A fundamental principle for cultural anthropologists is to live among the people that they choose to study—eat their food, speak their language, and experience their habits and customs. Anthropologists try to become participant observers in the culture while taking into account the fact that their mere presence adds another dimension to the situation. They realize that they cannot fully understand another culture by simply observing it; they must experience it as well.

Katherine Dunham received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social anthropology from the University of Chicago shortly after the program began. In 1936, she received a Rosenwald Travel Fellowship, which provided her the opportunity to conduct fieldwork and further her study of African ritual dance for nine months in Jamaica, Trinidad, Martinique, and Haiti. During her visit to Haiti, she discovered a strong connection to the people and culture of the region. Miss Dunham became so enthralled with the native dance movement and people of this region that in 1937 she made this the focus of her master’s thesis, “Dances of Haiti: Their Social Organization, Classification, Form, and Function.” The thesis was first published and translated into Spanish in 1947 and into French in 1950 and finally published in the United States in 1983.

In 1969, Miss Dunham published a second book, Island Possessed, a more detailed anthropological view of her association with Haiti. In addition to books, she published numerous articles, short stories, and stage productions revolving around her anthropological research of Haiti, the Caribbean, and Africa.

She was particularly attracted to Haiti, eventually purchasing property in the country in 1949 (Habitation Leclerc) and choosing to live half of her time in the region. She no longer considered herself an anthropologist simply studying the people and their cultures; rather, she became enmeshed in the life, even becoming a priestess in the vodou religion. Dunham understood the importance of cultural relativity by researching various cultures. As an anthropologist, she looked beyond the physical conditions of a place and the individuals within it, and revealed the significant elements of the cultures. While studying societal rituals and dances in Africa and the Caribbean, she found a way to incorporate these movements into not only a new style of dance but also a more fundamental way of understanding a distinct group of people.

Contrary to the large body of work that Miss Dunham produced on her anthropological studies, she seldom received the same scholarly recognition as other social anthropologists such as Margaret Mead, Franz Boas, or the more widely acknowledged African American anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. However, Dunham maintained a serious, detailed account of her areas of study. Dances of Haiti is a look inside the significant body of work that she recorded in studying the people of that culture. This research explains symbolism of movements within rituals, and dance as a social, psychological, and religious function. Furthermore, Miss Dunham was one of the first social anthropologists to describe in detail the impact that a researcher could have on his or her environment of study. It is doubtful that her recognition in the field of anthropology will ever be synonymous with that of her impact on choreography and dance, but her considerable amount of published work will no longer allow for her to be ignored.

>> Click on each image to see a larger view. <<

Katherine Dunham burning joss sticks in Chinese temple in Singapore. Straits Times, July 1957. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collection.

Tree of Life
A 20th-century flat, metal tree sculpture with cutout images. Made by Almann, Haiti. Gift of Katherine Dunham.
On display at the Missouri History Museum in the Reflections Gallery.
Missouri Historical Society Museum Collections.

In the 1940s, 55-gallon steel oil containers came into Haiti carrying fuel reserves for navy ships. The Haitians collected the emptied and discarded drums and found ways to put them to good use. Metal workers in the small town of Croix-des-Bouquets flattened the steel and cut it into figurative images that usually portrayed deities and spirits from their local religion (general information published by the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe to accompany a steel cutout pictured in its 2001 calendar), ca. 1975. Missouri Historical Society Collections.