Juan Bautista Rael (August 14, 1900 – November 8, 1993) was an American ethnographer, linguist, and folklorist who was a pioneer in the study of the people, stories, and language of Northern New Mexico and southern Colorado in the Southwestern United States.
Rael was born in the northern New Mexico village of Arroyo Hondo, near Taos, to an ethnic Spanish family whose ancestors dated to colonial times.
Rael taught for several years as an associate professor at the University of Oregon before beginning his doctoral studies.
He began to focus his research on the Alabados, or religious songs, of the Hispano region of Northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.
In 1933, Rael began his doctoral studies at Stanford University, invited by and under the supervision of folklorist Aurelio Espinosa.
[3]Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara In 1923, the year Rael graduated from college, he married Quirina de la Luz Espinosa, daughter of Francisco Antonio Espinosa and Maria Rosabel Lobato of Antonito, Conejos County, Colorado.