Approach
Reichel-Dolmatoff had always stressed the importance of holistic research. By adopting the approach of consistent participant observation with the peoples he studied, he was able to better grasp and later clarify the world views of numerous populations and cultures now being diminished today. He very well may have been the very first anthropologist to ever ingest the entheogenic drug, ayahuasca. In so doing, he partook in a sacred ritual central to the organizing principles and cosmological beliefs of many Amazonian peoples. He understood the many lessons to be learned and emulated from indigenous societies throughout the world.
Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff’s hard work and extensive studies throughout Colombia as a whole, have paved the way for many more generations of aspiring archaeologists and anthropologist. His many research and publications achievements (Oyuela-Caycedo, 1998) have earned him the title of “Father of Colombian Archaeology” — and rightly so.
Read more about this topic: Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff
Famous quotes containing the word approach:
“... the ordinary is simply the universal observed from the surface, that the direct approach to reality is not without, but within. Touch life anywhere ... and you will touch universality wherever you touch the earth.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)
“There is no calm philosophy of life here, such as you might put at the end of the Almanac, to hang over the farmer’s hearth,—how men shall live in these winter, in these summer days. No philosophy, properly speaking, of love, or friendship, or religion, or politics, or education, or nature, or spirit; perhaps a nearer approach to a philosophy of kingship, and of the place of the literary man, than of anything else.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Let me approach at least, and touch thy hand.
[Samson:] Not for thy life, lest fierce remembrance wake
My sudden rage to tear thee joint by joint.
At distance I forgive thee, go with that;
Bewail thy falsehood, and the pious works
It hath brought forth to make thee memorable
Among illustrious women, faithful wives:
Cherish thy hast’n’d widowhood with the gold
Of Matrimonial treason: so farewel.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)