Jean Bassett Johnson

Jean Bassett Johnson
Trip to the Mazateca (Oaxaca, Mexico) in 1938.
Born	(1915-09-07)September 7, 1915 Moscow, Idaho
Died	April 4, 1944(1944-04-04) (aged 28) Tunisia
Cause of death	Killed in action
Nationality	American
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley
Spouse	Irmgard Weitlaner
Scientific career
Fields	Linguistics, Anthropology
Academic advisors	Alfred Kroeber and Robert Lowie

Jean Bassett Johnson (September 7, 1915 – April 4, 1944) was an American anthropologist and linguist who conducted field studies in Mexico during the 1930s and early 1940s. A doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, he was a student of Alfred Kroeber and Robert Lowie.

Life and career

Johnson carried out field research among the Chinantec and Mazatec in Oaxaca, the Nahuatl in Jalisco and Colima, and the Yaqui, Varohio, Pima and Opata in Sonora. In July 1938, in Huautla de Jimenez, he and his wife, anthropologist Irmgard Weitlaner-Johnson, along with Bernard Bevan and Louise Lacaud, were some of the first outsiders, in addition to Robert J. Weitlaner (1936), to witness and record a Mazatec healing ceremony where hallucinogenic psilocybin mushrooms (teonanacatl) were consumed. During the course of his research on Mazatec healing practices, Johnson also recorded the use of another hallucinogen, “hierba Maria” now known to be Salvia divinorum. In 1939-1940, under the direction of Morris Swadesh, Johnson conducted a study of the Yaqui language, published posthumously.

Johnson's studies were interrupted by the Second World War. He joined the United States Naval Reserve in 1942 and died in Tunisia in 1944.

Selected works

Articles

• Johnson, Jean Bassett (1939). "The Elements of Mazatec Witchcraft". Gothenburg, Sweden: Ethnological Studies, No. 9.
• Johnson, Jean Bassett (1939). "Some notes on the Mazatec". Mexico DF: Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropologicos, Vol 3, no. 2.

Books

• Johnson, Jean Bassett (1962). El Idioma Yaqui ["The Yaqui Language"]. Mexico DF: Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia. (published posthumously)

Further reading

• Davis, Wade (1996). One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-80886-2.

External links

• Robert Lowie. "Jean Basset Johnson (1916-1944)", American Anthropologist, Vol 46, No. 4, October-December 1944.