The New International Encyclopædia/Berendt, Karl Hermann

BERENDT, bā′r𝑒nt, Karl Hermann (1817–78). A German ethnologist. He was born in Danzig, studied medicine, taking his degree at Königsberg, and in 1843 settled as a practicing physician at Breslau, where he also lectured at the university. In 1851 he came to America, his political attitude during the preceding revolutionary period having rendered his stay in the fatherland undesirable. He went first to Nicaragua, where he devoted himself to the study of ethnography and natural history, and then, from 1855 to 1862, lived at Vera Cruz, in Mexico. Retiring from the practice of medicine, he devoted himself entirely to scholarly pursuits, and made a special study of the ethnology and linguistics of the Mayan tribes. In 1863 he came to the United States, and soon afterward made a journey to Yucatan, at the request of the Smithsonian Institution, which published the results of his investigations in its report for 1867. Two years later he was in Tabasco, Mexico, searching the ruins of Ceutla, and in 1874 went to Guatemala, and settled at Coban, where his time was divided between the study of the Mayan dialects and the raising of tobacco. Besides numerous contributions to scientific periodicals, he published, among other works: Analytical Alphabet of the Mexican and Central American Languages (1869); Los escritos de Don Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta (1870); Los trabajos linguisticos de Don Pio Perez (1871); Cartilla en lengua Maya (1871).