WASHINGTON, D.C. — Norman Henry Munn, independent scholar, writer and teacher, died on Feb. 3, 2014, at the Georgetown University Hospital. He was 73.

Henry was born in Nashville, Tenn., on Aug. 21, 1940, son of Anna L. Sullivan of Springfield, Mass., and Norman L. Munn of Adelaide, Australia. He was raised in Brunswick, Maine, where his father was Professor of Psychology at Bowdoin College (1946-1963). He attended the Phillips Academy (class of ’58) and Harvard University (1958-1961).

In 1965, he made his first visit to Mexico, where he met his future wife, Natividad Estrada Pineda. They were married in the cathedral of the city of Oaxaca on Feb. 1, 1969, and lived together for 45 years in Mexico City, San Francisco, CA, and Washington, D.C.

He dedicated a great part of his life to studying, documenting, and interpreting the culture of the Mazatec people of Oaxaca, Mexico. His essays on Mazatec shamanic traditions and related subjects have appeared in anthologies published by Oxford University

Press and the University of California Press and in journals such as Plural, The CoEvolution Quarterly, New Wilderness Letter, and the Journal of Latin American Lore. He was also a teacher of English as a second language, and was equally devoted to teaching professionals in Mexico City, as he was to teaching immigrants in the United States.

Henry was a unique and gentle individual, a man with a deep passion for learning and an exceptional sense of wonder. He was a loving husband and caring father who led a simple life, in the sense that he was not interested in material goods. As long as he had books to read, paper and a pen to write, access to the best libraries and museums, he was a happy man. Nothing energized him more than books and art.

He is survived by his wife, Natividad, two daughters, Ana Karina and husband Ricardo, Diana Xochitl, grandson Benjamin, and family members in both Brunswick and Australia. He is buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery of Brunswick, Maine.