Includes copy in George Gibbs' handwriting of C. R. Lepsius phonetic alphabet.
Collection Restrictions:
The James O. Dorsey Papers are open for research. Access to the James O. Dorsey Papers requires an appointment
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Manuscript 4800 James O. Dorsey papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Creation of this finding aid was funded through support from the Arcadia Fund.
Digitization and preparation of additional materials for online access has been funded also by the National Science Foundation under BCS Grant No. 1561167 and the Recovering Voices initiative at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
Indians of North America -- California Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Field notes
Vocabulary
Date:
1907-circa 1914, 1946-circa 1957
Scope and Contents:
This subseries of the Southern California/Basin series contains John P. Harrington's research on Mohave.
Harrington organized his early linguistic and ethnographic notes into more than eighty categories, covering a broad spectrum of Mohave culture from daily practices to mythological and religious beliefs. The variety of content and order of arrangement are encyclopedic. Most of the material is original data from numerous native speakers. Animal and plant notes are also filed in this section. Notes on these topics stem from the Mohave Valley Expedition made with Henderson and Robbins. A typescript of Henderson's report precedes the botanical notes and one by Robbins precedes the zoological notes.
The semantic slipfile consists of data from the original field notes rewritten on slips and arranged in thirteen semantic divisions. Some new information provided by Irving and Wagner was inserted. Material relative to other Yuman tribes is included and almost all categories contain some inextricably interwoven Chemehuevi data which were originally provided by Chemehuevi speakers Jack Jones, John Pete, William Johnson, and Patty Smith. In most instances, the Chemehuevi equivalences are clearly marked. Information on kinship is relatively substantial.
Two Mohave notebooks are also present. One contains vocabulary and texts credited to "Mr. Edgar, Needles, Cal." The other is a packet of loose pages evidently removed from a notebook covering random linguistic and ethnographic data.
Another section consists of a small set of grammar notes arranged under such headings as language, phonology, and morphology. Some notes apparently were taken as early as 1907 and were transferred to slips in 1910 and 1911.
The section of miscellaneous notes on Yuman languages contains Yuma, Cocopa, and Walapai field notebooks. They are principally ethnographic and are difficult to read. Unrelated small groups of notes include Mohave, Yuma, Maricopa, Havasupai, and Walapai ethnographic data, probably provided by Joe Homer. There are lecture notes and students' papers probably from one of the courses which Harrington gave at the University of Colorado. Three small groups of slips include a list of Yuman clan names and a series of excerpts from a Yuman notebook which has not been located. The third is a copy of some Yavapai terms supplied by Barbara Freire-Marreco.
Late linguistic and ethnographic notes contain what appears to be the first draft of a manuscript on Mohave culture. Such subjects as sociology, religion and mythology, physical and mental characteristics, the Mohave universe, warfare, and design are covered. A variety of notes on historical events and on the geographic, political, and economic life of the Needles area was compiled from published sources and correspondence with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and with Indian Agency superintendents. The focus is on Mohave with some general Yuman references. The material has evidently undergone several reorganizations and notes from informants of the earlier period are interfiled. New linguistic and ethnographic information was supplied principally by Hal Davidson, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Lewis, and Russell. Comparative terms appear in Yuma, Maricopa, Chemehuevi, and Paiute. Kroeber apparently lent Harrington some of his personal manuscripts, and information from this source is introduced as "Kr. notes." Correspondence with Charles Battye and excerpts from his scrapbooks in the possession of the Needles Public Library are also contained among these notes.
Another section consists of notes and drafts on material culture. They are arranged alphabetically and predominantly ethnographic. Notes came from the earlier period and such 1946 informants as Davidson and the Lewises. George Turner contributed numerous placenames.
The subseries also contains notes and drafts of tribenames. They represent an attempt to identify ethnic names applied to Yuman and some neighboring non-Yuman tribes. Some of the Mohave names may have been given by bilingual Chemehuevi speakers in July 1946, when Harrington and Murl Emery traveled the Colorado River-Mohave Valley area. A brief typescript follows the notes.
The section of semantically arranged notes consists of small amounts of data on minerals, pigments, fire, plants, animals, hunting, food, and medicine.
The section of late grammatical notes is also small. The notes originated mainly from Russell, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, and Warren McCord. He based some hearings on Kroeber's (1911) "Phonetic Elements of the Mohave Language" and Sapir's (1930) "Southern Paiute Language." He also drew on A. M. Halpern's (1946 and 1947) six monographs on Yuma grammar published in the International Journal of American Linguistics. In the mid-1950s he again turned to Halpern and produced a small section of comparative Yuman terms.
The final section of the subseries consists of miscellaneus notes, including drafts of a paper on Mohave history and culture and another on the Kuchan vocabulary of George H. Thomas.
Biographical / Historical:
As a teacher of modern languages at Santa Ana High School in California (1906-1909), John P. Harrington spent his vacations studying Mohave and Yuma in Needles and Yuma, California. Working with a young Mohave woman in Needles in 1907, Mohave was the first Indian language that he ever recorded.
From 1909 until 1915, when he joined the Bureau of American Ethnology, Harrington held various positions with the Museum of the University of New Mexico and the School of American Archaeology, based mainly in Santa Fe. Along with work in other indigenous languages and cultures, he pursued his Mohave studies in Lincolnia, Cottonia, Needles, and Fort Mohave. The focus was on Mohave with ethnographic references to Yuma, Maricopa, Cocopa, Havasupai, and Walapai.
Under the auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology, the School of American Archaeology, and the University of Colorado, he was ethnologist for a Mohave Valley expedition undertaken in March and April 1911, in conjunction with Junius Henderson and W. W. Robbins. Henderson identified the botanical life of the Mohave Valley and Robbins the zoological.
According to field notes and reports, the years 1910 and 1911 were the most productive ones for this first period of accumulation of Mohave data. Harrington worked with a number of people who spoke Mohave and Chemehuevi, resulting in numerous comparative references. Among the many Mohave speakers, Lee Irving (abbreviated L. I.), Mr. Edgar (Rev. Edgar), Ferd Wagner (Mr. Ferd), and Peter Dean (Peter) contributed substantially. Harrington primarily worked with Wagner in 1907. Edward H. Davis accompanied him on various placename trips and apparently advised him on the collection of artifacts. Financial records indicate that he spent about six weeks in Needles in late spring, 1914, collecting objects for the Panama-California Exposition.
A second period of endeavor commenced in 1946 with new recordings from Hal Davidson (Hal), Mr. and Mrs. Henry Lewis, George Turner, and Russell. Returning from the field to Washington, D.C., in 1947, Harrington compiled a variety of notes on historical events and interfiled some of his earlier material. The physical arrangement indicates an interest in drafting a paper on Mohave culture, more ethnographic than linguistic.
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.
This subseries is part of the Notes and writings on special linguistic studies series in the John P. Harrington papers. His research on non-American languages are gathered here in an alphabetically arranged file. His notes cover African languages, Ainu, Anglo-Saxon, Aramaic, Bulgarian, Burushaski, Chinese, Danish, English, French, Gaelic, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indic languages, Indo-European languages, Italian, Kurdish, Latin, Lithuanian, Persian, Polish, Russian, Semitic languages, Siamese, Slavic languages, Tagalog, Tamil, Tungus, Turkish, Ural-Altaic languages, Welsh, and Yiddish.The records contain a wide variety of materials, derived largely from secondary sources. There are bibliographic references, library request slips, and reading notes, as well as photostats and some printed matter. Also included are vocabulary lists, phonetic tables, texts, charts of linguistic relationships, notes from interviews, and copies of related correspondence. For the most part notes for any given language are scanty (from one to ten pages) and highly miscellaneous. His notes on Aramaic and Persian, however, are somewhat more organized and considerably more substantial, comprising several hundred pages each. Notes, largely on phonetics, that he obtained from his research at the New York Public Library and Columbia University account for a sizeable percentage of this subseries.
Biographical / Historical:
By far the major focus of John P. Harrington's linguistic studies was the numerous languages of North, Central, and South America. Over the course of his career, however, he amassed perhaps several thousand pages on other world languages.
Harrington studied classical and Indo-European languages at Stanford University from 1902 to 1905 and during his graduate work in Germany from 1905 to 1907. In the early years after his return to the United States he made a study on "The Frequency of French Sounds" and did comparisons between vowel sounds in French, Italian, Portuguese, and English.
Harrington's interest in many world languages was renewed in the early 1920s when he became friends with Paul Vogenitz, a translator in the Division of Foreign Mails at the Post Office Department. Vogenitz, a student mainly of European languages, urged Harrington to attend the language classes which he took from time to time. Although Harrington was not in a position to do this, the two men corresponded frequently in German, Spanish, Russian, and Nahuatl among other languages. Vogenitz also shared much of his knowledge with Harrington by preparing grammatical exercises, word lists, and phonetic summaries. Among the languages for which he provided this type of information are Ainu, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, and Yiddish.
From February through April 1923, Harrington corresponded with T. T. Waterman regarding the latter's plan to prepare a map of the linguistic families of the world. Probably because of their proposed collaboration, Harrington made a trip to New York City in March. On this occasion he made use of secondary sources at the New York Public Library and Columbia University.
As a result of Harrington's interest in Arabic influences on the Spanish spoken in the American southwest, he began his study of Persian in 1928 in "an attempt toward transliterating into an international phonetic script the Calcutta version of the quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyam."
During the 1930s Harrington collaborated with Moses Steinberg and George M. Lamsa in the translation and reinterpretation of various religious texts in Aramaic, such as the Talmud and the Gospels.
Harrington also collected data on a wide variety of languages from approximately 1940 to 1947 while he was at work on a treatise titled "Linguistics." At this time he added material to his files on Latin, Greek, and the Celtic, eastern European, and Indic languages.
Local Numbers:
Accession #1976-95
Restrictions:
No restrictions on access.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
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.
This subseries of the Notes and writings on special linguistic studies series contains contains Harrington's research on the Arabic origins of Spanish words.
The major part of this series consists of an extensive dictionary of New Mexican and California Spanish terms with suggested Arabic etymologies. The data for this file were collected through a combination of correspondence and interviews and were compiled between 1927 and 1930. At the end of the dictionary is a separate file in a similar format covering tribal names, geographic names, and family names. His two major linguistic informants were Edward Cata and Lucrecia Garcia. The dictionary also includes large blocks of information from botanist Paul C. Standley of the National Herbarium as well as contributions from Truman Michelson, Paul Vogenitz, Mr. Blackburn, Major E. A. Goldman, Mr. P. G. Redington, and a few others.
Records relating to Moroccan Arabic pertain to the field trip which Mrs. Leonora S. Curtin and Miss Leonora F. Curtin made to Morocco in the spring and summer of 1931. These materials include notes which Harrington made in March 1931 prior to the Curtins's trip, miscellaneous notes and sketches collected by the Curtins during their travels (including names and addresses of potential informants in the United States), and two pages of notes on phonetics which L. F. Curtin wrote in September after their return. The bulk of the files consists of an alphabetically arranged "looseleaf" file of some 300 Spanish words of Arabic origin. Prior to the Curtins's trip, Harrington typed each entry onto a blank sheet of paper. He usually provided the classical Egyptian, Syrian, or Arabic forms and added specific questions regarding the use of the word in Morocco. Some of these entries are immediately followed by handwritten suggestions of objects to collect or photographs to take; these were possibly added by James Hovey who acted as Harrington's field assistant from March to July 1931. The Curtins added their notes to the pages. A few sketches are interfiled. At some unspecified time after the Curtins's return, Harrington evidently met with them to examine their field data and to listen to wax cylinder recordings which they had made. He appended his notes of discussions with Leonora F. Curtin to many of the loose leaf sheets and also prepared twenty-seven separate pages of general observations from his conversations with both women.
Other materials in the subseries include data that Harrington collected from a number of speakers of Syrian Arabic in 1943; notes and drafts for his papers, including a manuscript on Moroccan ethnobotany; and extracts from a number of secondary sources on Spanish which were compiled between 1940 and 1947 for use as questionnaires with Harrington's Arabic informants. Harrington's files also contain several miscellaneous items relating to the study of Arabic. There is a flier for a lecture series given by Edgar L. Hewett at the San Diego Museum in 1927 and a poster for a lecture given at Oxford University in 1931. Also included are two issues of the Federation Herald from 1943. The April 1 issue features a front page article by Lucy Embury, "Arabs' Gift to Uncle Sam: Relics of Moors in California." The May 8 issue contains a request by Harrington for West Syrian informants.
Biographical / Historical:
During several phases of his career John P. Harrington investigated the Arabic origin of words in the Spanish dialects of the American Southwest and California. Over a period of twenty years (from 1927 to 1947) he collaborated with numerous individuals throughout the United States and in Europe and Africa and even had access to data collected by associates on a fieldtrip to Morocco. This study resulted in the creation of a Spanish-Arabic dictionary and related notes, files on Moroccan ethnobotany, and drafts of five papers, none of which reached publication.
In each of the drafts of his early writings on Arabic, Harrington cited factors which contributed to his interest in this field of study. In his first paper, drafted in 1927, he claimed that it was his friend Edgar L. Hewett's "enthusiasm for and frequent visits to Morocco that first drew [his] attention to the study of Moorish words in New Mexican Spanish." In a related article, Harrington stated that he had begun compiling an ethnological dictionary of New Mexican Spanish "in connection with and imitation of a similar work . . . on the California dialect of Spanish" which he had assembled a number of years before. In a third manuscript, dated 1928, he credited Barbara Freire-Marreco with sparking his interest in the study as early as 1909 during their joint work on Tewa.
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.
This subseries of the Notes and writings on special linguistic studies series contains materials resulting from Harrington's efforts to develop a phonetic alphabet for writing all languages.
There are four main groupings of notes relating to phonetics. A large set of uncategorized notes has been arranged in chronological order from 1910 through the 1950s. Most of the material dates from the period 1910 to 1915 and from 1921 to 1928; there are smaller amounts of data for the following three decades. The notes present alternate phonetic systems--sometimes referred to as "sonoscript"--in chart form with accompanying explanations of the rationale behind each proposed alphabet. There are also sample words and sentences written out phonetically. The notes from 1910 include a draft of a letter from Harrington to his mother and those from 1912 contain three large poster-sized charts. A second set of notes is arranged alphabetically by topic and includes subsections on alphabetic order, length, letters practical in handwriting, and pitch accent. A relatively large file labeled "phon[etic] letter forms" consists of various handwritten and typed letters as well as cut-and-pasted examples of letters from printed sources. There is also a clipping dated 1922 regarding an advocate of Esperanto with Harrington's own proposals for word forms in that language. In addition, the files contain a copy of an I.P.A. questionnaire and Harrington's comments on it. A third section of material consists of the notes which Harrington made during or immediately following interviews with about twenty linguists and anthropologists, among them Leonard Bloomfield, Alfred L. Kroeber, Robert H. Lowie, Edward Sapir, Morris Swadesh (misspelled "Schwadesh"), Ruth Underhill, Carl F. Voegelin, T. T. Waterman, and B.A.E. colleagues Hewitt, Michelson, and Swanton. Not all of the notes are dated; those which are clearly labeled cover discussions from the 1920s to the 1940s. The last grouping, compiled around 1923 to 1926, contains brief notes on various alphabets. The alphabetically arranged files cover the proposed systems of Arden, Forchhammer, Jespersen, Murray, Olbrechts, Pierce, Powell, and Rouse.
This subseries also contains drafts for four papers by Harrington on phonetics as well as a brief one-page draft description of a "Seminar in General Phonetics" which Harrington was planning to offer at the University of Southern California in 1935 or 1936.
Biographical / Historical:
One aspect of the study of linguistics of special interest to John P. Harrington was the development of a practical phonetic alphabet for writing all languages. It was an effort to which he devoted a great amount of time from 1910 to 1915, from 1922 to 1928, and again intermittently in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.
In 1912 Harrington drafted comments on a proposal for an international conference to devise a universal phonetic system, and on a sample questionnaire which was mailed to many linguists by the International Phonetic Association (I.P.A.). It is unclear whether or not he actually submitted them to the I.P.A.
Also in that year he was chosen to serve on a committee ofthe American Anthropological Association to "prepare a scheme of phonetic representation which [would] have the official sanction" of the organization. Fellow committee members were Franz Boas (chair), Edward Sapir, Alfred L. Kroeber, and Earl Pliny Goddard.
Although later notes indicate that he consulted a number of language specialists, it appears that most of Harrington's efforts at devising a workable alphabet were undertaken alone or with only the cooperation of his friend Paul Vogenitz.
In the mid-1930s he was invited to teach a seminar on "General Phonetics" at the University of Southern California. While correspondence with Dr. Frank C. Touton, vice president of the university, suggests that Harrington contemplated offering the course at various times between the spring of 1935 and the summer of 1936, this plan was abandoned because of more pressing interests. He did touch on phonetics during his course on language at the University of Washington during the summer of 1910
At various points in his career Harrington wrote preliminary descriptions of the phonetic system he favored at that time. None of the early drafts appeared in print and as late as the 1940s, while writing the treatise "Linguistics," Harrington was undecided whether to publish his system or "die keeping it hidden."
Local Numbers:
Accession #1976-95
Restrictions:
No restrictions on access.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
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.
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Field notes
Dictionaries
Vocabulary
Manuscripts
Narratives
Date:
1909-circa 1944
Scope and Contents:
This subseries of the Southwest series contains Harrington's Taos research. The materials consist of field notes, grammatical and semantic slipfile, grammar, dictionary, linguistic notes, ethnographic and historical notes, and texts.
Among his field notes are slips prepared for semantic arrangement (former B.A.E. MS 2309 and 2290pt.). Many of the terms were used in the draft of an unpublished grammar, with some orthographic variations. The use of "q" for "kw" suggests an early date, possibly 1909-1910 . An early vocabulary is comprised of Harrington's comparative Taos terms used in his article "Notes on the Piro Language" (1909a).
From former B.A.E. manuscripts 2290pt., 2292pt., and 2296 come several categories of miscellaneous field notes. Included are a vocabulary elicited in 1910, typed and annotated notes which collate much of the information written on slips, and miscellaneous slips some dated 1920, some probably earlier-which contain brief Picuris comparisons. Data encompass placenames, tribenames, ethnogeographic terms, and some grammatical elaborations.
Another group of field notes appears to be Taos with Isleta comparisons. This is a tentative identification still subject to the scrutiny of linguists, who are not presently in complete agreement. The physical condition and type of paper used indicate that these notes may have been recorded during the period 1909 to 1911.
A set of slips, formerly cataloged as B.A.E. MS 2318 and 2295pt., fills four boxes. Field notes and reports suggest that this comprehensive body of material may have been accumulated, annotated, and rearranged over a period of time ranging from 1909 to 1928. The largest section of the file was arranged by Harrington according to grammatical categories and is especially substantial on verb and pronoun usage. Another group of slips is semantically arranged; some phonetic, ethnographic, and historical material is interjected.
The grammar section includes tabulations in English of pronoun prefix material which give an excellent indication of Harrington's methodology for accumulating slipfiles. Taos slips deal with pronoun usage, verb paradigms, and sentence structure. These are early notes, probably dating from 1909 to 1911. Mondragon was the principal source of information. The section also includes three drafts of manuscripts on Taos grammar, only of which one was published. "Ambiguity in the Taos Personal Pronoun" (1916) (former B.A.E. MS 2293pt. and 4682pt.) was condensed from another draft of an unpublished, more comprehensive grammar (former B.A.E. MS 4682pt.). A draft of a paper on numerals is filed with some of the original field notes from which it evolved (former B.A.E. MS 4681). Another major subsection consists of a draft of over 500 typed pages of a comprehensive grammar by Carobeth Laird, Harrington's wife at the time. The manuscript (former B.A.E. MS 2307 and 4680), titled "Grammatical Analysis of the Taos Language," is dated 1920. The fieldwork for the paper was done in Taos during July and August of 1918 with Taos speakers Lujan and Mondragon. A partial and preliminary draft and notes reveal some annotations by Harrington, who also was in Taos at the same time working with the same speakers.
This subseries also contains Harrington's Taos dictionary. The Taos-English section is in alphabetical order according to the first sound of the base. Although the English-Taos section gives the English word first, it follows the alphabetical order of the Taos term according to Harrington's list of initial symbols. Some entries in the dictionary are followed by the notes from which they evolved. There is also a file of Taos bird names, apparently intended for incorporation into the dictionary, as well as a small group of plant names. These also are in Taos-English and English-Taos. Filed with this material is a list of the scientific names for Taos birds; annotations were supplied by Florence Merriam Bailey and Vernon Bailey. (See "Studying the Mission Indians of California and the Taos of New Mexico" [1929].)
Harrington's linguistic notes (former B.A.E. MS 2292pt. and 2295pt.) include grammar, vocabulary, and textual material, apparently accumulated in July and August of 1918 from his work with Lujan and Mondragon. At least a portion of the material was collected with the assistance of his wife Carobeth, and a number of pages are in her hand. The pagination evidently underwent several reorganizations and is therefore somewhat chaotic. His other notes consist of comments on George L. Trager's "The Kinship and Status Terms of the Tiwa Languages" (1943) and on Elsie Clews Parsons' Taos Pueblo (1936). Relationship terms, age and sex nouns, personal names, rank nouns, and tribenames are mentioned.
Among his ethnographic and historical notes is his unfinished manuscript, "The Taos Indians" (former B.A.E. MS 3073). He relied heavily on Matilda Coxe Stevenson's field notes for his manuscript; her contribution is mainly ethnographic while a few pages are the work of her husband, James. Taos speaker Tony Romero is the source for the clan names. Harrington also incorporated his notes from 1908, 1909, 1911, 1918, and 1919. For historical data, Harrington relied on published sources, especially early Spanish documents for which he supplied original translations and throughout which some Picuris history is interwoven. The bibliographic information for the historical sources is interspersed throughout the notes.
There are also notes and excerpts from Blanche C. Grant's publications and miscellaneous notes on dances (former B.A.E. MS 2292pt.). A few random ethnographic notes on slips are written in English.
Contained in a series of texts are stories of Wolf and Deer and two versions of the Lord's Prayer with grammatical notes. Also included is the Tanoan linguistic diagram (former B.A.E. MS 2292 pt.) used in Harrington's "An Introductory Paper on the Tiwa Language, Dialect of Taos, New Mexico" (191 Oc). Jose Lopez and Santiago Mirabel provided the Taos terms used in this publication.
Biographical / Historical:
The first indication of John P. Harrington's work among the Taos Indians comes from his financial records of September 20, 1909, to January 15, 1910, when he was based in Santa Fe and doing fieldwork in various languages of the Southwest. Peak periods of in-depth work on Taos, sometimes in the field and sometimes in Washington, D.C., appear to be 1909-1911, 1918-1922, 1926-1930, and 1944-1945. He worked primarily with Joe Lujan (abbreviated "L.") and Manuel Mondragon ("M."), with Mondragon helping from 1910 to 1927. There are references to a trip which Harrington made with Margaret Tschirgi and F. E. Betts to the ruins east of Taos on September 30, 1928, but there are no further explanatory notes.
Mutual professional respect had arisen between Harrington and Matilda Coxe Stevenson of the Bureau of American Ethnology, at whose ranch he spent six weeks in the autumn of 1908. He was in possession of a large body of her original notes on south western Indians at the time of her death in 1915 and planned to arrange, annotate, and publish them. Her material on Taos appears in an unpublished historical and ethnographic manuscript titled "The Taos Indians."
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.
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Field notes
Dictionaries
Manuscripts
Narratives
Vocabulary
Date:
1908-circa 1949
Scope and Contents:
This subseries of the Southwest series contains Harrington's Tewa research. The files include field notes, vocabulary, linguistic and ethnographic notes, a dictionary, records of rehearings, texts, writings, and miscellanous notes.
His field notebooks contain grammar, vocabulary, placenames, names of persons, relationship terms, and material culture; texts concerning Qwiqumat, other myths, and ethnohistory of early Southwest tribes, pueblos, clans, and religion; copies of the San Ildefonso census; and other miscellaneous ethnographic information.
The vocabulary section of the Tewa files include a group of slips identified as Rio Grande vocabulary with some Santa Clara terms specified as such. There is a wide variety of terms, and animal and plant vocabularies were marked by Harrington "A" and "P" respectively (former B.A.E. MS 4678pt.) with some linguistic insertions. The information was collected during the early period. There is also a small file of Spanish loanwords in Tewa that Harrington copied from Eduardo Cata's material.
His linguistic and ethnographic notes contain a few pages each of over twenty topics such as dances, estufas (kivas), pottery, societies, religion, superstitions, Tewa trails, and Tewa origins (former B.A.E. MS 4704pt.). Barbara Freire-Marreco collaborated in the accumulation of some of the material, most of which came from the many informants who contributed to the early notes. Some linguistic material is interspersed. There is a handwritten copy of the Nambe census of 1911, a description and rough sketches of the Black Mesa of San Ildefonso, and several references to Jemez, Spanish Cochiti, Spanish Hopi, Taos, Zuni, and Sia.
A collection of linguistic and ethnographic terms remains in slipfile form (former B.A.E. MS 4704pt.). Some are in various Tewa dialects such as Nambe, San Ildefonso, San Juan, and Santa Clara. A few Taos comparisons are included. The largest group is related to animal parts and animal activities. Ethnographic information includes such topics as snakes, estufas, officers and government, plants, pottery, shrines, and societies. A small group is credited to Barbara Freire-Marreco.
The dictionary (former B.A.E. MS. 4704pt.) was arranged by Cata in June 1927 from his field notes taken during the early period. Part is in alphabetic order, part is devoted to adjectives provided by Julian Martinez, and part covers adverbs from Santiago Naranjo. A second group is also arranged in alphabetic order but no sources are identified. Some related nonlexical and bibliographical material is interspersed.
There are also materials from rehearings Harrington conducted with Santiago Naranjo in 1911, Eduardo Cata in 1927, and David Dozier and "O" in 1948-1949. Harrington and Cata developed a linguistic treatment of notes based on an unpublished dissertation on New Mexico Spanish by Aurelio H. Espinosa. Together they reworked geographic terms from Harrington's "The Ethnogeography of the Tewa Indians." Other miscellaneous rehearings with Cata were more grammatically oriented. Dozier and "O" provided substantial material on San Juan/Hano comparisons, although some of the notes may have been accumulated during a February 1946 visit to Albuquerque, where Harrington interviewed Mr. Shupla, a Hano speaker. This meeting may have resulted also in his proposed article "Hano . . . Same Word as Tano."
In the text section are three myths given by Juan Gonzales on September 1, 2, and 3, 1908 at the camp near the Stone Lions, rendered in Tewa and English with some linguistic notes. Also in both languages is an Ignacio Aguilar story recorded on September 23, 1909. Some stories probably obtained between 1908 and 1909 are in English only. Not all are complete and the continuity of some is broken due to repetitive material and interspersed corrections. There are two short Nambe myths. Eduardo Cata supplied thirteen texts in addition to the three published in 1947. These are in Tewa, most with either interlinear or parallel English translations. Harrington used pencils of different colors to insert orthographic corrections and later annotations. Whether the texts were obtained in 1927 when Cata was in Washington or during the 1940s is uncertain.
Harrington's writing files contain notes and drafts for his unpublished and published writings. There are substantial notes accumulated for "A Brief Description of the Tewa Language" (1910) (former B.A.E. MS 4704pt.). Harrington's notes contain more extensive phonetic and morphological information than the final publication. Notes probably recorded in 1910 for "Ethnogeography" and "Ethnobotany" are intermixed and largely disorganized, although substantial in number (former B.A.E. MS 4704pt.). Additional information and some relevant correspondence for "Ethnogeography" is included (former B.A.E. mss. 3801 and 4704pt.), as well as some notes Harrington excerpted in 1946 from this publication. Drafts and notes for "Three Tewa Texts" include insertions of additional information provided by David Dozier and "O." There are also five sets of drafts for proposed articles. "Ablaut in the Tewa Language of New Mexico" (1912) is an elaboration of the phonetic material used in "A Brief Description of the Tewa Language." "Some Aspects of Tewa Indian Placenames" was written in 1920. Undated are "Hano, Indian Pueblo of Arizona, the Same Word as Tano" (former B.A.E. MS 4521pt.), "Santa Fe at Northern Edge of Tano Country," and "The Tewa Pueblos."
Among the writing files are also materials relating to "Phonetics of the Tewa Language," submitted or sold by Eduardo Cata to the B.A.E. (former MS 4704pt.). The title page, bill of sale, and notes in Harrington's handwriting, and some possibly in Cata's are on file. Informants Mr. and Mrs. "O" also contributed information. There are also two unpublished articles on Tewa tones that Harrington co-authored with David Dozier--"Tewa Tones" and "The 3 Tone Accents and the 1 Non-tone Accent of Tewa."
Also in this subseries are miscellaneous notes, mainly from the early period. Some of the information came from Ignacio Aguilar. There is a small selection of Jemez, Ute, and Taos equivalences. Also included are a diagram of Tewa color symbolism (former B.A.E. ms. 1790), a reproduction of a San Juan Pueblo religious painting, and a very short bibliography.
Biographical / Historical:
John P. Harrington's study of the Tewa languages began in July 1908 under the auspices of the School of American Archaeology (S.A.A.) in Santa Fe, and his interest in the Tewa Indians continued into the late 1940s. Accumulation and organization of notes fall generally into three time frames. The early period can be dated between 1908 and 1916 when Harrington worked first for the Museum of New Mexico as assistant curator, then for Edgar Lee Hewett of the S.A.A., and, from December 1914, as ethnologist for the Bureau of American Ethnology. Six of his publications are based on the notes from this period. In October 1910 he spent several weeks on a tour of Tewa country securing placenames from large numbers of informants. The principal informants for the entire early period are Ignacio Aguilar and Santiago Naranjo (also called "Jim").
Dating from a middle period in 1927, Harrington worked closely with Eduardo Cata in Washington. Cata was described by Harrington as an educated San Juan Tewa Indian. With the exception of one short period (from February to July 1946), Harrington was in Washington from early 1942 until April 1949. During this third period he published "Three Tewa Texts" (1947) based on stories from Cata. The texts may have been received from Cata during the middle period, but the notes represent a rehearing in the 1940s with David Dozier and an informant identified only as "0." Harrington knew David Dozier's father and in May 1944, he wrote self-introductory letters to the son, a fluent speaker of the Santa Clara dialect, who was then in the Indian Service. Harrington also reworked and reorganized much of his grammatical information during these years in Washington. Notes indicate that he may have planned to publish a Tewa grammar.
Other Tewa speakers that Harrington worked with include Bert Fredericks, Manuel Vigil, Bernardo Sanchez, Joe Horner, Desiderio Naranjo, and Alfredo Montoya.
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.
This subseries of the Northeast/Southeast series contains Harrington's Mahican/Stockbridge research. The materials consist of comparative vocabulary, comparative grammar, comparative linguistic notes, and writings.
The vocabulary is arranged according to numerous semantic categories designated by Harrington. The basic source is Truman Michelson's Stockbridge Manuscript 2734, information from which was reheard with Mahican speakers, and compared with secondary sources and with Abenaki material rewritten or removed from his own field notes. Harrington interfiled Menominee information secured later in Washington from Al Dodge. The "Persons" category is quite rich in biographical information. Webb Miller apparently identified for Harrington the subjects of some of his old photographs, although the prints were not found with the notes. There are two pages taken from an old family record listing the names Pye, Bennett, Moon, and Turkey, the dates ranging from 1845 to 1865. Harrington evidently began another (possibly later) semantic organization of the Michelson notes. Other secondary sources used as a basis for comparison are Brinton and Anthony (1888), James Trumbull's Natick Dictionary (1903), and Frederic Baraga's A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language (1853).
A set of grammatical notes is also based on MS 2734 but it is not as well developed as the vocabulary material. Only a few notes deal with phonetics. There is more information on verbs and numerals than on any other morphological category.
The comparative linguistic notes are from Harrington's two 1949 interviews with Bernice Robinson Huntington and encompass vocabulary, grammar, ethnography, ethnohistory, and some miscellaneous information on Stockbridge persons, including something of her own background. One group is arranged alphabetically by main entry in Mahican, with Delaware, St. Francis Abenaki, Natick, Ojibwa, and Cree equivalences (if any) placed immediately following the related Mahican term. The unmarked main entries are apparently Huntington's original terms; those in ink marked Brinton and Anthony are from their 1888 dictionary; the pencil notes are St. Francis Abenaki obtained in the field and are identified by informant "codes" Am. (Alfred Miller), Den. (George Dennis); Watso (John Watso); (Oliver Obomsawin). The significance of the numbered divider pages was not documented. Another group designated "B2" probably refers to the fall rehearing with Bernice Huntington and is confined chiefly to St. Francis Abenaki and Menominee equivalences. Some new information from Huntington, especially changes in orthography, may have been interfiled. A third group contains Huntington's comments on Mathew S. Henry's Vocabulary. ... It represents an attempt to organize Henry's material according to a semantically arranged vocabulary and a brief grammar touching on phonetics and morphology. Harrington crossed out St. Francis Abnaki comparisons and, according to a field note, copied them for use elsewhere. He also incorporated some of Huntington's (B2) terms.
This subseries also contains a draft and notes relating to his unpublished manuscript, "Seven Mahican Texts Recorded by Truman Michelson". Harrington excerpted the texts verbatim from the Michelson MS 2734, including Michelson's interlinear Mahican translations and free English versions. The draft contains a short vocabulary culled from the texts which Harrington arranged semantically. He provided some Mahican historical background and explained certain orthographic changes made to update Michelson's spelling and to facilitate pronunciation. An eighth text in English only was given to Michelson by Sterling Peters. There is informative bibliographical material both in the body of the draft and in the separate section devoted to this category.
Biographical / Historical:
The first evidence of John P. Harrington's interest in studying the Mahican language surfaced in January 1930 correspondence. (At this time, he used the names Mahican and Mohegan interchangeably.) In September 1930 he tried to interest Bernard Hoffmann of Santa Barbara, California, to fund a Wisconsin field trip in a search for Stockbridge vocabulary, legends, songs, placenames, tribenames, history, etc. He hoped to find native speakers who could rehear terms from early manuscripts and publications.
Between 1930 and 1949, Harrington secured copies of or made reading notes from some of these manuscripts, most of which are clearly identified in the field notes. The most exhaustively reheard and reorganized body of material consists of terms and text copied from the Stockbridge linguistic notes and texts recorded by Truman Michelson in 1914 (B.A.E. MS 2734). Harrington's notes and correspondence reveal a diligent search for those informants of Michelson who might still be living in the Stockbridge, Wisconsin, area in the hope that they would be willing to work with him.
In 1949, Harrington arrived at the Stockbridge Reservation on April 16 and remained there until April 23. Mr. Arvid E. Miller drove him around the area and introduced him to numerous other Millers, most of whom supplied linguistic and ethnohistoric information. His first introduction to Bernice Metoxen Robinson Huntington (sometimes erroneously spelled Robertson) took place at this time. In 1914, at the age of about thirty-seven, she had been one of Michelson's informants. She had also worked with Frank T. Siebert,Jr., in 1935 and 1936. She was a black adopted by the Mahicans with whom she lived from earliest childhood; she learned Menominee in school. Harrington's first meeting with her was unsuccessful, the second more cordial and fruitful, and about the last week of October 1949, on a subsequent trip to Wisconsin, he was able to hear and rehear with her a substantial amount of Mahican linguistics. He found another excellent informant in Webb Miller. Most of the notes are of a comparative nature, particularly comparisons with the two Abenaki dialects and with Delaware. This fell into place rather easily as Harrington was in various cities of Maine, in Quebec, and in Albany, N.Y., between April 24 and October 24 taking notes from St. Francis and Penobscot Abenaki speakers. He extracted Delaware terms from Daniel G. Brinton and Albert S. Anthony's A Lenape-English Dictionary (1888), and from the unpublished manuscript of Mathew S. Henry, Vocabulary of Words in Various Indian Dialects of the United States (ca. 1861). In November and December while traveling between New York and Washington for other reasons, he carried most of these notes with him and began the work of sorting and rearranging, which continued on and off in Washington at least until 1952. Other equivalent terms are in Menominee and were supplied by interviews in Washington with Al Dodge, an employee of the Interior Department. Ojibwa and Pequot terms are mainly from secondary sources.
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.
This subseries of the Northeast/Southeast series contains Harrington's Cherokee research. The material on hand is principally ethnographic and historical and, except for Bachrach's trip into Mexico, is based on numerous secondary sources, most of which were only briefly consulted. Generally, these sources are clearly identified in the notes. Information from the 1945 interview with Gritts is scattered throughout the material. The minimal linguistic content has as its main source James Mooney's Myths of the Cherokee (1900). Etymologies of several persons' names and placenames were initiated but not seriously developed. There is a photostat of Sequoyah's syllabary obtained from a manuscript in the National Archives.
The vocabulary is arranged one term to a page and probably extracted from Mooney (1900), absolute identification being in doubt due to the fact that he did not include Mooney's orthographic symbols for pronunciation in Cherokee. The material was neither annotated nor reheard. A brief, numbered vocabulary from either Ben or Long contains some equivalences from Mooney (1900).
A partial preliminary draft with notes for "Sequoyah's Cherokee Alphabet" may represent an initial collaboration with Morrison in 1938 and 1939. Small amounts of data on Cherokee phonetics and a limited linguistic treatment of the names of Sequoyah's family are included. The little information he was able to acquire from Edna Hogman was later interfiled. Background information is provided on other Indian and non-Indian syllabaries.
Notes, correspondence, and newspaper clippings refer to the Harrington/Bachrach grave exploration in January 1939. Bachrach was accompanied by Baron Craeger who wrote the Tulsa World articles; E. V. Schrimscher (Shimsa), a part-Cherokee who claimed to be a cousin of Will Rogers; and George McCoy, a Cherokee fluent in the language. A digest of their trip into Mexico is in Harrington's handwriting. There are general notes on the life of Sequoyah. Information taken from Gritts was later inserted. Included are a copy of a photograph of Narcissa Owen (1896) and of her painting of Sequoyah. A third section contains reading notes from such sources as old newspapers and periodicals, B.A.E. scrapbooks, and the manuscripts of John Alexander (1839 -1840) and John Howard Payne (1835) (photocopy and typescript are filed in the N.A.A.). A number of excerpts are from the Cherokee Advocate and Cherokee Phoenix. Extensive notes were made by Mrs. Evelyn Danner in the Library of Congress in April 1939. Brief data on tobacco among the Cherokee and its Carib origins and usage stress Carib rather than Cherokee information.
There are scattered and unrelated linguistic, nonlinguistic, and ethnographic notes and correspondence for 1938 and 1939.A photocopy of a 1936 newspaper clipping concerns Houston B. Teehee (Di-hi-hi or "Killer"), a Cherokee who was Register of the Treasury in Wilson's administration. Another group is labeled "Cherokee Plcns. Della Brunstetter house interview" and contains North Carolina Cherokee terms.
Biographical / Historical:
John P. Harrington's interest in Cherokee centers mainly around the life of Sequoyah, a search for his grave and his Cherokee syllabary. The earliest dated references stem from a brief collaboration with Gouverneur Morrison, author and reporter, who apparently worked as Harrington's research assistant in May and June of 1938, and with whom he maintained contact at least into early 1939. In January 1939, Harrington began funding a search for Sequoyah's grave in Mexico, possibly with his own money. Harrington researched the project in Washington and his collaborator, Harry Bachrach, worked in the field. The two men had a contract with The Tulsa Daily World for exclusive rights to the story. The grave was never discovered but the Tulsa World found enough copy for a four-installment article printed between January 27 and 30, 1939.
Levi B. Gritts was interviewed in 1945. Gritts was a Cherokee school teacher and fluent speaker of his native language. He provided both linguistic and nonlinguistic information.
Other informants briefly mentioned are Edna Hogman (or Hogner, spelling uncertain), a Cherokee employee of the Office of Indian Affairs, and "Ben" and his friend Allen W. Long. It is unclear which of the latter two men was actually the informant. A Norman Adams of Washington, D.C., may have been involved in the Sequoyah grave effort, but in what capacity is not documented.
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
Genre/Form:
Field notes
Manuscripts
Vocabulary
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.
This subseries of the Mexico/Central America/South America series contains Harrington's Quiche research. The materials consist of linguistic notes, documents from the files of William Gates, grammar, records relating to the "Popul Vuh," and miscellaneous notes.
The linguistic notes contains material elicited from Cipriano Alvaredo. The contents include Quiche (Q.) vocabulary as well as phrases and short texts, including a Quiche poem. Some terms were evidently elicited as a rehearing of Cakchiquel words (labeled "Cak.") excerpted from Brinton's published version of the "Annals of Cakchiquel" and lexical items extracted from Brasseur de Bourbourg's version of the "Popul Vuh." There is extensive commentary on the phonetics of the language, much of which makes reference to kymograph tracings (abbreviated "Tr.;" see "Documents from the Files of William Gates," Items 1 and 2), to the alphabet pronounced into the pallophotophone, and to vowels pronounced for the motion picture footage. Many notes deal with regressive assimilation and diphthongs. Pages 21 to 24 contain notes in the hand of William Gates and sheets 58 and 59 provide a summary by him of the work which he undertook with Harrington and Alvaredo. Also included are a few miscellaneous notes on early English and the science of language. A portion of the notes, dated December 24, 1922 and labeled "Esselen," may be a rehearing of the Esselen vocabulary compiled and published by A. L. Kroeber. It is not clear whether Harrington was utilizing this source merely as an aid to elicitation or for comparative purposes.
The files of William Gates is comprised of numbered documents based on the work which Gates undertook with Harrington and Alvaredo. Each subsection is preceded by an index card drafted by Gates. Section 1, consisting of twelve pages of kymographic tracings of Quiche words, is followed by 210 pages of photostatic copies of mounted tracings, which are arranged in book form. These are followed by India ink copies of the tracings. Part 3 contains field notes recorded by Harrington; some of these notes duplicate material filed under "Linguistic Notes." Section 4 is a bound checklist (nineteen pages) by Gates of kymographic cylinders made at Auburn Hill. Section 5 is a bound typescript (220 pages) of Vocabulario de lengua quiche, by Domingo Basseta. Gates recorded commentary which he obtained from Alvaredo in the margins in pencil. He recorded any annotations provided by Harrington in ink and labeled them "JPH." A related typescript, labeled as item 6, presents Harrington's transcription of the Basseta vocabulary. There is no item number 7. Section 8 is a five-page typed carbon of an article by Gates titled "Modern Linguistic Apparatus." It includes a discussion of the work undertaken with Harrington and Alvaredo using the kymograph and the pallophotophone. Additional notes on the second device are filed as item 9. Also in Gates' hand is a "list of words for study of accent," classified as item 10. Sections 11 and 12 consist of correspondence. The first concerns work with Alvaredo on the kymograph and the pallophotophone. The second contains letters exchanged between Alvaredo and Gates in Quiche, Spanish, and English. The final numbered section, part 13, includes photographs and a newspaper article from the Washington Star, January 1923. Also from Gates' files are several unnumbered items: a letter to Harrington from E. B. Allen regarding a plan to publish Maya material; notes on phonetics, presumably taken from a notebook by Gates, and interleaved with heading sheets by Harrington; and a brochure on the Gates Collection which was to be put up for sale in New York.
Grammatical notes on the Quiche language are arranged in four sections. The first part consists of a draft of a grammar under the heading "Quiche Grammar and Restored Popul Yuh Text wIth Translation." Material on hand includes notes and an outline for the proposed paper, interspersed with slips from Harrington's early fieldwork. Topics covered encompass phonetics, interjections, verbs, numerals, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions. A great deal of data were excerpted from the works of Brasseur de Bourbourg (abbreviated "Bras.") and Basseta, as well as from the Diccionario cakchiquel-espanol (abbreviated "Cak-dict."), compiled by Carmelo Saenz de Santa Maria. A second rough draft for a grammar of Quiche comprises the second section. A typed manuscript of 421 pages (former B.A.E. ms. 4781) titled "Quiche Grammar" was submitted to the bureau on March 25, 1948. Although it was prepared for publication as B.A.E. Bulletin 167, it was never released by the editor's office. This version of the grammar consists of textual descriptions and illustrative examples covering phonetics and morphology. A selection from the first part of the "Popul Vuh" is appended at the end of the grammar. Interlinear translations and notes accompany the native text. The two remaining sections of grammatical material consist of slipfiles, which Harrington compiled during the course of his fieldwork in 1922. The first set of slips, labeled "Quiche appendix -not yet put into typewriting," was to be the source of the semantic vocabulary for the first draft of the grammar. The second group, termed by Harrington "Rejects 1947 & Jan. 1948," constitutes the residue of his files after he had removed all slips which he intended to use in the body of his grammar or the appendix.
Harrington considered the "Popul Vuh" to be "the most remarkable manuscript survival . . . from ancient times in all the Maya area." The records he accumulated which relate to this literary work are of several types. The first is a file of a 491-page transcription of the text as dictated by Cipriano Alvaredo in December 1922. It contains occasional interlinear translations in a mixture of Spanish and English with some annotations on orthography. A second set of notes consists of copies of the text which Harrington and his associate John T. Linkins made from January to March in 1948. Quiche, French, and Spanish versions of the text are interfiled: they continue only through chapter five. The Quiche text and French translation were extracted from Brasseur de Bourbourg and the two Spanish translations and some additional notes from Adrian Recinos and Villacorta and Rodas. Related documents include commentary from Brasseur de Bourbourg and Villacorta and Rodas which was not incorporated into the previous file. There are also miscellaneous notes on various secondary sources.
The remaining material in this subseries include a typed vocabulary from an unidentified written source, excerpts from Aleman's Quiche grammar, and notes on a meeting which Harrington had with William Gates on September 13, 1935.
Biographical / Historical:
For approximately eighteen days from late November to mid-December 1922, Harrington interviewed Cipriano Alvaredo (abbreviated "Cip."), a native of Guatemala. This study was undertaken with the close cooperation of William Gates, founder of The Maya Society, at his home in Charlottesville, Virginia. Gates had brought the "peasant farmer" to the United States the preceding July and prepared for their joint sessions by reviewing Domingo Basseta's Vocabulario de lengua quiche with Alvaredo shortly before Harrington's arrival.
Together they reexamined the dictionary, word by word with Harrington recording Alvaredo's commentary in phonetic script. Alvaredo then dictated the entire "Popul Vuh" (P.V.), a Quiche text which deals with the mythology and historical traditions of the ancient Maya tribe. They also recorded some seventy pages of another native text, the "Annals of Cakchiquel." In addition, some grammatical work was undertaken based on Brasseur de Bourbourg's Grammaire de la langue quichee.
Four days were spent making phonetic tracings on the Rousselot kymograph, which Harrington had brought with him. Under the direction of Professor Charles A. Hoxie of the General Electric Company, pitch studies were made using the pallophotophone, an instrument which records vibrations on film. A series of motion pictures was also taken.
Harrington had intermittent plans to return to his early study of Quiche. In 1937 and 1938 he proposed that Edgar L. Hewett publish a new edition of the "Popul Vuh" text to be coauthored by himself and Robert W. Young. In 1943, 1944, and 1947 he corresponded with Dr. Henry McComas, brother-in-law of William Gates; Edward Brown Allen; and M. Wells Jakeman of Brigham Young University regarding publication of the text, this time in mimeograph format. None of these proposals resulted in the preparation of a new manuscript. It appears that all publication plans were abandoned for lack of funds.
Indians of Central America -- Guatemala Search this
Genre/Form:
Field notes
Vocabulary
Dictionaries
Folklore
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.
This collection is comprised of the professional papers of linguistic anthropologist Geoffrey O'Grady. Included are research materials consisting of field notes and notebooks, correspondence, published and unpublished writings, annotated copies of other scholars' work, photographs, and sound recordings.
The materials in this collection document O'Grady's career as a linguistic scholar from his days as a jackaroo in the Australian outback to his time at the University of Victoria. The majority of the collection is made up of field research, which contains detailed vocabularies and linguistic analysis for aboriginal peoples of Australia and First Nation communities of Canada. O'Grady's sound recordings represent his work with the Arizona Tewa language among the Hopi as well as various Australian aboriginal languages; they supplement the Field Research series.
Arrangement:
The O'Grady collection is arranged into 7 series: (1) Field Research; (2) Writings; (3) Professional Activities; (4) Correspondence; (5) Writings by Others; (6) Photographs; (7) Sound recordings.
Biographical/Historical note:
Anthropological linguist Geoffrey N. O'Grady was born on January 1, 1928 in southern Australia. He first became interested in languages in high school when he took classes in Latin, German, Russian, and Hungarian. O'Grady became immersed in Australian aboriginal languages during his six years as a jackaroo on a sheep station at Wallal Downs in the Australian Outback. There he spent time with aboriginal peoples and was adopted into the Nyangumarta tribe where he learned to speak their language.
O'Grady was offered a research assistantship at the University of Sydney in 1956. This allowed him to take field research trips into the Outback where he recorded various indigenous languages. During this time he undertook a project to alphabetize the Nyangumarta language. As a result, a literacy program and a Nyangumarta newspaper, which is still published, were established.
In 1960, after completing his BA at the University of Sydney, O'Grady received a Fulbright Scholarship to attend Indiana University. During three summers at Indiana, he travelled to Arizona to conduct field research in Hopi Tewa. After he completed his PhD he accepted a position at the University of Alberta, Edmonton in 1963. While at the University of Alberta he began to study northern Canadian First Nations languages. In 1965 he moved on to the Linguistics Department at the University of Victoria, where he began to study indigenous languages on Vancouver Island and taught courses on phonetics and historical sound change. When O'Grady retired from the University of Victoria in 1993, the Australian National University honored him with a Festschrift entitled "Boundary Rider."
Geoffrey O' Grady passed away on December 28, 2008 after a long struggle with Parkinson's.
Sources Consulted
2009. Geoffrey O'Grady Obituary. Victoria Times Colonist. January 3. http://web.uvic.ca/ling/information/index.htm, accessed April 4, 2012.
John Esling. 2009. In Memoriam: Dr. Geoffrey N. O'Grady. http://ring.uvic.ca/people/memoriam-dr-geoffrey-n-o%E2%80%99grady, accessed April 4, 2012.
1928 -- Born January 1
1956 -- Accepted research assistantship at the University of Sydney and began undergraduate studies
1957 -- Married wife Alix
1959 -- Received BA from the University of Sydney
1960 -- Fulbright scholarship at Indiana University where he finished his PhD
1960-1963 -- Summer field studies of Hopi Tewa in Arizona
1963 -- Completed dissertation on grammar of Nyangumarta under the supervision of C.F. and F.M. Voegelin
1963 -- Began work at University of Alberta, Edmonton
1965 -- Joined the Linguistics Department at University of Victoria in BC Canada
1966 -- Project to outline the relationships among all of the Aboriginal languages of Australia
1993 -- Retired from University of Victoria
2008 -- Died December 28
Related Materials:
For more of O'Grady's language material from Western Australia and sound recordings from his fieldwork among the aborigines in the 1950s and 1960s, consult the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) located in Lawson Cres, Canberra ACT, Australia.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by O'Grady's wife Alix O'Grady.
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Social Security numbers are present and have been rendered unreadable and redacted. Researchers may use the photocopies in the collection.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Mergenthaler Linotype Company Records, 1886-1997, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Social Security numbers are present and have been rendered unreadable and redacted. Researchers may use the photocopies in the collection.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Mergenthaler Linotype Company Records, 1886-1997, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Video oral history of anthropologist Mary Haas conducted by anthropologist Norman Markel. Dr. Haas discusses the people and events that influenced her career including Edward Sapir, Franz Boas, and Alfred Kroeber. Video also features conversations about the evolution of the field of linguistics from the time of Edward Sapir to the present.
Legacy Keywords: Bluberg, Peter ; Boas, Franz, 1858-1942 ; Kroeber, A. L. 1876-1960 (Alfred Louis), ; White, Leslie Alvin ; Zimmer, Karl ; Linguistics comparative pholology ; Universities University of Chicago ; Universities University of California-Berkeley ; Universities Cornell University ; Alphabets Americanist phonetic writing ; Alphabets International Phonetic Alphabet ; Linguistic phonemic theory ; Linguistic American Phological Society ; Special Collections ; Canada Ontario Ottawa
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1989.10.1
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Video Dialogues in Anthropology, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The collection documents S. Colum Gilfillan, a charter member of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) in 1958 and his SHOT correspondence, particularly with Melvin Kranzberg.
Scope and Contents note:
The collection includes Gilfillan's correspondence during 1951-1978 and a number of papers written by him and (in some cases) published or delivered to professional societies; the dates of the papers range from 1921 to 1972. Gilfillan was a charter member of the Society for the History of Technology in 1958. His SHOT correspondence, particularly with Melvin Kranzberg, concerning several articles by Gilfillan published in SHOT's journal "Technology and Culture" constitutes a segment of the correspondence, 1957-1978. Gilfillan had made an unsuccessful attempt to organize a similar group, the Society for the Social Study of Invention in 1947. Some of the draft documents for this society are included.
Much of the correspondence concerns the ideas incorporated in Gilfillan's major work, Sociology of Invention (1935) and the Supplement to it published in 1971. Gilfillan's letters to others are complicated by his use of his own method of spelling using contractions of words and phonetic techniques to increase the number of words per page.
Also included in the collection are three "shoeboxes" of 3" x 5" cards filed alphabetically by author, representing a bibliography of writings on inventions and inventors. These cards, numbering several thousand, represent Gilfillan's research notes on his reading in his area of professional interest. Unfortunately their use is made difficult by Gilfillan's unique spelling system and the scrawled handwriting used on many of them.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into three series.
Serties 1: Correspondence, 1951-1978
Series 2: Major Papers and Projects, 1921-1978
Series 3: Invention Authors and Bibliographic Notes, undated undated
Biographical/Historical note:
Seabury Colum Gilfillan was born (1889) in St. Paul, Minnesota and was graduated (AB in Social Science) from the University of Pennsylvania (1910). He served in the U.S. Army (1917 1919) and received master and doctorate degrees in sociology from Columbia University (1920). He was acting assistant professor and associate professor of social science at the University of the South (1921 1924). He was curator of transportation and social science at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago (1929 1930) and assistant professor of social science, Purdue University (1937 1938). In 1940 he was a lecturer at Northwestern University and in 1941 1950 a research associate at the University of Chicago.
Gilfillan worked as an investigator for the President's Research Committee on Social Trends, 1930 1932 and for the Natural Resources Committee, 1936. He was a charter member of the Society for the History of Technology and a member of the Sociology Association and the Eugenics Society.
Provenance:
Donated by S. Colum Gilfillan to Wesley C. Williams, curator, History of Science and Technology Collection, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio in November 1971. Melvin Kranzberg, formerly of Case Western Reserve, transferred it to the National Museum of American History where it was received by Archives Center May 20, 1992.
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Computer disks are currently restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Robert Rankin papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
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Collection Citation:
Robert Rankin papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation.
Digitization and preparation of sound recordings for online access has been funded through generous support from the Arcadia Fund.
