Hugo Nutini

Hugo Nutini was entered in the 1952 Olympic 800 and 1,500 metres, but never competed. After graduating from the Chilean Naval Academy, he attended UCLA in the United States, competing on the track team there and graduating in 1955. Nutini served in the US Armed Forces in the Far East before returning to UCLA, earning a masters’ degree in philosophy in 1958, and then received a PhD in anthropology from UCLA in 1962.

Nutini became an academic professor of sociocultural anthropology, focusing on Mexico but studying a wide variety of subjects such as Mesoamerican ethnology, ethnohistory, religion, witchcraft and sorcery, and ritual kinship. He made annual fieldwork trips to Mexico’s Tlaxcala region and directed field stations in Mexico to help train anthropology graduate students.

Nutini served as a professor at Los Angeles State College, the University of Southern California, the University of Puerto Rico, and the George Washington University, but he is best known for his time at the University of Pittsburgh. He joined the Center for Latin American Studies and Pitt’s anthropology department in 1963, then was named an associate professor in 1969, a professor in 1974, and a University Professor in 1986.

A prolific researcher and writer, Nutini wrote comprehensive books on anthropology, both in Spanish and English. After his death, memorial services were held in his honor both in Pittsburgh and Veracruz, Mexico.