WILLIAM DAVENPORT
1922 - 2004

William Hunt Davenport, ASAO Honorary Fellow, Professor and Curator Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, died at age 81 on Friday, March 12, 2004. He is survived by his sister, Mary Yohalem of New York City, two nieces, Jennifer and Deborah Salt, both living in California, and a great nephew, Jonah Greenberg, currently residing in Beijing, China.

Bill's life was rich, exciting, and productive. His scholarship and teaching combined a curator's attention to detail with an adventurous spirit, an expansive curiosity, and an original and creative mind. His enthusiasm and knowledge left an indelible impact on his students and colleagues.

Bill's travels began early. Born in 1922, he grew up in Cucamonga, California. At age 14 he stowed away on a boat that took him to Singapore, where according to his sister, he enjoyed a brief stay in a Singapore jail. Before starting college he studied photography, worked in Hollywood, acquired a reputation as a talented surfer, sailed with the US Naval Merchant Marine, ran a shipping company, and served in the Pacific during World War II. In his mid-twenties, he enrolled at the University of Hawai'i to pursue an interest in Japanese and Chinese philosophy. He studied with Peter Buck and Kenneth Emory, beginning his life-long involvement with anthropology. After completing his B.A. at Hawai'i, he continued his studies in anthropology at Yale University, where he received his doctoral degree under the supervision of Sidney Mintz. At Yale he undertook interdisciplinary training in the behavioral sciences that included courses in psychology, social psychology, sociology, and anthropology.

He joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in 1963, and was professor of anthropology and curator of the Pacific collections at the University of Pennsylvania Museum for most of the ensuing three decades. During his long career, he also held visiting professorships at Wesleyan, the University of California at Santa Cruz, Bryn Mawr College, and the University of Hawai'i. In 1971-72, he was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, California.

Bill conducted many different ethnographic research projects, most of them close to saltwater. He carried out his doctoral dissertation research in Jamaica, using game theory to analyze two fishing communities. In the early 1960s, he began a series of long-term research projects in the Solomon Islands on social organization, economics, art, and navigation. Starting in the 1970s, he developed an interest in the art and ethnography of Southeast Asia, and he continued research in Indonesia and Malaysia well into the 1990s.

Bill made substantial contributions to the field of anthropology in general, and to the scholarship of Oceania in particular. In addition to seminal articles on kinship, exchange, sexuality, and art, he also published on leadership, stratification, royal incest, and social movements. He was one of only a few scholars to have carried out research and published on each of the three major regions of Oceania, ranging from Marshall Islands stick charts, to his book Hawaiian Sculpture with J. W. Cox, and to "red-feather money" in the Santa Cruz Islands. Bill's scholarship effortlessly spanned linguistic anthropology, cultural anthropology, and archaeology, appearing in journals as diverse as American Anthropologist, Journal of the Polynesian Society, Baessler-Archiv, Journal of American Folklore, Scientific American, Sarawak Museum Journal, and Expedition.

Bill was also very active in service to the profession. He was an Associate at the Bishop Museum in Hawai'i (1953-60, 1980-2004), served on numerous committees of the American Anthropological Association, and was appointed to the Council of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. (1976-1984). He was one of the founding members of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania (ASAO), and in 1989 was elected to the status of Honorary Fellow.

His energy and enthusiasm always seemed boundless. He continued sailing long after his retirement in 1992 and his neighbors in North East, Maryland report that even in his late seventies, "he could still bring his boat into dock under sail!" A scholar until the end, he was completing an article for Expedition and a book on Santa Cruz art at the time of his death.

Bill's wide-ranging life experiences and his great passion for knowledge made him an extraordinary scholar, mentor, and colleague. His research in Hawai'i followed on his early experiences there, which included being at Pearl Harbor during the air attack, meeting Duke Kahanamoku, and working as a bouncer. His contributions to the anthropology of art drew upon his training at the Art Center School in photography and his work in Hollywood film studios. His understanding of Santa Cruz voyaging was enhanced by his travels in the Merchant Marine and his life-long love of sailing. Whether it was the workings of Chinese fireworks, the invention of the chronometer that enabled sailors to chart longitude, or how Melanesians "kissed," Bill could always be counted on not only for an explanation, but also a first-rate story.

Students, not surprisingly, loved his classes. Discussions moved effortlessly from the classroom to the Potlatch coffee shop in the University Museum, and not infrequently led to long dinners spent talking about fieldwork, anthropology, and life. His students sometimes hid their watches from view, hoping that Bill would not notice that class was over. His lectures combined vivid descriptions of life in the Pacific with original insights and a strong dose of humor. And always there was a balanced perspective on work and life, as suggested by his parting words of advice to a graduate student before he left for several years of ethnographic field research: "Have a great time!"

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Bill had a kind and generous spirit that affected everyone he met, whether students, colleagues, and staff at the museum, his neighbors in Philadelphia and Maryland, or the many people he befriended during the course of his extensive travels. He inspired tremendous loyalty and affection among those who knew him well. Bill was an inspirational romantic when it came to anthropology and many of our paths have been immeasurably enriched by his contagious enthusiasm for the subject. His death is a great loss; but his students, colleagues, friends, and family can also celebrate all that he brought to us, and to the world.

A memorial service is being planned at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in the spring. His papers will be deposited in the University Museum archives, close to the collections he helped to build.

Bill Donner and Stuart Kirsch, with numerous contributors