Herbert Baldus was born in Wiesbaden, Germany on March 14,1899. During his teen years he joined the Cadet Corps in Potsdam. By the last year of WWI, he was an active officer in the air force. During his youth, he had developed a love of South America and it's Indians. That love, and his sense of adventure, would provide a framework for his life's work.
In 1921, he traveled to Argentina, then later to Brazil, to become acquainted with the aborigines who lived in the heart of those countries. Baldus journeyed to the Gran Chaco in Paraguay in 1923 to learn about the tribes of the Chamakoko, Kashika, and the Sanapana. In 1927, he visited the Guarani on the Paulistian Coast and then in 1928 he visited the Chaco-tribes. Upon returning home, he studied Ethnology at Friedrich-Wilhelm Universitat in Berlin under Richard Thurnwald. He also studied Americanism and philosophy. Baldus was still a student when he published his first book, Indianerstudien im nordwestlichen Chaco (1931), his first great scientific book. He did some literary works at the same time and one especially noteworthy one was his novelistic biography about Paraguayan dictator Solano Lopes and his famous North American mistress, Madame Lynch. In 1932 Baldus received his Ph.D. He wrote his dissertation on the Samuko language. Baldus was a liberal man and could not bare to stay in Germany when the National Socialists started taking over so he returned to Brazil. In 1933 he did fieldwork among the Indians of Southern and Central Brazil.
Baldus was deprived of his German citizenship by the Nazis and they burned his books. The Brasilian government was happy to extend naturalization to Baldus, who graciously accepted and made his home there. He immediately obtained a ministerial position as director of the ethnological department at the Paulistanian State Museum. He was soon appointed assistant director and was managing director from 1953-1960. Baldus was made professor for ethnology at the Escola de Sociologia e Politica, a complementary institute of the State University of Sao Paulo, at the same time.
Baldus was always known for his teaching. His alert, active mind, along with his great sense of humor, made him a favorite with his students. Baldus was a very enthusiastic man, and there wasn't a person who loved to do what he did more than he. His focus was on the acquisition of consistent empirical data. As a professor, he taught the fundamentals of ethnographic investigation and proper fieldwork technique to a first generation of Social Scientists. His approach to science was from a social-psychological format. He was the first to introduce the concepts of American Applied Anthropology to Brazil and he worked hard to keep up with an ever changing field. Many internationally known scientists in the field were once his students.
Baldus made Sao Paulo the undisputed heart of Americanistic research in South America by being the first to systemize the studies of South American ethnology. The highlight of his written work was his two volumes of Bibliografia Critica da Ethnologia Brasileira. He continued to do extensive fieldwork throughout Central and South America. His list of honors is extensive. Two of the highest honors were the Goethe medal that was awarded to him for his unique scientific achievements and the other was a high Spanish order, "Encomienda de Isabel la Catolica". On his sixty-fifth birthday, he was presented with a publication, Beitrage zur Volkerkunde Sudamerikas, that was dedicated to him. It contained the expressions of loyalty to their great friend, teacher, and colleague from thirty-one renowned Americanists from America, Europe, and Asia.
Professor Dr. Herbert Baldus died due to a fourth heart-stroke in 1970.
Bohannan, Laura, American Anthropologists, Vol 74, Pgs 1307-1309, Chicago, Illinois,1972
Winters, Christopher International Dictionary of Anthropologists, Library-Anthropology Resource Group, Pgs 20-21, New York and London
Written By: John Tousignant, 2001
Edited By: Lillian Dolentz, 2008