William T. Vickers Papers

The William T. Vickers Papers collection contains the lifetime research of anthropologist Dr. William T. Vickers (1942-2016). Dr. Vickers earned his doctorate in 1976 at the University of Florida and dedicated his life to the study of the Siona and Secoya people of northeastern Ecuador. The collection contains more than 8,000 slides, 700 35mm negative strips, 200 printed images, more than 50 field notebooks, as well as books, articles, and other documents pertaining to the Siona and Secoya. The collection also includes Dr. Vickers extensive genealogical history of the Siona and Secoya, as well as resources about the Siona-Secoya language.

The collection is arranged thematically, chronologically, and alphabetically, in five series.

Series 1: Books and Booklets – includes nineteen Secoya language materials such as volumes 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 of the Secoya language series Secoya Coca/Cartilla Secoya, published by the Instituto Linguístico de Verano (Summer Language Institute) that contain a Spanish vocabulary section at the end of each booklet. Other booklets include some written by Secoya writers like Celestino Piaguaje, Luis Payaguaje, Marcelino Lucitande, and Ramón Piaguaje. In Ñama, Yaiohua/I Cui'ne Cutihue Cou El, El Venado, los Tigres y la Tortuga, with illustrations by Alfredo Payaguaje, the story is told by Secoya elders are written in multiple languages (Paicoca, A'ingae, Shuar chicham, Quichua, Awapit, Cha'palaachi, Tsafiqui, Castellano), to “preserve and share the Secoya culture and traditions with other indigenous nations of Ecuador. Other notable items from this series include Huajëcohua'ipi Pa'iye Mai Aitsoe Ayena Satsiojañu'u (Salud y Vida: Familiaricémonos con Nuestra Cultura/Life and Health: Get Familiar with our Culture), written by Alfredo Payaguaje and Jonathon Miller, and Gramática Secoya, by Orville Johnson and Stephen H. Levinsohn. Books in this series include Dr. Vickers doctoral dissertation Cultural Adaptation to Amazonian Habitats: The Siona-Secoya of Eastern Ecuador, as well as several of his books.

Series 2 – Documents and Publications – this series consists of unpublished documents, such as correspondence and research, as well as published articles and essays by Dr. Vickers and others relevant to his research. The series includes documents about the creation of the Yanomami Indian Park, as well as a Secoya Communitarian Tourism calendar pamphlet from 2007.

Series 3 – Field Journals – this series contains forty-seven field research journals where Dr. Vickers wrote detailed notes about his work. The journals are handwritten and are very detailed. Of particular interest is the journal titled Cuaderno de Pai Coca Pëpë (Libro del Idioma de la gente/Book of the language of the people), written in someone else’s hand, it records life stories and anecdotes of Ricardo Payaguaje, Celestino Payaguaje, Ramón Piaguaje, Luis Payaguaje, Ricardo Payaguaje, M. Carmen Piaguaje, and Marcelino Lusitande. The book is handwritten by the same (unknown) person, but each story and anecdote names the person who told it. Childhood memories and dreams are some of the elements discussed in these life stories. There is a journal dedicated to kinship terminology, hunting and fishing yields.

Series 4 – Genealogy – items in this series consist of an extensive and detailed genealogical history of the Siona-Secoya, including kin history, charts, genealogical relationships, and the code devised by Dr. Vickers for his research.

Series 5 – Photographs, Negatives, Slides - This series contains approximately 720 35mm negative strips, 8,800 slides, and more than 200 printed photographs. The "FS" album is an album of negatives titled FS by William Vickers and ordered sequentially from 1 to 52, and some additional unnumbered pages; some pages with negatives are missing from the numerical sequence within FS. The folders in the collection contain each page of negatives and follow the original order of Dr. Vickers, and many include notes written on original negative re-order forms detailing the content of the negatives. Where necessary, all handwritten notes made by Dr. Vickers were transferred onto the archival sheets to preserve his original order and intent. There is a great number of images in this series, including many portrait style images. One folder contains two polaroid photographs of a large group of people, possibly family members, with their names. There are many images not digitized or printed in the negative strips, of historical, cultural, and social significance for the Siona-Secoya.