| Henry Otley Beyer | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 13, 1883[1] |
| Died | December 31, 1966 (aged 83)[1] Philippines[1] |
| Nationality | American[1] |
| Occupation | Anthropologist |
| Known for | Founding member of the Anthropology department at the University of the Philippines in 1914. Department head from 1925 until retirement in 1947. Known as the Father of Philippine Anthropology.[1] |
Henry Otley Beyer (July 13, 1883 – December 31, 1966) was an American anthropologist, who spent most of his adult life in the Philippines teaching Filipinos and other scholars about Philippine indigenous culture. He is known as the Father of Philippine Anthropology.
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Beyer was born in Edgewood, Iowa to a pioneer family of Bavarian origin and developed an interest in the Philippines when he visited the Philippine exhibit at the Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exhibition in St Louis, Missouri in 1904.
After graduating with a master's degree in chemistry from the University of Denver in the following year, he volunteered to teach in the Philippines. His first years in the Philippines were spent as a teacher in the Cordillera Mountains on Luzon island, home of the Ifugao people. He would later marry, Lingayu Gambuk, the 16 year old daughter of an Ifugao village chief of Anganad. They had a son named William born in 1918. While in a Catholic country, H. Otley Beyer remained a Protestant throughout his life.
He pursued postgraduate anthropological studies at Harvard and was appointed ethnologist in the Philippine Bureau of Science and part-time head of the Philippine Museum. He became instructor in anthropology at the University of the Philippines in 1914. In 1925, he became the head of the university's department of anthropology and its first professor.
During the Second World War, Beyer was initially allowed to continue his studies but he was later interned along with other Americans in the Philippines.
Before his death, the University of the Philippines, Silliman University and Ateneo de Manila awarded him with honorary doctorates.[1] He also received a number of awards for his 60 years of scholarship in the Philippines. In 1965, the University of the Philippine held an H. Otley Beyer Symposium in his honor. The proceedings of the symposium was published two years later.
The National Library of Australia acquired his papers and extensive library in 1972.
Archaeological work is like a fascinating mystery story, with the specimens and site data serving as vital clues - and everything is of most importance while both the specimens and your memory of how and where they were found is still quite fresh, and unconfused by later activities elsewhere. -- In a letter to a colleague in March 1955.
Beyer described his work as trying to serve the University [of the Philippines] and to procure and conserve for the People of the Philippines the evidence of their abundant ancient culture. -- In a letter to Carlos P. Romulo, then president of the University of the Philippines.