Félix Coluccio

Félix Coluccio (23 August 1911 – 4 August 2005) was an Argentine academic, folklorists, folklore researcher, and writer.

Biography

Born in the neighborhood of La Boca, he moved to Lanús, but most of his life Coluccio lived in Villa Pueyrredón. In 1933, he graduated as a teacher at the Escuela Normal Mixta de Avellaneda, as a Geography teacher at the Instituto Superior del Profesorado Dr. Joaquín V. González (ISP), as a Physical Education teacher at the Instituto Superior de Educación Física Enrique Romero Brest (ISEF), and as a technician in educational leadership at the Instituto Superior de Conducción Educativa (ISCE).

He is considered one of the greatest folklorists in his country, as researcher, compiler, systematizer and disseminator of Argentine folklore. He traveled through Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Spain, France, Italy, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Argentina compiling documents related to native culture. The subjects of study in his research included the gaucho and the Indian, botany and zoology, geography, the rural environment and the urban space, the literary and the traditional, colonial times and the present, customs, handicrafts, festivals, games, religion, myths and, especially, popular devotions. His major influence to become deeply interested in folklore was Augusto Raúl Cortázar, a renowned Argentinean folklorists.

Writings

His children — Jorge Raúl, Amalia Mercedes, Susana Beatriz and Marta Isabel — were collaborators in many of his books. His dictionaries became a reference work for academics; in 2003 they were used as a reference in the Diccionario del habla de los argentinos, published by the Academia de Letras. He was also a contributor to several publications in Latin America.

Works

• Vocabulario Geográfico (1945; with Florentino Duarte)
• Diccionario Geológico Minero (1947)
• Folklore de las Américas: Primera Antología (1948; introduction by Augusto Raúl Cortázar)
• Diccionario Folklórico Argentino (1948)
• Folklore y Nativismo (1948; with Gerardo Schiaffino)
• Folkloristas e Instituciones Folklóricas del Mundo (1951)
• Antología Ibérica y Americana del Folklore (1953)
• Diccionario del Folklore Americano (1954; collaboration)
• Fiestas y Costumbres de América (1954)
• (Biografía de) el Seibo: Flor Nacional Argentina (1960; with Adolfo Dembo y A. Vivante)
• Guía de Folkloristas (1962)
• La Enseñanza del Folklore (1963)
• Folklore para la Escuela (1965; Amalia Mercedes Coluccio)
• Enciclopedia Folklórica Americana e Ibérica (1966)
• Folklore del Noroeste: Paisaje y Pintura (1967; with Tomás di Taranto and Jorge Raúl Coluccio)
• Fiestas, Celebraciones, Recordaciones, Mercados y Ferias Populares y/o Tradicionales de la República Argentina (1972)
• Diccionario de Voces y Expresiones Argentinas (1979)
• Cuentos Folklóricos para Niños (1981; with Marta Isabel Coluccio)
• Diccionario de Creencias y Supersticiones Argentinas y Americanas (1983; with Marta Isabel Coluccio)
• Fauna del Terror en Latinoamérica (1984; with Marta Isabel Coluccio)
• Cuentos Folklóricos Iberoamericanos (1985; with Marta Isabel Coluccio)
• Folklore Infantil (1986; with Marta Isabel Coluccio)
• Cultos y Canonizaciones Populares de Argentina (1986)
• Los Potros de la Libertad: Cuentos de Raíz Folklórica (1987)
• Cuentos de Pedro Urdemoles (1987; with Marta Isabel Coluccio)
• El Diablo en la Tradición Oral de Iberoamérica (1987; with Marta Isabel Coluccio)
• Diccionario de Juegos Infantiles Latinoamericanos (1988; with Marta Isabel Coluccio)
• Aproximación a la Raíz Folklórica en la Novelística Latinoamericana (1993)
• Cuentos, Leyendas y Tradiciones (1993; illustrated by Diego Puga)
• Diccionario Folklórico de la Flora y Fauna de América (2001)
• Devociones Populares Argentinas y Americanas (2001)
• Cultura Popular y Tradicional de la República Argentina (2005)