David Montgomery Hart:In Memoriam
(Reprinted from the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Summer 2001 (with changes in orthography to HTML standards).
Copyright 2001 by the Middle East Studies Association of North America)
David Montgomery Hart, an expert on the tribes of the Rif Highlands of Morocco, died on 22 May 2001 in Garrucha, Spain at the age of seventy-four. During the 1950s and 1960s, Mr. Hart lived for many years among Berber-speaking peoples in the Rif Mountains. Trained as an anthropologist at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Hart wrote a number of books based on his experiences in the Rif, the most ambitious of which was The Aith Waryaghar of the Moroccan Rif, published in 1976. The book is considered to be the most comprehensive and meticulous ethnographic study of a Rifian people ever written.
Mr. Hart also spent several years studying the Ait ‘Atta Berbers in southern Morocco. He wrote two books which are considered the standard ethnographies of this tribal confederation: Dada ‘Atta and His Forty Grandsons: the Socio-Political Organization of the Ait ‘Atta of Southern Morocco and The Ait ‘Atta of Southern Morocco: Daily Life and Recent History.
Mr. Hart was an anthropologist of the old school, living the day-to-day life of the peoples he studied and relying on exhaustive field observations and interviews to reach his conclusions. Fellow anthropologist and noted Islamic scholar Akbar S. Ahmed wrote: “Hart’s brand of anthropology reflects the old tradition when an anthropologist relied on his ears and eyes for his notes—the reader smelled the village and heard its noises—and anthropology was still a general all-encompassing description of an entire society. It is a perspective that is dying, and the discipline will be the poorer for its demise.”
Because of his many years living among rural Berbers, Mr. Hart was eminently qualified to describe the society, culture, and history of these peoples. America’s preeminent anthropologist Clifford Geertz of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton said Mr. Hart’s devotion to his subject matter was inspirational to other anthropologists. “Every cohort that works in Morocco has its romantic image of the place,” Dr. Geertz wrote, “in my image David Hart, the exultant ethnographer, is dead center.”
Mr. Hart also did field work in Pakistan and archival research in several European countries. He was fluent in two Berber languages, as well as Arabic, German, French, and Spanish.
Mr. Hart was also well known among social anthropologists of North Africa for the extensive correspondence he maintained with other experts. “As his friends all over the world will testify, his pen pours forth an unending stream of ideas, comments, prejudices and plans in letters,” Dr. Ahmed wrote. “They reflect the man: warm, honest, cantankerous, innovative and, above all, a committed anthropologist.” Ernest Gellner, the late British philosopher and social scientist, observed that Hart “developed and perfected a distinctive literary form, the long ethnographic letter.” “Its recipients and beneficiaries have included most of the scholars working on North African societies over four decades at least,” Dr. Gellner noted. “His energy and generosity in this respect, with postage as well as data and ideas, is simply unrivaled. The consequence has been that all these scholars received an unpaid initiation and sustained thorough training in North African ethnography.”
In the mid-1960s, Mr. Hart married Ursula Cook Kingsmill, an Englishwoman, who lived with him among the Berber tribes for many years. Mr. Hart moved to Spain in the early 1970s where he enjoyed a growing reputation among Spanish scholars who studied North Africa. In the mid-1990s a research foundation in his name was founded at the University of Granada.
Among his other books are Guardians of the Khaibar Pass; the Social Organization and History of the Afridis of Pakistan and Banditry in Islam; and Case Studies From Morocco, Algeria and the Pakistan North West Frontier.
Mr. Hart was born in Philadelphia in 1927. Prior to his life in Morocco, he worked for Aramco in Saudi Arabia where he studied Islamic culture.
Pre-deceased by his wife, Mr. Hart is survived by a brother Dr. Brandon Hart of Hamilton, MA, and a sister Sarah Brodsky of Yonkers, NY, and three stepchildren, Carrol Johnson of Oxford, England, Christine Rosenkrantz of St. Petersburg, Florida, and Stephen Boycott of Namaimo, Canada.
Sarah Gordon Hart
Mr. Hart also spent several years studying the Ait ‘Atta Berbers in southern Morocco. He wrote two books which are considered the standard ethnographies of this tribal confederation: Dada ‘Atta and His Forty Grandsons: the Socio-Political Organization of the Ait ‘Atta of Southern Morocco and The Ait ‘Atta of Southern Morocco: Daily Life and Recent History.
Mr. Hart was an anthropologist of the old school, living the day-to-day life of the peoples he studied and relying on exhaustive field observations and interviews to reach his conclusions. Fellow anthropologist and noted Islamic scholar Akbar S. Ahmed wrote: “Hart’s brand of anthropology reflects the old tradition when an anthropologist relied on his ears and eyes for his notes—the reader smelled the village and heard its noises—and anthropology was still a general all-encompassing description of an entire society. It is a perspective that is dying, and the discipline will be the poorer for its demise.”
Because of his many years living among rural Berbers, Mr. Hart was eminently qualified to describe the society, culture, and history of these peoples. America’s preeminent anthropologist Clifford Geertz of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton said Mr. Hart’s devotion to his subject matter was inspirational to other anthropologists. “Every cohort that works in Morocco has its romantic image of the place,” Dr. Geertz wrote, “in my image David Hart, the exultant ethnographer, is dead center.”
Mr. Hart also did field work in Pakistan and archival research in several European countries. He was fluent in two Berber languages, as well as Arabic, German, French, and Spanish.
Mr. Hart was also well known among social anthropologists of North Africa for the extensive correspondence he maintained with other experts. “As his friends all over the world will testify, his pen pours forth an unending stream of ideas, comments, prejudices and plans in letters,” Dr. Ahmed wrote. “They reflect the man: warm, honest, cantankerous, innovative and, above all, a committed anthropologist.” Ernest Gellner, the late British philosopher and social scientist, observed that Hart “developed and perfected a distinctive literary form, the long ethnographic letter.” “Its recipients and beneficiaries have included most of the scholars working on North African societies over four decades at least,” Dr. Gellner noted. “His energy and generosity in this respect, with postage as well as data and ideas, is simply unrivaled. The consequence has been that all these scholars received an unpaid initiation and sustained thorough training in North African ethnography.”
In the mid-1960s, Mr. Hart married Ursula Cook Kingsmill, an Englishwoman, who lived with him among the Berber tribes for many years. Mr. Hart moved to Spain in the early 1970s where he enjoyed a growing reputation among Spanish scholars who studied North Africa. In the mid-1990s a research foundation in his name was founded at the University of Granada.
Among his other books are Guardians of the Khaibar Pass; the Social Organization and History of the Afridis of Pakistan and Banditry in Islam; and Case Studies From Morocco, Algeria and the Pakistan North West Frontier.
Mr. Hart was born in Philadelphia in 1927. Prior to his life in Morocco, he worked for Aramco in Saudi Arabia where he studied Islamic culture.
Pre-deceased by his wife, Mr. Hart is survived by a brother Dr. Brandon Hart of Hamilton, MA, and a sister Sarah Brodsky of Yonkers, NY, and three stepchildren, Carrol Johnson of Oxford, England, Christine Rosenkrantz of St. Petersburg, Florida, and Stephen Boycott of Namaimo, Canada.
Sarah Gordon Hart
