Tracing Anthropologist Zelia Nuttall Through Smithsonian Collections

Tracing Anthropologist Zelia Nuttall Through Smithsonian Collections

Anthropologist Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall was an expert in Mesoamerican people and artifacts. A remarkable Mexican American scholar, she helped change the conversation around pre-Columbian cultures. Many of
her publications are held in the collections of Smithsonian Libraries and Archives
and traces of her work can be found in repositories around the Institution.
Nuttall was born in San Francisco in 1857 to a family with both wealth and deep Mexican ties.  Her father, Robert Nuttall, was an Irish physician. Her mother, Maria Magdalena Parrott, was born in Mexico, the daughter of a diplomat banker. It is said that Zelia first became intrigued with Mesoamerican civilizations when her mother gifted her a copy of
The Antiquities of Mexico
, a beautiful facsimile of ancient codices compiled by Lord Gainsborough. Though her family eventually left California for Europe, Nuttall’s natural curiosity was complemented by a solid education by private tutors, and she was fluent in both Spanish and German.
Portrait of Zelia Nuttall holding a fan.
Courtesy University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library
.
Nuttall took her second trip to Mexico in 1884, accompanied by family. She collected small terra cotta heads near Teotihuacan, which would become the subjects of her first article, published in
The American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts
in 1886
. Contemporary anthropologists had not given them much attention, considering them puzzling novelties. But Nuttall marveled at the diversity of them, praised their craftsmanship, and attempted to classify and explain them.
Shortly after, she became acquainted with Frederick Ward Putnam of the Peabody Museum of Harvard and was offered the role of Special Assistant in Mexican Archeology. She published several articles and books towards the end of the 19
th
century, including
Ancient Mexican feather work at the Columbian historical exposition at Madrid
(1895) (available online via the
Library of Congress
). In 1901, she published a lengthy comparison of cultures and religions in
The fundamental principles of Old and New World Civilizations
(available online via
Brigham Young University
). The book, supported by Putnam, suggested that since many cultures around the world shared similarities, perhaps ancient European and Asian civilizations interacted with ancient Americans. Though later discredited, the concept did help adjust perceptions of Mesoamerican cultures, often considered unrefined, and place them on the same level as the Egyptians and Greeks.
“Feather Piece: Head-Dress (Standard) Preserved at Ethnographical Museum, Vienna”,
Ancient Mexican feather work at the Columbian historical exposition at Madrid (
1895).
One of Nuttall’s most notable works is her namesake
Codex Nuttall
, a translation and facsimile of a 13
th
century Mixtec folding screen book. Nuttall traveled to England to research the orig…