Gunnar Landtman

Gunnar Landtman (to the left) doing fieldwork in Papua New Guinea.

Gunnar Landtman (6 May 1878, Helsinki – 30 October 1940, Helsinki) was a Finnish philosopher as well as a sociology and philosophy professor. A pupil of Edvard Westermarck, he graduated from the University of Helsinki in 1905. He later became an associate professor there from 1910 to 1927 and then a temporary professor until his death in 1940. At the university, Landtman was a member of the Prometheus Society, a student society promoting freedom of religion. Landtman was the first modern sociological anthropologist. His most important journey was a two-year trip to Papua New Guinea where he lived with the Kiwai Papuans from 1910 to 1912. He was from 1922 to 1924 a member of the Parliament of Finland, where he represented the Swedish People's Party of Finland (SFP).

Bibliography

• The Origin of Priesthood (1905)
• The Primary Causes of Social Inequality (1909)
• Wanderings of the Dead in the Folk-Lore of the Kiwai-speaking Papuans (1912)
• The Poetry of the Kiwai Papuans (1913)
• The folk-tales of the Kiwai Papuans (1917)
• The Pidgin English of British New Guinea (1918)
• Papuan Magic in the Building of Houses (1920)
• The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea: A Nature-born Instance of Rousseau's Ideal Community (1927)
• A Descriptive Survey of the Material Culture of the Kiwai People (1937)
• The Origin of the Inequality of the Social Classes (1938)

Sources

• https://web.archive.org/web/20110604125833/http://www2.hs.fi/english/archive/news.asp?id=20010410IE5
• Gunnar Landtman in Papua: 1910 to 1912.