Indians of North America -- California Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Field notes
Vocabulary
Narratives
Maps
Date:
1912-1932
Scope and Contents:
This subseries of the Northern and Central California series contains Harrington's research on Salinan.
His Migueleno field notes from 1912 and 1913 contain vocabulary, English summaries of myths, and ethnographic and biographical notes from Juan Solano and Pacifico Archuleta. The linguistic and ethnographic portion of these field notes were also copied onto slipfiles and filed semantically. The originals of notes labeled "Pac." appear to be missing.
Materials from his 1922 fieldwork consist of Antoniano and Migueleno field notes and vocabulary. These include extensive linguistic notes from Maria and David Mora. While Maria was the principal source for Migueleno and David for Antoniano, they occasionally gave cognate forms in both languages. Much of the data was given in response to questions regarding vocabulary items published by J. Alden Mason (1918). A citation such as "On Mas. M." was used to indicate this. One section of phrases was evidently elicited by Harrington for purposes of comparison with Esselen forms. Another set of files consists of vocabulary that Harrington copied from the original field notes and arranged semantically. The notes on plants and animals are particularly extensive and contain commentary from Petronilo Gomez. There are numerous references to terms copied from the vocabulary portion of Mason's "The Language of the Salinan Indians." A few copies of notes from Pacifico Archuleta and Juan Solano are also filed here.
Harrington's research from 1931 consists of notes from rehearings with Maria de los Angeles, David Mora, and, to a lesser extent, Tito Encinales, of published works by J. Alden Mason and Father Bonaventura Sitjar's Antoniano vocabulary. They, including a woman identified simply as Maggie, also reviewed linguistic data collected in 1922 from David and Maria Jesusa Mora. Harrington wanted to form an "ethnological dictionary" from the linguistic notes and arranged them into semantic groupings. The section on plants includes remarks on lists of plants native to Mutsun territory in California and to New Mexico and rehearing of ethnobotanical information published by Engelhardt (1929). There is also a section of stories containing English and Spanish summaries of myths.
The subseries also contains notes on placenames. The earliest set consists of notes which he made in Washington, D.C. in 1930 on a list of rancheria names obtained in 1929. English or Spanish equivalents are given for the Indian placenames. There are also notes from placename trips, which include etymologies of Indian placenames, explanations of the significance of sites, sketch maps, references to myths, biographical notes, and notes on photographs he took. Other materials include notes from interviews with Buck Davis and J.C. Curtin and rehearings of rancheria names published by Zephyrin Engelhardt (1929).
The miscellaneous section consists mostly of notes recorded from David and Maria Mora and from Maria de los Angeles from February 1930 to February 1932; some are undated. Among the data included are unsorted vocabulary and phrases (particularly on animals and plants), observations on phonetics, and ethnographic and biographical references in English and Spanish. Also filed here are notes on a letter from C. Hart Merriam (December 26, 1929), with comments on Esselen. The last group of notes is a set of instructions from Harrington to Arthur E. Harrington, his nephew, and Paul Garda, son of a Chumash informant, on making sound recordings from Maria de los Angeles and David Mora.
Biographical / Historical:
John P. Harrington undertook fieldwork on the Salinan dialects during three phases of his career. In 1912 and 1913 he worked for several days with two Migueleno speakers, Juan Solano and Pacifico Archuleta. He interviewed Archuleta again briefly in 1915. During a lengthy period of time in the field in 1922, he contacted David and Maria Mora, recording extensive Antoniano and Migueleno vocabularies from them. Approximately ten years later he returned to work with David as well as with Maria de los Angeles and her husband, Tito Encinales. The primary focus of his study was the rehearing of his earlier field notes and the checking of data from several manuscript and published sources. He also took a number of trips by car and on horseback to collect botanical specimens for identification and to gather placename data. Others that he worked with included Rosario Cooper and Petronilo Gomez.
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.
