Anthropologist. David Friend Aberle's encounters with anti-Semitism during his youth, especially in high school, affected him profoundly and left him with a determined, lifelong abhorrence for all forms of prejudice and injustice. He struggled for peace, tolerance and social justice throughout his life, in many places and contexts. He was a renowned scholar and author, a demanding, conscientious and stimulating teacher, a loving and devoted husband, father, uncle, and grandfather, a deeply principled and prudent activist, and a sometimes bemusedly religious Reform Jew. David attended Harvard and received his B.A. in English literature, graduating summa cum laude in 1940. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and received his Ph.D. in Anthropology at Columbia in 1950. He met fellow anthropologist Kathleen Gough in 1954. They married in 1955 and had one child, their son Stephen. They remained inescapably, sometimes tumultuously, always lovingly married until Kathleen's death in 1990. During his long career David held appointments at a variety of academic institutions including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, the University of Michigan, Manchester University, Brandeis, the University of Oregon and the University of British Columbia, where he remained Professor Emeritus after his retirement in 1983. David is best known academically for his work among the Navajo (Dine) people of the Southwestern United States. He worked on the Navajo reservation on and off from 1939, and soon fell and remained deeply in love with the place and its people. His work The Peyote Religion Among The Navajo has remained a classic in its field since its publication in 1966. His understanding of the religion and his expert testimony before the Navajo Tribal Council and in court were important in the eventual legalization of peyote for religious use in the Native American Church. His fascination with kinship, social organization, and language led him to collaborate with Isidore Dyen on Lexical Reconstruction: The Case Of The Proto-Athapaskan Kinship System (1974). David chose his battles carefully, and devoted himself with courage and tenacity to a number of social and political causes. He and Kathleen were active in the movements for civil rights and against the cold war and the war in Vietnam in the United States during the 1950s and '60s, continuing that work after the family's move to Canada in 1967. He continued to struggle for peace and justice and against racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia throughout his life. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a member of a diverse array of organizations including among many others the American Anthropological Association, the Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists, Temple Sholom, and Jews for a Just Peace. He struggled with pluck and good humour against a progressively debilitating Parkinsonian condition during the last years of his life. David died September 23rd, 2004, in Vancouver Hospital, at the age of 85. His funeral took place at Temple Sholom in Vancouver, followed by burial beside his late wife Kathleen in Capilano View Cemetery in West Vancouver.