Alphonse Pinart

Alphonse Louis Pinart (26 February 1852 — 13 February 1911) was a French scholar, linguist, ethnologist and collector, specialist on the American continent. He studied the civilizations of the New World in the manner of the pioneers of the time, mixing the empirical observation of anthropological, ethnological and linguistic elements. The son of a wealthy forge master, a learned young man who had learned English, Russian and some Asian linguistics with Stanislas Julien, he was fascinated by the age of 15 for the question of the origin of the Amerindians and Inuit. He spent the fortune of his family and his two wives in the exploration of America and the purchase of objects and books related to his interests, which he made enjoy many museums and collections, starting with the Ethnographic Museum of Trocadero which he was the first donor, and the castle museum Boulogne-sur-Mer in his native region. Biography The meeting of the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg at the International Exposition of 1867 in Paris decided Pinart‘a vocation. He conceived the project of going to Alaska to study the native languages in order to prove the Siberian origin of the Amerindians; at the time, this idea had few supporters. He may also have been interested in archeology by the discovery in 1864 in Équihen, by workers of the family business, human skeletons, and antique objects2. Another likely influence is anthropologist Ernest Hamy, a 10-year-old fellow, with whom Pinart would remain linked to. The latter, first curator of the Ethnographic Museum of Trocadero and director of scientific missions from 1880, would later appeal to him.