Wiliam Breen Murray biography

     "La  inscripción de una Vida: Wm. Breen Murray"

(The inscription of a life: Wm. Breen Murray)

     Is a biographical research by Alejandro Tapia, print on demand by Editora Nómada (Mexico) since september 2018. Interviews, travel journals, field diaries, personal journals, photographs, letters, maps, field notes, manuscripts, school essays, poetry, journalistic notes, diplomas and their published work, are retrieved here to tell the life of the historian and anthropologist William Breen Murray.

     Alejandro Tapia has a Ph.D. in psychology and has been an academic writer for more than 20 years. His books have been disseminated in Mexico and Latin America and his research work by America and Europe. He wrote the biography of the historian and anthropologist William Breen Murray based on a perspective of developmental psychology and from the look of the protagonist psyche at every stage of growth.

Biography in print

Biography in spanish version

A 1973 diary entry

5/4


“The sick conquerors”

We are eating up the Earth.

We have put nature to work for man,

but our shit is piling up.

It’s changing the chemistry of the ocean.

It is taking control of the moon.

---

Punishing mothers

Passport 1996-2006

Click on image to see video.

 Breen speaking  about traveling (in Spanish).

.

Breen & History

Experiences the backlog left by World War II in the U.S.A.

Is heir of the national influence of President Roosevelt on philately.  

The Korean War awakes in him debates at an early age.

Sees the expansion of American television.

Receives cultural influence of the independent Japan.

Takes part in promoting National Parks around Lake Jackson, northwest Wyoming.

Feels the riots in Chicago, after the assassination of Martin Luther King.

Follows the birth of the hippie movement.

Takes part in the development of Canadian etnopsychiatry.

Suffers the "Law 101" (Charter of the French Language) in Montreal as a complaint against the use of the English language. 

Watches disappear the use of train as transportation in Mexico.

 ...and more, in Breen, different times of Northamerican history converge...

.

Breen's Northamerica

Click on image to enlarge

Breen's Chicago. Then, now (Summer 2010)*

Euclid Avenue 1139

Home

Abraham Lincoln Elementary School

The alley

The park at Euclid Square

The Field Museum

Oak Park River Forest High School

Main Public Library at Oak Park

Westinghouse at Merchandise Mart

Unity Temple

The Dover Court apartment

The Buddhist Temple of Chicago

* Copyright: All pictures in this blog are property of ©Alejandro Tapia. Any unauthorized reproduction is a crime.

Published work*

Publications on Rock Art & Archaeology:


1979a "Description and Analysis of a Petroglyphic Tally Count Stone at Presa de La Mula, Nuevo León, México" Mexicon 1(1): 7-9


1979b "Interpretive Perspectives on the Rock Art Traditions of Northeastern and North Central Mexico, with Special Reference to Nuevo León" South Texas Journal of Science & the Humanities 3(1): 27-51


1980 "La Riqueza Arqueológica de Nuevo León" Monterrey 80-82 1(3): 16-17


1981a "World Rock Art" Newsletter, American Committee to Advance the Study of Petroglyphs and Pictographs 2(4):2-5.


1981b Co-signer, "Standards for the Recording of Petroglyphs and Pictographs (drafted by B.K. Swartz) Current Anthropology 22(1): 94-95


1982a "A Closer Look at Petroglyphic Counting in Northeastern Mexico" Pantoc 3: 39-44


1982b "Rock Art and Site Environment at Boca de Potrerillos, Nuevo León, México" In: American Indian Rock Art, v. 7-8 (ed. F. Bock), pp. 57-68. El Toro, CA: American Rock Art Research Assn.


1982c "Calendrical Petroglyphs of Northern Mexico" In: Archaeoastronomy in the New World (ed. A. Aveni), pp. 195-203. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press


1983a "Three Painted Rock Shelters in the Upper Tarahumara Country of Chihuahua (México)" In: American Indian Rock Art, v. 9 (ed. F. Bock), pp. 82-88. El Toro, CA: American Rock Art Research Assn.


1983b "Tres Sitios de Pinturas Rupestres en la Alta Tarahumara de Chihuahua" Anales de Antropología 10: 75-90


1984 "A Spiral Pecked Dot Petroglyph from Eastern Coahuila" La Pintura 11(2): 11 ff.


1985 "Petroglyphic Counts at Icamole, Nuevo León, México" Current Anthropology 26(2): 276-79


1986a "Numerical Representations in North American Rock Art" In: Native American Mathematics (ed. Michael Closs), pp. 45-70. Austin: University of Texas Press


1986b "Pintura y Grabados Rupestres" In: Jornadas sobre la Identidad de la Cultura Norestense, pp. 19-24. Monterrey: Secretaría de Educación Pública.


1987 Arte Rupestre en Nuevo León: Numeración Prehistórica. Monterrey: Archivo del Edo. de Nuevo León (Cuadernos, No. 13). (Spanish translations of 1980, 1985a, 1986a)


1988a (with Dominique Ballereau & Maryse Laniel-leFrancois) "Les Representations Anthropomorphes du Cerro La Calera (Sonora, Mexique)" L'Anthropologie 92(1): 317-360


1988b "Nota de Presentación" for "El Arte Rupestre en Sonora: Petroglifos en Caborca" by Dominique Ballereau, Trace (Le Centre d'Etudes Mexicaines et Centramericaines, México), pp. 3-4


1990a (with Juan Pablo Camacho) "Caballito Blanco (Oaxaca): Rock Art and Astronomy in Context" In: American Indian Rock Art, vol. 16 (ed. Solveig Turpin), pp. 167-76. San Miguel, CA: American Rock Art Research Assn.


1990b "Arte Rupestre en Nuevo León" In: El Arte Rupestre en México (ed. Ma. del Pilar Casado & Lorena Mirambell), pp. 453-85. México: Inst. Nac. de Antrop. e Hist. (reprint of 1987)


1992a "Antlers and Counting in Northeast Mexican Rock Art" In: American Indian Rock Art, vol. 15 (ed. Kay Sanger), pp. 71-79. San Miguel, CA: American Rock Art Research Assn. (Castleton Prize Paper, l988)


1992b "El Arte Rupestre en Nuevo León: Herencia Cultural del Pasado" In: Desde el Cerro de La Silla (Artes y Letras en Nuevo León) (ed. Miguel Covarrubias), pp. 13-39. Monterrey: Univ. Autónoma de Nuevo León


1993a "Counting and Skywatching at Boca de Potrerillos, N.L., México" In: Archaeoastronomy in the 1990's (ed. Clive Ruggles), pp. 264-69. Loughborough, UK: Group D Publications


1993b "Informe de México: Taller de Arte Rupestre en Aguascalientes" Boletín, Soc. de Invest. del Arte Rupeste de Bolivia, No. 7: 22.


1994a "Seasonality and Time-Reckoning Among the Hunter-gatherers of Northeastern Mexico and South Texas" In: Time and Astronomy at the Meeting of the Two Worlds (ed. Stanislaw Iwaniszewski et al), pp. 207-20. Warsaw: Center for Latin American Studies, Warsaw University


1994c "Advantages and Limitations of Video Recording of Rock Art Sites" Paper presented at the International Rock Art Congress, Flagstaff, AZ (USA) ( Unpublished MS)


1996a "The Northeast Mexican Petroglyphic Counting Tradition: a Methodological Summary" In: Astronomical Traditions in Past Cultures (ed. V. Koleva & D. Kolev), pp. 14-24. Sofia: Bulgarian Acad. of Science


1996b (with Daniel Valencia) "Recent Rock Art Research in Mexico and Central America" In: Rock Art Studies: News of the World I (ed. Paul Bahn), pp. 185-202. Oxford: Oxbow Books


1997 "Coahuiltecan Rock Art: Ethnohistory and Cultural Identity in Northeast Mexico" Paper presented at the International Rock Art Congress, Cochabamba, Bolivia, Apr 1-6. Unpublished ms.


1998a "Models of Temporality in Archaeoastronomy and Rock Art Studies" Journal of History of Astrononomy No. 23, Suppl pp. 1-6.


1998b "Conteo y Observación del Cielo en Boca de Potrerillos: Huellas de una Antigua Tradición" In: Boca de Potrerillos (ed. Ernestina Lozano de Salas), pp. 47-53. Monterrey: Univ. Autónoma de Nuevo León/Museo Bernabé de Las Casas (Spanish translation of 1993a)


1999a "San Bernabé: Lugar de Cazadores" In: Expresión y Memoria: Pintura Rupestre y Petrograbado en las Sociedades del Norte de México (ed. Carlos Viramontes & Ana Ma. Crespo), pp. 45-61. México: I.N.A.H.


1999b "IRAC 99: Reporte de Actividades del 12o. Congreso Internacional de Arte Rupestre, Ripon, Wisconsin (EE.UU.), 23.-31.5.1999" Boletín, No. 13, Soc. Invest. del Arte Rupestre de Bolivia, pp.21-22.


2000a Comment on 'Ghost Dancing the Canyon' by Loendorf et al Current Anthropology 41(1): 29-30


2000b (with Hector Lazcano) "Atlatl Hunters of the Sierra Madre Oriental (Mexico)" In: American Indian Rock Art, vol. 27 (ed. Steven Freers & Alanah Woody), pp. 261-67. Tucson AZ: Amer. Rock Art Res. Assn.


2000c "Rock Art in Northeast Mexico: Recent Explorations" In: 1999 IRAC Proceedings, volume 1, (ed. P. Whitehead & L. Loendorf), pp. 75-80. Tucson AZ: Amer. Rock Art Res. Assn


2000d (with Hector Lazcano & Francisco Ruiz) "El Atlatl" Ciencia UANL 3(1): 6-10


2000e "The Contributions of the Ethnosciences to Archaeoastronomical Research" Archaeoastronomy 15: 112-19


2000f "A Brief Overview of Northeast Mexican Rock Art" Paper presented at Second Ningxia International Conference on Rock Art, Yinchuan, China, September 2-7 (published in Chinese)


2002a "Rock Art Studies in China" In: American Indian Rock Art, vol. 28 (ed. Alanah Woody), pp 139-144. American Rock Art Research Association, Tucson, AZ


2002b "Rock Art on Postage Stamps: an Update" International Newsletter on Rock Art, No. 32: 28-30


2002c "Chamanismo y el Arte Rupestre del Noreste de México" Paper presented at V Conferencia de la Arqueología de la Frontera Norte, Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. Chihuahua: Inst. Nacional de Antropología e Historia (published on CD)


2003a "Style, Context and Tradition: Analytic Frameworks for Identifying Coahuiltecan Rock Art" in Boundaries and Territories: Prehistory of the U.S. Southwest and Northern Mexico (ed. E. Villalpando), pp.27-35. Tempe: Arizona State University (Antropological Research Papers No. 54)


2003b (with M. Gutiérrez; C. Quejada; C. Viramontes & M. Winter) "Mexican Rock Art Studies at the Turn of the Millenium" in Rock Art Studies: News of the World II (ed. Paul Bahn & Angelo Fossati). pp. 178-95. Oxford (UK): Oxbow Books


2004a "El Equinoccio entre los Pueblos Amerindios del Noreste de México" In: Etno y Arqueoastronomía en las Americas (ed. Maxime Boccas, Johanna Broda & Gonzalo Pereira), pp. 243-54. Memorias del Simposio ARQ 13, 51st International Congress of Americanists, Santiago de Chile


2004b "Marking Places: Graffiti, Inscriptions and Rock Art in Northeast Mexico (and Elsewhere)" In: American Indian Rock Art, vol. 30 (ed. J.T. O'Connor), pp. 129-36. Tucson: Amer. Rock Art Res. Assn.


2004c Review of Arte Rupestre de México Oriental y Centro América (edited by Martin Kunne and Matthias Strecker). La Pintura 31(1): 1-2


2005a (with Alejandro Espinosa) “The Natural Setting of Sheephorn Petroglyphs in the Eastern Sierra Madre (Nuevo León-Coahuila, Mexico)” In: American Indian Rock Art, vol. 32 (ed. Angus R. Quinlan & Anne McConnell), pp. 45-51. Tucson AZ: American Rock Art Research Association


2005b “El Regionalismo del Arte Rupestre Mexicano” Paper Presented (in absentia) at Primer Simposio Nacional Sobre Representaciones Rupestres, México, D.F., ENAH/Inst. Invest. Antrop. (UNAM), Nov. 15-18. (Proceedings to be published)


2005c Reprint of “Antlers and Counting in Northeast Mexican Rock Art” (1992a). In: Arte Rupestre en México: Ensayos 1990-2004 (ed. María del Pilar Casado López & Lorena Mirambell Silva), pp. 263-277. México: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia


2006a (with Carlos Viramontes) “Mexico (including Baja California)” In: Rock Art of Latin America and the Caribbean: Thematic Study, pp. 3-10. Paris: ICOMOS


2006b "The Cross-in-Circle Motif at Boca de Potrerillos, N.L., México: Cardinal Directional Symbolism in Rock Art?" In: Viewing the Sky Through Past and Present Cultures (ed. Todd W. Bostwick & Bryan Bates), pp. 225-236. Phoenix: City of Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department (Pueblo Grande Museum Anthropological Papers, No. 15)


2006c "Sky Symbolism in Cora/Huichol Religious Traditions as a Guide to Understanding Northeast Mexican Rock Art" In: American Indian Rock Art, vol. 21, Proceedings from the International Rock Art Congress, Flagstaff, AZ, (USA), 1994 (ed. Peggy Whitehead) (published on CD)


2007 Arte Rupestre del Noreste (compilador). Monterrey: Fondo Editorial de Nuevo León


2008a “Símbolos del Agua en los Petrograbados del Noreste Mexicano” En: Patrimonio Inmaterial y Pueblos Indígenas de América, pp. 63-71. Querétaro: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia/ Instituto de Estudios Constitucionales del Estado de Querétaro


2008b “Deer: Sacred and Profane” Paper presented at the VI World Archaeological Congress, June 29-July 3, Dublin, Ireland


2009a “Rock Art and Early Mesoamerican Writing Systems” Paper presented at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, April 22-26, Atlanta, Georgia


2009b “Discovering the Synodic Month” Paper presented at the 53rd International Congress of Americanists, July 19-24, Mexico City


2009c “El Mundo Simbólico de los Chichimecas del Norte de México” Invited Lecture, Primer Simposio Internacional de Arte Rupestre, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, October 28-30, Bogotá, Colombia


2010 “Arte Rupestre del Noreste Mexicano en el Período Colonial” Paper presented at the International Colloquium “La Vitalidad de las Voces Indígenas: Arte Rupestre del Contacto y en Sociedades Coloniales”, April 26-30, Oaxaca, Mexico




Publications in General Anthropology, Ethnology, and Archaeology:



1976a "The Experience of Anonymity: Notes on the Psychiatric Treatment of an Inuit Girl" McGill Medical Journal 44 (2,3): 38-45.


1976b "Implications of Participant Observation in Medical Studies" Canadian Medical Assn. Journal 115 (12): 1187-90.


1977 Reviews of "Cargo Cultism: a Psychosocial Study of Melanesian Millenarianism" by R.W. Lidz, T. Lidz & B. Burton-Bradley, y "Why is Shame on the Skin?" by A. Strathern Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review 14: 71-75.


1979 "Perspectivas Antropológicas sobre Fidencio y El Fidencismo" Prólogo, El Niño Fidencio y el Fidencismo (4th ed.), Fernando Garza Quiróz, pp. 10-36.


1981a "A Tarahumara Body-Painting Ceremony" Ornament 5(1): 18-21.


1984a "Numerical Characteristics of Three Engraved Bison Scapulae from the Texas Gulf Coast" Archaeoastronomy (Bull.) 7: 82-88.


1986a (with Richard Jones) "Occupational and Spatial Mobility of Temporary Mexican Migrants to the U.S.: a Comparative Analysis" International Migration Review 20: 973-85.


1987a Review of The Monterrey Elite and the Mexican State by A. Saragoza. Aztlán 17(2): 157-62


1989 "A Re-examination of the Winnebago Calendar Stick" in World Archaeoastronomy (ed. Anthony Aveni), pp. 325-31. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


1994 "Boca de Potrerillos and the Prehistory of Northeastern Mexico" Rio Bravo 3(2): 57-75


1995 "México Minero, 1796-1950: Empresarios, Trabajadores e Industria" (review) Diálogo Universitario, Otoño 1994-Primavera 1995, pp. 6-7


1996 "The Holy Place: a View From Afar" In: Astronomical Traditions in Past Cultures (ed. Vesselina Koleva & Dimitri Kolev), pp. 107-110. Sofia: Bulgarian Acad. of Sciences


1997 "Desertificación y Cambio Climático en una Área del Noreste Mexicano: una Aproximación Interdisciplinaria" In: Antropología del Clima en el Mundo Hispano-Americano (ed. Marina Goloubinoff, Esther Katz & Annemárie Lammel). Quito: Ed. Abya-Yala
Republicada (2009) México: CIESAS


2004 "La Vida Cotidiana en la Nueva América: ¡Cómo Han Cambiado las Cosas?" Revista Internacional de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales 1(4): 69-86


2005 "Spirits of a Holy Land: Place and Time in a Modern Mexican Religious Movement" In: The Making of Saints: Contesting Sacred Ground (ed. James F. Hopgood), pp. 107-123. Tuscaloosa: Univ. of Alabama Press


2006 “Entre el Genocidio y el Racismo: una Crítica Indigenista de la Cultura Norestense” Revista Internacional de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales No. 9 (Otoño): 146-53


2007 “Border Vignette” Revista Internacional de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales No. 11(Otoño): 111-114

* NOTE: This is an incomplete list of his work, as there are lectures, interviews, field notes, travel impressions and essays which are not included (since we only included the published pieces.) In addition, Breen is still producing...

Photos in situ*

Ivujivik's field diary, 1972.

Diary I, Monterrey, 1973.

Guitarritas, 2006.

In Boca de Potrerillos, 2009.

Philately time, 2010.

Hill 1 Del Muerto, 2010.

Cavern, Hill 2 Del Muerto, 2010.

* Copyright: All pictures in this blog are property of ©Alejandro Tapia. Any unauthorized reproduction is a crime.

.

William Breen Murray

Chronology

1939 - His parents, William John Murray (chemical engineer) and Evangeline Isabel Murray (nurse), get married.

1940 - William Breen Murray is born in the city of Chicago, Illinois.

1942 - His sister Nan is born.

1944 - His familiy settles in Oak Park, a suburb outside Chicago.

1945 - His formal education begins at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School.

1947 - Uncle Neil dies; he was the reason his parents decided to name him Breen. He begins collecting postage stamps.

1948 -  His twin brothers are born. One doesn't make it, and Michael survives.

1953 - He starts High School, where he chooses Spanish as a second language.

1954 - He starts working in Oak Park's Public Library, and his first psychoanalysis begins.

1960 - He travels to Chile for a semester as an exchange student.

1962 - He graduates from Carleton College with major in History, and starts working at the International Institute of Education.

1964 - His father dies.

1965 - Re-encounter with his mother's family, after 40 years of separation.

1966 - Gets interested in transportation and starts working in railway lines.

1971 - He moves to Montreal, Canada in order to study his Masters and Ph.D. in anthropology, at McGill University. He works giving lectures as an assistant professor.

1972 - Field work in Ivujivik, an Inuit tribe in northern Quebec.

1973 - Annual residency as a visiting professor at the University of Monterrey in Mexico.

1974 - He meets the "Buddha" in the mountains of Oaxaca.

1975 - Starts his doctoral dissertation (an ethnographic study of medical anthropology in Mexico). He works as a researcher at the Osler Library. Witnesses the beginning of the French language separation in Quebec, and moves to Monterrey, Mexico.

1976 - He gets interested in rock art of northeastern Mexico.

1978 - He joins the American Rock Art Research Association.

1979 - Publishes his first research of rock art.

1981 - Attends the "Oxford I" Conferences as a guest researcher, thereby joins the Archaeoastronomy.

. . .

Friends in Dialogue

 Our similar interests in many things, made us to share discussions, arqueological visits to the desert, in situ registration, walks in Chipinque mountain, home visits and  friendships...

  Each time I was increasingly surprised, behind Breen there was a story to tell; the story of the private life of a man of the 20th century, where the history of three countries converges (United States, Canada and Mexico)... And I, wishing to write that story...


  He has agreed to tell his story... So, here they are fragments of the work in which he and I have been involved since February 2010...

    

Alejandro Tapia-V.

An intimate view*

A personal sanctuary.

Couch & Coffee Table.

Books' Corner.

A 1974 draft.

Within Buddha's Head.

Mom's last letter, 1985.

* Copyright: All pictures in this blog are property of ©Alejandro Tapia. Any unauthorized reproduction is a crime.

.