Background
Early, John D. was born on August 24, 1927 in Baltimore. Son of John Drennan and Florence Early.
( Mayan ethnographer John Early examines the centuries-lo...)
Mayan ethnographer John Early examines the centuries-long speculation about why the ritual calendars of the Mayan Indians in Guatemala and the regions of Chiapas and Yucatan in Mexico revolve around festivals in honor of the Catholic saints. During these festivals, at the insistence of the Maya, a Catholic priest comes to their villages to celebrate mass and baptize newborns. Refuting the often-repeated thesis of a “spiritual conquest” by the Spaniards or their post-colonial successors in which the Maya were converted to Christianity, Early argues that the Maya identify with Catholicism despite their failure to embrace the religion in any orthodox sense. The author explains the paradox by showing that, as is often the case in conversion attempts, the Maya adapted elements of Catholicism into their existing beliefs. Drawing on historical and ethnographic materials to discover the cultural logics with which the Maya interpret their ritual behavior, Early offers a detailed description of all the elements of the Mayan festivals for the saints and of the pre-Columbian Maya worldview about rituals and the theological concepts behind them. Considering the sixteenth-century worldview of the Spanish royalty, the conquistadors, and the Catholic priests to reveal the Spanish mindset before and during their encounters with the Maya, the author also cites the testimony of the Maya. Early provides a unique synthesis of archaeological, historical, ethnographic, and theological data that shows the use of Catholic elements is completely understandable in terms of the traditional Mayan worldview dating from pre-Columbian times.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813030250/?tag=2022091-20
( The Xilixana Yanomami, an Indian tribe of the northern ...)
The Xilixana Yanomami, an Indian tribe of the northern Amazon Basin in Brazil, has been widely studied as the largest indigenous people to retain a traditional way of life. Breaking new ground, this book presents the most complete account available of the Yanomami before and after their encounter with the modern world.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813017629/?tag=2022091-20
( "An important and significant contribution to anthropol...)
"An important and significant contribution to anthropology."--Barry S. Hewlett, Washington State University The Agta Negrito people have been hunters and gatherers in the tropical rain forests of the Philippines for centuries. This book investigates a small group of the Agta living on Luzon Island during their transition from a foraging society to a landless group of agricultural workers. The core of the book is a demographic study of fertility, mortality, and migration over a 44-year period. It is one of only two studies that have completely reconstructed the population dynamics of a foraging group without relying on mathematical models. Ethnographic and narrative historical sections of the book establish the contexts for the demographic data and enhance the study’s readability. As a case history of social and population dynamics in a remote frontier region, the work describes the impact of international commercial interests on both the rain forest and the landless peasantry seeking to survive. The work is of exceptional value because of the difficulties of obtaining reliable demographic data from a foraging group, and for the long-term coverage of the quantitative database. John D. Early, retired professor of anthropology at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, is the author of several books, most recently (with John F. Peters) The Population Dynamics of the Mucajai Yanomama. Thomas N. Headland, adjunct professor of linguistics at the University of Texas at Arlington and anthropology consultant for the Summer Institute of Linguistics, is the coeditor of Tropical Deforestation: The Human Dimension and of Emics and Etics: The Insider/Outsider Debate.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813015553/?tag=2022091-20
Early, John D. was born on August 24, 1927 in Baltimore. Son of John Drennan and Florence Early.
Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, St. Louis University, 1950. Master of Arts in Social Philosophy, St. Louis University, 1952. Master of Arts in Theology, Woodstock College, 1958.
Master of Arts in Sociology, Fordham University, 1961. Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology-Sociology, Harvard University, 1965.
Instructor Latin and English St. Joseph's Preparatory, Philadelphia, 1952—1954. Research associate Georgtown University, Washington, 1965—1966. Assistant professor behavioral science Woodstock (Maryland) College, 1966—1969.
Associate professor anthropology Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, 1969—1982, professor anthropology, 1982—1993. Retired, 1993
Consultant Peace Corps, Guatemala, 1965—1970, Micatokla, Guatemala, 1965—1970, Agency for International Development, Guatemala, 1979.
( Mayan ethnographer John Early examines the centuries-lo...)
( The Xilixana Yanomami, an Indian tribe of the northern ...)
( "An important and significant contribution to anthropol...)
Fellow: American Anthropol. Association.
Married Jacqueline Carpenter Early, December 21, 1970. Stepchildren: Grant, Robert, Mark Gelhardt.