A visual legacy: William Crocker’s ethnographic archive

Abstract

Dr William Crocker began field research with the Canela (Maranhão state, Brazil) in 1957 and continued to do so intermittently until 2011 – a total of more than 54 years in an unprecedented long-term commitment to a field research programme in social anthropology. As soon as he arrived among the Canela, he began intensive documentation of their life. Photography and film played a major part in his observations and his use of these media proved extremely innovative in ethnographic study. Crocker produced one of the most detailed and accurate sets of visual documents about Lowland South American community life ever collected. This visual essay surveys this important ethnographic archival data (film footage, fields notes and photographs) and briefly analyses his visual enterprise, discussing the circumstances under which the images were taken, the ideas which informed them, and the general methods employed in making them. An interview I conducted with Crocker (2015) enriches our understanding of the collection.

Keywords:

• photography
• visual anthropology
• Brazil
• Amerindian culture
• archive
• museums
• Amazonia

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Dr. William Crocker for our interviews and communications, and for sharing his immeasurable knowledge of the Canela and kind permission to reproduce the images here. I am indebted also to Barbara Watanabe (Smithsonian), for her professional and personal support to study the archive. Thanks also: to all the welcoming staff at the National Museum of Natural History, in Washington D.C, especially Mark White (Smithsonian); to Dr George Lau and the editorial team at World Art; and to Melissa Santana de Oliveira. I also wish to express my appreciation to the members of the Canela community, in particular to Oziel Iromgukre.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The images and content detailed here form part of Fabiola Iuvaro’s PhD thesis and resulting book (2018). All photographs belong to Crocker’s collection stored at the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. Kind permission to use and reproduce was given by Dr Crocker; invaluable help was given by his assistant and Museum Specialist Barbara Watanabe, responsible for the archive.

2 Crocker was an active proponent of the National Anthropological Archive at the Smithsonian Institution in the mid-1970s. He was listed on the Advisory Committee and as a member of the Anthropological Film Research Institute along with Margaret Mead and others. Mead and Bateson’s visual anthropology have received considerably more attention (Jacknis 1988; Henley 2013), while Crocker’s film and photographic work continues to be relatively neglected in the anthropological literature.

3 Xikrin groups also emphasize daily and collective exchanges of food. The author describes, “[b]y taking charge of cooking, and distribution of meat, the older people played a dual role, as peace makers and and as food distributors” (Fisher 2000, 57).

4 According to Barbara Watanabe, “Vital Stats … is short for statistics” (B. Watanabe, interview, 2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fabiola Iuvaro

Dr Fabiola Iuvaro specialises in the anthropology of South America, especially visual anthropology, history of anthropology, and archives. She completed her doctorate in the UK (Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia) after earlier studies and degrees in Brazil and Italy. Her anthropological studies and work have included nine years of fieldwork among indigenous groups of Central Brazil (Kadiweu, Terena, Arara, Surui, Bororo), focused on participatory development projects, indigenous women, education, schooling, and healthcare. Her work has been presented at the University College of London, the Royal Anthropological Institute and the International Congress for Lowland South American Studies.