Buell Quain lived a short but successful life as an Ethnologist. Not much is known about Quain’s beginnings, but he started his degree at Columbia University where he specialized in cultural anthropology. His first work was done in 1936 in Fiji. There, he studied many aspects of the culture, but mainly concentrated his work on the native poetry and literature.
He wrote/co-wrote a total of four books, however, most of them were not published until after his tragic death. His books The Flight of the Chiefs, Epic Poetry of Fiji, 1942 and Fijian Village, 1970 are both contributions about how western societies saw the Fijian culture at the time. Only one of his books was published in his lifetime: The Iroquois, the other three books, were put together and/or published after his early death. The book, Trumai Indians of Central Brazil was written in 1955 by Robert Francis Murphy, who wrote based on Quain’s work with the tribes.
Quain spent much of his time doing participant observation with the Trumai Indians of Brazil and many different cultures in Fiji. When Buell traveled to Brazil, he would be the first outside visitor to spend an extended period of time with the Trumai Indians. The Villas-Baos brothers received the most credit for researching the Xingu area where the Indians resided, but without Mr. Quain’s stay with them seven years earlier, the 1945 Baos expedition may not have been as successful.
It was there in the State of Goyaz, Brazil on August 2, 1939, where Mr. Quain died. The American Anthropologist reports: “Letters indicate that he committed suicide in the belief that he had contracted an incurable and highly contagious disease.” Not much is known about how he took his own life or what disease he actually had.
It is unusual for an anthropologist to accomplish such works at as young an age as Buell Quain did. By 27, he had accomplished years worth of fieldwork, enough research to inspire four books, and earned the title of a respected anthropologist. Although not ground-breaking, Quain's contributions opened future doors for others and also spread the cultures of many other societies to the developed world. Had his life not been cut short by tragedy, it is hard to say what else he would have been able to donate to the anthropological community.
References
Author Unknown. "Notes and News," American Anthropologist,
42:180, 1940
Anthropologising, pp. 63-74, Bishop Museum Press, 1965
http://www.anthropologising.ca/fidji/admin.htm, (May, 2006)
Brazzil Memory, http://www.brazzil.com/p119jan03.htm, (May, 2006)
Written By: Holly Schwichtenberg, 2006