Ethel John Lindgren
Ethel John Lindgren (1 January 1905 – 23 March 1988) was an American-born British ethnologist and anthropologist who studied the customs of nomadic herders and shamanism in Manchuria apart from folkloristic studies. She was a major influence on a generation of English field anthropologists through her teaching at Cambridge University.
Born in Evanston, Illinois her father was a Swedish-origin banker in Chicago who died when she was young. Her mother then married the composer Henry Eichheim and the family travelled around the world. While still a child, on a trip to China, she decided that her interest was in exploration of the Mongolian region. She was educated at Smith College, followed by Newnham College, Cambridge where she studied Chinese, and psychology. In 1927 she travelled to Urga (now Ulan Bator) and made later trips to Manchuria and studied nomadic Tungus. She was able to record shaman practices in the region, assisted by her first husband, Oscar Mamen. Her Ph.D. was on the Reindeer Tungus of Manchuria. She continued to work in Cambridge University and worked as a lecturer in the faculty of archaeology and anthropology. After the Second World War she married Mikel Utsi, a Saami reindeer breeder. They were involved in introducing reindeer into the Scottish highlands around 1949.[1]
References
- Blomberg, Catharina; Sommarström, Bo (1989). "In memoriam". Ethnos. 54 (1–2): 85–87. doi:10.1080/00141844.1989.9981384.