Joan Amades i Gelats (Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

, 23 July 1890 - 17 January 1959), was an eminent Catalan ethnologist

Ethnology

Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...

 and folklorist. An autodidact, he worked at the historical archive of the city of Barcelona and at the Museum of Industry and Popular Arts of the same city. From 1956 onwards he collaborated with UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

. He was also an important promoter of Esperanto

Esperanto

is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...

 and founded the Federació Esperantista Catalana (Catalan Esperanto association). His most important book is Costumari Català (a collection of Catalan customs), the main work for the study of Catalan popular culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

.

Most important works

• Les diades populars catalanes (1932-1949) (the Catalan popular feasts)
• Les cent millor cançons populars (1949) (the 100 best folk songs)
• Refranyer català comentat (1951) (commented collection of Catalan sayings)
• Les cent millors rondalles populars (1953) (the 100 best popular fairy tales)
• Costumari Català (1950-1956) (collection of Catalan customs)
• Guia de les festes tradicionals de Catalunya. Itinerari per tot l´any (1958) (guide to traditional feasts in Catalonia. Itinerary for the whole year)

External links

• Històries i Llegendes de Barcelona selecció a Eixample Web (Stories and Legends of Barcelona, in Catalan)
• Associació Cultural Joan Amades (Cultural association Joan Amades, in Catalan)