Talk:Franz Boas

Prussian-born, not German
His origins lie in Prussia -- not Germany. Since his ethnicity was German, you could rightly call him, "Prusso-German", if you like, but you can't simply call him, "German", since it is misleading. If he was German, then so was Sigmund Freud. I am sure you see the problem.Mwidunn (talk) 23:08, 3 April 2020 (UTC)mwidunn


 * His ethnicity was not German, it was Jewish. (As is also true of Freud.) newmila (talk) 13:58, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Boas as a jew
He referred to himself as a "tribesmen" of a Jew, in his journals and letters translated into English in the Book "Franz Boas among the Inuit of Baffin Island 1883 to 1884":


 * [FB/parents, sisters]

(...) I had completely forgotten that I wanted to tell you a story that will certainly amuse you too. When I arrived at Kingawa, there was naturally great excitement on board the American ship and at our station, and I 106 Late Fall Boat Trips in the Sound was welcomed joyfully everywhere as the bringer of the latest news. On the last day [9 September] as I was heading back by boat, I went aboard the schooner Lizzie P. Simmonds [Simmons} once again to ask if there were any messages for Kikkerton, and to say goodbye to her people. As I was shaking their hands, one of them rushed up to me with the words (in English): 'You are a Jew, are you not?' At first I did not understand him, but soon grasped what he meant. His entire face beamed with happiness at having found a tribesman here, and he hoped that he would see me again often, which has not been granted him yet. Yes, indeed. One finds Germans and Jews everywhere, even at the Arctic Circle. --TheThomas (talk) 17:30, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

where

 * Marshall Hyatt, The Emergence of a Discipline: Franz Boas and the Study of. Man, diss., University of Delaware (1979) where'? ....0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 16:04, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

More on grave-robbing
A one-liner on Boas' "resort" to grave-robbing (and the way it is stated) does not do justice to the extent of the harm caused by this, and how he not only sold robbed human bones to museums but curated exhibitions such as the living "Ethnological Zoo" in 1893 at the Chicago World Fair. Polemics were anti-racist, but approach to Natives still incredibly colonial.

A useful source is 'Skull Wars' by David Hurst Thomas (1999). Arkeoziziro (talk) 10:25, 4 October 2023 (UTC)