Clyde K.M. Kluckhohn

Clyde K.M. Kluckhohn (born Jan. 11, 1905, Le Mars, Iowa, U.S.—died July 29, 1960, Santa Fe, N.M.) was an American professor of anthropology at Harvard University, who contributed to anthropology in a number of ways: by his ethnographic studies of the Navajo; by his theories of culture, partial-value systems, and cultural patterns; by his intellectual leadership and stimulation of a large number of students; and by his representation of anthropology in government circles and his work on government projects—for example, the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System (1950–51), carried out during the first years of the Korean War.

He attended several universities: he received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin (1928) and then studied at the University of Vienna (1931–32) and at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar (1932). He took his Ph.D. at Harvard (1936), where he taught for the rest of his career.

Kluckhohn’s lifelong interest in the Navajo Indians began in 1922, when, for health reasons, he was sent to live on a ranch near Ramah, N.M. There, Kluckhohn introduced himself to the nearby Navajo and mastered their language and learned their customs.

Among Kluckhohn’s numerous studies of the Navajo are Navaho Classification of Their Song Ceremonials (1938) and Introduction to Navaho Chant Practice (1940, both written with Leland C. Wyman), and Navaho Witchcraft (1944), which is considered his finest work.

Kluckhohn’s basic ideas about culture are contained in Mirror for Man, which won the McGraw-Hill prize for the best popular work in science in 1949. He averred that, despite wide differences in customs, there are apparently fundamental human values common to the diverse cultures of the world.