David Aberle

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David Aberle
Born
David Friend Aberle

(1918-11-23)November 23, 1918
Saint Paul, Minnesota, US
DiedSeptember 23, 2004(2004-09-23) (aged 85)
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
NationalityAmerican
Spouse
​
(m. 1955)​
Academic background
Alma mater
ThesisThe Reconciliation of Divergent Views of Hopi Culture Through the Analysis of Life-History Material (1950)
Doctoral advisorRuth Benedict
Academic work
DisciplineAnthropology
Sub-disciplineCultural anthropology
Institutions
Notable studentsRobert N. Bellah

David Friend Aberle (1918–2004) was an American

Navaho.[1]

Early life and education

Aberle was born on November 23, 1918, in

psychiatric service performing psychological interviewing and testing for patients in his clinic.[2] Once Aberle finished his stint in the army, he resumed his studies. Aberle finished his dissertation at Columbia in 1947 titled The Reconciliation of Divergent Views of Hopi Culture Through the Analysis of Life-History Material[3] with Ruth Benedict
as chair of his dissertation committee. Aberle received his PhD in 1950.

Marriage and career

After Aberle completed both his undergraduate and graduate work at

Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Brandeis, Oregon, and beginning in 1967 until his retirement in 1983, the University of British Columbia
. In the year 1954, Aberle met fellow anthropologist
civil rights and against the Cold War and the war in Vietnam in the United States; they continued their work after moving to Canada in 1967.[4]
Aberle wrote and published his work concerning Navaho religion, cultural practices, and kinship, titled The
Athapaskan-speaking communities, Lexical Reconstruction: The Case of the Proto-Athapaskan Kinship System in 1974.[6]
In the late 1960s to the early 1980s, Aberle supervised many students who completed dissertations and theses that had topics related to Athapaskan speakers. Aberle had also taken part in several research projects that held relevance to the kinship practices of Proto-Athapaskan speech communities.

Thought

Aberle was commonly looked upon as an experienced

Navaho. Aberle examined kinship and religious practices among the Navaho and Proto-Athapaskan speaking communities of Alaska
. Aberle's work The Peyote Religion Among the Navaho shows how the economic and political forces at play in the Navaho culture reflects the everyday operation of cultural practices, religion, and ways in each Navaho community. These factors represent the different religious movements at play during his research time within this cultural community. This book also helped outline his subject community's cultural beliefs and practices in more detail than previously available. In Lexical Reconstruction: The Case of the Proto-Athapaskan Kinship System Aberle defines the focus of his study on kinship systems in relation to proto-language which could have existed as far back as 1500 years in Western Canada, Alaska, Southwestern United States, and within Oklahoma:

Anthropologists are interested in reconstructing the kinship system as it might have existed at the time of a proto-language. A kinship system can be regarded as composed of two correlated systems: a system of kinship terminology and a set of behaviors that are patterned in relation to the terminological system. We know of no way in which we can rigorously infer the kinds of behavior directly, but it is generally regarded as possible to reconstruct the terminology at least in part. If rigor can be introduced in the procedure of reconstructing kinship terminology, then a generalization of that rigorous procedure is lexical reconstruction.[7]

Lexical Reconstruction consisted of over twenty years of collaboration with linguist

matriliny in these cultures. This book was best known for information on matriliny and for its wealth of information regarding Athapaskan speaking communities.[8]

Works

  • Aberle, David (1951). The Psychosocial Analysis of a Hopi Life-History. University of California Press.
  • Aberle, David (1953). The Kinship System of the Kalmuk Mongols. University of New Mexico Press.
  • Aberle, David (1957). Navaho and Ute Peyotism: A Chronological and Distributional Study. University of Colorado Press.
  • Aberle, David (1962). Chahar and Dagor Mongol Bureaucratic Administration: 1912-1945. HRAF Press.
  • Aberle, David (1967). The Peyote Religion Among the Navaho. Aldine Publishing Co.
  • Aberle, David (1969). A Plan for Navajo Economic Development. US GPO.
  • Aberle, David (1974). Lexical Reconstruction: The Case of the Proto-Athapaskan Kinship System. Cambridge University Press.

References

  1. ^ McKeen, Pecho (2009). "David Aberle" (PDF). University of British Columbia Archives. Retrieved 25 February 2012.
  2. ^ Leland, Donald (2010). "David F. Aberle 1918-2004" (PDF). Royal Society of Canada. Retrieved 25 February 2012.
  3. ^ Aberle, David (1950). The Reconciliation of Divergent Views of Hopi Culture Through the Analysis of Life History Material. Columbia University Press.
  4. doi:10.1525/aa.2006.108.1.263
    .
  5. ^ Aberle, David (1982). The Peyote Religion Among the Navaho. University of Chicago Press.
  6. ^ Aberle, Isidore, David, Dyen (2010). Lexical Reconstruction: The Case of the Proto-Athapaskan Kinship System. Cambridge University Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ Aberle, Isidore, David, Dyen (2010). Lexical Reconstruction: The Case of the Proto-Athapaskan Kinship System. Cambridge University Press. p. 7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. S2CID 145719221.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )

External links
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