MS 3941 Materials assembled by Hewitt for preparation of articles in Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 30 and for replies to inquires from the public
Collector:
Hewitt, J. N. B. (John Napoleon Brinton), 1859-1937 Search this
Indians of North America -- Southern States Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Calendars
Date:
undated
Scope and Contents:
Contents: Adirondack tribe (St Lawrence River) Old Manuscript Number 3553. Adoption Old Manuscript Number 4007. Refers to Algonquian method of counting -only; see Haas note 2/18/72; Old Manuscript Number 3864. "Alligewi"; Animism Old Manuscript Number 3867 and 2842-c, box 6. Blood Indians, origin of name; Brant, Joseph Old Manuscript Number 3874. Chippewa, origin of name Old Manuscript Number 3646. Chiefs, function and significance of Old Manuscript Number 2842-c, box 6. Delaware tribe, New Jersey area claimed by Old Manuscript Number 3866. Detroit River, tribes near; Ekaentoton Island-- see Ste. Marie Island Environment (Bulletin 30 draft by O. T. Mason) Old Manuscript Number 4007. Erie, origin of name Old Manuscript Number 3646. Erie and Black Mincqua tribes Old Manuscript Number 3586. [Eskimo] Arctic tribes, leaving elderly and sick people to die Old Manuscript Number 3668. Family, Bulletin 30 draft and notes Old Manuscript Number 4011 and 2842-c, box 6. Grand River (Tinaatoua), name of; Hebrew calendar; Hewitt, list of Bulletin 30 articles by Old Manuscript Number 4066. Hoboken, origin of name; Iroquois, "On the Northern and Eastern Territorial Limits of the Iroquoian people, in the 16th Century," and Algonquian tribes, at Chaleur Bay. Iroquois at Gulf of St Lawrence and Bay of Gaspe Old Manuscript Number 3625.
Iroquois, location of Six Nations tribes reservations Old Manuscript Number 3763. Iroquois false face; Iroquois preparation of corn ("as food") Old Manuscript Number 4009. Iroquoian early dress Old Manuscript Number 3660. Iroquoian "Gachoi" tribe, identity of (Correspondence with F. Bogaskie.) Old Manuscript Number 3816. Iroquoian moon names and concept of time; Iroquoian social organization, and place name-name origins; "Man," Iroquoian term for Old Manuscript Number 3781. Iroquoian towns Old Manuscript Number 4006. Kentucky, meaning of the word; Kentucky, origin of name Old Manuscript Number 3840. Lenni Lenape, meaning of the word; Logstown-- see Shenango Old Manuscript Number 3773. Lost Ten Tribes as American Indians Old Manuscript Number 3670. Mayan linguistic family and other Mayan linguistic notes including Quiche and Tepehuanan notes Old Manuscript Number 3473. Mexico: idols, sacrifices, etc. Old Manuscript Number 3807. Mexico: Indian languages. Letter from Captain W.E.W. MacKinley Old Manuscript Number 3778. Missouri, Indian village, location of Old Manuscript Number 3944. Mohawk land near Lake Champlain; Mohawk grammar; Montour family, notes for Bulletin 30 Old Manuscript Number 3812. Muskhogean social organization. Letter from J. J. Harrison. Old Manuscript Number 3891. New England tribes Old Manuscript Number 3513.
Niagara, origin of name; "Old Smoke"-- see Sayenqueraghta Old Manuscript Number 3949. Onondaga tribe, text of memorial inscription to, and correspondence Old Manuscript 4391 and 4271- box 1 (part.) Ontwaganha or Toaganha, origin and meaning of name Old Manuscript Number 3864. Owego, meaning of town's name; Pekwanoket tribe (Cape Cod); Pemaquid, Abnaki word and its origin Old Manuscript Number 89. Piasa bird- pictograph formerly near present Alton, Illinois. Article is similar to that by Cyrus Thomas, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 30. Old Manuscript Number 3981. Potawatomi, notes on the name Old Manuscript Number 4034. Potawatomi Green Corn Dance; Roanoke, origin of name Old Manuscript Number 3998. Sacagawea, spelling of; St Ignace, 3 settlements (Michigan); St Marie Island or Ekaentoton Island; Sauk, Bulletin 30 article and galley proof, notes Old Manuscript Number 3764. Sayenqueraghta or "Old Smoke" (correspondence with Alanson Skinner) Old Manuscript Number 3949. Scalping Old Manuscript Number 4025. Shenango and Logstown Old Manuscript Number 3773. Sioux, origin of name Old Manuscript Number 3624. Society of American Indians, resolutions by thanking General Hugh L. Scott, Fr. Anselm Webber and others Old Manuscript Number 3868. Susquehanna, origin of name Old Manuscript Number 3707. Tacoma, origin of name Old Manuscript Number 3470.
Thunderbird, notes on Old Manuscript Number 3552. Tinaatoa-- see Grand River; Toronto, origin of name; Tuscarora villages Old Manuscript Number 3998. Wampum Old Manuscript Number 3998. War club with inscription; West Virginia panhandle tribes Old Manuscript Number 3945. Williams, Eleazer Old Manuscript Number 3998. Women, status of Old Manuscript Number 3566. Wyandots (Huron) List of tribes of which Wyandots of today are constituted. Old Manuscript Number 3774.
This subseries of the Northeast/Southeast series contains Harrington's Western Abenaki, Eastern Abenaki, and Passamaquoddy research. The bulk of the notes consists of Maine placenames culled from numerous secondary sources ranging from seventeenth-century documents to publications of the 1940s, and also including little known local histories, old maps and atlases, highway and forestry maps, and unidentified newspaper clippings. Located here also are lesser numbers of placenames of other states in the Northeast and the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick. Most of the material was reheard by St. Francis, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy speakers, with an occasional Malecite, Micmac, and Menomini comparison.
The Western Abenaki (St. Francis) section contains vocabulary entries semantically arranged in about a dozen categories. The most extensive section (former B.A.E. MS 6029pt.) is that of Maine placenames copied from secondary sources. The most frequently cited sources were Joseph Laurent's New Familiar Abenakis and English Dialogues (1884), and Henry Lorne Masta's Abenaki Indian Legends, Grammar and Place Names (1932). This section also contains placenames of the New England States, New York, and the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick, along with a few Penobscot and Passamaquoddy equivalences. The notes on tribenames include names found in the texts and maps of seventeenth-century voyages of discovery and in early histories of New England and Canada. Old and New World names and ethnic and race designations are also found in this category. The files also include a typed draft, with related notes (former B.A.E. ms. 6029pt.), dated 1950, titled "The Abnakis and Their Language." According to Harrington's introduction, the dialect is that of St. Francis and is based on terms from Laurent and Masta. There are notes covering phonetics and morphology, the latter arranged according to grammatical word form. Extensive hIstorIcal background material was sent to Harrington by T .R.L. MacInnes, secretary of the Indian Affairs Branch of the Department of MInes and Resources in Ottawa. A Mr. A. E. St. Louis did the actual research of the department's records and included some Huron data.
The Eastern Abenaki (Penobscot) vocabulary is semantically arranged in about ten categories, with occasional Passamaquoddy comparisons and a few Malecite terms. Ethnographic data sometimes accompany the linguistics. Harrington also etymologized certain phenomenal and geographic terms from the placename appendix of Joseph Nicolar published by Fannie Hardy Eckstorm (cited in the notes as "Eckst.") in Indian Place-names of the Penobscot Valley and the Maine Coast (1941). Some of the tribenames were formerly part of B.A.E. manuscript 4463. He also consulted other published sources.
Eastern Abenaki grammatical notes include phonetics and morphology, with great emphasis on the former. Some St. Francis and Passamaquoddy comparisons culled from Harrington's notes are interfiled. There is also a small assortment of random historical and ethnographical reading notes culled from various secondary sources, most of which are identified in a related bibliographical section. A few bits of historical information come from Dana and Watso. There are no linguistic elaborations.
Materials relating to Penobscot and Passamaquoddy placenames primarily center around a proposed paper titled "The Indian Placenames of Maine" (former B.A.E. mss. 4463pt. and 6029pt.). A short introductory draft is followed by a linguistic study of placenames of Maine organized according to its sixteen counties. One brief section organized by regions and trails probably represents a discarded plan of procedure, and there is one group of miscellaneous names. Many terms bear the identification "Pen." for Penobscot and "Pass." for Passamaquoddy. If not identified, they are usually in the Penobscot dialect and given by Dana. There are a few Malecite and Micmac equivalences and one or two Menomini names. Two segments on Maine sites contain no linguistic elaborations. One list, organized by county and generally entered one item to a page, parallels the section described above. It comes from the same secondary sources and evidently was accumulated as a guide to the later rehearings. The second group, collected from various sources, provides historical information only (former B.A.E. ms. 6029 pt.). Placenames from other states and provinces include rehearings on the placename Massachusetts, New Brunswick placenames, and a miscellaneous group of unsorted and discarded notes. There is also linguistic treatment of "Pomole" and "Glooscap" texts, with an emphasis on Maine placenames (former B.A.E. MS 4463 pt.), as well as a typescript titled "A Short History of the Passamaquoddy Indians" in English.
Among Harrington's files are also notes for three proposed papers. One paper is on the name "Tarentine" as applied to native Americans of the East Coast. Harrington found evidence of its use among the records and histories of early voyagers to America. The second paper was to be a commentary on the Abenaki vocabulary compiled in 1605 by James Rosier, a member of the expedition under Captain George Waymouth (Weymouth). Harrington made a copy of the Waymouth terms while in New York City in November 1949. Both sets of notes contain occasional references to Laurent and Masta, but no linguistic data. A third paper was called "Bashaba and Bessabes Are Two Different Words." From numerous accounts of the earliest recorded voyages to the New World, Harrington accumulated reading notes to prove that Bashaba was a general name for a chief and that Bessabes was the personal name of a particular chief. Again there are no linguistic etymologies.
Biographical / Historical:
John P. Harrington accumulated information on these languages between April 24 and October 24, 1949. Most of his time was spent in Old Town, Maine, although he worked also in Bangor, at the State House Library in Augusta, at the Maine Historical Society in Portland, and in Eastport, Maine. He secured linguistic information from St. Francis speakers of Odanak near Pierreville, Quebec, and from a colony of Abenakis in Albany, New York. In November and December of 1949 while on trips between New York City and Washington for other reasons, he carried the notes with him for further sorting and rearranging. Reports indicate that in 1952 he was in the process of assembling an extensive study on the Abenaki, possibly incorporating data on the vocabulary, grammar, history, and ethnography of both Abenaki languages.
The principal St. Francis speakers that he worked with were Oliver Obomsawin (Ol.) and Alfred Miller (Am., AI.) of Odanak, and George Dennis (Geo., Den.) and John Watso of Albany. Watso introduced Harrington to Edwin E. Nagazoa (Ed., Nag., N.) and Maude Benedict Nagazoa, the former described as a perfect Abenaki speaker. Others that he worked with include Thomas Sadoquin, Mrs. Daylight (Mrs. D., D.), Antoine Medzalabolet, Chief Charles Nolet, and Dominico Berni. Berni's role is somewhat uncertain. He may have translated a letter of inquiry to the Bureau of American Ethnology which Harrington was assigned to handle, and which may have had nothing to do with Abenaki. Andrew E. Dana (And.), Frank and Mary Mitchell, and Charles John Saulis provided Penobscot and Passamaquoddy material, yielding extensive placename etymologies. Penobscot and a few Malecite (spelled "Malacite" throughout Harrington's notes) terms came from Harry Francis whose mother, Mary Jean Francis, was a Malecite Indian. Others that he worked with were Lena Mitchell, Laura, and Mr. and Mrs. William Neptune of Pleasant Point, near Eastport, Maine. William Neptune was a Passamaquoddy but Harrington credited him with Wawenock data.
Field notes and correspondence indicate that Harrington consulted with Dr. Frank T. Siebert,Jr., in person and by mail.
Arthur E. Edgerley at the State Highway Commission office in Augusta provided bits of history surrounding the sites as well as names of some of the people who formerly inhabited them.
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.
A narrative of the captivity of Mrs. Johnson containing an account of her sufferings, during four years, with the Indians and French together with an appendix, containing the sermons, preached at her funeral, and that of her mother ; with sundry other interesting articles
Author:
Johnson Mrs (Susannah Willard),) 1730-1810 Search this
Subject:
Johnson Mrs (Susannah Willard),) 1730-1810 Captivitë, 1754-1757 Search this
