Reo Fortune

Reo Franklin Fortune (27 March 1903 – 25 November 1979) was a New Zealand-born social anthropologist. Originally trained as a psychologist, Fortune was a student of some of the major theorists of British and American social anthropology including Alfred Cort Haddon, Bronislaw Malinowski and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown.^[1] He lived an international life, holding various academic and government positions: in China, at Lingnan University from 1937 to 1939; in Toledo, Ohio, USA from 1940 to 1941; at the University of Toronto, from 1941 to 1943; in Burma, as government anthropologist, from 1946 to 1947;^[1] and finally, at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom from 1947 to 1971, as lecturer in social anthropology specialising in Melanesian language and culture.^[2]

Reo Fortune

He was first married to Margaret Mead in 1928, with whom he undertook field studies in New Guinea from 1931 to 1933.^[3] They divorced in 1936. Fortune subsequently married Eileen Pope, also a New Zealander, in 1937.^[4]

Fortune provided significant insights into the consequences of matrilateral and patrilateral cross-cousin marriage in advance of work by Claude Levi-Strauss. He is also known for his contribution to mathematics with his study of Fortunate numbers in number theory.^[5]

The 2014 novel Euphoria by Lily King is a fictionalized account of the relationships between Fortune, Mead and Gregory Bateson in pre-WWII New Guinea.^[6]

Selected publications

• 1927, The Mind in Sleep. Kegan Paul.
• 1932, Sorcerers of Dobu. Routledge.
• 1932, Omaha Secret Societies. Columbia University Press.
• 1933, A note on some forms of kinship structure. Oceania, 4(1), 1–9.
• 1935, Manus Religion, An ethnological study of the Manus natives of the Admiralty Islands. American Philosophical Press.
• 1942, Arapesh. American Ethnological Society Publication 19; 237 pages.

Photographs

Many of the easily accessible images of Fortune include his one-time wife Margaret Mead, who was known for her interest in photography as an ethnographic method.^[7]

The National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa) holds a large collection of family and fieldwork photos of Reo and Eileen Fortune's lives in China, North America, and England.^[8]

In 1959 and again in 1970–71, Fortune revisited Dobu, the island community he made famous in his 1932 book, The Sorcerers of Dobu.^[9]

References

1. Thomas, Caroline (2009) "Rediscovering Reo: Reflections on the life and anthropological career of Reo Franklin Fortune," Pacific Studies, vol. 32, nos. 2/3; June–Sept
2. Gray, Geoffrey "Being honest to my science: Reo Fortune and JHP Murray, 1927–1930", The Australian Journal of Anthropology, vol. 10 (1), 1999, pp. 56–76
3. Adam, Kuper (1994). The Chosen Primate: Human Nature and Cultural Diversity. Harvard University Press. pp. 186–189. ISBN 978-0-674-12826-2.
4. Thomas, Caroline (2011). The Sorcerers' Apprentice: A Life of Reo Franklin Fortune, Anthropologist.
5. "Fortunate number". The Prime Glossary. Retrieved 19 April 2008.
6. Eakin, Emily (6 June 2014). "Going Native: 'Euphoria,' by Lily King". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 September 2017.
7. Mead, Margaret; Francis, Patricia A. (30 November 2001). "Manus: Childhood Thought - Margaret Mead: Human Nature and the Power of Culture | Exhibitions - Library of Congress". www.loc.gov. Retrieved 10 February 2024.
8. Fortune, Reo Franklin, 1903–1979 :Pho... | Items | National Library of New Zealand
9. Object 63983 Detail | Te Reo Maori | Manuscripts & Pictorial | National Library of New Zealand

Further reading

• "Reo FORTUNE (1903–1979)." Canberra Anthropology, 3:105–108.
• Abrahams, R. and H. Wardle. 2002. "Fortune's Last Theorem", Cambridge Anthropology 23:1, 60–2
• Bashkow, Ira and Lise M. Dobrin. 2013. "Reo Fortune." In R. Jon McGee and Richard L. Warms (eds.), Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia, pp. 272–274. Sage Publications.
• Dobrin, Lise M. and Ira Bashkow. 2010. "The Truth in Anthropology Does Not Travel First Class: Reo Fortune's Fateful Encounter with Margaret Mead." In Regna Darnell and Frederic W. Gleach (eds.), Histories of Anthropology Annual, vol. 6, ed. 66–128. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
• Dobrin, Lise M. and Ira Bashkow. 2010. "'Arapesh Warfare': Reo Fortune's Veiled Critique of Margaret Mead's Sex and Temperament." American Anthropologist 112(3):370–383.
• Bashkow, Ira and Lise M. Dobrin. 2007. "The Historical Study of Ethnographic Fieldwork: Margaret Mead and Reo Fortune among the Mountain Arapesh." History of Anthropology Newsletter, vol. 34(1), pp. 9–16.
• Bashkow, Ira and Lise Dobrin, 2018. « Un Boasien inattendu : biographie de Reo Fortune, ethnographe culturaliste devenu un excentrique amer » in Bérose, encyclopédie internationale des histoires de l’anthropologie
• Dobrin, Lise M. and Ira Bashkow. 2006. "Pigs for Dance Songs: Reo Fortune's Empathetic Ethnography of the Arapesh Roads." In Regna Darnell and Frederic W. Gleach (eds.), Histories of Anthropology Annual, vol. 2, pp. 123–154. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
• Gray, Geoffrey. "Being honest to my science: Reo Fortune and JHP Murray, 1927–1930." The Australian Journal of Anthropology, vol. 10 (1), 1999, pp. 56–76.
• Lohman, Roger. 2009. "Dreams of Fortune: Reo Fortune's Psychological Theory of Cultural Ambivalence." Pacific Studies, vol. 32, nos. 2/3—June/September
• Roscoe, Paul. 2003. "Margaret Mead, Reo Fortune, and Mountain Arapesh Warfare." American Anthropologist 105(3):581–591.
• Thomas, Caroline. 2009. "Rediscovering Reo: Reflections on the life and anthropological career of Reo Franklin Fortune." Pacific Studies, vol. 32, nos. 2/3; June–September
• Thomas, Caroline. 2011. The Sorcerers' Apprentice: A life of Reo Franklin Fortune, Anthropologist. PhD thesis, University of Waikato.

External links

• Resources related to research : BEROSE - International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology. "Fortune, Reo (1903-1979)", Paris, 2018. (ISSN 2648-2770)