Arranged by catalog number.
Francis William Gow-Smith (1894-1939) was an explorer and ethnologist who briefly worked on behalf of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. Born in Coldwater, Michigan, Gow-Smith studied at Purdue University and self-financed his first expedition to Brazil in 1922-1923. He returned to Brazil exploring the Karaja and Kayapo territories in 1924, selling many of the items collected from this trip to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation (MAI). The MAI offered to fund Gow-Smith's next collecting trip to Brazil in 1926. Gow Smith spent those eight months in the Xingu river region and the Mato Grosso province of Brazil making ethnological collections on behalf of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. Gow-Smith collected among the Parecís (Paressi), Nambikuára (Nambicuara) and Borôro (Bororo) peoples. Gow-Smith wrote numerous newspaper articles about his travels and was also a member of the Explorers Club. He died in 1939 after several years of poor health. For reports on his 1926 work in Brazil see Indian Notes, Volume 4, no. 2 pp 163-166 and Indian Notes, Volume 4, no. 3, pp 305-308.
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Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited users to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not changed, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian.
Field collection for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation from Francis-Gow Smith in 1926.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Francis Gow-Smith photographs from Matto Grosso, Brazil, Item Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Collection record written by Rachel Menyuk, Processing Archivist, in 2019.
This collection includes 41 negatives and 17 copy negatives made by Francis Gow-Smith over the course of eight months of fieldwork in the Mato Grosso state of Brazil in 1926. Indigenous communities photographed during this course of this work include the Parecís (Paressi), Nambikuára (Nambicuara) and Borôro (Bororo) peoples in such places as the Juruena Municipality, Tapirapann, São João (Sao Juan), and the Campo Grande Microgegion. The majority of the photographs are outdoor portraits of community members going about their daily lives though some are posed in groups. Man of these activities revolve around the river such as fishing and bathing. There are also a smaller amount of landscape views which showcase local plants such as the rubber tree and cow tree.
N12650-N12651, N12683, N12717, N12719, N12798, N12821, N12835, N12851, N12852, N12881, N12892-N12894, N12900, N12905, N12948, N12964-N12966, N12976, N12988, N12990, N13010, N13018, N13025, N13026, N13032-N13034, N13037, N13041, N13058-N13061, N13063-N13065, N13068, N13069, N13182-N13201.
Ethnographic material collected by Francis Gow-Smith can be found in NMAI's ethnographic collections with catalog numbers 15/3657 - 15/3754.