Julio Caro Baroja was one of Spain's foremost anthropologists, historians, linguists and essayists. He was born November 13, 1914 in Madrid, Spain, of Basque descent on his mother's side. As a child, he moved to the Navarrese town of Vera de Bidasoa, where he spent much time with his uncle, Pio Baroja. His uncle had a very important influence on Julio's education. From 1921-1931, Julio got his early education at the "Instituto Escuela de Madrid". He was later attending university in Madrid when civil war broke out. He was a refugee in Vera de Bidasoa until the war was over. After the conflict ended, he returned to Madrid and finished his university studies, receiving the Extraordinary Doctorate Prize in the History section. Julio Baroja was an assistant in the department's of Ancient History and Dialectology until he became Director of the Museum of the Spanish People. He held that post from 1942-1953. He also worked with the Institute of Humanities and The Centre for Peninsular Ethnology.
In 1947, Baroja was elected to be a corresponding member of Academy of the Basque Language and the "Academia de las Buenas Letras" of Barcelona. He received a Wennergreen Foundation grant in 1951 to go to the United States to carry out research related to ethnology. From 1952-1957, Baroja was in charge of an official Spanish exploration mission in the Spanish Sahara. Baroja later said, "I have strange images of what I have done... There are things which I have done in a moment of total change, such as when I went to the Sahara and wrote a book about the nomads...but I get the feeling that it was not even me that wrote it."
As a child, Julio Caro Baroja had been interested in witchcraft. He had grown up in an isolated community where people still believed in magic and witchcraft. Before Julio turned twenty, he had spoken to elderly people who were convinced that there were "men and women who could change themselves into animals, fly, and do other things", that we generally refer to as witchcraft. His early surroundings were not the only things which stimulated his interest in this subject. He also read numerous books on witchcraft, among them the works of Pierre de Lancre.
During a trip to London, his interest in the magical arts, that had waned during the Spanish Civil War, was renewed when he bought several more books on witchcraft. He blended his early findings with his later findings and brought a more modern view to the subject. He wrote a book on witchcraft entitled, The World of the Witches, which examined specific groups of people in relation to the world around them. His believed that "The Witches" world, like that of any other social group, changes considerably from one generation to the next. He explained that this book tied social history in with anthropology.
Baroja's work was as important to history as it was to anthropology. He gained a great appreciation of African lineage systems after he recognized the importance of Evans-Pritchard's work on the subject. Baroja used Evans-Pritchard's work to see if it could be applied to the lineage system of the Oasis of El Ayun, which he studied for one year. He didn't always agree with other anthropologists, as is evidenced in his publication in which he was very critical of Malinowski's functionalism. Baroja was critical of functionalism even before British anthropologists were surprised by Evans-Pritchard's rebellion against it in 1952.
In 1952, placed at the University of Oxford by the British Council, ,Baroja was in charge of the guidance of graduates studying anthropology there. He also taught Ethnology at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. In 1961, Baroja was in Paris, at the "Ecole Practique de Hautes-Etudes", where he was Director of Studies of Social and Economic History.
Baroja had been a disciple of Telesforo de Aranzadi, of Hugo Obermaier, of Jose Miguel de Barandiaran, and Manuel Gomez Moreno. On May 12, 1963, Baroja entered the Royal Academy of History and was received by Ramon Carende y Thovar. In 1986, Baroja entered the Royal Spanish Academy. His intense research efforts and the very important studies he produced of themes in Spanish Ethnology were rewarded in June of 1989 when he was awarded the "Menendez Pelayo" International Prize.
Julio Caro Baroja, a world-renowned anthropologist, was especially known for his special interest in Basque culture, history and society, and his dedication to the study of the cultural and social anthropology of the peoples of Spain. He belonged to many cultural and scholarly foreign societies, including the Hispanic Society of America, the German Archaeological Institute, and the Society of Portuguese Archaeologists. Baroja was a guest lecturer at many universities, including the Universities of Berkeley, Munich, Bonn, Oxford, Rome, Cologne, plus ones in various other countries in Spanish America and Europe. He was said to be unorthodox, critical and always independent, with opinions that were often very controversial. Baroja described himself as "a man with an orderly life, subject to reason, not to passion" and as " an old man who does not have much hope of anything". Baroja greatly understated his many accomplishments and contributions to the fields of anthropology and history. He died at the age of eighty, on August 18, 1995.
Some of his publications include:
The World of the Witches (1964)
Las Formas Complejas de la Vida Religiosa (1978)
Estudios Saharianos (1990)
El Carnaval (1992)
Anthropology Today. Volume 2, No 2, April 1996.
Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
www.fundacionprincidedeastrias.org
Written By: Lillian Dolentz 2008