David Maybury-Lewis

Who was David Maybury-Lewis?

David Henry Peter Maybury-Lewis was an anthropologist, ethnologist of lowland South America, activist for indigenous peoples' human rights and professor emeritus of Harvard University.

Born in Hyderabad, Pakistan, Maybury-Lewis attended Oxford University, at which he earned a D.Phil. In 1960, he joined the Harvard faculty, and was Edward C. Henderson Professor of Anthropology there from 1966 until he retired in 2004. His extensive ethnographic fieldwork was conducted primarily among indigenous peoples in central Brazil, which culminated in his ethnography among the Xavante, as well as post-modernist renditions. In 1972, he co-founded with his wife Pia Cultural Survival, the leading U.S. based advocacy and documentation organization devoted to "promoting the rights, voices and visions of indigenous peoples."