EDWARD WINSLOW GIFFORD 1887-1959

DISTINGUISHED and productive career in anthropology was brought A to an end May 16, 1959, with the death of Edward Winslow Gifford, Professor-Emeritus a t the University of California (Berkeley), and Director- Emeritus of the University’s Museum of Anthropology. Edward Gifford was born August 14, 1887, in Oakland, California, and was educated in that city, where his formal studies ended with a High School diploma. I n 1903 he made his first field trip, as student conchologist on the California Academy of Sciences expedition to Revillagigedo Island, Mexico. From 1904 to 1912 he served as Assistant and subsequently Assistant Curator in the Academy’s Department of Ornithology. His second field trip was as ornithologist in the Academy’s 1905-1906 expedition to the GalLpagos Islands. Like all members of both expeditions, he helped work the ship, the schooner Academy, and so qualifies as one of the very few American anthropologists who have literally “shipped before the mast.” The meticulous attention to accuracy and the skill in observation which characterized Gifford’e field work throughout his life were shown by an episode on the Galapagos expedition. He described how the Pallid Tree Finch, when unable to reach an insect in the bark of a tree, took a thorn or twig to pry out the victim. This astonishing report of a tool- using bird was dismissed by most ornithologists as the fancy of an imaginative

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18 year old. Not until 1940, when motion pictures of the bird a t work were brought back, was Gifford’s early report accepted as correct.

In 1912 Gifford was named Assistant Curator of the Museum of Anthro- pology of the University of California, thus beginning a period of association which extended over 47 years, until the time of his death. I n 1915 he was ad- vanced to Associate Curator, and in 1925 to Curator. I n 1947 he was named Director of the Museum although, as Curator, he had for many years pre- viously been the executive head of its activities. Meanwhile, the University recognized that Gifford’s potential contribution was much broader than in Museum work alone, and in 1920 he was appointed Lecturer in Anthropology. From that time, until his retirement in 1955, there were few years when students did not profit by his factual, concise, and well-organized lectures. In 1938 he was made Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, and in 1945 he was promoted to the full professorship, thus becoming one of very few men in this country to achieve such distinction without ever having gone to college.

Edward Giff ord’s scientific interests ranged widely, both in subject matter and geography. For uncounted summers, accompanied and aided by his wife, Delila, he worked among the Indians of California, studying aspects of the culture of all California tribes of which there were survivors. Among the many contributions from this area, two are particularly noteworthy, for their systematic, comprehensive coverage : California Kinship Terminologies (UC- PAAE 18: 1-285, 1922), and California Anthropometry (ibid., 22: 287-390, 1926). Altogether his published contributions to California anthropology number more than 50.

In 1920-21 he served as anthropologist-in-charge of the Bernice P. Bishop expedition to Tonga, where he carried out ethnographical research. Tonga Society (Bernice P. Bishop Mus., Bull. 61, 1929), is a major but by no means the only result of this expedition. In 1945 and 1946 he did archeological re- search in Sonora and Nayarit, Mexico, publishing, as always, a major report, Surface Archaeology of Ixtldn del Rio, Nayarit (UC-PAAE 43: 183-302, 1950). Subsequently he embarked upon long-term archeological investigations in Oceania: Fiji, 1947; New Caledonia, 1952; and Yap, 1956. From the publica- tions resulting from this research, our knowledge of Oceanic archeology has been substantially increased: Archaeological Excavations i n Fiji (UC-AR 13: 189-288, 1951), Archaeological Excavations i n New Caledonia (with Dick Shutler, Jr., UC-AR 18: 1-148, 1956), and Archaeological Excavations in Y a p with Delila S. Gifford, UC-AR 18: 149-224, 1959).

The sheer bulk and the factual wealth of Edward Gifford’s published re- search, and the fact that he worked in most major anthropological fields- archeology, physical anthropology, social organization, folklore, religion and material culture-sometimes obscures his substantial theoretical contribu- tions. In Tonga, for example, he recognized the significance of culture con- tact a decade or more before acculturation theory became fashionable in the United States. His article, “Euro-American Acculturation in Tonga,” (Jour.

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Polynesian SOC., 33: 281-292, 1924) represents the first appearance of the word “acculturation” in its modern meaning in the title of an American publication. He appears also to have been the first anthropologist to use the term “lineage” in its present sense, in “Miwok Lineages and the Political Unit in Aboriginal California,’’ ( A A 28:389-401, 1926). In archeology he was one of the first to realize that weighing of sherds offers certain statistical advan- tages over counting: he utilized this technique in his later Oceanian reports. Intellectually Gifford was an exponent of the traditional American viewpoint that the complete anthropologist, whatever his specialty, should be broadly- based in the data and theory of all the major areas of the discipline. He prac- ticed what he preached, and had little patience with those who deprecate the importance of ethnographic detail, and who are unfamiliar with basic anthropological sources in the principal Western languages.

Major contributions to anthropology are not made through publications and formal teaching alone. Friendship and affection may have an equally important role. This is true of Edward Gifford. In 1913 he married Delila S. Giffen of Oakland, who survives him, as does their daughter, Phyllis (Mrs. John Slattery), and five grandchildren. Edward and Delila Gifford valued the friendship of colleagues and associates. New graduate students at Berkeley were sure of an early invitation to their home, and of a genuine human in- terest in their welfare and progress, and returning former students, now pro- fessional anthropologists, always found a warm welcome. Age differences were of slight importance; a beginning faculty member or a graduate student were of as much interest to the Giffords as contemporary colleagues. The qualities which endeared Gifford to his associates and students have been formally recognized by the Regents of the University: in the new Anthropology Build- ing the commons room, where staff and students meet in informal gatherings, has been named the Edward W. Gifford Room. Future anthropologists will thus be reminded of the personality and character of a modest, unassuming man who won the devoted friendship of all who knew him, and who made major scientific and human contributions to a community of scholars over nearly half a century.

Professor Gifford’s complete bibliography through 1956, numbering more than 100 items exclusive of reviews, appears in the University of California Museum of Anthropology Report to Chancellor Clark Kerr for the year ending June 30, 1956, pp. 16-22 (Berkeley, 1956). Subsequent publications are as follows :

1958 Karok confessions. In Miscellanea Paul Rivet octogenario dicata

1959 (With Delila S. Gifford) Archaeological excavations in Yap, UC-AR

In preparation (With Delila S. Gifford) Ethnographic notes on the South-

1 : 245-255. Mexico City.

18: 149-224.

western Pomo. GEORGE M. FOSTER Universify of California