Heinrich Richert Voth

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Heinrich (Henry) Richert Voth (born April 15, 1855 in Molotschna near Alexanderwohl ; † June 2, 1931 in Newton , Kansas ) was a Mennonite missionary and pastor .

Life

His religious family of German descent had emigrated from southern Russia to North America and Voth was sent by the missionary leadership of his church, the Mission Board of the General Conference Mennonite Church, first to Oklahoma , the then Indian territory and then to the southwest to help the local Indians , Arapaho and Hopi , to convert.

Henry R. Voth lived from 1892 to 1892 in the Mennonite Mission in Darlington , near Fort Reno . Voth became superintendent in 1884 , married Barbara Baer of the Mission that same year and had a daughter, Frieda. His wife died in 1889. Voth married Martha Moser three years later, also from the Darlington Mission. In 1893 Voth was sent to Oraibi , Arizona, to the traditional Hopi of the third mesa. Martha Voth died in 1901.

Henry R. Voth learned the Arapaho language and was also interested in its customs and ethnological issues, especially the spirit dance , which found many followers in his community. He was in contact with ethnologists such as James Mooney and collected and sold objects and Indian testimonies ( ledger books ) to the young Bureau of American Ethnology .

Voth also supported ethnologists with the Hopi in Oraibi, through his position of power, his language skills and his insight into the esoteric religious life of the Pueblo Indians . He collected for museums and for the tourism company Fred Harvey , whose Hopi House in the Grand Canyon he set up. The German art historian Aby Warburg bought from Voth on his trip to America (the collection is in the Hamburg Museum für Völkerkunde) and the Berlin Museum bought a large collection from him. Voth worked ethnologically closely with George A. Dorsey of the Chicago Field Museum . Voth was able to publish in the organs of the Chicago Museum a number of precise descriptions of Hopi ceremonies and customs, folklore and language, illustrated with his own often unique Kodak No. 1 recordings.

Voth was one of the few researchers who learned Indian languages easily. His knowledge of Hopi exceeded that of very many ethnologists. In Henry Voth's estate, which is at Bethel College , there are works on the language of the Arapaho, the religion of the Hopi and a Hopi lexicon.

Voth left Oraibi and the Mennonite Pagan Mission in 1903. He married Katie Hershler in 1906 and was the pastor of the Zoar Mennonite Church in Goltry, Oklahoma from 1914 to 1927 . He died in Newton, Kansas in 1931.

Books

The Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, published Voth's work in its Anthropological Series , volumes 3, 6, and 11

  • The Oraibi Powamu Ceremony , 3 (2), 64-158, 1901
  • The Oraibi Summer Snake Ceremony , 3 (4), 263-358, 1903
  • The Oraibi Oaqöl Ceremony , 6 (1), 1-46, 1903
  • Oraibi Natal Customs and Ceremonies , 6 (2), 47-61
  • The Oraibi Marau Ceremony , 11 (1), 1-81, 1912
  • Brief Miscellaneous Hopi Papers , 11 (2), 89-149, 1912

And Voth's collaborations with George A. Dorsey in Volume 3

  • The Oraibi Soyal Ceremony , 3 (1), 1901
  • The Mishongnovi Ceremonies of the Snake and Antelope Fraternities , 3 (3), 1901

literature

  • Barbara A. Thiesen: Every Beginning Is Hard. Darlington Mennonite Mission, 1880-1902 . In: Mennonite Life 61, 2006, 2, ISSN  0025-9365 , pp. 1-36, online .
  • Fred Eggan: HR Voth, Ethnologist . In: Barton Wright: Hopi Material Culture. Artifacts Gathered by HR Voth in the Fred Harvey Collection. With an Introduction by Byron Harvey III and an Essay on HR Voth by Fred Eggan . Northland Press et al., Flagstaff AZ 1979, ISBN 0-87358-189-X , pp. 1-7.
  • John F. Schmidt (Ed.): The Autobiography of Henrich R. Voth (1855-1931) . In: Mennonite Quarterly Review 40, 1966, ISSN  0025-9373 , pp. 217-226.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A book of Cheyenne drawings by Yellow Nose, you have to enter Voth .
  2. ↑ On Hopi Linguistics: P. David Seaman: Hopi Linguistics; An Annotated Bibliography . In: Anthropological Linguistics 19, 1977, 2, ISSN  0003-5483 , pp. 78-97.
personal data
SURNAME Voth, Heinrich Richert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Voth, Henry Richert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mennonite missionary and pastor
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1855
PLACE OF BIRTH Molotschna , with Alexanderwohl
DATE OF DEATH June 2, 1931
Place of death Newton , Kansas