A. H. J. Prins

Prins, Adriaan Hendrik Johan (1921-2000). During almost fifty years of scholarship, this Dutch anthropologist traveled extensively and crossed boundaries between countries, centuries, and disciplines. Observing and interviewing Swahili seafarers, Teita peasants, Boni hunters, Maltese mariners, Dutch skippers, and Saami (Lapp) coastal fishers, Prins also delved into African and European archives. Although he focused initially on British anthropological topics (kinship, social structure), his enduring interest concerned the maritime history and cultural ecology of seafaring peoples.

Born in Harderwijk (The Netherlands), 1922, A.H.J. Prins studied social geography and ethnology at the Rijksuniversiteit van Utrecht under Prof. Dr. Henri Th. Fischer. In 1943, the German occupying forces ordered Dutch students and faculty to sign a "loyalty declaration." Like many others, Prins refused and joined the resistance movement, ultimately becoming Chief of Intelligence in the VI th Brigade (Veluwe). Following the 1944 Battle of Arnhem, he was incorporated into the Second British Army as a Special Forces officer. After demobilization in 1945, he resumed graduate studies at Utrecht. A year later, having acquired his doctoraal degree, he became a research assistant at Utrecht's Institute of Ethnology under Professor Henri Th. Fischer. Since then he was known as “Peter,” which was his nom de guerre. In 1947, he received a fellowship at the London School of Economics (LSE) for social anthropology training under Raymond Firth, Siegfried Nadel, and Audrey Richards. Then, equipped with language training in Swahili, he ventured to Kenya as a British Colonial Fellow for fieldwork in the Teita Hills. Guided by Senior District Commissioner Harold E. Lambert, a Cambridge University trained anthropologist specialized in the neighboring Kikuyu, Prins was initiated into ethnographic research. In 1951, two years before he earned his PhD from Utrecht U, Prins was hired as the first anthropologist at the Rijksuniversiteit van Groningen, where he later became the founding director of the Institute of Cultural Anthropology. Although he lectured at many institutions in Europe, East Africa, and the Middle East, he remained there until his retirement in 1984. A committed fieldworker, he made numerous journeys abroad during and after his tenure at Groningen. In 1957, he began studying dhows, the lateen-rigged sailing ships of the Indian Ocean and the way in which they operate, first in the Persian Gulf, then on the coast of Zanzibar, Kenya and Tanganyika ((1957, 1965-66, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1971). Other projects involved research in Ethiopia (1954-55), Iraq (1957), Iran (1959), the Persian Gulf (1970, 1973), Syria and Turkey (1961-62, 1970), South Arabia (1970, 1973), Zambia (1972, 1974). One of the founding directors of the Arctic Centre at Groningen U, he made annual research trips to northern Scandinavia from 1968-92, and beginning in 1970 traveled to Greece and made frequent journeys to the Mediterranean island of Malta. A recipient of many research grants and fellowships (UNESCO, Ford Foundation, the Netherlands Organization for Pure Research, etc.), Prins was frequently consulted by the Dutch government and royal court, which valued his in-depth knowledge about the peoples and cultures of Africa and the Middle East. In addition to scores of encyclopedia entries and dozens of scholarly articles in a wide range of international journals such as Anthropos, Man, Human Organization, and The Mariner’s Mirror, Prins regularly published in Dutch newspapers and magazines. Moreover, he illustrated many of his books and articles with his own ethnographic photographs, sketches, and pen drawings. he is survived by his wife Ita Prins-Poorter, nine children, and sixteen grandchildren.

Contents [hide] • 1 Published works • 2 Sources • 3 Links

[edit] Published works • The Coastal Tribes of the Northeastern Bantu: Pokomo, Nyika, Teita (1952). • East-African Age-Class Systems: An Inquiry into the Social Order of the Galla, Kipsigis and Kikuyu (1953; reprinted by the Negro Press in 1970) • Harderwijk: An Annotated Bibliography (1960). • The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East Coast of Africa (1961, 2nd edition 1967) • Sailing from Lamu: A Study of Maritime Culture in Islamic East Africa (1965). • Schippers van Blokzijl: Een maritime maatschappij in miniatuur (1969). • Didamic Lamu: Social and Spatial Structure (1971). • A Swahili Nautical Dictionary (Preface by Julius Nyerere, 1972). • Jan van Schaffelaer: Requiem voor een Gelderse Ruiter (1982) • Watching the Seaside: Essays in Maritime Culture (1984) • Copernicaanse Cultuurkunde (1984) • Handbook of Sewn Boats: The Ethnography and Archaeology of Archaic Plank-Built Craft (1984). • In Peril on the Sea: Marine Votive Paintings in the Maltese Islands (1989). • Groningen: Middeleeuwse Hanzestad vanaf de Waterkant (1994) • “Mediterranean Ships and Shipping, 1650-1850.” In: The Heyday of Sail: The Merchant Sailing Ship 1650-1830 (1995).

[edit] Sources • “From Tropical Africa to Arctic Scandinavia: A.H.J. Prins as Maritime Anthropologist.” In: Circumpolar Studies 2: 21-28. • Durk Hak, et. al, “Dr. A.H.J. Prins as a Maritime Anthropologist: A preliminary appraisal and an introduction.” In: Watching the Seaside, 1984:1-10. • Anthropology News, Vol. 41 (4): 92. • Anthropology Today, Vol. 16 (3): 25-26. • [edit] Links •

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