TITIEV, MISCHA

TITIEV, MISCHA (1901–1978), U.S. anthropologist. Born in Kremenchug, Russia, Titiev moved to Boston with his family when he was six years old. He received a B.A. (1923), an M.A. in English literature (1924), and a Ph.D. in anthropology (1935), all from Harvard University. Titiev served as assistant museum curator and junior archaeologist for the National Park Service (1935–36). He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1936, rising to professor in 1951. He conducted field studies among the Hopi Indians in Arizona, the Araucanian Indians in Chile, the Japanese in Peru, and the natives in rural Okayama, Japan. During World War II he served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In 1954 he was a Fulbright professor at the Australian National University. After retiring from teaching he was named professor emeritus at the University of Michigan. His principal academic interests were the ethnology of the Hopi Indians, the social organization of the Japanese in Japan and Peru, and the ethnology of the Araucanian Indians of Chile. He conducted research in East Asian anthropology and participated in founding the Japanese Study Center at the University of Michigan. Titiev was so highly respected by the Hopi Indians that he was adopted into the tribes of the Third Mesa and the Sun Clan. Among his written works are Old Oraibi (1944); Araucanian Culture in Transition (1951); The Science of Man (1954, 19632); and Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (1959). The Mischa Titiev Library, established in 1976 at the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA), regents of the University of Michigan, contains a wide collection of material for anthropological research. (Ephraim Fischoff / Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)