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| Isabel Ramirez Castenada |
Isabel Ramirez Castenada was the first Mexican woman to work as an archeologist and anthropologist in Mexico. Born in 1879 in Milpa Alta, a pueblo not far from Mexico City, she studied to be a primary school teacher and worked in pre-school for a number of years.
In 1906 she received a scholarship and was part of the first generation of Mexicans to study archeology, history and ethnology at the National Museum of Mexico, (Museo Nacional de Antropologia) the only institution offering these courses at the time. In 1907 and 1908 she worked for Eduard Seler and later Leopoldo Batres in the National Museum collections, classifying and cataloguing over 10,000 artifacts. She worked as an assistant and also taught archeology till 1911 when she joined the International School of American Archeology and Ethnology. The school, established to conduct research, also trained Mexican archeologists and ethnologists. Isabel secured a scholarship from the Mexican government and Columbia University to attend, as well as paid leave from the National Museum.
Around this time she accompanied Eduard Seler and his wife Caecilie Seler-Sachs on archeological expeditions to Palenque and the Yucatan Peninsula. She conducted fieldwork and did surveying while studying the site. She also participated in various ethnological field trips to the surrounding area of Mexico City and carried out the systemic collection of ceramics in the Toltec and Nahua city of Culhuacan.
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| Isabel at Palenque, 1911 (Archives) |
Proficient in languages, she wrote and spoke Nahual, though it's not known if this was her mother tongue or if she learned it as part of her studies at the National Museum. Being bi-lingual enabled her to carry out important ethnographic work in her village, Milpa Alta, as well as other indigenous Nahua villages near Mexico City. Her primary ethnographic work consisted of compiling indigenous stories and myths which she later transcribed and translated into Spanish. These folktales, titled Ten Folktales in Modern Nahautl, were published in 1924 by Franz Boas, a mentor to Isabel who became known as the father of modern anthropology.
The titles she translated were The Old Man of Teutli and the Rabbit, The Squirrel and the Prairie Dog, and The Fox and the Coyote. They read like Aesop's fables, usually with a moral at the end.
When the Mexican Revolution began, the International School closed down and the director left the country. Isabel was designated to secure the collections and transfer them to the National Museum. After the Revolution she remained in the museum's folklore section and became its head in 1918. Unfortunately the position lasted just one year due to lack of funding. She would not return for 20 years.
Little is known about her during those years but on returning in 1936, she joined the education department, devising courses on archeology for teachers. Following this she continued to work for the museum in low-paying positions, mostly from her home due to poor eyesight.
Like other women in the field of archeology before the Revolution, Isabel had to fight for her place at the table, pushing boundaries to make room for her to work or study in the male-dominated emerging field.
Unlike other women who made up the Mexican archeological field, Isabel was born, raised and educated in Mexico which gave her a leg up, even though her family did not come from wealth. She had no affluent patrons supporting her work but despite challenges, she did valuable work, and became well known for compiling and analyzing indigenous knowledge and stories from Nahua communities.
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| Isabel Ramirez Castenada, 1908 |
She authored three papers of original research on the pre-colonial carved stones from the archeological and ethnographic collections at the National Museum and presented her research at the Tlalnepantla Parish church. These were on the folklore of Milpa Alta, traditional medicine, and superstition in the markets of Zumpango.
For decades her contributions in the development of archeology and anthropology were overshadowed due to criticism from male colleagues, especially Manuel Gamio. Though the discourse for the falling-out between Gamio and Ramirez is not clear, it appears it was based on a famous excavation in 1912 at a brickyard near Atzcapotzalco. Gamio, working for Boas as was Ramirez, originally outlined a document outlining the work and Ramirez followed up and elaborated on it. As the excavations continued to be carried out, dissertations were produced but apparently Gamio felt they were poorly published with mis-spellings that he blamed on Ramirez. At the same time, another excavation took place and a substantial collection of ceramics was found by Ramirez. Ramirez's accounts of both excavations were written up and as her find had been larger than that of Gamio, her accounts influenced the sequence that formed the basis of the Valley of Mexico chronology for years to come. Though never stated, Gamio may have felt slighted and retaliated by trying to discredit her achievements.
Shortly afterwards, while her group studied indigenous stories, they discovered that strong Spanish influences appeared in the phonetics. A common goal emerged to collect as much folklore and phonetic info as possible in order to compare both Spanish and Indian sources. Fellows threw themselves enthusiastically into the research and with Ramirez's understanding of Nahuatl, she became an integral part of the project, making contributions to the folklore from her native Milpa Alta. These investigations were one of the first attempts by anthropologists to deal with the problem of acculturation and its impact on New World cultures, a theme that would dominate the field in the 1930s.
Even with her 20-year absence mid-career, Ramirez's star shines brightly as the first recognized woman archeologist in Mexico.
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