This subseries of the Northeast/Southeast series contains Harrington's Creek, Seminole, Alabama, Koasati, and Choctaw research. These include original field notes in Creek and Seminole Harrington took from John Thompson on April 22, 1940, most of which were corrected by Haas on the same date. Another larger group of terms were extracted from Haas' typewritten unpublished manuscript (ca. 1938 -1940) and filed one term to a page in random order. There are no linguistic comments by Harrington. A still larger section labeled "Haas Orthography" contains occasional comments by Harrington. Presumably this section also stems from a then unpublished manuscript by Haas. The majority of his comparative linguistic notes involve Haas and Thompson, with Harrington sitting in as a third party. Choctaw equivalences are based on Byington (1915). A few Koasati and Alabama terms are included. Some notes apparently reflect conversations between Harrington and Haas, with some emphasis on phonetics and ethnohistory. The interview with Sylvestine presumably was brief--it yielded only a few general comments on Alabama placenames. There is a section on the etymology of the name Alabama. Harrington copied various versions from Hodge's "Handbook" (1907) and added some original annotations as well as comments from Haas, Thompson, and Sylvestine. Also in this subseries are two pages of random terms, undated, and no source given. Three Choctaw words were apparently taken from Allen Wright's Chahta Leksikon, a Choctaw in English Definition (1880). The subseries also contans excerpts from conversations Harrington had with Edward Sapir.
Biographical / Historical:
While on a Delaware language field trip centered around Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in April 1940, John P. Harrington evidently found time to be present when the linguist Mary R. Haas interviewed Creek speaker John Thompson. She also commented on notes Harrington took directly from Thompson, and she shared with him information from her unpublished manuscript of Creek vocabulary. He also interviewed James Feagin Sylvestine, a patient at the Shawnee Sanitorium in Oklahoma and an excellent Alabama speaker. Harrington also frequently consulted Cyrus A. Byington's, A Dictionary of the Choctaw Language (1915) and Frederick W. Hodge's "Handbook of the American Indians North of Mexico" (1907).
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
Genre/Form:
Field notes
Vocabulary
Manuscripts
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.
