Audrey Butt Colson

Audrey Joan Butt Colson
Born	Audrey Joan Butt 1926
Fields	Social anthropology
Alma mater	University of Oxford
Thesis	Systems of belief in relation to social structure and organisation (with reference to the Carib-speaking tribes of the Guianas) (1954)
Known for	Study of the Amerindian peoples of Guyana, Brazil and Venezuela
Influences	Edward Evans-Pritchard
Influenced	Peter Rivière[1]
Spouse	Robin Colson

Audrey Joan Butt Colson (born 1926),^[2] is a social anthropologist with a particular interest in the Amerindian peoples of Guyana, Brazil and Venezuela. She was, together with Peter Rivière, one of the pioneers of Amazonian anthropology at the University of Oxford.^[3]

Part of the permanent endowment of the University of Oxford is a fund to support South American Amerindian Studies known as the Butt Colson Amerindian Studies Bequest.^[4]

Oxford University

Audrey Butt studied at Oxford under Edward Evans-Pritchard, and carried out fieldwork among the Akawaio people in Guyana in 1951-1952 and in 1957, later broadening her study to include other Pemon and Kapon groups in Brazil, Guyana and Venezuela. She obtained the Diploma in Ethnology in 1949, the B.Litt. degree in 1950, and the D.Phil. in 1955. She then spent a year in Spain to learn Spanish in preparation for further fieldwork in South America.^[5]

In 1956 she lectured on South American societies at Oxford's Department of Ethnology.^[6]

Pitt Rivers Museum

The South American collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum contain 310 Amerindian objects donated by Butt Colson as a result of her fieldwork.^[7] The museum also holds two reels of 16mm film shot by Bassett Maguire in 1952 and a BBC recording of Akawaio music and songs made in 1961, all produced with Butt Colson’s assistance.

Amerindian land disputes

In 2012 a judge in the Demerara High Court ruled that Dr Colson could not appear as an expert witness in a land suit brought by Akawaio and Arekuna Amerindian communities because of her prior support of the plaintiffs' position.^[8]

In September 2013 Survival International published her report, Dug out, dried out or flooded out? Hydro Power and Mining Threats to the Indigenous Peoples of the Upper Mazaruni District, Guyana,^[9] demonstrating that the government of Guyana's plans to build hydroelectric dams on the upper Mazaruni River would flood the entire territory of the Akawaio indigenous people.

Works

Books

• Butt, Audrey J. (1952). The Nilotes of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Uganda. London: International African Institute. ISBN 9780853020295.
• Baxter, Paul Trevor William; Butt Colson, Audrey (1953). The Azande, and related peoples of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Belgian Congo. Ethnographic survey of Africa. London: International African Institute. OCLC 3352883.
• Stewart Wavell, Aufrey Butt, Nina Epton, Trances (London: Allen & Unwin, 1966)
• Butt Colson, Audrey (1998). Fr Cary-Elwes S.J. and the Alleluia Indians. Georgetown, Guyana: Amerindian Research Unit, University of Guyana. ISBN 9789766240103. (see also Cuthbert Cary-Elwes)
• Butt Colson, Audrey (2009). Land: its occupation, management, use and conceptualization. The case of the Akawaio and Arekuna of the Upper Mazaruni District, Guyana. Panborough: Last Refuge. ISBN 9780954435073.^[10]

Journal articles and chapters in books

• Butt, Audrey J. (April 1956). "Ritual blowing: Taling – a causation and cure of illness among the Akawaio". Man. 56: 49–55. doi:10.2307/2793660.
• Butt, Audrey J. (January 1960). "The birth of a religion: the origins of a semi-Christian religion among the Akawaio". Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 60 (1): 66–106. doi:10.2307/2844219.
• Butt, Audrey J. (1961). "Symbolism and ritual among the Akawaio of British Guiana". New West Indian Guide. 41 (1): 141–161. doi:10.1163/22134360-90002345.
• Butt Colson, Audrey J. (1971). "Hallelujah among the Patamona Indians". Antropológica. 28: 25–58. OCLC 883788082.
• Butt Colson, Audrey J. (1973). "Inter-tribal trade in the Guiana Highlands". Antropológica. 34: 1–70. OCLC 883788237.
• Butt, Audrey J. (1977), "The Akawaio Shaman", in Basso, Ellen B., Carib-speaking Indians: culture, society, and language, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp. 43–65, ISBN 9780816504930.

Reports

• Dug out, dried out or flooded out? Hydro Power and Mining Threats to the Indigenous Peoples of the Upper Mazaruni District, Guyana, Survival International, September 2013.

External links

• Audrey Colson at Internet Movie Database.

References

1. Peter Rivière, "Indians and Cowboys: Two Field Experiences", in Anthropologists in a Wider World, edited by Paul Dresch, Wendy James and David Parkin (Berghahn Books, 2000), p. 31
2. "Colson, Audrey Butt". Library of Congress. Retrieved 28 December 2014. Colson, Audrey, 1926-; full name: Audrey Joan Butt Colson
3. "Amazonian Anthropology". Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford. Retrieved 28 December 2014.
4. University Acts, Oxford University Gazette, 14 July 2005.
5. "Annual Report of the Curator of the Pitt Rlvers Museum (Department of Ethnology) for the year ending 31 July 1955". The invention of museum anthropology, 1850-1920, University of Oxford.
6. Rival, Laura (1999). "Peter Rivière's contributions to Amazonian and Social Anthropology" (pdf). Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford. 30 (3): 213–218.
7. Rivière, Peter. "South American Tropical Forest Material". Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.
8. "Judge in Amerindian communities landmark case rules anthropologist Dr. Colson cannot be deemed an expert". Guyana Chronicle. 7 May 2012. Retrieved 28 December 2014.
9. Butt Colson, Audrey (September 2013). Dug out, dried out or flooded out? Hydro power and mining threats to the indigenous peoples of the Upper Mazaruni District, Guyana (pdf).
10. Reviewed by Christopher Carrico in New West Indian Guide, Vol. 86, No. 1/2 (2012), pp. 157-159.