Matilda Coxe Stevenson

Matilda Coxe Stevenson (née Matilda Coxe Evans; sometimes published as Tilly E. Stevenson; May 12, 1849 – June 24, 1915), was an American anthropologist, Ethnology ethnologist, geologist, explorer, and activist for women's rights. A pioneer in the use of photography in ethnology, she was the first woman employed by the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE). In 1893 she was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Quotes Whilst the old Zuni people Zuñians still occupied the mesa, they were attacked by the Spaniards to avenge the supposed death of a priest who had been sent among them as a missionary many years before. The priest, feeling himself entirely forgotten by his own people, had identified himself with those among whom he had dwell so long. Apprised of the approach of the hostile Spaniards, the Indians prepared to defend themselves with huge stones to be hurled among the enemy should they attempt to scale the mesa by the only practicable pathway up the almost perpendicular face of the cliff. But when the cause of the hostile demonstration became known to the Indians, the priest in the absence of paper on which to write, scraped a Buckskin (leather) buckskin smooth and wrote upon it a message to the attacking party.The skin was fastened to a large stone and thrown down into the valley. Upon this information of the safety of the priest, the Spaniards retired, leaving the Indians undisturbed. This tradition is very similar to the account given in William Watts Hart Davis Davis’ ”Conquest of Mexico,” of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado Coronado's attack upon Hawikuh Ruins Cibola, and this author states that "beyond doubt ancient Zuñi and Cibola were the same Pueblo." Zuñi and the Zuñians 1881 Smithsonian Institution—Bureau of Ethnology Washington, D.C. https://books.google.com/books/about/Zuñi_and_the_Zuñians.html?id=v04OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA25 25–26 (30 pages, 3 plates) The children are industrious and patient little creatures, the boys assisting their elders in farming and Pastoralism pastoral pursuits, and the girls performing their share of domestic duties. A marked trait is their loving-kindness and care for younger brothers and sisters. Every little girl has her own water vase as soon as she is old enough to accompany her mother to the river in capacity of assistant water-carrier, and thus they begin at a very early age to poise the vase, Egyptian fashion, on their heads. https://books.google.com/books?id=KvUNAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA22 22–23 The Sia extract from Eleventh Annual Report, 1889–1890, of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Institution Bureau of Ethnology Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office 1894 (length of extract 155 pages; length of 11th annual report xv+757 pages) Ethnobotany of the Zuñi Indians (1915) The long winter nights were devoted by the Zuni people Zuñi to the ceremonies of their secret fraternities, exhorting their most benevolent gods; rain priests in retreat invoked their anthropic deities for rain to fructify the earth, and elders taught the youths, sitting attentively at their knees by the flickering firelight, the mysteries of their life and religion. Of all the secrets of their lives none is more strictly guarded or more carefully transmitted than the knowledge of healing. The "doctor" instructs in the lore of plants, and the relation of plants to man and beast. Ethnobotany of the Zuñi Indians by Matilda Coxe Stevenson 1915 Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Volume 30, Thirtieth annual report, 1908-1909 published for Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology, U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. https://books.google.com/books?id=PtriAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA36 31–102, with 3 plates (quote from p. 36) While it was generally observed by early travelers among the Indigenous peoples of the Americas Indians, that they employed plants for medicinal purposes, it was long believed, even by scientific students, that the practice of Indian doctors was purely Shamanism shamanistic. The late Dr. Washington Matthews, however, declared from the beginning of his ethnological investigations that the Indians employed many plants of real value in medicine. p. 37 External links Category:1849 births Category:1915 deaths Category:Anthropologists from the United States Category:Explorers from the United States Category:Geologists from the United States Category:Non-fiction authors from the United States Category:Photographers from the United States Category:Women authors from the United States Category:Women scientists from the United States Category:Women activists from the United States Category:Women's rights activists Category:Women born in the 19th century Category:People from Texas