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.
