Indians of North America -- California Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Field notes
Maps
Manuscripts
Vocabulary
Place:
California -- History
California -- Discovery and exploration
Date:
1941,1947
Scope and Contents:
This subseries of the Northern and Central California series contains Harrington's research on Southern Pomo and Central Sierra Miwok, focusing on Sir Francis Drake's landfall near Point Reyes in northern California.
Harrington's investigation into the location of the landing included obtaining data on tribenames and placenames in Coast Miwok territory. As a guide for elicitation from his lingusitic sources, he utilized terms listed by C. Hart Merriam (1907) and probably some additional materials from the Merriam Papers at the Library of Congress. In Harrington's notes, typed and handwritten extracts from Merriam are followed by comments from William Fuller. There is one page of placenames from Manuel C. Cordova as well as several comments of a nonlinguistic nature from Francis Elmore.
The bulk of the field notes for Central Sierra Miwok and southern Pomo consists of a rough draft and typed copy of an article on Drake's landing. The final manuscript is titled "Drake on the Coast of Northern California." Both versions take the form of a "Drake questionnaire." Using linguistic and ethnographic analysis with both the Miwok and Pomo speakers, Harrington considered separately the brief vocabularies recorded in the early accounts and the various ethnological features mentioned in descriptions of the landing and of Drake's crowning. His examination of specific cultural elements, added to the archeological evidence of the "plate of brass" left by the expedition, led him to concur with Heizer's conclusion that Drake had landed at the spot currently known as "Drake's Bay." In secret, however, he inclined toward the opinion that the "Golden Hinde" had perhaps entered the nearby Limantour Estero instead. Analysis of the linguistic evidence caused him to identify the recorded words and songs as coming from the Hukkuykku' (Marin) dialect of Coast Miwok. Included with the article is a bibliography arranged in both alphabetical and chronological order. Harrington's article was never published.
Within this subseries is a U. S. Department of Interior Geological Survey map of Point Reyes Quadrangle, California. It is annotated by Harrington with several references to various individuals not mentioned in the field notes. Included are brief comments on geographical features in the area surrounding Drake's Bay.
Also filed in the subseries is a single page of notes made during a discussion by Harrington and Truedson regarding the brass plate. These comments were written down during the return trip from Harrington's Aleutian work aboard the ferry "Dellwood" on December 30, 1941. Also included are the names and addresses of two Coast Miwok speakers, presumably obtained at the time of his interviews with Fuller and Cordova.
Biographical / Historical:
The appearance in March 1947 of Robert Heizer's article "Francis Drake and the California Indians, 1579," prompted John P. Harrington to conduct his own research into the circumstances surrounding Drake's landfall near Point Reyes in northern California. He made a fairly exhaustive search into the two early accounts of the voyage as well as later assessments of it.
In mid-May of 1947, the arrival of several representatives from Indians of California, Inc., gave Harrington an occasion to interview Manuel C. Cordova, a Southern Pomo. He also conferred with Alfred C. Gillis, a member of that organization's advisory committee.
Around June 18 a former acquaintance, Francis Elmore, arrived in town. Aware of Elmore's specialized knowledge in Navajo ethnobotany, Harrington queried him regarding all botanical references in the early accounts of Drake's landing.
Sometime after May 23 and prior to July 7, Harrington also spoke with a small delegation of Indians from northern California who were pursuing a claim against the federal government. Members of this group included Judge Fred A. Baker; Bertha Stewart, a Smith River Indian; and William Fuller, a Tuolumne chief who had served as informant to L. S. Freeland ("Nancy" de Angulo) some twenty years previous, and to Charlie Kemp in 1936.
During this general period Harrington consulted with Matthew W. Stirling, chief of the B.A.E., regarding the matter of Drake's landing. Stirling had made studies of Pomo sociology during the years he studied under Kroeber at the University of California; for a brief mention of this work, see Loeb (1926).
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 material that supplement Harrington's Northern and Central California field notes. There are materials on Wiyot/Yurok/Mattole; Nisenan/Northern Sierra Miwok; Southern Pomo/Central Sierra Miwok; Plains Miwok; Karok/Shasta/Konomihu; Chimariko/Hupa; Wailaki; Achomawi/Atsugewi/Wintu/Yana; Yana/Achomawi/Wintu/Chimariko; Costanoan; Esselen; Salinan; and Yokuts. The files include notes Harrington collected from the field, covering linguistic, botanical, biographical, geographical, and ethnographic topics; notes from rehearings; notes and drafts from his papers; notes on his travels and activities; and notes from secondary sources, including field notes from Alfred Kroeber and other colleagues and notes on Sir Francis Drake's travels in California. Some of his botanical notes include scientific identifications and comments by botanist C. V. Morton of the National Herbarium. The Karok section contains labels for Karok baskets housed in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution's Department of Anthropology.
There are also some general and miscellaneous materials, notes relating to collections of artifacts, notes relating to mission records, notes from conversations, notes from secondary sources, and notes and writings collected from others. Miscellaneous material includes lists of possible informants for a number of California languages, bibliographic references, notes on boats, a list of captions for Harrington's paper "Chainfern and Maidenhair, Adornment Materials of Northwestern California Basketry," a tracing of a map labeled "Plano de la Mision San Jose, 1824," additional references to that mission, and a text. The papers contain references to the Hupa, Maidu, and Yurok tribes. Notes on artifacts pertain to collections held by others, including the George Heye collection of artifacts for the Modoc, Klamath, Pomo, Tolowa, Hupa, and Yurok tribes. Notes from conversations includes interviews with Cora DuBois, C. Hart Merriam, Carl F. Voegelin, and T.T. Waterman. Notes from his meeting with Dr. J.W. Hudson are the most extensive. The last file in the subseries consists of notes from a meeting with Ruth Underhill on January 10, 1941, and a notebook which Harrington evidently obtained from her at that time. The notebook contains class notes from a course on Maidu which Underhill had taken at Columbia University in 1932 with Hans Jorgen Uldall. Included are information on phonetics and grammar and a number of texts.
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.
