University of Nevada, Reno, Ethnological Archives

The National Science Foundation Graduate Field Training Project in Anthropology produced a valuable series of records which became known as the University of Nevada Ethnographic Archives. These archives, maintained until 1992 in the Anthropology Department of the University of Nevada, Reno, consist of three series of records: field reports and notes of the student participants; administrative and reference materials; and student kinship charts and term papers generated in Dr. d'Azevedo's Anthropology classes, and related kinship studies conducted by him between 1960-1977.

The first series consists of field notes and final reports of each student in the program. Students were required to compile and turn in, typed observations on both their formal work and their personal experiences while at their study sites. These are filed with their final reports. Each report was numbered sequentially, beginning with report #1 in 1964 and continuing to report #83 in 1970. Not all of the reports are in this collection. Reports #8, 10, and part of 19 were missing when transferred from the Anthropology Department, and based on an inventory done in 1977 by that Department, seem to have been missing for many years. All of the 1967 reports are in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia. All of the 1968 field school reports except for report #49 are in the Department of Anthropology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California.

The second series contains all of the administrative materials for the field schools: correspondence, grant applications to NSF, grant progress reports, student applications, and financial materials. This series also contains materials handed out to all students, including orientation papers and copies of reference articles. The reference materials for 1970 are particularly voluminous, as they include copies of a number of journal articles about kinship and Warren d'Azevedo's notes and outline for his research on kith and kin.

Series three is a complex group of related materials titled "Kinship Projects;" the common thread is Dr. d'Azevedo. It includes a series of student papers from Dr. d'Azevedo's anthropology classes at the University of Utah and University of Nevada, Reno. It was generally a course requirement that the students complete two research papers. One paper detailed the student's personal kinship lines. The second paper described a cultural or religious ritual; many focused on aspects of the Mormon Church or life in Utah. Part of this series is comprised of those research and kinship papers. Dr. d'Azevedo abstracted the information from the student kinship papers for a massive study on kinship (referred to as "Kith and Kin") which remained unpublished at the time of the transfer of the collection to the Special Collections Department. Some of this work was also carried out as part of the NSF summer field projects of the late 1960s (those based in southern Utah).

The arrangement for all three series follows d'Azevedo's original organization.