MS 25 ; ASM Acc. 2000-259 and Acc. 2000-320
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Ralph Copeland Michelsen (b.1913-d.1996) was an ethnologist whose work centered in Southern California and Baja. He began spending time with the local indigenous people of Baja California in the 1950s while he resided there for a mining job. This began a life-long connection with the area and its people.
Dr. Michelsen was a general contractor until the age of 55 when he enrolled in the University of California at Irvine. Because of his extensive avocational fieldwork in the Southwest and Mexico, he began teaching classes at Irvine while working towards his PhD, which he received in 1991.
He was widely traveled throughout the Southwest and Mexico and was fluent in Spanish. His wife and daughter characterize his field style as “very casual and non-confrontational”. He didn’t ask a series of questions; rather, he engaged in conversation and obliquely solicited information. His principle areas of fieldwork were in Desemboque among the Seri, in Santa Catarina among the Paipai, and among the Luiseno of San Diego County, California.
Much of Michelsen’s published work is on the Paipai and Kiliwa cultures. Michelsen’s fieldwork among the Seri is just as extensive as that of the other populations he studied, but the work was never published.
This collection consists of materials from Ralph Michelsen’s papers relating to the Seri Indians. It includes several manuscripts, research notes, publications, photographs and correspondence and collaborative notes with Edward Moser. Much of the material is documentation of Seri basket making, particularly in Desemboque. A small collection of photographs depicts ironwood carving. The archives collection contains photocopied reproductions of photographs now located in the Photo Collections of the Arizona State Museum.
Photographs dealing with sensitive cultural subjects may not be copied or reproduced without approval of ASM staff.
Access to specific information about the nature and location of archaeological resources may be restricted pursuant to the United States Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 (ARPA) and Arizona Revised Statues, Title 39-125. ARPA includes a specific exemption from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requirements for information about the nature and location of archaeological resources (16 U.S. Code 470hh: Confidentiality of information concerning the nature and location of archaeological resources).
Requests to reproduce photographs in this collection should be discussed with the ASM Photo Collections Curator.
Non-Seri materials in the Michelsen papers as inventoried by Susan Lobo in 2004 were transferred to the Rupert Costo Library of the American Indian, Special Collections, in the Rivera Library of the University of California Riverside campus. These are described in a 49-page finding aid in folder number one of the ASM collection.
MS 25: Ralph Michelsen Seri Papers, Arizona State Museum Library and Archives.
| Box 1: Materials open to research and reproduction | |||||||||||
| box | folder | ||||||||||
| 1 | 1 | Finding aid for Michelsen Paipai Collection, prepared by Susan Lobo, 2004 | |||||||||
| 1 | 2 | Bibliography of Michelsen publications, prepared by Stephen O’Neil, 2006 | |||||||||
| 1 | 3 | Manuscripts: Seri Money | |||||||||
| 1 | 4 | Manuscripts: Seri Basketry | |||||||||
| 1 | 5 | Manuscripts: Basketry Booklet | |||||||||
| 1 | 6 | Manuscripts: Some Successes and Failures of Community Development Projects in Two Band Level Societies | |||||||||
| 1 | 7 | Publications: Seri basketry issue of The Kiva 38:3-4 (spring-summer 1973) | |||||||||
| 1 | 8 | Publications: Logos Signum Publications, Paipai and Seri Utilitarian Crafts, 1977 | |||||||||
| 1 | 9 | Publications: Booklet for Charles W. Bowers Memorial Museum exhibit, 1965 | |||||||||
| 1 | 10 | Miscellaneous research notes on Seri | |||||||||
| 1 | 11 | Small notebook with miscellaneous notes | |||||||||
| 1 | 12 | Manuscripts: “Bandas Seri” by Edward Moser, n.d. [in Spanish] | |||||||||
| 1 | 13 | Correspondence: Edward and Becky Moser, 1966-1972 | |||||||||
| 1 | 14 | Correspondence: Thomas Bowen, 1968 | |||||||||
| 1 | 15 | Correspondence: Thomas Hinton, 1965 | |||||||||
| 1 | 16 | List of items sold to Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan | |||||||||
| 1 | 17 | Photographs: Jose Astorga and family | |||||||||
| 1 | 18 | Photographs: miscellaneous prints without accompanying negatives | |||||||||
| Box 2: Materials open to research and reproduction | |||||||||||
| box | folder | ||||||||||
| 1 | 1 | Photographs: Miscellaneous prints from accompanying negatives | |||||||||
| 1 | 2 | “In Memoriam” obituary for Ralph C. Michelsen by Stephen O’Neil | |||||||||
| 1 | 3 | Documents accompanying photographs | |||||||||
| 1 | 4 | Photographs and negatives: Seri dolls and amulets | |||||||||
| 1 | 5 | Photographs and negatives: Gathering torote | |||||||||
| 1 | 6 | Photographs and negatives: Miscellaneous | |||||||||
| 1 | 7 | Photographs and negatives: Near Desemboque, April 1965 | |||||||||
| 1 | 8 | Photographs and negatives: Seri spear purification | |||||||||
| 1 | 9 | Photographs and negatives: Contact sheet of baskets | |||||||||
| 1 | 10 | Photographs and negatives: Basketmaking | |||||||||
| 1 | 11 | Photographs and negatives: Miscellaneous | |||||||||
| 1 | 12 | Photographs and negatives: Miscellaneous | |||||||||
| 1 | 13 | Photographs and negatives: Color snapshots | |||||||||
| 1 | 14 | Photographs and negatives: Small photographs and negatives | |||||||||
| 1 | 15 | Photographs and negatives: Photocopies of photographs | |||||||||
| Box 2: Materials restricted due to sensitive cultural content | |||||||||||
| box | folder | ||||||||||
| 1 | 16 | Photographs and negatives: Tree Burials, March 1966 | |||||||||
| 1 | 17 | Seri Basketry scrapbook from Desemboque, 1966 [photocopies] | |||||||||
| 1 | 18 | Seri Basketry scrapbook from Desemboque, 1966. 1 of 4 [ORIGINAL] | |||||||||
| 1 | 19 | Seri Basketry scrapbook from Desemboque, 1966. 2 of 4 [ORIGINAL] | |||||||||
| 1 | 20 | Seri Basketry scrapbook from Desemboque, 1966. 3 of 4 [ORIGINAL] | |||||||||
| 1 | 21 | Seri Basketry scrapbook from Desemboque, 1966. 4 of 4 [ORIGINAL] | |||||||||