Indians of North America -- California Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Field notes
Vocabulary
Maps
Place:
California
Date:
1926, 1942
Scope and Contents:
This subseries of the Northern and Central California series contains John P. Harrington's research on Wiyot, Yurok, and Mattole. Throughout his notes, Wiyot is abbreviated Sul. for Sulaatlak and, rarely, Wiy. Yurok is abbreviated Yur. or Trin[idad] lang[uage], and Mattole is abbreviated M. or B[ear] R[iver] Mat. The Wiyot vocabulary consists of thirteen pages of numbers and terms for counting obtained during an interview with Amos Riley at Indianola on March 5, 1926. The name for Eel River is given and there are several references to two other Wiyot speakers, Jerry and Birdie James. The comparative vocabulary section consists of lexical items semantically arranged. The majority of the terms are Wiyot forms given by Birdie James and Amos Riley, although some equivalences in Yurok from James and in Mattole from Theodore Prince are interspersed. A variety of vocabulary is given, with tribenames and placenames being the most numerous. The data in these last two categories are particularly detailed and include etymologies, references to Indian trails, a few rough sketch maps, and comments on names excerpted from several secondary sources (Reichard 1925; Nomland and Kroeber 1936). Another set of files is composed of comments from Yurok and Wiyot speakers on published placename data from T. T. Waterman (1920) and Llewellyn L. Loud (1918). The first section, labeled "C. W. on Wat.," contains comments by Charlie Williams on tribenames and placenames given in the text and on associated maps (Rectangles A, B, H. I, J, K) in Waterman's "Yurok Geography." While most of the locations discussed are in the region of the Klamath River mouth, places in Tolowa, Wiyot, and Hupa territory are also mentioned. Unmarked forms are presumably Yurok names from Williams. His data were partially checked over with Birdie James, who gave both Yurok and Wiyot terms. A few comments were added by Orick Bob. The second section of rehearings is keyed to Rectangles H, I, J, and K in Waterman. Many of the placenames treated are in the Redwood Creek area near the home of Yurok speaker Orick Bob. Bob also volunteered a few terms for animals and tribes. The third section features comments of Birdie James on placenames given by Waterman, and by Loud in his "Ethnogeography and Archaeology of the Wiyot Territory." Harrington also utilized a number of maps (Belcher 1921; U. S. C. & G. S. 1940) in his work. A brief compilation of miscellaneous vocabulary found with the placename data appears at the end. To serve as a questionnaire for his work with Isaac Duncan and Johnny Jackson, Harrington gleaned placenames from Goddard's "The Bear River Dialect of Athapascan" and Nomland's "Sinkyone Notes" and "Bear River Ethnography." Many of the Mattole terms he obtained are unlabeled, making it difficult at times to determine who provided the data. Most of the placenames are from the Bear River and Mattole River regions; in addition there are a limited number from the Eel River area and beyond. Stories, miscellaneous vocabulary, and biographical notes are also included. A small section of miscellaneous notes appears at the end of the field data. Included are biographical notes on the informants and others, notes from the Hupa speaker, Dusky, a few observations by Harrington on the phonetics of the languages, general information on Gladys A. Reichard's work, and notes from a conversation with C. F. Voegelin regarding Yurok, Nootka, and Algonquian.
Supplemental material consists of copies which Harrington made of
Alfred L. Kroeber's field data. One set of notes, labeled "Yurok (collected by A. L. Kroeber, copied by J.P.H.)" consists of words and
phrases. The second group is preceded by an explanatory note which
refers to a Kroeber letter of 1906. Harrington copied vocabulary items
from a series of Kroeber's notebooks onto separate slips for further
analysis. Only sample pages of these files have been filmed to show
Harrington's format; the original field notes are located at the Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Biographical / Historical:
During his work on Karok in the spring of 1926, John P. Harrington recorded a brief vocabulary in Wiyot from Amos Riley of Indianola, California. It was not until sixteen years later that he returned to the area to make a more thorough study of that language and the related Yurok. He simultaneously recorded a lesser amount of Mattole data for comparison with other languages of the Northwest Coast and California which he had been recording.
John Peabody Harrington papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The preferred citation for the Harrington Papers will reference the actual location within the collection, i.e. Box 172, Alaska/Northwest Coast, Papers of John Peabody Harrington, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
However, as the NAA understands the need to cite phrases or vocabulary on specific pages, a citation referencing the microfilmed papers is acceptable. Please note that the page numbering of the PDF version of the Harrington microfilm does not directly correlate to the analog microfilm frame numbers. If it is necessary to cite the microfilmed papers, please refer to the specific page number of the PDF version, as in: Papers of John Peabody Harrington, Microfilm: MF 7, R34 page 42.
This subseries of the Notes and writings on special linguistic studies series contains material that supplement Harrington's Northeast/Southeast field notes.
The file on Algonquian includes three slips of Fox, Cree, Ojibwa, and Massachusett (labeled "Natick") vocabulary in the hand of Truman Michelson; typed copies of the above; notes on Cree and Ojibwa from secondary sources; information on the growing of wild rice by the Menominee; and miscellaneous notes on placenames and tribenames regarding the Cree, Ojibwa, Conoy, Nanticoke, and Narraganset.
The Shawnee/Peoria section consists of six pages of notes on Shawnee tribal divisions.
Among the miscellaneous material on the Abnaki languages is a page of Penobscot vocabulary obtained from Frank Siebert in April 1940. The remaining material was compiled during fieldwork on Western Abnaki at St. Francis in 1949. There are four pages on possible informants from Charles Nolet and a page of vocabulary from "Am"; bibliographic references; and lexical and grammatical notes excerpted from the works of Joseph Laurent and Masta.
For Massachusett there are three pages of miscellaneous notes with references to Trumbull's Natick Dictionary.
The bulk of the file on Iroquoian consists of a typed copy of an unidentified historical text from the 1880s. It discusses the relations of the Iroquois with the Spanish, French, and English settlers in the New World. Special mention is made of Gy-ant-va-chia (Cornplanter), chief of the Seneca. The spacing of the lines of text suggests that Harrington was planning to add a translation or annotations of some kind. There are also three pages of miscellaneous notes in his hand.
Most of the file on Delaware consists of information on placenames and tribenames obtained from Frank Siebert, Carl F. Voegelin, and a number of Oklahoma residents in 1940. Siebert gave both Delaware and Penobscot terms, and Unami words were given by Roy Longbone, Salley Fallleaf, and Jake Parks. Munsee forms were obtained from Josiah Montour and Jane Pattice of the Six-Nations Reserve in Ontario, Canada. Also included are a carbon copy of a typed list of possible informants and several pages of miscellaneous notes from the works of Brinton, Strachey, and Zeisberger.
The section on Creek/Seminole/Alabama/Koasati/Choctaw contains twenty-one pages of vocabulary (mostly on tribenames) which Harrington obtained in an interview with James Feagin Sylestine, a speaker of the Alabama language, on April 25, 1940. The informant's home was in Livingston, Texas, although he was at the Shawnee Sanatorium at the time Harrington worked with him. The remaining miscellaneous notes were excerpted from various published and manuscript sources. They include references to Creek, Cherokee, Seminole, Alabama, and Choctaw.
Miscellaneous material relating to the East consists of brief notes which Harrington copied from a number of secondary sources. There are mentions of the Huron, Wyandot, Powhatan, and Cherokee tribes, among others. Three of the pages consist of a partial typed list (alphabetically arranged K to M) of "Carolina and Virginia Algonquian" words. This list is based on that given in the commentary on the map of Raleigh's Virginia, pages 852 to 872 of The Roanoke Voyages, which was published by the Hakluyt Society in 1955.
Local Numbers:
Accession #1976-95
Restrictions:
No restrictions on access.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
Genre/Form:
Field notes
Vocabulary
Collection Citation:
John Peabody Harrington papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The preferred citation for the Harrington Papers will reference the actual location within the collection, i.e. Box 172, Alaska/Northwest Coast, Papers of John Peabody Harrington, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
However, as the NAA understands the need to cite phrases or vocabulary on specific pages, a citation referencing the microfilmed papers is acceptable. Please note that the page numbering of the PDF version of the Harrington microfilm does not directly correlate to the analog microfilm frame numbers. If it is necessary to cite the microfilmed papers, please refer to the specific page number of the PDF version, as in: Papers of John Peabody Harrington, Microfilm: MF 7, R34 page 42.
This subseries of the Northeast/Southeast series contains John P. Harrington's Algonquian research. It consists primarily of material he collected; there is very little original data, most of which are undated. The topics covered are Cheyenne grammar, Fox linguistic notes, Menominee grammar, Miami-Peoria grammar, Mohegan-Pequot-Montauk vocabulary, Montagnais miscellaneous notes, Nanticoke-Conoy-Unalachtigo linguistic notes, Ojibwa linguistic notes, Potawatomi linguistic notes, and comparative and miscellaneous notes.
The Cheyenne material consist of two pages of grammatical excerpts from Rodolphe Petter's English-Cheyenne Dictionary (1915).
The Fox notes stem from conversations which Harrington had with Truman Michelson on the Fox syllabary and grammar. One note is dated September 24, 1924; others are undated. One page gives the etymology of the word Chicago and a Potawatomi equivalent. Phonetic material (former B.A.E. MS 6021 pt. and 6025pt.) is based on William Jones's "Algonquian (Fox)" (1911). A bibliography is included, mainly on Michelson's publications and manuscripts which he submitted to the B.A.E.
The Menominee files contain a phonetic key from Leonard Bloomfield's Menomini Texts (1928), a short report on a conversation with Michelson (former B.A.E. MS 6025pt. and 6030), and a brief description of Menominee tentshaking was excerpted from W. J. Hoffman's The Menomini Indians (1896).
Miami-Peoria vocabulary were copied from Albert Gatschet's B.A.E. manuscripts 3025 and 3026b. (Those entries marked 3026b are no longer listed as part of that B.A.E. manuscript.)
An 1890 copy of a 1798 Montauk vocabulary taken by John Lyon Gardiner was loaned to Harrington by Foster H. Saville. There are also a three-page typescript of this manuscript and several pages of a Mohegan-Pequot bibliography.
For Montagnais, there are three bibliographical notes. Two placenames came from J.N.B. Hewitt in November 1926.
Reading notes on Nanticoke, Conoy, and Unalachtigo were taken principally from Speck's The Nanticoke and Conoy Indians . .. (1927) and from Hodge's "Handbook" (1907). Some linguistic and ethnohistoric material is included and there is a brief bibliography.
Ojibwa forms the largest portion of this subseries. It includes notes from a joint interview conducted most likely in 1940 with C. F. Voegelin and his informant, Gregor McGregor, who was technically considered a speaker of Ottawa. There are also notes Harrington took of Voegelin's lecture at the University of Michigan on June 25, 1940 (former B.A.E. MS 6020pt.). There is a slight emphasis on placenames in an otherwise random vocabulary. From James Hammond Trumbull's Notes on Forty Algonkin Versions of the Lord's Prayer (1873), Harrington copied the Southern Chippeway version (pp. 74 -75) and penciled in a slightly different English translation. A final potpourri of undated notes includes a miscellaneous vocabulary from secondary sources and a few pages of grammatical material. The etymologies of several Ojibwa words are briefly developed. Frederic Baraga's A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language is the most frequently cited source (former B.A.E. MS 6020pt. and 6025pt.).
The Potawatomi files contain material from Harrington's interview with Chief Simon Kahquados in Blackwell, Wisconsin (n.d.) with whom he recorded general ethnographic information, particularly regarding the loss of Potawatomi lands due to Indian Office policies and illegal acts of the Menominee. A brief vocabulary is included. Unrelated to this interview is a Potawatomi phoneme chart.
Comparative material includes reading notes regarding the earliest appearances of certain Algonquian phonetic sounds. Harrington consulted primarily the works of Sir Isaac Pitman, Jean Claude Mathevet (Nipissing, Abnaki), and Silas Tertius Rand (Micmac). Additional peripheral bibliographical information is identified in the notes. The only date recorded is March 26, 1951. There are other scattered reading notes with Menominee, Cree, Fox, and Ojibwa phonetic comparisons, based mainly on Leonard Bloomfield's Menomini Texts (1938) and Plains Cree Texts (1934). One page of Arapaho terms was copied from Kroeber.
In the category of general linguistic and ethnographic notes (former B.A.E. ms. 6025pt.), information results from various conversations with fellow linguists: Truman Michelson and J.N.B. Hewitt on September 24, 1924; Hewitt in November 1924 and November 1926; Michelson in October 1930; and Michelson and Frank G. Speck in May 1934. Under the heading "The Southern Delawares," Harrington arranged random information on the Virginia Indians, touching briefly on history and ethnography. He included some Abnaki, Cree, and Cherokee linguistic terms, as well as a general bibliography. Vocabulary material in this series (former B.A.E. MS 6025pt.) consists of terms from various Algonquian languages, most probably taken from unidentified printed sources. One note gives "The Chief from Mass[achusetts]" as an informant. One group of terms is compared with Natick words and with a vocabulary recorded by Roger Williams.
John Peabody Harrington papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The preferred citation for the Harrington Papers will reference the actual location within the collection, i.e. Box 172, Alaska/Northwest Coast, Papers of John Peabody Harrington, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
However, as the NAA understands the need to cite phrases or vocabulary on specific pages, a citation referencing the microfilmed papers is acceptable. Please note that the page numbering of the PDF version of the Harrington microfilm does not directly correlate to the analog microfilm frame numbers. If it is necessary to cite the microfilmed papers, please refer to the specific page number of the PDF version, as in: Papers of John Peabody Harrington, Microfilm: MF 7, R34 page 42.
This small subseries of the Northeast/Southeast series contains John P. Harrington's Massachusett research. The section of writings (former B.A.E. ms. 6018pt.) is based principally on the works of the seventeenth-century missionary John Eliot. An article titled "Two Massachusetts Texts with Interlinear Translation" was intended for submission to the International Journal of American Linguistics but was not published. The material includes a typescript and two preliminary drafts with related notes. It covers biographical information on Eliot and lists his writings according to those containing translations and those without translations. The texts Harrington chose for the paper are the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer from the Gospel of St. Matthew. Much of the biographical and historical information comes from James C. Pilling's Bibliography ofthe Algonquian Languages (1891). Also consulted was James Trumbull's "Natick Dictionary" (1903). Harrington provided C. E. Lauterbach of Pasadena with an interlinear translation of Eliot's version of the 23rd Psalm. This subseries also contains a copy of Massachusett language placenames excerpted from the Dictionary of American-Indian Place and Proper Names in New England (1909) by R. A. Douglas-Lithgow (D.-L.). There are no linguistic annotations. (Former B.A.E. ms. 6029pt.).
John Peabody Harrington papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The preferred citation for the Harrington Papers will reference the actual location within the collection, i.e. Box 172, Alaska/Northwest Coast, Papers of John Peabody Harrington, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
However, as the NAA understands the need to cite phrases or vocabulary on specific pages, a citation referencing the microfilmed papers is acceptable. Please note that the page numbering of the PDF version of the Harrington microfilm does not directly correlate to the analog microfilm frame numbers. If it is necessary to cite the microfilmed papers, please refer to the specific page number of the PDF version, as in: Papers of John Peabody Harrington, Microfilm: MF 7, R34 page 42.
This collection contains the professional papers of linguist Charles F. Hockett. Included are research materials consisting of field notes and notebooks, correspondence, published and unpublished writings, annotated copies of other scholars' work, a few drawings, photographs, and sound recordings.
Scope and Content Note:
This collection contains the professional papers of linguist Charles F. Hockett. Included are research materials consisting of field notes and notebooks, correspondence, published and unpublished writings, annotated copies of other scholars' work, a few drawings, photographs, and sound recordings.
The materials in this collection document Hockett's career as a structural linguist, and provides glimpses into his military service and his passion for music. Hockett's writings and notes, which comprise the majority of the materials in the collection, demonstrate his contributions to the field of linguistics.
Charles Francis Hockett was a linguist best known for his contribution to structural linguistics. Strongly influenced by the work of Leonard Bloomfield, he was "widely considered Bloomfield's chief disciple, and the most prominent explicator and elaborator of Bloomfield's works" (Gair 7). While he primarily focused on Algonquian languages, Hockett also studied Chinese, Fijian, and English.
Hockett was born in Columbus, Ohio on January 17, 1916 to Homer and Amy Hockett. He matriculated at Ohio State University in 1932 and graduated in 1936 with a BA and MA in ancient history. He then went on to study at Yale where he received his PhD in 1939. Afterward, he completed two years of postdoctoral study and had the opportunity to work with Leonard Bloomfield directly.
Drafted into the US Army in 1942, Hockett prepared language-training materials, language guides, and dictionaries for military personnel. He was eventually promoted to Captain and left the military in 1946 when he became a professor of linguistics at Cornell University. In 1957 he joined the Department of Anthropology. Hockett stayed at Cornell until 1982 when he retired to emeritus status. He later served as an adjunct professor of linguistics at Rice University.
He died on November 3, 2000.
Sources Consulted
James W. Gair, "Charles F. Hockett," in Biographical Memoirs volume 89. Washington, D.C. : National Academies Press, 2007.
Chronology
1916 -- Born January 17 in Columbus, Ohio
1932 -- Entered Ohio State University at 16
1936 -- Graduated summa cum laude with BA & MA in ancient history
1939 -- Summer of fieldwork in Kickapoo and autumn in Michoacán, Mexico Received PhD in Anthropology from Yale; dissertation based on fieldwork in Potawatomi
1940-1941 -- 2 years of postdoctoral study, including two quarters with Leonard Bloomfield at Chicago, followed by a stay at Michigan
1942 -- Drafted into US Army
1945 -- Dispatched to Tokyo as a first lieutenant to help train U.S. troops in Japanese
1946 -- Began university teaching career as an assistant professor of linguistics in the Division of Modern Languages at Cornell where he was in charge of Chinese and continued to run the Chinese program for 15 years Separated from the army with a terminal leave promotion to captain
1957 -- Become a member of Cornell's Department of Anthropology (later named the Goldwin Smith Professor of Linguistics and Anthropology)
1964 -- President of the Linguistic Society of America
1974 -- Elected to the National Academy of Sciences
1982 -- Retired from Cornell to emeritus status
1983 -- Festschrift written (Agard et al., 1983)
1986 -- Distinguished lecturer of the American Anthropological Association Visiting professor, later adjunct professor of linguistics at Rice University
2000 -- Died on November 3
Selected Bibliography
1939 -- Potawatomi Syntax. Language 15: 235-248.
1944 -- with Zhaoying Fang. Spoken Chinese: Basic Course. Military edition published (without authors' names) as a War Department Education Manual. Civilian Edition. New York: Holt.
1947 -- Peiping phonology. Journal of the American Oriental Society 67: 253-267.
1948 -- Implications of Bloomfield's Algonquian Studies. Language 24: 17-131.
1955 -- A Manual of Phonology. Baltimore: Waverley Press. How to Learn Martian. Astounding Science Fiction 55: 97-106.
1958 -- A Course in Modern Linguistics. New York: Macmillan.
1960 -- The Origin of Speech. Scientific American 203(3): 88-89.
1970 -- A Leonard Bloomfield Anthology. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
1973 -- Man's Place in Nature. New York: McGraw-Hill.
1987 -- Refurbishing our Foundations: Elementary Linguistics from an Advanced Point of View. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
1997 -- Approaches to Syntax. Lingua 100: 151-170.
Related Collections:
National Anthropological Archives Manuscript 7402. Letters to Charles Hockett regarding Algonquian linguistics 1937-1938.
National Anthropological Archives Manuscript 2009-15. May Mayko Ebihara conducted this oral history interview with Hockett on August 25, 1981 as part of a larger oral history project with anthropologists.
For additional Hockett correspondence, see:
C. F. Voegelin Papers, American Philosophical Society.
Henry Lee Smith Papers, 1935-1972 (bulk 1956-1972), University Archives, State University of New York at Buffalo.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Charles Hockett's daughter, Rachel Hockett.
Restrictions:
The Charles F. Hockett Papers are open for research.
Indians of North America -- Great Plains Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Card files
Vocabulary
Date:
circa 1930s
Scope and Contents:
Cards containing Truman Michelson's handwritten notes on Cheyenne vocabulary with comparisons to Central Algonquian (Fox, Cree, Delaware, Ojibwa, etc.) terms. The Bureau of American Ethnology catalog card indicates that some words were "extracted from Petter," most likely a reference to Rodolphe Petter's English-Cheyenne Dictionary (1915).
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 3216
Local Note:
Title changed from "Some restored words which are difficult phonetically; some new words extracted from Petter 1930s" 5/27/2014.
Indians of North America -- Great Plains Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Vocabulary
Card files
Date:
undated
Scope and Contents:
Blackfoot vocabulary with probable Algonquian etymologies extracted by Truman Michelson from an unidentified publication by C.C. Uhlenbeck. The notes are handwritten by Michelson on note cards and include English translations.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 3349
Local Note:
Title changed from "Blackfoot words/from Uhlenbeck with probable Algonquian etymologie" 4/2/2014.
Truman Michelson's handwritten linguistic notes on various Algonquian languages from his work with students at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania during the winter of 1911-1912. The notes include information about the students he worked with, vocabulary, grammar, and an Arapaho text. Mary Belgarde and Patrick Azure provided information on Turtle Mountain Chippewa (which Michelson determined is Cree); Dorothy Morse on Northern Chippewa (near Duluth); Flora Masta on Abenaki; Grover Allen (a Kickapoo) on Potawatomi; Louise Kitchikum (likely Kachicum) on Menominee; and Bruce Groesbeck on Northern Arapaho.
Arrangement:
Notes are organized by language.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 2703
Local Note:
Title changed from "Materials relating to various Algonquian languages" 4/15/2014.
Indians of North America -- Great Plains Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Vocabulary
Date:
circa 1911
Scope and Contents:
Edward Sapir's typed notes on the vocabularies of various Algonquian languages that he collected in 1911. List of languages covered: Delaware, pages 1-6; Abnaki (Pierreville), page 7-12; Malecite (Riviere du Loup, Thomas Paul), pages 13-17; Micmac, pages 18-23, Cree (Rupert's House), pages 24-25; Montagnais (Louis Clairie, Pointe Bleue), pages 26-28. There are annotations and corrections in ink in Sapir's handwriting (identified by Mary Haas, 4/58). There are also pencil additions signed by Michelson; perhaps all of the pencil additions are his.
Menominee linguistic notes and texts from Truman Michelson's fieldwork among the Menominee in Wisconsin in 1910. He obtained texts and Menominee names for various tribes from Judge Peroute, a priest of the Grand Medicine Society. Captain John V. Satterlee of the Indian Police at Keshena served as interpreter and also provided Michelson with linguistic information, such as vocabulary.
Truman Michelson's handwritten linguistic notes with paradigms (some extracted from the literature) for the following languages: Montagnais, Menominee, Meskwaki (Fox), Cree, Natick, Ojibwa, Passamaquoddy, and Shawnee.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 2691
Local Note:
Title changed from "Various verbal tables of different Algonquian tribes" 4/14/2014.
Indians of North America -- Great Plains Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Field notes
Vocabulary
Date:
1912 January 24
Scope and Contents:
Single page of handwritten Hidatsa linguistic notes from Truman Michelson's research on Algonquian languages at Carlisle Indian Industrial School. These brief notes, which include Hidatsa terms used by female for "my mother," "my father," and "my younger brother," were obtained from Ruth Packineau, a 14 year old student. Michelson describes the language as "Siouxan Gros Ventre" in his notes.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 2722
Local Note:
Title changed from "Hidatsa terms used by female Ego for my mother, my father, and my younger brother January 24, 1912" 4/17/2014.
Related Materials:
See MS 2703 for his other linguistic notes that he gathered at Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
The collection consists of a volume, now disbound, of twenty-nine (29) drawings by Daniel Little Chief together with thirty-four (34) pages of typescript explanatory notes by Albert Gatschet. The volume also includes an identifying title page handwritten by Albert Gatschet and one drawing on ruled paper by an unidentified Cheyenne artist. The explanatory text was transcribed from Gatschet's notebook, also in the collection, with corrections by Gatschet. The collection also contains a drawing which was found in Gatschet's notebook which does not appear to be directly associated with the works by Daniel Little Chief. Subjects of the drawings include ceremonial items, name glyphs, painted tipis, and illustrations of Cheyenne customs.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Biographical Note:
Daniel Little Chief, also known as Daniel Littlechief and Wuxpais, (?-1906) was a Northern Cheyenne warrior whose band of Cheyenne were sent south to the Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation in Indian Territory after their surrender, traveling there between 1878-1879. In 1881 this band moved north to the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota. In 1891 Daniel Little Chief inherited the role of head chief from his father and remained in South Dakota until his death in 1906.
Albert S. Gatschet (1832-1907) was educated in his native Switzerland (University of Bern, Ph.D., 1892) and in Germany (University of Berlin). Early in his career, he pursued antiquarian research in European museums and wrote scientific articles. Among his interests was the etymology of Swiss place names. After coming to the United States in 1869, he worked on the American Indian vocabularies collected by Oscar Loew, of the United States Geological Survey West of the 100th Meridian (Wheeler Survey). Eventually John Wesley Powell employed him as an ethnologist with the United States Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Regions. He joined the staff of the Bureau of American Ethnology at its founding in 1879, and continued there until he retired in 1905. For the Powell Survey, Gatschet researched the ethnography of the Klamath in Oregon and the Modoc in Oklahoma. He also collected Native American material objects and investigated special problems for Powell's classification of the American Indian languages north of Mexico, working on languages of the Southeast, including groups forcibly settled in the southern Plains. He not only visited well-known tribes, but also searched out small groups, including the Biloxi and Tunica. He also worked with the Natchez, Tonkawa, Chitimacha, and Atakapa in the United States and Comecrudo and several other small groups in northern Mexico. Through library research, he studied the Timucua, Karankara, and the Beothuk. During the later part of his career, Gatschet was assigned comparative work on all the Algonquian languages. Although the project was never completed, he collected much about many of the languages, especially Peoria, Miami, and Shawnee. In addition, he worked with members of diverse tribes of the eastern United States.
Variant Title:
Crayon Pictures of Cheyenne Ceremonial Customs and Implements. Drawn by Wuxpais or Daniel Littlechief, son of the present headchief of the Cheyenne Indians of South Dakota, at the Pine Ridge Agency. Explained by notes obtained from the same Indian by Albert S. Gatschet.
Conservation Note:
In 1994 the volume was disbound in order to be photographed and because the binding structure was causing damage to the drawings. A full conservation report is available in the NAA files.
Related Materials:
A nearly identical set of drawings by Daniel Little Chief is located held by The Newberry Library in Chicago, see [Cheyenne Ledger Book, Crayon pictures of Cheyenne ceremonial customs and implements by Wuxpais].
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Works of art
Drawings
Ledger drawings
Citation:
MS 2016 Daniel Little Chief drawings of Cheyenne ceremonial customs and implements, with explanations by Albert Gatschet, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
