Gusinde, Martin (1886-1969)

Martin Gusinde (1886-1969) was a missionary of the Society of the Divine Word, a doctor and Austrian ethnologist. Sent to Chile in 1911, he worked at the ethnographic museum in Santiago. Between 1918 and 1924, he led four expeditions to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, trying to verify the theory of primitive monotheism in fieldwork. His impressive monographs and photographs constitute the most complete ethnography of the Selk’nam and Yamana populations ravaged by colonization. With the support of Robert Lowie and Alfred Kroeber, Gusinde held the chair of ethnology at the Catholic University of Washington from 1949 to 1961, while continuing to practice physical anthropology to compare the processes of “pygmization”.

Keywords: Christian missions | Missionary | Ethnographic photography | 20^th century | Patagonia | Tierre del Fuego | Selk’nam | Yamana | Yahgan | Ona | Initiation rituals | Primitive Monotheism | Wilhelm Schmidt | Alfred Kroeber | Wilhelm Koppers | Max Uhle | Robert Lowie | Anthropos