Matilda Coxe Evans StevensonDied 24 Jun 1915 at age 66 (born 12 May 1849).(née Matilda Coxe Evans) was an American ethnologist who became one of the major contributors to her field, particularly in the study of Zuni religion. She married geologist James Stevenson (Apr 1872). In 1879, he became executive officer of the U.S. Geological Survey and she took an interest in her husband's work, accompanying him on an expedition to New Mexico to study the Zuni for the Bureau of American Ethnology. On several visits to the Zuni she studied their domestic life and in particular the roles, duties, and rituals of Zuni women. The Twenty-Third Annual Report of the Bureau in 1901-02 published her 600-page The Zuñi Indians: Their Mythology, Esoteric Fraternities, and Ceremonies, her most important written work.[Image: Matilda Coxe Stevenson with Pueblo woman, mid 1890s] |
