In Memoriam Jarich Gerlof Oosten (1945-2016)

Jarich Gerlof Oosten was born in Enschede, the Netherlands, on January 23, 1945. He left us on May 15, 2016 in Leiden, aboard his ship, leaving behind a great family: his wife Nelleke; four children and their families—Liesbeth, Eva, Maarten, and Johanneke; and many grandchildren. Jarich was very proud of them and much attached to his family life. After completing his studies at the gymnasium in Enschede in 1963, Jarich studied history of religion and comparative religion at the University of Amsterdam (1963-1967) and the University of Groningen (1967-1970). He soon developed an interest in Arctic studies, and wrote an M.A. thesis on Inuit shamanism. In 1976, he earned a Ph.D. (cum laude) at the University of Groningen for a dissertation on the religion of two groups of Inuit from the Eastern Canadian Arctic. His dissertation was published in 1976 under the title TheTheoretical Structure of the Religion of the Netsilik and Iglulik. Jarich had a great career as a professor at Leiden University. He was known to have a thorough, encyclopaedic knowledge of religions, mythologies, and cosmologies of the world. For a long time he oriented himself towards the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Claude Lévi-Strauss and worked closely with Patrick Edward de Josselin de Jong, Adam Kuper, and other European anthropologists in the CASA research program (Cognitive and Structural Anthropology). His brilliant book The War of the Gods: The Social Code in Indo-European Mythology (1985) offers a great illustration of his inspiring thought. Jarich also worked with Hans Claessen in a project on the place of ideology in the process of state formation, as part of the “Intercultural Study of Literature and Society” research program. This cooperation culminated in the publication of a book in 1996 on the role of ideology in the formation of early states. In 1997, Jarich was appointed a full professor at Leiden University and, in 1998, an adjunct professor at the University of Utrecht. He always enjoyed teaching, and his courses focused on religious, structural, and theoretical anthropology, notably the study of narratives and rituals. I will never forget a paper he once presented at Université Laval, in Quebec City, on “Santa Claus in the Netherlands,” which greatly interested my students in visual anthropology. Jarich was active in various administrative duties at Leiden University. Besides sitting on the board of the Faculty of Social Sciences (1983-1985), he was a founding member of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (1989), the secretary of the CNWS (School for Asian, African, and Amerindian studies) (1988-1992), the vice-chairman of the CNWS (1995-1997), and from September 1997 to his retirement the director of the CNWS. Between 1988 and 1992, he cooperated with Wilt Idema in founding this school, a joint venture of the Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences that encompassed more than 100 senior researchers and about 60 junior researchers. Jarich also sat on various editorial committees, such as Bijdragen van het KITLV (1978-1983) and Antropologische Verkenningen (1982-1984 and 1986-1994), and was co-editor of the international series Studien zur sozialen und rituellen Morphologie. He wrote extensively on Inuit shamanism and myths in Études/Inuit/Studies and many other journals (see below for a detailed list of his most important publications). His involvement in research was extensive and impressive. In Leiden he developed a strong working relationship with Cunera Buijs, from the National Museum of Ethnology. He was actively involved in international research and teaching projects, which resulted in various forms of joint work with Michèle Therrien (INALCO, France), André Iteanu and Cécile Barraud (EraSME-CNRS, France), Roberte Hamayon (Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative, CNRS/Nanterre, France), Michael …