Manuel Gamio was a Mexican anthropologist

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

, archaeologist

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

, sociologist

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, and a leader of the indigenismo

Indigenismo

Indigenismo is a Latin American idea and movement pressing for a greater social and political role for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and the revindication of indigenous rights and including compensation for past wrongdoings of the colonial and republican states...

movement. He is often considered as the father of modern anthropological studies in Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. He devised a well-known system for classifying the hunter-gatherer

Hunter-gatherer

A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...

s of Central America.

Education

Gamio was born in Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

, where he studied engineering at the School of Mining. However, at age 19 he left his studies to work on a family rubber plantation, where the states of Oaxaca

Oaxaca

Oaxaca , , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca is one of the 31 states which, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 571 municipalities; of which 418 are governed by the system of customs and traditions...

, Veracruz

Veracruz

Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave , is one of the 31 states that, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is...

 and Puebla

Puebla

Puebla officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 217 municipalities and its capital city is Puebla....

 join. There he learned Nahuatl

Nahuatl

Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...

 from the plantation workers and developed a strong interest in Mexico's indigenous cultures

Indigenous peoples of Mexico

Mexico, in the second article of its Constitution, is defined as a "pluricultural" nation in recognition of the diverse ethnic groups that constitute it, and in which the indigenous peoples are the original foundation...

.

He returned to study at the National Museum under Zélia Nuttall

Zelia Nuttall

-References:-External links:* by Alfred M. Tozzer on American Ethnography....

, who in 1909 sent him to study under Franz Boas

Franz Boas

Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...

 at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. 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 Seler

Eduard Georg Seler was a prominent German anthropologist, ethnohistorian, linguist, epigrapher, academic and Americanist scholar, who made extensive contributions in these fields towards the study of pre-Columbian era cultures in the Americas...

, Alfred M. Tozzer and Boas. This was during the Mexican Revolution

Mexican Revolution

The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...

, 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

Valley of Mexico

The Valley of Mexico is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with the present-day Distrito Federal and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico was a centre for several pre-Columbian civilizations, including...

 based on earlier stratigraphic excavations at Azcapotzalco

Azcapotzalco

Azcapotzalco is one of the 16 delegaciones into which Mexico's Federal District is divided. Azcapotzalco is in the northwestern part of Mexico City...

, Distrito Federal. Between 1913 and 1916 he was inspector general of archaeological monuments of the Mexican Ministry of Public Education

Secretaría de Educación Pública

The Secretaría de Educación Pública is a Mexican federal government authority with Cabinet representation and responsibility for overseeing the development and implementation of national educational policy and school standards in Mexico.Additionally, it has the following responsibilities:*Creation...

. He performed field work at various places in the Valley of Mexico, including Copilco

Copilco

Copilco was an important Mesoamerican ceremonial center, southwest of Mexico City, Mexico. Copilco is located approximately four kilometers north of Cuicuilco, both are part of the area covered by lava from several eruptions of the Xitle volcano, as of three thousand years ago.It is very likely...

, Cuicuilco

Cuicuilco

Cuicuilco is an important archaeological Mesoamerican Middle and Late Formative period site located on the southern shore of the Lake Texcoco in the southeastern Valley of Mexico. Today, it is a significant archaeological site that was occupied during the Early Formative until its destruction in...

 and the Templo Mayor (all in the Distrito Federal); Chalchihuites, Zacatecas; Yucatán

Yucatán

Yucatán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Yucatán is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 106 municipalities and its capital city is Mérida....

; Ecuador

Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

 and Miraflores, Guatemala. He was the first scientific investigator to explore Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...

. 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

Mexico (state)

México , officially: Estado Libre y Soberano de México is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of the United Mexican States. It is divided in 125 municipalities and its capital city is Toluca de Lerdo....

. 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

Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...

 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

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

, near the cities of Quiche

Quiche

Quiche is a savory, open-faced pie of vegetables, cheese, or meat in custard, baked in a pastry crust.The quiche is sometimes regarded as the savoury equivalent ofegg custard tart.- Etymology:...

, Huehuetenango

Huehuetenango

Huehuetenango is a city and a municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The municipality's population was over 81,000 people in 2002...

 and Quetzaltenango

Quetzaltenango

Quetzaltenango, also commonly known by its indigenous name, Xelajú , or more commonly, Xela , is the second largest city of Guatemala. It is both the capital of Quetzaltenango Department and the municipal seat of Quetzaltenango municipality....

, 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 Mayan civilization. He hypothesized that some of the early natives of central Mexico abandoned that area in search of a place free of earthquakes and volcanos.

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

Social Science Research Council

The Social Science Research Council is a U.S.-based independent nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines...

 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.

External links

• "Manuel Gamio" by Tony Tichnor, EMuseum at Minnesota State University, Mankato