Home
International Encyclopaedia
of the Histories of Anthropology

A French Protestant missionary, Maurice Leenhardt (1878-1954) settled in New Caledonia in 1902 for nearly twenty years before continuing his evangelizing work in France and Africa. Esteemed by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl and Marcel Mauss, he published several monographs: Notes d’ethnologie néo-calédonienne (1930); Gens de la Grande Terre (1937); and Do kamo. La personne et le mythe dans le monde mélanésien (1947). He succeeded Marcel Mauss at the École pratique des hautes études. He was the founder of the institutions of French Oceanic anthropology, the French Institute of Oceania, the Société des Océanistes and its Journal.

Keywords: Colonial sciences | French Ethnology | Christian missions | Missionary | French colonialism | New Caledonia | Melanesian studies | Rituals | Myths | Cosmologies | Marcel Mauss | Lucien Lévy-Bruhl

Related topical dossiers