Buell Quain

{{Short description|American ethnologist}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Buell Quain

|image =

|image_size =

|caption =

|birth_name = Buell Halvor Quain

|birth_date = {{birth date|1912|5|31}}

|birth_place = Bismarck, North Dakota, US

|death_date = {{death date and age|1939|8|2|1912|5|31}}

|death_place = Brazil

|alma_mater = University of Wisconsin - Madison

Columbia University

|occupation = Ethnologist

}}

Buell Halvor Quain (May 31, 1912 – August 2, 1939) was an American ethnologist who, after graduating from University of Wisconsin–Madison and studying as a graduate student at Columbia University, worked with native peoples in Fiji and Brazil.{{cite web|url=http://www.anthropologising.ca/fidji/admin.htm|title=The Effects of Limited Anthropological Theory on Problems of Fijian Administration|access-date=2008-06-18|date=2002-03-27|author=Cyril Belshaw|author-link=Cyril Belshaw|publisher=Anthropologising.ca|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080504033017/http://www.anthropologising.ca/fidji/admin.htm|archive-date=2008-05-04}}{{cite web|url=http://www.brazzil.com/p119jan03.htm|title=White Chief's Gone|access-date=2008-06-18|date=2003-01-19|author=Elma Lia Nascimento|publisher=Brazzil.com}} He published a total of four books, three of them posthumously.

In 1938, Quain travelled to Brazil to work with the Kraho people of the Brazilian rainforest, where he also spent time in the Trumai village.{{Cite book|url=http://etnolinguistica.wdfiles.com/local--files/biblio%3Amurphy-1955-trumai/Murphy%26Quain_1955_trumai.pdf|title=The Trumai Indians of Central Brazil|last=Quain|first=Buell|last2=Murphy|first2=Robert F.|publisher=J. J. Augustin|year=1955|location=Locust Valley, N.Y.}}