Indians of North America -- Northwest Coast of North America Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Field notes
Sound recordings
Place:
Makah Indian Reservation (Wash.)
Neah Bay (Wash.)
Date:
1969-1971
Scope and Contents:
This collection documents the research Robert E. Johnson conducted for his dissertation on the Coeur d'Alene language, as well as his fieldwork on the Makah language. Johnson's papers consist of field notes, audio recordings, index cards, and transcripts concerning both languages. The Coeur d'Alene recordings are of Lawrence Nicodemus. The Makah recordings were done with several of the last remaining speakers of that language, most of whom were over eighty years old when the recordings were made.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into two series: 1) Coeur d'Alene Language, 1969 and 2) Makah Language, 1971.
Biographical / Historical:
Robert E. Johnson, an anthropological linguist, received a B.A. in psychology from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Washington State University. As a doctoral student he conducted field research on the Coeur d'Alene language on the tribe's reservation in Idaho (1969 and 1970). In 1971, he did fieldwork on the Makah language in Washington state.
Johnson began teaching at Gallaudet University's Department of Linguistics in 1981. While there, he engaged in research on the phonetic, phonological, and morphological structures of signed languages. He studied the structures of American Sign Language, Argentine Sign Language, and the sign language of a Yucatec Maya community. He also worked with Scott Liddell on a phonetic notation system for signed languages and co-authored with Liddell and Carol Erting "Unlocking the Curriculum: Principles of Achieving Access in Deaf Education." In addition, he provided consulting services as an expert witness on Miranda rights for deaf suspects.
Johnson retired from Gallaudet University in December of 2011.
Sources Consulted
Johnson, Robert. n.d. Robert Johnson, PhD. Accessed April 10, 2013. http://www.gallaudet.edu/faculty-staff/linguistics/johnson_robert_e.html
Johnson, Robert. n.d. Robert Johnson, PhD. Accessed April 10, 2013. http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/robert-johnson2/
Related Materials:
The Human Studies Film Archives holds Robert E. Johnson's Mayan sign language video tapes and related notebooks.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Robert E. Johnson upon his retirement from Gallaudet University in 2011.
Restrictions:
No restrictions on access.
Rights:
Contact repository for terms of use.
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Robert E. Johnson papers on the Coeur d'Alene and Makah languages, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Digitization and preparation of most of this material for online access has been funded through generous support from the Arcadia Fund and by National Science Foundation under BCS Grant No. 1561167 and the Recovering Voices initiative at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
These papers reflect the professional and personal life of Frederica de Laguna. The collection contains correspondence, field notes, writings, newspaper clippings, writings by others, subject files, sound recordings, photographs, and maps. A significant portion of the collection consists of de Laguna's correspondence with family, friends, colleagues, and students, as well as her informants from the field. Her correspondence covers a wide range of subjects such as family, health, preparations for field work, her publications and projects, the Northwest Coast, her opinions on the state of anthropology, and politics. The field notes in the collection mainly represent de Laguna and her assistants' work in the Northern Tlingit region of Alaska from 1949 to 1954. In addition, the collection contains materials related to her work in the St. Lawrence River Valley in Ontario in 1947 and Catherine McClellan's field journal for her research in Aishihik, Yukon Territory in 1968. Most of the audio reels in the collection are field recordings made by de Laguna, McClellan, and Marie-Françoise Guédon of vocabulary and songs and speeches at potlatches and other ceremonies from 1952 to 1969. Tlingit and several Athabaskan languages including Atna, Tutochone, Upper Tanana, and Tanacross are represented in the recordings. Also in the collection are copies of John R. Swanton's Tlingit recordings and Hiroko Hara Sue's recordings among the Hare Indians. Additional materials related to de Laguna's research on the Northwest Coast include her notes on clans and tribes in Series VI: Subject Files and her notes on Tlingit vocabulary and Yakutat names specimens in Series X: Card Files. Drafts and notes for Voyage to Greenland, Travels Among the Dena, and The Tlingit Indians can be found in the collection as well as her drawings for her dissertation and materials related to her work for the Handbook of North American Indians and other publications. There is little material related to Under Mount Saint Elias except for correspondence, photocopies and negatives of plates, and grant applications for the monograph. Of special interest among de Laguna's writings is a photocopy of her historical fiction novel, The Thousand March. Other materials of special interest are copies of her talks, including her AAA presidential address, and the dissertation of Regna Darnell, a former student of de Laguna's. In addition, materials on the history of anthropology are in the collection, most of which can found with her teaching materials. Although the bulk of the collection documents de Laguna's professional years, the collection also contains newspaper articles and letters regarding her exceptional performance as a student at Bryn Mawr College and her undergraduate and graduate report cards. Only a few photographs of de Laguna can be found in the collection along with photographs of her 1929 and 1979 trips to Greenland.
Scope and Contents:
These papers reflect the professional and personal life of Frederica de Laguna. The collection contains correspondence, field notes, writings, newspaper clippings, writings by others, subject files, sound recordings, photographs, and maps.
A significant portion of the collection consists of de Laguna's correspondence with family, friends, colleagues, and students, as well as her informants from the field. Her correspondence covers a wide range of subjects such as family, health, preparations for field work, her publications and projects, the Northwest Coast, her opinions on the state of anthropology, and politics. Among her notable correspondents are Kaj Birket-Smith, J. Desmond Clark, Henry Collins, George Foster, Viola Garfield, Marie-Françoise Guédon, Diamond Jenness, Michael Krauss, Therkel Mathiassen, Catharine McClellan, and Wallace Olson. She also corresponded with several eminent anthropologists including Franz Boas, William Fitzhugh, J. Louis Giddings, Emil Haury, June Helm, Melville Herskovitz, Alfred Kroeber, Helge Larsen, Alan Lomax, Margaret Mead, Froelich Rainey, Leslie Spier, Ruth Underhill, James VanStone, Annette Weiner, and Leslie White.
The field notes in the collection mainly represent de Laguna and her assistants' work in the Northern Tlingit region of Alaska from 1949 to 1954. In addition, the collection contains materials related to her work in the St. Lawrence River Valley in Ontario in 1947 and Catharine McClellan's field journal for her research in Aishihik, Yukon Territory in 1968. Most of the audio reels in the collection are field recordings made by de Laguna, McClellan, and Marie-Françoise Guédon of vocabulary and songs and speeches at potlatches and other ceremonies from 1952 to 1969. Tlingit and several Athapaskan languages including Atna, Tutochone, Upper Tanana, and Tanacross are represented in the recordings. Also in the collection are copies of John R. Swanton's Tlingit recordings and Hiroko Hara's recordings among the Hare Indians. Additional materials related to de Laguna's research on the Northwest Coast include her notes on clans and tribes in Series VI: Subject Files and her notes on Tlingit vocabulary and Yakutat names specimens in Series 10: Card Files.
Drafts and notes for Voyage to Greenland, Travels Among the Dena, and The Tlingit Indians can be found in the collection as well as her drawings for her dissertation and materials related to her work for the Handbook of North American Indians and other publications. There is little material related to Under Mount Saint Elias except for correspondence, photocopies and negatives of plates, and grant applications for the monograph. Of special interest among de Laguna's writings is a photocopy of her historical fiction novel, The Thousand March.
Other materials of special interest are copies of her talks, including her AAA presidential address, and the dissertation of Regna Darnell, a former student of de Laguna's. In addition, materials on the history of anthropology are in the collection, most of which can found with her teaching materials. The collection also contains copies of photographs from the Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899. Although the bulk of the collection documents de Laguna's professional years, the collection also contains newspaper articles and letters regarding her exceptional performance as a student at Bryn Mawr College and her undergraduate and graduate report cards. Only a few photographs of de Laguna can be found in the collection along with photographs of her 1929 and 1979 trips to Greenland.
Frederica Annis Lopez de Leo de Laguna was a pioneering archaeologist and ethnographer of northwestern North America. Known as Freddy by her friends, she was one of the last students of Franz Boas. She served as first vice-president of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) from 1949 to 1950 and as president of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) from 1966-1967. She also founded the anthropology department at Bryn Mawr College where she taught from 1938 to 1972. In 1975, she and Margaret Mead, a former classmate, were the first women to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Born on October 3, 1906 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, de Laguna was the daughter of Theodore Lopez de Leo de Laguna and Grace Mead Andrus, both philosophy professors at Bryn Mawr College. Often sick as a child, de Laguna was home-schooled by her parents until she was 9. She excelled as a student at Bryn Mawr College, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in politics and economics in 1927. She was awarded the college's prestigious European fellowship, which upon the suggestion of her parents, she deferred for a year to study anthropology at Columbia University under Boas. Her parents had recently attended a lecture given by Boas and felt that anthropology would unite her interests in the social sciences and her love for the outdoors.
After a year studying at Columbia with Boas, Gladys Reichard, and Ruth Benedict, de Laguna was still uncertain whether anthropology was the field for her. Nevertheless, she followed Boas's advice to spend her year abroad studying the connection between Eskimo and Paleolithic art, which would later became the topic of her dissertation. In the summer of 1928, she gained fieldwork experience under George Grant MacCurdy visiting prehistoric sites in England, France, and Spain. In Paris, she attended lectures on prehistoric art by Abbe Breuil and received guidance from Paul Rivet and Marcelin Boule. Engaged to an Englishman she had met at Columbia University, de Laguna decided to also enroll at the London School of Economics in case she needed to earn her degree there. She took a seminar with Bronislaw Malinowski, an experience she found unpleasant and disappointing.
It was de Laguna's visit to the National Museum in Copenhagen to examine the archaeological collections from Central Eskimo that became the turning point in her life. During her visit, she met Therkel Mathiassen who invited her to be his assistant on what would be the first scientific archaeological excavation in Greenland. She sailed off with him in June 1929, intending to return early in August. Instead, she decided to stay until October to finish the excavation with Mathiassen, now convinced that her future lay in anthropology. When she returned from Greenland she broke off her engagement with her fiancé, deciding that she would not able to both fully pursue a career in anthropology and be the sort of wife she felt he deserved. Her experiences in Greenland became the subject of her 1977 memoir, Voyage to Greenland: A Personal Initiation into Anthropology.
The following year, Kaj Birket-Smith, whom de Laguna had also met in Copenhagen, agreed to let her accompany him as his research assistant on his summer expedition to Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet. When Birket-Smith fell ill and was unable to go, de Laguna was determined to continue on with the trip. She convinced the University of Pennsylvania Museum to fund her trip to Alaska to survey potential excavation sites and took as her assistant her 20 year old brother, Wallace, who became a geologist. A close family, de Laguna's brother and mother would later accompany her on other research trips.
In 1931, the University of Pennsylvania Museum hired de Laguna to catalogue Eskimo collections. They again financed her work in Cook Inlet that year as well as the following year. In 1933, she earned her PhD from Columbia and led an archaeological and ethnological expedition of the Prince William Sound with Birket-Smith. They coauthored "The Eyak Indians of the Copper River Delta, Alaska," published in 1938. In 1935, de Laguna led an archaeological and geological reconnaissance of middle and lower Yukon Valley, traveling down the Tanana River. Several decades later, the 1935 trip contributed to two of her books: Travels Among the Dena, published in 1994, and Tales From the Dena, published in 1997.
In 1935 and 1936, de Laguna worked briefly as an Associate Soil Conservationist, surveying economic and social conditions on the Pima Indian Reservation in Arizona. She later returned to Arizona during the summers to conduct research and in 1941, led a summer archaeological field school under the sponsorship of Bryn Mawr College and the Museum of Northern Arizona.
By this time, de Laguna had already published several academic articles and was also the author of three fiction books. Published in 1930, The Thousand March: Adventures of an American Boy with the Garibaldi was her historical fiction book for juveniles. She also wrote two detective novels: The Arrow Points to Murder (1937) and Fog on the Mountain (1938). The Arrow Points to Murder is set in a museum based on her experiences at the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the American Museum of National History. Fog on the Mountain is set in Cook Inlet and draws upon de Laguna's experiences in Alaska. Both detective novels helped to finance her research.
De Laguna began her long career at Bryn Mawr College in 1938 when she was hired as a lecturer in the sociology department to teach the first ever anthropology course at the college. By 1950, she was chairman of the joint department of Sociology and Anthropology, and in 1967, the chairman of the newly independent Anthropology Department. She was also a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania (1947-1949; 1972-1976) and at the University of California, Berkeley (1959-1960; 1972-1973.)
During World War II, de Laguna took a leave of absence from Bryn Mawr College to serve in the naval reserve from 1942 to 1945. As a member of WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service), she taught naval history and codes and ciphers to women midshipmen at Smith College. She took great pride in her naval service and in her later years joined the local chapter of WAVES National, an organization for former and current members of WAVES.
In 1950, de Laguna returned to Alaska to work in the Northern Tlingit region. Her ethnological and archaeological study of the Tlingit Indians brought her back several more times throughout the 1950s and led to the publication of Under Mount Saint Elias in 1972. Her comprehensive three-volume monograph is still considered the authoritative work on the Yakutat Tlingit. In 1954, de Laguna turned her focus to the Atna Indians of Copper River, returning to the area in 1958, 1960, and 1968.
De Laguna retired from Bryn Mawr College in 1972 under the college's mandatory retirement policy. Although she suffered from many ailments in her later years including macular degeneration, she remained professionally active. Five decades after her first visit to Greenland, de Laguna returned to Upernavik in 1979 to conduct ethnographic investigations. In 1985, she finished editing George Thornton Emmons' unpublished manuscript The Tlingit Indians. A project she had begun in 1955, the book was finally published in 1991. In 1986, she served as a volunteer consultant archaeologist and ethnologist for the U. S. Forest Service in Alaska. In 1994, she took part in "More than Words . . ." Laura Bliss Spann's documentary on the last Eyak speaker, Maggie Smith Jones. By 2001, de Laguna was legally blind. Nevertheless, she continued working on several projects and established the Frederica de Laguna Northern Books Press to reprint out-of-print literature and publish new scholarly works on Arctic cultures.
Over her lifetime, de Laguna received several honors including her election into the National Academy Sciences in 1976, the Distinguished Service Award from AAA in 1986, and the Lucy Wharton Drexel Medal from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999. De Laguna's work, however, was respected by not only her colleagues but also by the people she studied. In 1996, the people of Yakutat honored de Laguna with a potlatch. Her return to Yakutat was filmed by Laura Bliss Spann in her documentary Reunion at Mt St. Elias: The Return of Frederica de Laguna to Yakutat.
At the age of 98, Frederica de Laguna passed away on October 6, 2004.
Sources Consulted
Darnell, Regna. "Frederica de Laguna (1906-2004)." American Anthropologist 107.3 (2005): 554-556.
de Laguna, Frederica. Voyage to Greenland: A Personal Initiation into Anthropology. New York: W.W. Norton Co, 1977.
McClellan, Catharine. "Frederica de Laguna and the Pleasures of Anthropology." American Ethnologist 16.4 (1989): 766-785.
Olson, Wallace M. "Obituary: Frederica de Laguna (1906-2004)." Arctic 58.1 (2005): 89-90.
Related Materials:
Although this collection contains a great deal of correspondence associated with her service as president of AAA, most of her presidential records can be found in American Anthropological Association Records 1917-1972. Also at the National Anthropological Archives are her transcripts of songs sung by Yakutat Tlingit recorded in 1952 and 1954 located in MS 7056 and her notes and drawings of Dorset culture materials in the National Museum of Canada located in MS 7265. The Human Studies Film Archive has a video oral history of de Laguna conducted by Norman Markel (SC-89.10.4).
Related collections can also be found in other repositories. The University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania holds materials related to work that de Laguna carried out for the museum from the 1930s to the 1960s. Materials relating to her fieldwork in Angoon and Yakutat can be found in the Rasmuson Library of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in the papers of Francis A. Riddell, a field assistant to de Laguna in the early 1950s. Original photographs taken in the field in Alaska were deposited in the Alaska State Library, Juneau. Both the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress and the American Philosophical Library have copies of her field recordings and notes. The American Museum of Natural History has materials related to her work editing George T. Emmons' manuscript. De Laguna's papers can also be found at the Bryn Mawr College Archives.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Frederica de Laguna.
Restrictions:
Some of the original field notes are restricted due to Frederica de Laguna's request to protect the privacy of those accused of witchcraft. The originals are restricted until 2030. Photocopies may be made with the names of the accused redacted.
Rights:
Contact repository for terms of use.
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Photographs documenting Native American Public Programs events, including images of Native American artists and examples of their work during demonstrations and lectures at the National Museum of Natural History. Photographs were mostly made by Smithsonian photographers, including Carl C. Hansen, Richard Strauss, Chip Clark, Laurie Minor-Penland, Eric Long, Alan Hart, Rick Vargas, Dane Penland, and Christina Taccone. Included are a large number of photographs of Don Tenoso (Hunkpapa), an artist-in-residence at the National Museum of Natural History, and performances by James Luna (Luiseno/Digueno), Guillermo Gomez-Pena (Chicano), and Coco Fusco. Crafts and arts depicted include beadwork, basket weaving, dollmaking, peyote fanmaking, weaving, hand games, quilting, clothing making, leatherwork, woodcarving, saddlemaking, sculpture, painting, story-telling, and performance art. There are also images of Dolores Lewis Garcia and Emma Lewis Garcia (daughters of Acoma potter Lucy M. Lewis) and their pottery, Joallyn Archambault with artists, and the 1990 American Indian Theater Company reception.
Other depicted artists include Maynard White Owl Lavadour (Cayuse/Nez Perce), Evangeline Talshaftewa (Hopi), Lisa Fritzler (Crow), Marian Hanssen, Vanessa Morgan (Kiowa/Pima), Marty Good Bear (Mandan/Hidatsa), Katie Henio and Sarah Adeky (Navajo), Geneva Lofton and Lee Dixon (Luiseno), Chris Devers (Luiseno), Mary Good Bear (Mandan), Robert and Alice Little Man (Kiowa), Lisa Watt (Seneca), Jay McGirt (Creek), Bill Crouse (Seneca), Kevin Johnny-John (Onondaga), Rose Anderson (Pomo), Francys Sherman and Margaret Hill (Mono), Thelene Albert and Annie Bourke (White Mountain Apache), Bob Tenequer (Laguna), Jimmy Abeyeta (Navajo), Lou Ann Reed (Acoma), Melissa Peterson (Makah), Jennifer and Kallie Keams Musial (Navajo), Joyce Growing Thunder-Fogarty and Juanita Fogarty (Assiniboine/Sioux), David Neel (Kwakiutal), Mervin Ringlero (Pima), Jhon Goes-In-Center (Oglala), D. Montour (Delaware/Mohawk), Rikki Francisco (Pima), Annie Antone (Papago), Angie Reano-Owen (Santo Domingo Pueblo), Carol Vigil (Jemez), Gregg Baurland (Miniconjou), Greg Colfax (Makah), Lydia Whirlwind-Soldier (Sicangu Dakota), Martin Red Bear (Oglala), Michael Rogers (Paiute), Alta Rogers (Yurok/Paiute), Dorothy Stanley (Miwok), Lisa Little Chief (Dakota), Tom Haukaas (Sicangu Dakota), Nora Navanjo-Morsie (Santa Clara Tewa), Seneca Women's Singing Society, Molly Blankenship and Martha Ross (Eastern Cherokee), Julia Parker (Miwok/Pomo), Candy and Claudia Cellicion (Zuni), Sally and Lorraine Black (Navajo), Carmen Quinto-Plunkett (Tlingit), Ina McNeil (Hunkpapa), and Ellen and Faye Quandelancy (Zuni), and Rikki Francisco (Pima).
Biographical/Historical note:
Native American Public Programs was founded in 1989 as a part of the Department of Education in the National Museum of Natural History. Under the directorship of Aleta Ringlero, its main activity was the arranging of demonstrations by Native American artists and craftsmen in the exhibition areas of the museum.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 91-26
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Audio of James Luna's lecture for the Native American Public Programs office held in National Anthropological Archives in MS 7514.
Dolls made by Don Tenoso for the Native American Public Programs office held in Department of Anthropology collections in accession 390905.
Additional photographs of Tenoso held in the Smithsonian Institution Archives in SIA2009-2222 and 90-13726.
Photo Lot 91-26, Native American Public Programs photograph collection relating to Native American artists and art, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
50 Stereographs (circa 50 printed stereographs, halftone and color halftone)
1,000 Stereographs (circa, albumen and silver gelatin (some tinted))
239 Prints (circa 239 mounted and unmounted prints, albumen (including cartes de visite, imperial cards, cabinet cards, and one tinted print) and silver gelatin (some modern copies))
96 Prints (Album :, silver gelatin)
21 Postcards (silver gelatin, collotype, color halftone, and halftone)
Photographs relating to Native Americans or frontier themes, including portraits, expedition photographs, landscapes, and other images of dwellings, transportation, totem poles, ceremonies, infants and children in cradleboards, camps and towns, hunting and fishing, wild west shows, food preparation, funeral customs, the US Army and army posts, cliff dwellings, and grave mounds and excavations. The collection also includes images of prisoners at Fort Marion in 1875, Sioux Indians involved in the Great Sioux Uprising in Minnesota, the Fort Laramie Peace Commission of 1868, Sitting Bull and his followers after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.
There are studio portraits of well-known Native Americans, including American Horse, Big Bow, Four Bears, Iron Bull, Ouray, Red Cloud, Red Dog, Red Shirt, Sitting Bull, Spotted Tail, Three Bears, and Two Guns White Calf. Depicted delegations include a Sauk and Fox meeting in Washington, DC, with Lewis V. Bogy and Charles E. Mix in 1867; Kiowas and Cheyennes at the White House in 1863; and Dakotas and Crows who visited President Warren G. Harding in 1921. Images of schools show Worcester Academy in Vinita, Oklahoma; Chilocco Indian School; Carlisle Indian Industrial School; Haskell Instittue, and Albuquerque Indian School.
Some photographs relate to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, 1876; World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893; Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, 1903; and Centennial Exposition of the Baltimore and Ohio Railraod, 1876. Expedition photographs show the Crook expedition of 1876, the Sanderson expedition to the Custer Battlefield in 1877, the Wheeler Survey of the 1870s, Powell's surveys of the Rocky Mountain region during the 1860s and 1870s, and the Hayden Surveys.
Outstanding single views include the party of Zuni group led to the sea by Frank Hamilton Cushing; Episcopal Church Rectory and School Building, Yankton Agency; Matilda Coxe Stevenson and a companion taking a photographs of a Zuni ceremony; John Moran sketching at Acoma; Ben H. Gurnsey's studio with Indian patrons; Quapaw Mission; baptism of a group of Paiutes at Coeur d'Alene Mission; court-martial commission involved in the trial of Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds, 1877; President Harding at Sitka, Alaska; Walter Hough at Hopi in 1902; and Mrs. Jesse Walter Fewkes at Hopi in 1897.
Biographical/Historical note:
George V. Allen was an attorney in Lawrence, Kansas and an early member of the National Stereoscope Association. Between the 1950s and 1980s, Allen made an extensive collection of photographs of the American West, mostly in stereographs, but also including cartes-de-visite and other styles of mounted prints, photogravures, lantern slides, autochromes, and glass negatives.
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Photographs collected by Willis G. Tilton, a dealer in artifacts and photographs relating to Native Americans. Many of the photographs were made by Field Columbian Museum photographer Charles Carpenter at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904; many others were created by various photographers for Field Museum publications. Notable subjects include Big Foot, dead in the snow at the Wounded Knee battlefield; Arapaho and Cheyenne social dances; Hopi ceremonies; a reenactment of the shooting of Sitting Bull; Sun Dances (Arapaho, Assiniboin, Gros Ventre, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Ponca); and views of the United States Indian School Building and Pawnee people at the the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri. Other photographs include portraits and images of artifacts, basket weaving, cradles, dress, dwelling, tipis and other dwellings, and tree burials. There are also some photographs of Henry Field's expedition to Iraq in 1934 (Field museum anthropological expedition to the Near East), work elephants in Burma, Pipestone Quarry in Minnesota, a church in the Yucatan, and a rickshaw and cart in Ceylon.
Biographical/Historical note:
Willis G. Tilton was a dealer and owner of the store, Tilton Indian Relics, in Topeka, Kansas.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 89-8, NAA Photo Lot 135
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Photographs in the Tilton Collection, previously filed in Photo Lot 135, have been relocated and merged with Photo Lot 89-8. These photographs were also purchased by the Bureau of American Ethnology from Willis G. Tilton and form part of this collection.
Associated photographs still held in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.
Most photographs included in the card catalog of copy negatives and in the reference file prints by tribe.
Additional photographs by Dorsey held in the National Anthropological Archives in MS 4721 and Photo Lot 24.
Correspondence from Dorsey held in the National Anthropological Archives in MS 4821, records of the Bureau of American Ethnology, the J.C. Pilling Papers, and the Ales Hrdlicka Papers.
Additional photographs by Nelson held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 171, Photo Lot 133, Photo Lot 24, and the BAE historical negatives.
Additional Maude photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 90-1 and Photo Lot 24.
Additional E. E. Hall photographs held in National Anthropological Archives MS 4978 and Photo Lot 24.
The Smithsonian Institution Archives holds Nelson's field reports (SIA Acc. 97-123) and the Edward William Nelson and Edward Alphonso Goldman Collection (SIA RU007364).
See others in:
Willis G. Tilton photograph collection of American Indians, circa 1880-1930 (bulk 1899-1904)
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Prints
Photographs
Cyanotypes
Date:
circa 1914
Scope and Contents note:
Photographs depicting Native American musical instruments in the Crosby Brown Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including Northwest Coast reed instruments and rattles.
Biographical/Historical note:
The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1884 by Mrs. John Crosby Brown. Originally 276 specimens, the collection grew to over 3500 by the publication of the Metropolitan Museum's catalog of the collection in 1914-1915.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 87-2K
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Five photographs previously filed in Photo Lot 24 have been relocated and merged with Photo Lot 87-2K. These are also Metropolitan Museum of Art photographs of the Crosby Brown Collection and form part of this collection.
Photo lot 87-2K, Metropolitan Museum of Art photographs of Native American musical instruments, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Indians of North America -- Northwest Coast of North America Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Drawings
Maps
Date:
undated
Scope and Contents:
Contents: Tlingit: (1) Sketch Map showing the Tuxekan Village. 1922. (Monuments worth preserving and worth transporting indicated in blue and red, respectively.) 22"x 36". (2) Tongass Island Village, diagram. April 29, 1922. 18" x 10 1/2". (3) Map showing the names of places in the vicinity of Kaduqguka ("Tongass Village") on "Port Tongass" base map of Coast & Geodetic Survey. Sites numbered, but no key present. 14" x 16". (4) Sketch map of Village Island, Tlingit, S. E. Alaska. 1922. Haida: (5) Kasaan Village, Position Sketch. (Missing in 1955, at time file was first examined and listed by MCB.) (6) Position sketch of Howkan, S. E. Alaska, Haida. (Kaigani). 1922. (Monuments worth preserving and worth removing indicated in blue and red, respectively.) 27" x 41". ,
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 2915
Local Note:
Numbers 1-4, 6 in map file. There are also unannotated Coast & Geodetic Charts used for reference only. 1 envelope. (Chart Numbers 8075, 8077, 8084, 8152.)
Topic:
Towns, villages and other settlements -- Tuxekan Village Search this
Names, place -- Tongass Village, vicinity of Search this
Indians of North America -- Northwest Coast of North America Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
ca. 1922
Scope and Contents:
On oversize mounts, as follows: Cape Fox village, 11" x 22"; Tuxekan village, 11" x 22"; Tongass, 11" x 28". See Bureau of American Ethnology Prints 1863 for major part of photographic collection, and see also file 2915 for field maps and drawings made on this trip, and file 2938 for manuscript on Tlingit geographic names.
Biographical / Historical:
Author's field work referred to in 41st Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology (Report for 1922), pages 49, 63.
Indians of North America -- Northwest Coast of North America Search this
Indians of North America -- Southern States Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Maps
Date:
undated
Scope and Contents:
Also includes Cherokee history notes; Journal of John Barnwell, Virginia; Miami words from French Traveler of 1804 (this is only a bibliographic reference to Volney-View The Climate and Soil of the U. S. 1804). Ball game (Alonzo de Zurita (Zorita, Corita, etc.), Madrid, 1909; reference to Cherokee map drawn on deerskin (British Museum); Note on Mondongachate (Moneton Indians ?); Creek customs (Travels in North America, in 1827-8 by Captain Basil Hall, R.N.); memorandum re. "double axe question" and specimens from Georgia and North Carolina from Allen Godbey, Durham, North Carolina (1936); Appamatoc sites at Bermuda Hundred and Swift Creek, noted by Charles Edgar Gilliam, Petersburg, Virginia; note on the Arkansas from Narrative of Douey, in Shea, Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi River; note on the Taensa villages, La Salle, etc., with excerpt from Tonti (Margry); excerpt from A Description of Carolana, by Col. Daniel Coxe (French Historical Collections, Louisiana, 1850, re. Arkansas Indians, and the Ouesperies; reference to Mississippi River tribes, from Tonti, in French Historical Collections, Louisiana, 1846.
A poem, in German, 17 stanzas, entitled "Makh-Piya-Luta" (Red Cloud), composed by a cousin of a friend named Alfred Klaking, once head draughtsman of Hydrographic Office. 2 pages. Letter from Andrew Lang, the author, dated February 6, (?), re. clans; mentions the Massim of New Guinea, the Tlingit, etc. (difficult to decipher). Excerpt from report ...of the Scots Society...who visited the Oneida and Mohekunuh Indians in 1796 (published in Collections Massachusetts Historical Society, 1st Series), re. plight of the educated Indian and his inability to adjust himself to either whites or to his own family and Indian environment. A map of "Environs du Fort D'Orleans", published by Missouri River Commission. (Pub. notice of "La Decouverte du Missouri et L'Histoire du Fort D'Orleans, by Baron Marc De Villers).
Indians of North America -- Great Basin Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Negatives
Copy prints
Place:
Yosemite National Park (Calif.)
Washington (D.C.)
Florida
Yellowstone National Park
Colorado
Date:
mid-19th - early 20th century
Scope and Contents note:
Copies of photogaphs selected from the George Eastman House collection by Bureau of American Ethnology archivist Margaret Blaker in 1962. Many of the photographs are individual or group portraits of American Indians and some highlight pottery, baskets, and cradleboards. There are also images of American Indian dwellings, including tipis and hogans; pueblos; dances; and an encampment during the Modoc War and Plains Indian prisoners at Fort Marion, Florida (1870s).
Expedition photos in the collection were made on T. O. Selfridgeʹs Darien Expedition (1870-1871), the Wheeler surveys (1871-1874), and the Hayden Geological Survey (1871). The collection also includes portraits of Frederick Douglass, Sitting Bull, and John A. Logan; and images from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show; Company F of New York's 140th Volunteer Infantry; and the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot R79
Reproduction Note:
Copy negatives made by George Eastman House, 1962.
Copy prints made by the Smithsonian, 1962-1963.
Location of Other Archival Materials:
The National Anthropological Archives holds vintage prints for many of the photographs copied in this collection, including in Photo lot 4501, Photo Lot 4605, and Photo Lot 90-1.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
The images were acquired for reference purposes and cannot be reproduced. Copies may be obtained from George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film.
Photograph albums prepared by the Bureau of American Ethnology or the photographic lab, possibly for reference purposes by staff. The use of such albums has been mentioned by BAE photographer De Lancey W. Gill. The albums contain photographs made from the Bureau of American Ethnology's collection of negatives, documenting Apache, Arapaho, Assiniboin, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Cocopa, Dakota, Flathead, Fox, Iowa, Kalispel, Kiowa Apache, Nez Perce, Omaha, Osage, Ponca, Santa Clara, Sauk, Shoshoni, Spokane Tonkawa, Wichita, and Winnebago people. The bulk of the photographs are studio portraits, made at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha in 1898 or during delegation visits to Washington, DC. There are also other photographs made during Victor Mindeleffʹs work in Chaco Canyon, and on W J McGeeʹs expedition to Sonora, Mexico, in 1900.
Photographers include Charles Milton Bell, William Dinwiddie, Alexander Gardner, De Lancey W. Gill, John K. Hillers, William Henry Jackson, Frank Albert Rinehart, Wells Moses Sawyer, Antonio Zeno Shindler, Victor or Cosmos Mindeleff, Julian Vannerson with Samuel A. Cohner. Included are negative numbers formerly used by BAE, but the National Anthropological Archives also annotated them with current negative numbers.
Arrangement note:
Titles of the albums are (1) Omaha and Winnebago; (2) miscellaneous; (3) Sauk and Fox; (4) miscellaneous; (5) Arapaho and Cheyenne; (6) Chiricahua, San Carlos, and Apache; (7) Sauk and Fox; (8) Osage, Shoshoni and Nez Perce, Siouan, Oto; (9) Santa Clara and Flathead; (10) Ponca; (11) Sauk and (12) Wichita and Kiowa Apache; (13) Cocopa; and (14) Assiniboin and Blackfoot
Biographical/Historical note:
The Bureau of American Ethnology was founded in 1879 in part as a result of the federal geological surveys and under the administration of the Smithsonian Institution. Under the directorship of John Wesley Powell (1879-1902), the BAE supported field research by its staff and collaborators, initiated several anthropological publications, and supported the growth of the anthropological discipline, particularly as it related to Native Americans. In addition to its research and publications program, it developed a manuscript repository, library, and an illustrations section that included (in addition to the preparation of artwork for publications) photography and a photographic collection. The BAE commissioned studio portraits of visiting Indian delegates and hired De Lancey Gill served as the its official photographer and illustrator from the 1890s to 1930.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 60
Location of Other Archival Materials:
The National Anthropological Archives also holds the Bureau of American Ethnology records and the BAE historical negatives, as well as Dinwiddie photographs of the W. J. McGee expeditions are held in (Photo Lot 89 and Photo Lot 144), Charles Milton Bell photographs (Photo Lot 80), and additional photographs by most photographers represented in this collection (Photo Lot 59 and Photo Lot 90-1)
See others in:
Bureau of American Ethnology photograph albums of Native Americans, 1858-1905
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Photo lot 60, Bureau of American Ethnology photograph albums of American Indians, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The collection consists of photographs relating to Native Americans, which were submitted to the copyright office of the Library of Congress in and around the early 20th century. Many of the photographs are studio portraits as well as photographs made as part of expeditions and railroad surveys. It includes images of people, dwellings and other structures, agriculture, arts and crafts, burials, ceremonies and dances, games, food preparation, transportation, and scenic views. Some of the photographs were posed to illustrate literary works, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Hiawatha, while others depict paintings or other artwork.
Collection is organized alphabetically by copyright claimant.
Biographical/Historical note:
The collection was formed from submissions made to the Library of Congress as part of the copyright registration process. In 1949, arrangements were made to allow the Bureau of American Ethnology to copy the collection and some negatives were made at that time, largely from the Heyn and Matzen photographs. The project was soon abandoned, however, as too large an undertaking for the facilities of the BAE. In 1957-1958, arrangements were begun by William C. Sturtevant of the BAE to transfer a set of the photographs from the Library of Congress to the BAE.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 59
Provenance:
In 1965, the Bureau merged with the Smithsonian's Department of Anthropology to form the Smithsonian Office of Anthropology, and in 1968 the Office of Anthropology Archives transformed into the National Anthropological Archives.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Photo Lot 59, Library of Congress Copyright Office photograph collection of Native Americans, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Images of United States National Museum anthropological exhibits at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, also called the St. Louis World's Fair. Images of the Department of Anthropology's exhibits include those of photographs and models of Mayan and Mesoamerican temples; antiquities from Mexico, Mesoamerica, and the West Indies; and American Indian, Mexican, and Mesoamerican sculptures, ceramics, tools, textiles, masks, and baskets. Photographs also document the Bureau of American Ethnology's exhibits, including "symbolic art," drawings and paintings on artifacts from tribes of the New Southwest, Plains, and Northwest Coast. The collection also includes a photograph of carved designs on a structure at Xochicales, possibly used in the exhibition or as part of its design.
Biographical/Historical note:
The National Museum's Department of Anthropology and the Bureau of American Ethnology exhibits at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition were highly integrated, and both were designed by then chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology and former head curator of the Department of Anthropology, William Henry Holmes. The exhibits were intended to illustrate "the culture of the Native American peoples as shown in their arts and industries." The exhibit featured examples of architecture, sculpture, ceramics, metal work, water craft, musical instruments, pipes, and ceremonial objects and included models of Aztec ruins based on plans by De Lancey W. Gill.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 82-31
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Papers, photographs, and records relating to exhibitions at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in MS 4689, MS 7571, MS 7208, Photo Lot 24, and Bureau of American Ethnology Letters Received 1888-1906.
The Smithsonian Institution Archives holds Exposition Records of the Smithsonian Institution and the United States National Museum, 1867-1940 (SIA RU000070) as well as photographs of the exhibits.
Additional photographs of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in Photo Lot 107, Photo Lot 89-8, and Photo Lot 90-1.
Photo lot 82-31, Photographs of Smithsonian anthropology exhibits at Louisiana Purchase Exposition, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The majority of the collection documents Northwest Coast scenery, people, and settlements; these include photographs made by Franz Boas during US Fish Commission expeditions on the USS Albatross, as well as engravings made for publications on Northwest Coast Natives by Franz Boas and Albert Parker Niblack. Another large portion of the collection consists of reference prints relating to Native Americans, Ainu people and Japan, Polynesia, the Philippines, Bonin Islands, and Peru. Many of these were copied from the central negative file of the National Museum of Natural History as well as other museums. There are also photographs, many by C. H. Townsend, made during the Fish Commission expeditions to Puerto Rico on the USS Fish Hawk and some taken by N. B. Mills during an expedition that traveled on the USS Albatross to Baja California and the Galapagos Islands.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 82, NAA Photo Lot 83
Location of Other Archival Materials:
The National Anthropological Archives also holds Niblack's notes concerning Northwest Coast Indians, circa 1885-1889 (MS 4513), additional photographs by Romyn Hitchcock of Ainu (Photo Lot 77-38), additional C. H. Townsend photographs (in Photo Lot 24), original Matilda Coxe Stevenson photographs (Photo Lot 23), and original negatives made by Niblack (in BAE historical negatives).
The United States Fish Commission Records are held by the Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
The American Philosophical Society holds the Franz Boas papers.
Albert Parker Niblack's papers are held by J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, and William Henry Smith Memorial Library, Indiana Historical Society.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Photo lots 82 and 83, Collection of photographs relating to the Northwest Coast and American Indians, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution