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Her earliest book, Peyote Hunt, delt with
the Huichol Indians of Mexico. Guided by
shaman-priest Ramon
Medina Silva, Myerhoff was the
first non-Huichol ever to participate in
the annual pilgrimage to gather peyote.
Her work explored the journey's rich symbols
and rituals and the sacredness they conferred on
Huichol life.
Declaring that the
study of one's own culture was just as
important as traditional anthropological research
on the "exotic", Myerhoff began fieldwork with the
elderly Jews of a Venice, California senior center
in 1972. In her influential book, Number Our
Days, as well as in essays, an Oscar-winning
documentary film,
an arts
festival and even a play,
Myerhoff showed how these Eastern European
immigrants made
every day meaningful, surviving
amidst hardship, invisibility and
poverty.
Myerhoff's work throughout the 1970's and 1980's
shaped the anthropological study of ritual
and of life
histories. She redefined academic and
public perceptions of the elderly and was a pioneer
in her scholarship on women
and religion.
Her research book took a more personal turn with
her final documentary In Her Own Time. The
film detailed Myerhoff's battle with cancer as the
Hasidic community in the Fairfax neighborhood of
Los Angeles led her through their
rituals for healing. She died on January
7, 1985 at the age 49, son after completing her
last on-screen interview.
Like those she studied, Myerhoff was a master at
finding the sacred
in the smallest
details of everyday
experience. From the intimate
connections she made in each field interview to the
decade-spanning
friendships that characterized her
private life, Myerhoff brought a clear
intensity and sense of meaning to
everything she did.
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