Berta Gleizer Ribeiro (born Bertha Gleizer; Bălți, 2 October 1924 – Rio de Janeiro, 17 November 1997) was a Moldovan-Brazilian anthropologist, ethnologist, and museologist known for her extensive work on the material culture of Indigenous peoples of Brazil. She was married to anthropologist and senator Darcy Ribeiro.
Born in Bălți, then part of Romania, Berta and her older sister Genny were left in Eastern Europe after their mother’s suicide, as their father had already migrated to Brazil seeking work opportunities amid the antisemitic persecution faced by Jews in the region. Only with the aid of an international organization were they able to reunite with him in 1932. Years later, her sister and father were arrested and deported for alleged subversive activities during a period of intense political repression against Jewish immigrants at the outset of the Vargas dictatorship. Orphaned, Berta was cared for by families of Jewish immigrants under the protection of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), later marrying Darcy Ribeiro in 1948.
Berta Ribeiro’s career initially followed the professional and political movements of her husband over the years, but her prominence surged after their separation in the 1970s, when she was already 50 years old. She developed a newfound passion for the knowledge and practices of indigenous peoples, a personal shift that fueled her contributions across various domains: academic, political, cultural, editorial, and artistic, ultimately establishing her as the foremost expert on indigenous material culture in Brazil during her time.
She conducted fieldwork to develop her research, engaging directly with diverse indigenous communities across several Brazilian states. She visited numerous museums worldwide, organized exhibitions on , and published extensively on indigenous peoples and their customs. She also established key methodological foundations and classification systems for material culture research and ethnographic museum documentation. Her prolific academic, artistic, and cultural output stemmed from her unwavering dedication to her work, as she engaged in multiple roles — researcher, museum collection curator, author of nine books and over forty articles, contributor to various works, and university professor in undergraduate and graduate programs. Until the end of her life, she remained active in the fields of anthropology, museology, ethnology, art, and ecology.
She was a member of the (ABA), the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC), the Regional Museology Council of Rio de Janeiro, and the editorial boards of the journals Ciências em Museus, Ciência Hoje das Crianças, and the . She served on the selection committee for postgraduate studies in Visual Arts and taught in the master’s program in History and Art Criticism at the School of Fine Arts (EBA/UFRJ). She acted as an advisor to the National Indigenous People Foundation (FUNAI) and head of museology at the National Museum of Indigenous People (MI), taught in the Anthropology Department of the National Museum, and conducted research for the National Geographic Society.
Biography Family and early years Bertha Gleizer was born on 2 October 1924 in the city of Bălți (now in Moldova), in the Romanian region of Bessarabia. From a Jewish family, she was the daughter of Rosa Sadovinic Gleizer and Motel Gleizer. Her father left the country in July 1929, immigrating to Brazil in search of better living conditions, as the situation for Jews in Romania had become precarious due to rising antisemitism, the emergence of Christian fascist movements, and attacks known as pogroms in the region. Unable to immediately bring his family or provide for them, Motel received news of his wife Rosa’s suicide, as she could no longer endure their dire circumstances, leaving their two daughters alone. Through the intervention of the Jewish Colonisation Association (JCA), an international organization aiding Jewish emigration, and with the help of Rabbi Raffalovich, the girls were brought to Brazil. Berta arrived in Rio de Janeiro as an immigrant at the age of eight, accompanied by her fourteen-year-old sister, (sometimes spelled Jenny), in 1932. Living in extreme poverty, the three shared a single room on . Her father worked as a merchant near Onze Square, a hub of the Jewish community at the time.
In 1934, Genny moved to São Paulo in search of work but was arrested as a minor by the São Paulo political police on 15 July 1935 for alleged subversive activities. She was held incommunicado for an extended period, enduring physical and psychological torture, and despite widespread public outcry and protests against her detention, she was deported to Romania on the night of 12 October 1935 via the Port of Santos aboard the French cargo ship Aurigny. Upon arriving in France, however, she was rescued and later settled in the United States, where she obtained a degree in psychology. Her case coincided with increased repressive measures under the Vargas government, following the restructuring of the political police and the enactment of the 1935 National Security Law.
Three months after her sister’s deportation, in early 1936 — during the height of political repression against immigrants in Brazil — the political police raided a Jewish workers’ cultural center where the editorial office of the weekly Der Unhoib operated, arresting and deporting most of the foreigners present, including her father, aboard the ship Bagé on 16 April 1936. Reports indicate that Motel was assisted in France along with other expelled immigrants and later died in a concentration camp.
Orphaned in Brazil, Berta lived with Jewish families in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo between 1936 and 1940 under the care of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB). In São Paulo, she studied at the (FECAP), also attending a technical course in accounting. To fund her studies, she worked as a typist and secretary — roles that allowed her to move into a boarding house in 1940 and live independently from the PCB.
Marriage In 1946, Bertha Gleizer met Darcy Ribeiro at a Communist Party demonstration in São Paulo, marrying him in May 1948 when he joined the Indian Protection Service (SPI). Alongside him, she embarked on fieldwork among the Kadiwéu, Kaiowás, Terenas, and Ofaié-Xavantes indigenous groups in southern Mato Grosso. During this period, she started using the name Berta G. Ribeiro, dropping the surname Gleizer, which was not widely known. This change coincided with her concerns about facing a fate similar to that of her family members.
Ribeiro conducted extensive fieldwork, beginning between 1949 and 1951 when she started accompanying her husband. On this, Maria Stella Amorim wrote: “From her love for Darcy came her passion for anthropology,” and these journeys continued almost until the end of her life. Darcy Ribeiro’s autobiographical work, Confessions, includes a passage briefly noting his wife’s role in his life:
Career In 1950, Berta Ribeiro enrolled in a bachelor’s program in Geography and History at the University of the Federal District (UDF) — now Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ). She graduated in 1953 and began teaching Geography of Brazil at Lafayette Institute. In 1953, she started an internship in the Anthropology Division of the National Museum, initiating her studies to classify the feather adornments of the Urubu-Kaapor Indians, completing her teaching degree in Geography and History in 1954.
Ribeiro developed innovative methodological tools for classifying material culture collections, detailed in Bases para uma Classificação dos Adornos Plumários dos Índios do Brasil, published in 1957. She presented numerous works and organized cultural exhibitions in subsequent years, always focusing on indigenous culture. She received the João Ribeiro Award from the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL) for the book Arte Plumária dos Índios Kaapor, co-authored with her husband. Between 1959 and 1960, she conducted bibliographic research for the article Línguas e Culturas Indígenas no Brasil and the book Os Índios e a Civilização by Darcy Ribeiro.
Exile Following the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état, Berta Ribeiro and her husband went into exile in Uruguay. She worked on bibliographic research and translation revisions for the book series Estudos de Antropologia da Civilização and the bibliographic and statistical survey for A Universidade Necessária, both by Darcy Ribeiro. The couple returned to Brazil in 1968, but Darcy was imprisoned for eight months at the Santa Cruz Fortress in Niterói. During this period, Bertha corresponded with intellectuals and public figures regarding his situation, contributing to efforts that led to his release. After another arrest warrant from the military regime, the couple went into a second exile in 1969, first to Venezuela, then from 1970 to 1974 in Chile and Peru. In Lima, Berta conducted research on family structure and socialization in a workshop coordinated by Professor Violeta Sara Lafosse, gathering data for her dissertation Crianças Trabalhadoras – Trabalho e Escolaridade de Menores em Lima.
Return to Brazil
In 1974, back in Brazil, she separated from her husband and, the following year, provided consultancy for the development of the Ethnological and Indigenous Documentation Center at the former Rio de Janeiro Indigenous Museum, directed by Carlos de Araújo Moreira Neto. In 1975, she took on the role of assistant director at publisher. In 1976, she interned in the ethnology and ethnography section of the Anthropology Department at the National Museum and worked as a researcher on the project Etnografia e Emprego Social da Tecnologia Indígena e Popular, coordinated by Maria Heloísa Fenelón Costa. In 1977, she became a Level B Researcher at the National Research Council (CNPq). She visited various indigenous villages in the Upper and Middle Xingu and in Ceará. Between 1978 and 1979, she participated in the and the campaign for the demarcation of indigenous lands, coordinated by the (CIMI).
In 1978, while in the Upper Rio Negro region studying indigenous weaving, the anthropologist learned that two indigenous individuals had written the mythology of the , encouraged earlier by a priest from the Salesian Mission in São Gabriel da Cachoeira to transcribe these narratives. During her time there, when the originals were returned by a publisher, Ribeiro took an interest in the project and assisted father and son — Umúsin Panlõn Kumu (Firmiano Lana) and Tolamãn Kenhirí (Luis Lana) — in revising the text for publication in 1980 as the book , forging a partnership with the Lana family that lasted until the end of her life. Her publications and discourse consistently reflected her special regard for the Desana among all the indigenous groups she encountered.
In the early 1980s, in Rio de Janeiro, she organized the exhibition Indians of the Black Waters, likely her first as a curator. This exhibition, along with those that followed, focused on aspects of Indigenous life and Amazonian ecological themes. Similarly, the exhibitions Brasilidades at in 1998 and Amazônia Urgente in 1990, accompanied by her homonymous book, were presented at multiple venues, including the Carioca Station in Rio de Janeiro, the São Paulo Cultural Center, Brasília, and the in Belém.
In 1980, she defended her doctorate at the University of São Paulo (USP) under the guidance of Professor Amadeu José Duarte Lanna. Her thesis, A Civilização da Palha: A Arte do Trançado dos Índios do Brasil, examined Indigenous basketry from the Upper Xingu and Upper Rio Negro, analyzing its technological, productive, and aesthetic aspects. The study included a comparative analysis of artistic production, highlighting the exchange system between these regions.