Carobeth Laird

Who was Carobeth Laird?

Carobeth Laird is known for her ethnographic studies of the Chemehuevi people of southeastern California and western Arizona. Her book, The Chemehuevi, was characterized by ethnographer Lowell John Bean as "one of the finest, most detailed ethnographies ever written."

Carobeth Tucker was born in Coleman, Texas. In 1915, she took a course in linguistics at San Diego Normal School that was taught by John P. Harrington, an extremely productive and eccentric linguist and ethnographer. Harrington was impressed by her natural linguistic abilities, and they were married the following year. She assisted him in his field work and learned ethnographic skills from him, but his eccentricities proved fatal to their relationship. Later in her life, Carobeth accounted her relationship with John P. Harrington in her book "Encounter with an Angry God." They were divorced in 1922. Later, Carobeth married George Laird, her principal Chemehuevi informant.

During the period prior to George Laird's death in 1940, Carobeth Laird collected extensive information on the Chemehuevi, particularly concerning language and mythology. She came to the attention of the scholarly world in the early 1970s, when she was "discovered" by students of Lowell Bean. Her ethnographic studies were published in two books, The Chemehuevi and Mirror and Pattern, as well as several articles in the Journal of California Anthropology.