. It is played as a betting contest, upon the results of which contestants even stake their lives.
  • (1922). "Hawaiian riddling". American Anthropologist 24 (3): 311–331. errata

• During two trips to Jamaica in the winter of 1922 and the spring of 1924 I secured the names of 136 plants used for medicinal purposes among the colored peasantry, with the method of preparation and the use to which each was put. ...
  Brief as the list is, I believe it to be representative of present practice in Jamaica. I had it from three parishes and from such diverse informants a obeah- and myal-men, accredited government midwives, house-maids and small settlers; from the isolated Marroon settlement of Accompong and from a flourishing town of white residents like Mandeville. All were ready and even pleased to contribute information. Most of the plants were picked from the door-plot or beside the road as we walked ...
  • Notes on Jamaican Ethnobotany. Publications of the Folk-lore Foundation. no. 8. Poughkeepsie, N.Y.: Vassar College. 1928. p. 5. 

Quotes about Martha Warren Beckwith

• Beckwith herself ... has compared the Hebrew Genesis and the Kumulipo, but this was a comparison of poetic splendor and artistic worth. The two differ basically in theme, she pointed out, with the Kumulipo more reminiscent of Greek than of Hebrew origins.
  • Katharine Luomala, "Foreword (1971) by Katharine Luomala". The Kumulipo: A Hawaiian Creation Chant. University of Hawaii Press. 2000. pp. i–xix. ISBN 0824807715.  (quote from p. xii; 1st edition 1951, U. of Chicago Press; Kumulipo translated & edited by Martha Warren Beckwith)

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Martha Warren Beckwith on Wikipedia
• Martha Beckwith. Vassar Encyclopedia.