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George Amos Dorsey

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George Amos Dorsey was an U.S. ethnographer of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a special focus on Caddoan and Siouan tribes.

Dorsey was born in Hebron, Ohio, to Edwin Jackson and Mary Emma Dorsey.

He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Denison University in 1888, then a second Bachelor's Degree in anthropology in 1890 at Harvard university, and finally PhD in 1894 on An Archaeological Study Based on a Personal Exploration of Over One Hundred Graves at the Necropolis of Ancon, Peru., the first PhD in anthropology from Harvard, and the second ever awarded in the United States.

In the 1890s Charles Frederick Newcombe, Dorsey and a Scottish guide named James Deans were travelling to gather artefacts that might be of ethnographic interest. Their methods varied, but they frequently held little regard for the native Canadians. The local missionary, John Henry Keen had to angrily take them to task after he found they had not only raided graves but also not restored them to their former state. Keen found hair and coffins strewn about from where they had dug to steal skulls and bones. Keen wrote to complain about the desecration and challenged Dean to name his accomplices although he was clear that the benefactor of their work was the Field Columbian Museum and that the perpetrators were Americans. George Dorsey was known for his haste in finding artefacts was told of Keen's letter to the "Daily Colonist" and he argued that Keen's anger should be ignored.

He became an assistant and instructor in anthropology at Harvard until 1896 when he joined the staff of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

He married Ida Chadsey on December 8, 1892. They separated in April, 1914, and were subsequently divorced; Ida died in 1937. Dorsey later married Sue McLellan.

Dorsey died in New York.

The Oraibi Soyal ceremony on Internet Archive
Indians of the Southwest on Internet Archive
The Arapaho sun dance : the ceremony of the Offerings lodge on Internet Archive
The Cheyenne: I. Ceremonial Organization on Internet Archive
The Cheyenne: II. The Sun Dance on Internet Archive
Young Low, a novel
Why We Behave Like Human Beings
The Nature of Man
The Evolution of Charles Darwin
Hows and Whys of Human Behavior
Many more of his works are available at the Internet Archive.

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George Amos Dorsey

George Amos Dorsey

Books from George Amos Dorsey

Traditions of the Caddo

Traditions of the Arapaho

The Mythology of the Wichita

The Pawnee Mythology

The Pawnee : Mythology: Part 1 By George Amos Dorsey

The Cheyenne

Traditions Of The Osage

Traditions of the Arapaho: Fieldiana, Anthropology, V. 5

The Cheyenne, Volume 9, issue 1

Traditions of the Skidi Pawnee

Indians of the Southwest

The Oraibi Soyal Ceremony

The Cheyenne, Volume 9, Issue 2

The Pawnee: Mythology Collected Mythology Part Auspices Collected Under the Auspices (Classic Reprint)

The Geography of the Tsimshian Indians ..

The Ponca sun Dance

Traditions of the Arapaho, Vol. 5: Collected Under the Auspices of the Field Columbian Museum and of the American Museum of Natural History (Classic Reprint)

Observations on a Collection of Papuan Crania, Volume 2

Catalogue of Bronzes, Etc., in Field Museum of Natural History: Reproduced From Originals in the National Museum of Naples; Volume Fieldiana, Anthropology, v. 7, no.3

Traditions of the Osage; Volume 7