The Delight Makers

About Adolph Francis Alphonse BandelierCharles Fletcher Lummis

Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier (1840-1914) was a Swiss American archaeologist. Born in Bern Switzerland he emigrated to Illinois with his family as a young boy. Mentored by anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan Bandelier turned to archaeology and ethnology working with Native Americans in the American Southwest and Mexico. Alongside F. H. Cushing he became an authority on the indigenous cultures of Sonora New Mexico and Arizona. In 1892 he travelled to Ecuador Peru and Bolivia working with the Hemenway Archaeological Expedition. While in Isleta New Mexico he befriended Charles Fletcher Lummis a journalist and activist who would collaborate with Bandelier on The Delight Makers (1890) a novel on Pueblo Indian life. Charles Fletcher Lummis (1859-1928) was an American journalist activist and historic preservationist. Born in Lynn Massachusetts he was homeschooled by his father and attended Harvard University. To pay for his studies Lummis published Birch Bark Poems an acclaimed collection. In 1880 he married Dorothea Rhodes in Cincinnati where he worked for a local newspaper. Offered a position with the Los Angeles Times Lummis embarked on a 3507 mile journey by foot across the American West sending dispatches along the way. He became the first City Editor of the Los Angeles Times upon arrival but after several years suffered a debilitating stroke that forced him to resign. He went to New Mexico to recover eventually settling with the Pueblo Indians at the village of Isleta. In 1890 Lummis joined his friend Adolph Bandelier in his study of the local indigenous people. He became a prominent activist for Indian rights clashing with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and eventually founding the Southwest Museum of the American Indian in Los Angeles.