Daniel P. Biebuyck died on December 31, 2019, aged 94. First trained in philology and law at the University of Ghent, Dr. Biebuyck took advanced degrees in cultural anthropology at the London School of Economics. Working for the Belgian Institute for Scientific Research in Central Africa from 1949 to 1961, he undertook detailed ethnographic studies in east-central Belgian Congo among Lega, Nyanga, Bembe, and related peoples. He wrote monographs and scholarly articles from these experiences, and through shorter IRSAC projects, he visited more than fifty other Congolese ethnic groups, contributing to wide-ranging overviews such as Congo Tribes and Parties (1961) that he coauthored with Mary Douglas.
Through a position at the University of Delaware in 1961, Dr. Biebuyck helped found the Department of Anthropology. After teaching anthropology at UCLA from 1964 to 1966 and curating the university's first African collections, he returned to Delaware for the rest of his long...