Esther Funk Ethnographic Collection

About Esther Funk

Esther Funk attended both the La Verne Academy and La Verne College, before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (1922) and a Master of Arts (1946) from the University of Southern California. A student under noted American anthropologist Edgar Lee Hewitt, Miss Funk traveled to Central and South America to study ancient Guatemalan and Peruvian and textiles. A copy of her original 3-volume thesis, “A Comparison of Ancient and Modern Peruvian Textiles” and two unpublished manuscripts, “Representative Guatemalan Indian Textiles and Design (1934)” and “A Study of Peruvian Textiles in the Cuzco Region (1935),” both of which include original photographs, are treasures within the CNHC catalog.

Digitization of the Esther Funk collection is supported in part by a Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources.

Peruvian Chaspa

Peruvian Textiles in the Cusco Region; a study of Peruvian textiles in the region of Cuzco

Peruvian Poncho

Guatemalan Huipil

Aymara Bolivian Chullo or Gorra

Cusco Peruvian Chullo or Gorra

Aymara Bolivian Chuspa

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