Ethnologists

Edward Sapir was an anthropologist-linguist. He played a pivotal role in the development of the discipline of linguistics in USA. He studied Germanic linguistics at Columbia and later researched Native American languages. He was an expert in the study of Athabascan languages and Chinookan languages. He also worked with Yiddish, Hebrew, and Chinese languages. 

English anthropologist and psychologist W. H. R. Rivers is best remembered for his work on the Todas of the Nilgiri Hills. A qualified physician, he also taught at Cambridge and worked extensively on medical psychology. One of his best-known works is Kinship and Social Organisation.

Arnold van Gennep was a Dutch-German-French folklorist and ethnographer. He is best remembered for his 1909 work, The Rites of Passage, which influenced Joseph Campbell's 1949 work The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Arnold van Gennep's work also influenced Victor Turner's research and his 1969 work, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure.

Adolf Bastian was a German polymath best known for his contributions to the progression of ethnography. He is also credited with making immense contributions to the progression of anthropology as a discipline. Bastian's theory of the Elementargedanke led to Carl Jung's theory of archetypes. Adolf Bastian's work also had a great impact on Franz Boas and Joseph Campbell.

Miguel Covarrubias donned many hats, and apart from being a painter and caricaturist, he was also a fine writer, an anthropologist, and an ethnologist. He explored the cultures of South East Asians and North American Indians and also co-discovered the Olmec Mesoamerican civilization. He designed theater sets and costumes, too.

Ludwig Mylius-Erichsen was a Danish ethnologist, explorer, and author. He is renowned for his explorations of Greenland. Mylius-Erichsen is credited with proving the nonexistence of the Peary Channel, thereby proving that American explorer Robert Peary was wrong. It was assumed that the channel existed until Ejnar Mikkelsen found Mylius-Erichsen's report in a cairn after Mylius-Erichsen’s death during his last exploration.

Eric von Rosen was a Swedish explorer and ethnographer. An important figure in the Swedish upper class, Rosen gifted the newly independent state of Finland an aircraft in 1918, which signified the dawn of the Finnish Air Force. Eric von Rosen is also credited with popularizing the swastika in Sweden as he used the symbol as a personal owner's mark.  

Raymond Firth was a New Zealand ethnologist who is credited with creating a form of British economic anthropology. He also served at the London School of Economics as a Professor of Anthropology and his ethnographic work is greatly respected. Over the course of his illustrious career, Raymond Firth was honored with several prestigious awards, including the Viking Fund Medal.

Gonçalves Dias was a Brazilian lawyer, poet, playwright, ethnographer, and linguist. A major figure of Brazilian Romanticism, he is credited with having composed Canção do exílio, often considered the best known poem of Brazilian literature. He was posthumously awarded the title of national poet of Brazil and is the patron of the 15th chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. 

A pioneer of British anthropology, Alfred Cort Haddon is remembered for his contribution of over three decades to Cambridge. While he initially went to the Torres Strait to study marine biology, he later devoted himself to the study of the indigenous people. His History of Anthropology remains his best-known work.

English biologist and anthropologist Walter Baldwin Spencer is remembered for his pioneering study of the indigenous population of Australia. He initially taught biology but later drifted to anthropology. He was also knighted but died while on an expedition to study the Ushuaia of the Tierra del Fuego.

Matthias Castrén was a Finnish Swedish philologist and ethnologist. He served as an educator, linguist, and author at the University of Helsinki. Castrén is best remembered for his research in the ethnography and linguistics of the Finnic, Samoyedic, and Ugric peoples. In 1990, the M. A. Castrén Society was established in Helsinki in his honor.

Alfred Métraux was an Argentine and Swiss ethnologist, anthropologist, and human rights leader. He is best remembered for his work with UNESCO's Department of Social Science. Alfred Métraux is also remembered for publishing landmark studies of the Incas, the ancient cultures of Easter Island, and Haitian voodoo.