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Éveline Porée-Maspero

Portrait of Éveline   Porée-Maspero

Daughter of sinologist Georges Maspero (her mother was Cécile Sophie Maspero née Seyrig), grand-daughter of archeologist and explorer Gaston Maspero (1872−1942), Éveline Porée-Maspero (20 Apr. 1906, Cholon, Cochinchina — 12 July 1991, Saint-Tropez, France) was an ethnoligist and researcher with EFEO and CNRS, active in Cambodia for many years. Her contribution to the pre-Independence Commission des moeurs et coutumes du Cambodge, founded in 1934, remains unvaluable.

In 1938, she published, with her husband since 1928, Guy Porée, a comprehensive history of Khmer Customs with a foreword by Georges Coedès. The latter noted in his recension of the book that Eveline Porée-Maspero’s emphasis on Chinese influences on Khmer culture, while opening new prospects for the theory that once existed a vast ​‘Man’ cultural space encompassing territories from South China down to South East Asia, was certainly informed by her own academic background (she had studied Chinese civilization with Prof. Grenet) and the influence of her uncle Henri Maspero, another distinguished Orientalist.

According to the biographic note published in AEFEK bulletin n13 (Jan 2008) , Eveline Maspero located 

le foyer de cette civilisation dans le bassin du fleuve bleu (Yang-Tseu-Kiang), qui se serait développé environ 500 ans avant notre ère et qui aurait conquis l’Indochine. Les jalons de cette expansion seraient : Dông-song , où elle semble s’épanouir du IV° av. JC au I° ap. JC, le bassin méridional du Mékong au III°s ap. JC. [the center of this civilization in the Blue River (Yang-Tseu-Kiang) basin, which would have developed around 500 years before our era and which would have conquered Indochina. The milestones of this expansion would be Dông-song, where it seems to have flourished from the 4th century BC to the 1st century AD, and the southern basin of the Mekong in the 3rd century AD]

Eveline Poree-Maspero’s contribution to Khmer studies, although often looked down on by the French scientific institutions, remaiins essential for her detailed description of an endangered Khmer agrarian society before the civil war, and for being a pioneer in challengins old theories on ​“Indianization” of Southeast Asia. . 

Her extensive research on folk and oral traditions remains an important source for contemporary researchers, in particular her doctorate thesis on ​“Les rites agraires du Cambodge” (Ceremonies in Cambodian agriculture), published between 1962 and 1969. 

eveline porée maspero
Photo by J. Porée-Maspero, courtesy of Bertand Porte.
  • See a biographical notice about Guy Porée and Eveline Porée Maspero (in Khmer).
  • Note: In 1983, Cambodia’s historian David Chandler visited Eveline Porée-Maspero at her village house in Mormoiron, Ventoux, France, to look through her personal journals regarding the period of Cambodia’s Japanese occupation in 1945.
  • The house, known as ​‘Maison Porée’, later became a Writer’s Residence supervised by renowned publisher and translator François Maspero. It still hosts cultural and musical events, like in this photo from 2014:

maison-poree-mormoiron-2014.jpg#asset:3299

Publications

from AEFEK online bibliography

  1. (with Guy Maspero), Mœurs et Coutumes des Khmers, Paris, Payot, 1938.
  2. “Nécrologie : Georges Maspero”, BEFEO, T. XLIII, 1944, pp 155 – 161.
  3. “Note sur les fêtes des eaux”, Education, n 15, 1949, p 63 – 64.
  4. “Nouvelle étude sur la Nagi Soma”, in Journal Asiatique (JA), t CCXXXVIII, n2, p 237 – 267.
  5. (Under the direction of), Cérémonies des douze mois, Phnom-Penh, Institut Bouddhique, Commission des Mœurs et Coutumes, 85p.
  6. “Notes sur les particularités du culte chez les Cambodgiens”, BEFEO, XLIV 2, 1951, p 619 – 641.
  7. “La cérémonie de l’appel des esprits vitaux”, BEFEO, t XLV 1, 1951, p145-183.
  8. “Travaux d’ethnographie au Cambodge” (pp. 364 – 367), ” Les Neak-Ta ” (pp. 375 – 377), ​“Introduction aux métiers de la forêt” (p. 381) in Présence du Cambodge, special issue, n 114 – 115, 1955.
  9. “Les Bannières du Crocodile” et ​“Mythes du Déluge et Tambours de Bronze”, dans Ethnologica, Actes du IVe congrès international des sciences anthropologiques et ethnologiques, 1 – 8 Sept. 1952, Vienna, Verlag Adolf Holzhausens N.F.G., 1955, p 243 – 249.
  10. (under the direction of) Cérémonies privées des Cambodgiens, Phnom-Penh, Institut Bouddhique, Commission des Mœurs et Coutumes, 1958, 487p. 
  11. Review of Cambodia, its people, its society, its culture par David J. Steinberg, New Haven, H.R.A.F Press, 1959, Anthropos n 55, 1960, p 876 – 882.
  12. “Kron Pali et les rites de la Maison”, in Anthropos, n 46, fasc.1 – 2 : 179 – 251 / fa11111sc. 3 – 4 : 548- 628 / fasc. : 883 – 929, 1961. 
  13. “Traditions orales de Pursat et de Kampot”, in Artibus Asiae vol.XXIV n 3 – 4, 1961, p 394 – 398.
  14. (with Solange Thierry) ​“La lune, mythes et rites du Cambodge “, in La lune, mythes et rites, Editions du Seuil — Collection Sources Orientales, n 5, 1962, Paris, p 261 – 287.
  15. Etudes sur les rites agraires des Cambodgiens, Paris-La Haye, Mouton & Co, t 1, 1962, p 1 – 282.
  16. “Le cycle des douze animaux dans la vie des Cambodgiens”, in BEFEO, t L 2, 1962, p 311 – 365.
  17. Etudes sur les rites agraires des Cambodgiens, Paris-La Haye, Mouton & Co, t 2, 1964, p 291 – 569.
  18. Etudes sur les rites agraires des Cambodgiens, Paris-La Haye, Mouton & Co, t 3, 1969,22 p 579 – 983. 
  19. (with Mme Pich Sal), La vie du paysan khmer, Phnom-Penh, 141Institut Bouddhique, Commission des Mœurs et Coutumes, 103 p.
  20. Review of La course de pirogue au Laos : un complexe culturel par Charles Archaimbault, Artibus Asiae, supplementum XXIX, Ascona (Suisse), 1972; also in T’oung Pao, vol LX 1 – 3, 1974, p 202 – 205.
  21. “Rites de possession au Cambodge “, in Objets et Mondes, t. XV‑1, p 39 – 46.
  22. ” Les bateaux dans la civilisation cambodgienne ” in Actes du XXIXème Congrès international des Orientalistes, Paris, L’Asiathèque, 1976, p 181 – 185.
  23. “Remise en question de l’histoire du Cambodge à partir du XIVe siècle”, C. R. de l’Académie des Sciences d’outré-mer (Paris) 38⁄2, 1978, p 263 – 271.
  24. ” Le Ramayana dans la vie des Cambodgiens “, Seksa Khmer n 6, 1983, p 19 – 24.
  25. ” Jonques et po, sampou et sampan “, Archipel 32, 1986, p 65 – 85.
  26. ” Hommes et Animaux en pays khmer “, in Le buffle dans le labyrinthe, Hommage au Pr. Paul Lévy, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1992, p 134 – 138.