Grito del sol quarterly books : Chicano, Indo-Hispano and Mexican-American literature Year 4, book 2, 1979 Six Cane = Iniknaui xiuitl, ometlamantli amoxtli, Çikoze Akatl selected writings by Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano ; editor, Octavio I. Romano-V., Ph. D
This subseries of the Notes and writings on special linguistic studies series contains material that supplement Harrington's Mexico, Central America, and South America field notes.
The Pima/Papago/Seri/Opata section contains a partial page torn from one of the notebooks recording the placename trip which Harrington made through southern California, Arizona, and Mexico in the spring of 1930. Also filed here are a letter of recommendation by Guadalupe Flores on March 11, 1934, and a brief note from a telephone conversation with Ruth Underhill on April 2, 1948.
The earliest item relating to Nahuatl is a draft of a review of the book The Song of Quetzalcoatl, a translation of the Aztec poem by John H. Cornyn. There is also a card with a brief untranslated text. The reverse side of the card shows a standard form devised by William Gates. Other materials include a brief list of addresses of informants and collaborators in Harrington's Nahuatl fieldwork, a note on the native name of Mexico City, reading notes from Cyrus Thomas's Indian Languages of Mexico and Central America (1911), a three-page typed statement with two pages on Aztec phrases and one page on Aztec numbers, and a miscellaneous group of grammatical and bibliographic references.
For Cakchiquel there is one page with a bibliographic reference and two lexical items.
Material on Yucatec consists of linguistic notes from Castulo Ucan, data on the Maya counting system and glyphs, and bibliographic references. There are also a review of Book II of the Florentine Codex labeled "finished Apr. 7, 1952" and page one of a third version of a review of S. G. Morley's book The Ancient Maya.
The Cuna file contains a permission slip and a one-page typed draft of "Foreign Elements in the Language of the Tule Indians." There is also a copy of the Service's Daily Science News Bulletin for December 17, 1924, which includes a two-page story titled "White Indian Language Has Many Norse Words." These brief announcements are related to the miscellaneous notes which were compiled by Harrington and Paul Vogenitz to demonstrate the affinity of Cuna with the Scandinavian languages.
Harrington's files on South American languages contain small blocks of data pertaining to Arawak, Carib, Jivaro, and Quechua. They begin with miscellaneous notes from secondary sources on the areas where Arawak and Carib were spoken. Material on Jivaro consists of about eighty pages of vocabulary which was obtained in 1944 from Seaman H. G. Eamigh. There are also two pages of excerpts from Ghinassi's Jibaro vocabulary. Material relating to Quechua includes bibliographic references with various spellings of the name; a few pages of grammatical and phonetic notes from other sources; two pages of notes from Mr. Indacochea dated January 16, 1945; and two permission slips and notes regarding a review of Farfan's Poesia folklorica quechua. The file ends with three small pages of notes which were exchanged between Julian Steward and Harrington regarding various South American languages.
Under general and miscellaneous materials is a two-page typed list of captions for twenty-six photographs under the heading "Quirigua, Guatamala," with references to Dr. Hewett and Dr. Lummus (possibly Charles F. Lummis?) and a miscellaneous note regarding the native palm of Panama. There are also notes from secondary sources on historical exploration of the coast of Yucatan and on the Tepecano language of Mexico.
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
Vocabulary
Correspondence
Date:
1908-1946
Scope and Contents:
This subseries of the Mexico/Central America/South America series contains Harrington's research on Pima, Papago, Seri, and Opata. The materials consist of notes from secondary sources, notes on court cases, notes relating to Seri, records of placename trips, Pima and Papago linguistic notes, and miscellaneous notes and correspondence.
Early in his career Harrington compiled a "Pima Bibliography" and extracted ethnographic information on the Pima tribe from the writings of Edward S. Curtis--a typical citation reads "C 2 118"--and Frank Russell. In addition, he extracted animal and plant names from Russell's The Pima Indians (1908). Handwritten notes were also taken from Curtis' description of the Papago. Additional material from an unidentified source includes a 350-page series of typed texts of songs and speeches for various occasions. Categories include invitations to neighboring villages; notes on modern songs and ceremonials; and information on agricultural growth and harvest, deer hunting, salt, curing sugar, puberty, cleansing, superstitions, war and victory, pleasure and profit, and shamanism.
Notes on court cases pertain to Pueblo of Santa Rosa v. Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of Interior in 1920. The case elicited a statement from J. Walter Fewkes on the ethnological and sociological differences between the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and the Pima and Papago Indians of Arizona and Sonora. Harrington's notes on these differences and a copy of the Fewkes report are filed with this body of material.
His Seri notes include an undated proposal for a "Lower California and Sonora Expedition" which was to be headed by Charles Sheldon for the National Geographic Society. There is also an information sheet from the American Consulate dated May 1924. Harrington did not participate in the expedition but his files contain a five-page Seri vocabulary recorded by Sheldon in December 1922, two pages of notes and sketches on baskets in the "Sheldon Collection," and a few ethnographic notes mentioning Sheldon. In addition, there are six pages of notes from conversations with Mr. [George] Heye regarding Seri artifacts.
This subseries also contains Harrington's notes from his placename trips through southern California and Arizona into Sonora, Mexico. There are excerpts from Fray Pedro Font's diary of those travels for the period October 3 to 6, 1775, as well as references to the historical studies of Bolton. In the course of his investigation, Harrington kept five notebooks which contain not only a sizable vocabulary of placenames but also a potpourri of peripheral information including data on geographical areas defined by the various Pima and Papago dialects. The diary of the trip--written in a mixture of English and Spanish--includes odometer readings, descriptions of the terrain, mentions of photographs taken, and sketch maps of the relative position of various sites. There are also notes of historical interest, as well as detailed floor plans and views of various churches which he visited. In addition to acquiring geographic and ethnographic material, Harrington also obtained a fairly extensive general vocabulary from Eduarda Majuri and Lola Bermudes. The terms elicited from them--evidently in the Opata language ("Op.")--are found in notebook number four.
Among his Pima and Papago linguistic files are notes from his interviews with Papago speakers Molly and Manual Williams. He recorded sixteen pages of random vocabulary and notes on phonetics. In addition, they responded to queries regarding placenames. This file also contains references to and excerpts from correspondence which Harrington had with "Jones" (possibly Mr. Jones Narcho, Tribal Secretary of the Papago), Father Bonaventure Oblasser (May 16, 1939), and a Mr. McFarland. The letters contain linguistic elaborations and etymologies of a brief list of placenames. There are also notes from his interview with Ernest McCray, superintendent at the San Carlos Indian Reservation. Mr. Rudolph Johnson, a Pima interpreter and warehouse keeper at Sacaton Reservation, was also present. Papago data were obtained from Roswell Manuel, described as an Indian policeman at Sells Agency and a deputy on the Papago Indian Reservation. In a separate session with Mr. Johnson, Harrington continued a discussion of placenames and tribenames and reheard data obtained from Luis Lopez. (The two men had further contact through correspondence in September 1948.) Additional information on the location of certain tribes was secured from a Pima speaker identified as Mr. King, who was an employee at Casa Grande Monument, some sixteen miles from Sacaton Agency. During the same time period, Harrington made ethnobotanical notes on an unpublished paper on the botany of Arizona by Robert H. Peebles (also spelled "Peoples"). He also made reading notes on "Southwestern Beans and Teparies" (1912) by G. F. Freeman, of the Agricultural Experiment Station. In 1946 Harrington utilized a list of Pima rancherias from Hodge's "Handbook" (1910) and a map from Herbert Eugene Bolton's Rim of Christendom (1936) as a basis for rehearing Pima placenames with informants Simon Jackson (abbreviated "Jackson") and Henry Shurz (abbreviated "Henry"). Related notes include rehearings of data from Ohue, an early informant for Chemehuevi; miscellaneous biographical references; reading notes; and a map of Arizona.
Harrington's file of miscellany contains correspondence from 1947 and 1948, mostly regarding tribenames. Included are copies of letters exchanged with Louis Karpinsky of the University of Michigan; J. Alden Mason; Paul Lewis, an interpreter at the Pima Agency at Sacaton; and Rudolph Johnson, whom he had interviewed some ten years before. There are also brief notes dated 1947 on maps of the Southwest. These relate to photostatic copies of maps showing routes of the early Spanish explorers. There are two pages of notes on phonetics taken from the works of Juan Dolores.
Biographical / Historical:
John P. Harrington's interest in the languages of the U.S.-Mexican border began in the early period of his work in the Southwest--around 1908 to 1911--when he examined the work of Frank Russell and Edward Curtis on the Pima. Early in the first year of his employment with the Bureau of American Ethnology, he expressed a desire to visit the Pima Reservation, but the proposed trip evidently did not materialize.
In 1924 Harrington hoped to participate in a National Geographic Society expedition to Lower California and Sonora for the purpose of securing linguistic and ethnographic data on the Seri. The party, headed by Charles Sheldon, was to include Harrington as linguist and his friend Paul Vogenitz as ethnologist, botanist, and zoologist. The trip did not take place, or Harrington at least did not participate in it.
It was not until six years later that Harrington first traveled through the territory of the Pima and Papago tribes. In the spring of 1930, with Henry Cervantes as his assistant and chauffeur and Joe Moore as his auto mechanic, he began a placename trip following the route of the Anza expedition of 1775 -1776. Departing from Salinas, California, on March 18, they proceeded by way of Yuma, Tubac, and Nogales, Arizona, to Sonora, Mexico. Harrington later reported that they had covered 872 miles of desert driving.
In the course of this placename trip, Harrington minutely described each day's route and often illustrated it with a roughly sketched map. Included in the itinerary were stops at Casitas, Querobabi, Chupisonora, Opodepi, Camou, and Imuris. In a letter to Matthew W. Stirling giving a detailed account of his travels, Harrington mentioned interviews with the following individuals: Jose Santallanez (nicknamed "El Huero"), Lino A. Parra, Angel Coronado, the Reverend Ubarola (elsewhere given as "Eustaquio Ebarola"), Adolfo Islas, Maria Viuda de Sanchez (possibly Nazaria Sanchez de Urias of the fieldnotes), Professor Cerapio Davila, and Rafael Curella. Expense accounts and the notes themselves list numerous other informants.
In January 1931, Harrington received authorization to follow Anza's route through Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico. His annual reports indicate, however, that he spent most of the year in California.
At a California Exposition on Treasure Island in June 1939, Harrington had occasion to record a Papago vocabulary from Manuel and Molly Williams of the Papago Reservation at Sells, Arizona. Later in the fall he worked in the area of Arizonac Ranch and Arizonac Creek recording additional Papago terms, as well as Pima placenames. His Ietters to the B.A.E. list Harry Karns, Joe Wise, and his son Knight at Nogales; Lucio Napoleon, a ninety-year-old Papago; Cirildo T. Soto at Saric; and Captain Luis Lopez, head chief of the Papago of northern Sonora, as informants. He also mentioned making rapid progress under Mr. Jones Narcho, tribal secretary of the Papago. The notes themseives only mention Mr. and Mrs. Williams.
Harrington was again in the Southwest between February and July of 1946, in the Sacaton, Arizona, region. At this time most of his efforts were devoted to rehearings in the Pima and Papago languages.
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 Yucatec research. The materials consist of vocabulary, grammar, texts, writings, and miscellaneous notes.
The Yucatec vocabulary falls into three distinct subsections. The first consists of wordlists from an unidentified informant, supplemented by a little ethnographic and anecdotal material. A second set of vocabulary was recorded from Domingo Canton Aguilar and his wife (abbreviated "Ag. Y Sra."). They contain references to the dialects of Nahuatl spoken by Alfonso Hernandez Catarina (Alf.) and Arcadio Sagahon (Arc.). The third and most extensive section is a file of semantically arranged lexical items. The notes include a mixture of excerpts from secondary sources and original data recorded by Harrington. There are some notes in unidentified handwriting scattered throughout. A number of large subject categories--corporeal, animals, and material culture--are subdivided.
The grammar files consist of extensive notes and a rough draft for a grammar of the Yucatec language. The material is somewhat repetitious due to the presence of variant drafts. The notes contain a mixture of general observations on various points of grammar, extracts from published sources, and original field data. The rough draft and accompanying notes are filed under two headings "Maya Grammar and Lists" and "Maya Language and Semantic Lists." The introduction includes a bibliography of other dictionaries and grammers, a description of the physical features of the Yucatan peninsula, and a discussion of the Maya linguistic stock. The body of the material is divided into categories on phonetics, morphology, verbs, adverbs, particles, nouns, pronouns, conjunctions, interjections, and unsorted topics. The sections dealing with phonetics and verbs (the latter is labeled "Uc. on Lop.") are particularly extensive. A typed manuscript of 308 pages (former B.A.E. ms. 4782) titled "Maya Grammar and Lists" was submitted by Harrington in 1952 for publication as a Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin. The language presented is the ''standard dialect of the states of Yucatan and Campeche." The grammar contains a detailed table of contents, furnishes details on the geographical background and history of the Yucatan peninsula, and discusses Maya grammars and dictionaries.
Yucatec textual material is of three types. The first set consists of myths, the second of records relating to the ''Treaty of Mani," and the third of notes on a Yucatec religious newspaper dating from 1949. Thirty pages of native myth texts contain interlinear translations in a mixture of Spanish and English. The stories include "El Milpero, el Cascabel, el Perro, el Tigre" and "El Zorro y la Esposa del Milpero." The four-page text "Le Ocb Yetel Can" is in the hand of David Arceo H. The "Story of the Blind Hammockmaker" was recorded from Arceo with English and Spanish translation. There is also a summary of the story of venado and tortuga. Material relating to the "Treaty of Mani" includes a word-by-word translation of the treaty, a typed version with free translation and notes, and correspondence with Arthuro Medina and David Arceo H. dating from July 1948 and March 1950. There is also a copy of one issue of the newspaper U Tajil T'au dated November-December 1949. There are a few pages of related notes.
Harrington's writings on Yucatec begins with notes and a rough draft for the article "Original Form and Application of Maya." The paper, which is concerned with the etymology of the name "Maya," discusses the six names by which the Yucatan peninsula is known. There are also notes and drafts for two related articles titled "Egyptian, Chinese and Mayoid Ideographic Writing" and "Reading the Maya Ideograms." This material is followed by a partial rough draft titled "Maya Ideograms Being Read"; it is not clear whether the handwriting, which is not Harrington's, is that of a copyist or a "ghost writer." Dating from June 28, 1950, are extensive notes on the Maya system of counting, arranged behind heading sheets which are labeled "How the Maya Count," "Maya Enumeration," and "V[alladolid] Maya Counting." It appears that Harrington originally worked on several drafts of an article with these different titles; the material is now inextricably mixed. The subtopics covered are arithmetical processes, systems of measures, and time reckoning (including discussion of the twenty-day month). Also filed here is a rough draft labeled "Draft for the Ag. typewritten paper on May[a] Numeration" and a typed draft titled "The Maya Count." "The Maya Count" discusses the system of counting used in the northern part of the Yucatan peninsula by speakers whose language was probably a direct descendent of the language in which the Maya hieroglyphics and codices were written. There are also notes and drafts of reviews which he drafted from 1948 through 1960. The file of writings ends with rough notes for proposed papers on "Maya Hieroglyphic Writing," "Maya Linguistic Stock," and "Influence of Maya and Yucatan Spanish on Each Other."
The section of miscellaneous notes on Yucatec includes a small file of correspondence. There is a letter from Isaias Uc C., Campeche, Mexico, in 1950; a carbon copy of a letter to Jesse Shaw dated April 14, 1952, regarding arrangements for Domingo Aguilar's travel to the United States; handwritten drafts of two letters to John Linkins; and a typed copy of a lengthy letter to Dr. Tozzer from an unidentified writer. Also included is a section labeled "Persons & Addresses," as well as some notes on the sound recordings which Harrington made during fieldwork in Mexico in 1950. The file concludes with what appear to be drafts of annual reports. There is the first page only of a typed statement titled "Maya Language Studies." This is followed by ten handwritten pages of notes which refer to three papers on Maya ideograms and numerals.
Biographical / Historical:
John P. Harrington's study of the Yucatec language of Mexico was undertaken in at least five distinct phases. Both in correspondence and in a draft of a Quiche grammar, Harrington claimed that his first study of the Maya stock was conducted with Eduardo Caceres, a fluent speaker of Maya proper from Merida in the state of Yucatan. They evidently worked together in National City and San Diego, California, around 1914.
In the Sixty-fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for 1947-1948, Harrington reported that he had recently completed a grammar of the Maya language as well as an article comparing the ideographic writing systems of the Maya, Egyptians, and Chinese. In the following year he continued his revision of these two works and studied the etymology of the word "Maya." His work on the grammar was evidently made possible through studies undertaken with two Yucatec speakers residing in New York City.
Notes indicate that Harrington was in contact with Arthuro Medina (abbreviated "Med.") by at least September 1948. Medina was from Tikul, near the ruins of Uxmal, a few miles south of Merida, and his wife was also from the Yucatan. Through them Harrington learned of a second Maya speaker, Castulo Ucan. Evidently beginning in mid-November 1949, Harrington made a number of trips of several days duration to New York to work with Ucan. Letters which he wrote to bureau chief Matthew W. Stirling in November and December describe Ucan (abbreviated "U.") as a good informant and make mention of the "Motul dictionary" which he used as a questionnaire during their work together.
Although he felt that his work with these informants had been satisfactory, Harrington still wished to travel to Merida to conduct fieldwork with additional informants. He arrived in Merida on Saturday, February 11 and returned to Washington, D.C., on April 11 "bringing a large quantity of linguistic material" as well as "ten half-hour recordings of stories in the Maya language" which he had recorded on tape.
Harrington's first Mexican informant was Isaias Uc whom he described to Stirling as "a treasure," someone who spoke Spanish as a professor, with "a wonderful vocabulary for grammatical terms." Their work included a review of the grammar by Daniel Lopez Otero. He also worked with David Arceo H. (evidently abbreviated "A."), whom he described as "an unsurpassed teacher of Maya," with a knowledge of proverbs and traditional Maya history. From Arceo he was able to obtain a handwritten translation of the Treaty of Mani, from Maya to Spanish, as well as tape recordings of the same.
Other informants with whom Harrington evidently worked during this same period include Pascual Ayora Taliaferro (also spelled "Talavera" and abbreviated "P.") and Geronimo Pacheco. He also received nonlinguistic information from Dr. Solis, Mr. Romero M., Mr. Nichols, Willey (possibly Gordon R. Willey), and Harry, among others.
On March 9, 1951, Harrington had the opportunity to return to Mexico to pursue studies of the classical Aztec, or Nahuatl, language. During the approximately six months he spent there he also worked with another Yucatec speaker, Domingo Canton Aguilar (abbreviated "Ag.") and his wife, who were from Xochimilco in the Distrito Federal. Harrington referred to the latter as Maria Pura Aguilar de C.
Aguilar accompanied Harrington back to Washington, D.C., to assist in the preparation of a grammar and a dictionary of the Maya language. In the same fiscal year (1951 -1952) Harrington completed a monograph on the numeration system of the Valladolid Maya Indians of Yucatan.
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.
The Teriananda Papers contain writings authored by Teriananda, as well as various position papers, news articles, flyers, correspondence, and group newsletters that represent the political activities she participated in on behalf of Native American and other Indigenous peoples.
Scope and Contents:
This collection, from the 1970s to the 1990s, is comprised of published and unpublished writings by Teriananda, as well as letters, reports, newspaper and magazine articles, group newsletters, flyers and announcements of political events, and news releases. The issues represented here, including support work for "The Longest Walk," the campaign for justice for Leonard Peltier, and the Big Mountain relocation are indicative of the concerns in parts of Indian Country in the United States and elsewhere during these decades.
Arrangement:
The Teriananda papers are arranged into two series:
Series I: Writings (1978-1991)
Series II: Political Activities (undated; 1972-1996)
Biographical / Historical:
Teriananda was born in Manhattan in 1947, where she grew up and has continued to live throughout her adult life. Teriananda's father, born in Brooklyn, became a financial officer and independent scholar, her mother, born in British Guiana (now Guyana), was a classical pianist who immigrated to the United States and later became an editorial assistant, working part-time during Teriananda's childhood. Her parents instilled in Teriananda a belief that she was "a citizen of the world." She studied ballet as a youngster, and, as a teenager, immersed herself in the artistic and intellectual milieu of the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village. An improperly diagnosed back injury while she was a senior in high school resulted in severe back problems in the 1970s that have persisted throughout her life.
Teriananda became interested in Indigenous struggles in the 1970s following a "back crisis" that almost took her life yet proved to be psychically transformative. In seeking to know who she was, she realized she needed to know where she was, and this led her to ask who the original inhabitants of the continent were. She soon became involved in activist struggles for Indigenous rights, and worked with a number of Native American groups during the 1970s and 1980s, including, among other things, the International Treaty Council's attempts to found the U.N.'s permanent Working Group on Indigenous People, support for Yvonne Wanrow and Leonard Peltier, the issue of uranium contamination from mining on Native American land, and the problem of the Joint Land Use Area near Big Mountain on the Hopi and Navajo reservations.
Teriananda also worked on issues surrounding the AIDS crisis after the death of several friends from this disease. She had become familiar with the possibilities of natural medicines, partly through contact with traditional Native teachers, and she became active promoting the benefits of nutritional, herbal and other natural therapies to sufferers of AIDS. As Teriananda's own health issues persisted and worsened, she turned to Tibetan Buddhism, and has devoted herself to artistic pursuits influenced by this spiritual path, although she has worked artistically since the early 1970s, when she stopped dancing. Although she has cut back on her activism, due to health problems and family demands, Teriananda remains a committed political activist who stays informed of current issues and is determined to pass on the heritage of struggles for peace and justice to the next generation.
Provenance:
Donated to the National Museum of the American Indian Archives by Teriananda in March 2003
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 3:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the NMAI Archivist. The Archives has no information on the status of literary rights for the work of others found in these papers; researchers are responsible for determining any question of copyright.
Topic:
Indians of North America -- Civil rights Search this
Indians of North America -- Relocation Search this
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Teriananda papers, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
Tribes covered in the photographs are: Arapaho, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Chippewa, Iowa, Iroquois, Mahican, Menomini, Ojibwa, Oto, Plains Cree, Potawatomi, Seminole, Seri, Shinnecock, Sioux, Winnebago, Zuni Pueblo. The majority of photographs (552) have Skinner listed as the photographer and presumably are photographs he took on his expeditions. However, 104 photos are of the Seminole in Florida. According to Dennis P. Carey's biography of Skinner (Unpublished? 1980) Julian Q. Dimock, a well-known photographer, accompanied him on his expedition to the Seminole in Florida; how many of the photos were taken by Dimock is unknown, but he is listed as the photographer for 23 of them. Skinner's other photographs are of the Seneca Iroquois in New York; the Zuni Pueblo and Hawikku site; several tribes in Wisconsin; the Chippewa in Minnesota; and miscellaneous shots taken in Canada, Costa Rica, Florida and New York. Two photographs of the Mahican were taken by Huron H. Smith (1923) and two of the Winnebago were taken by C.J. Van Schaick (c. 1870). The remaining photographs have no photographer listed but were in Skinner's collection of photographs and are of varying tribes with dates ranging from 1909 to 1923.
Arrangement note:
Collection arranged by item number.
Biographical/Historical note:
Alanson Buck Skinner was born in Buffalo, New York, on September 7, 1886. His parents moved to Staten Island, New York, when Alanson was still very young. There Alanson met W.T. Davis who taught him to find arrowheads and other traces of ancient Indian life. When he was older he consulted with Prof. F.W. Putnam and George H. Pepper at the American Museum of Natural History about his interest. In the summer of 1902 Skinner went on his first fieldwork expedition near Shinnecock Hills, Long Island, for the American Museum of Natural History with Arthur C. Parker and Mark R. Harrington. Two years later Skinner and Harrington went on another archeological expedition in western New York State for the Peabody Museum and while there he attended his first Native ceremony on the Cattaraugus reservation. After high school Skinner joined the staff of the AMNH as an assistant in anthropology. In 1908 he led an expedition to Hudson Bay to study the Cree Indians. In 1910 he went to Wisconsin where he met John V. Satterlee, part Menomini, and Judge Sabatis Perote, a full-blooded Menomini, who adopted him into the tribe under the Thunder clan name of Sekosa or "Little Weasel." He later went on expeditions to collect from the Seminoles in the Florida Everglades, and other tribes in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and other states. During these years he was also studying anthropology at Columbia under Boas, Farrand, Saville, and Bandelier, and at Harvard under Dixon, Tozzer, and Farrabee. In 1916 Skinner joined the Museum of the American Indian and remained there until 1920, when he took a position as curator of anthropology at the Public Museum of Milwaukee. He returned to the MAI in 1924 where he remained until his untimely death on August 17, 1925 in a car accident in North Dakota. He was a member of the American Anthropological Association, the Wisconsin Archeological Society, the Explorer's Club, a York Rite Mason and a Shriner. A more detailed biography by Dennis P. Carey (1980) can be found in the vertical file. A complete bibliography of Skinner's writings can be found in Indian Notes, Vol. II, No. 4 (October 1925).
Restrictions:
Access restricted. Researchers should contact the staff of the NMAI Archives for an appointment to access the collection.
The bulk of the photographs document Mayan reliefs and hieroglyphics at ancient sites, including Chichen Itza, Palenque, and Yaxchilan. Additional photographs depict items in the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexico, including a necklace, the Stone of Tizoc, and a stone altar disk to Tlaltecuhtli. The collection includes photographs made by Alvarez y Medina, Kildare y Cia, and a photograph of a drawing by Frederic de Waldeck.
Biographical/Historical note:
Cyrus Thomas (1825-1910) was an archeologist for the Bureau of American Ethnology best known for his work on American Indian burial mounds in the American Midwest. Born in Kingsport, Tennessee, Thomas was educated in law and served as Deputy County Clerk under his brother-in-law, the County Clerk of Jackson County, Illinois (1850-1853). In 1858, Thomas helped found the Illinois Natural History Society, through which he met John Wesley Powell. Thomas served for a brief period as an Evangelical Lutheran minister (1864-1866) before becoming an entomologist for the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories (1869-1873), Illinois State Entomologist (1874-1876), and a member of the US Entomological Commission (1876-1882). In 1876, he also worked as a professor of natural history at Southern Illinois Normal College and founded the school's Museum of Natural History (now the University Museum). During this time, Thomas also became interested in Mesoamerican ethnology, publishing articles about Mesoamerican codices and writing systems. In 1881 Thomas joined the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian and served as the Director of the Division of Mound Exploration, a position he maintained until his death in 1910.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 169
Location of Other Archival Materials:
This collection has been relocated from Photo Lot 123.
Additional Cyrus Thomas materials relating to Mesoamerica held in the National Anthropological Archives are in MS 103, MS 1328, MS 3705, MS 3956, MS 3530, MS 3941, MS 3260, MS 2337, and MS 3920-b.
Correspondence from Thomas is held in the National Anthropological Archives in MS 4821, the J. C. Pilling papers, and records of the Bureau of American Ethnology.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Topic:
Indians of Mexico -- Languages -- writing Search this
Citation:
Photo Lot 169, Cyrus Thomas photograph collection relating to Mayan and Aztec carvings, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
The arrangement of material in this section forms the basis for Volume 7 of the microfilmed papers. The reel numbers of corresponding microfilm are listed where appropriate. "n/a" indicates material that was not included in the original microfilming.
This series within the John Peabody Harrington papers represents the results of Harrington's work on the native languages and cultures of the western hemisphere outside of the United States and Canada. Most of the work was done either by bringing native speakers to Washington, D.C., or by examining various secondary sources, although Harrington did make several fieldtrips to Mexico, first in 1930 and again in 1950 and 1951. All of the field notes and writings were recorded during his employment as ethnologist by the Bureau of American Ethnology (1915 -1954); the earliest date from 1921 and the latest from around 1952. The documents focus primarily on linguistic data, although they also include some ethnographic and historical information.
Arrangement:
Series is arranged into 8 subseries: (1) Pima/Papago/Seri/Opata; (2) Nahuatl; (3) Quiche; (4) Cakchiquel; (5) Yucatec; (6) Cuna; (7) Records relating to South American languages; (8) General and miscellaneous materials
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.
Los dioses en los códices mexicanos del grupo borgia; una investigación iconográfica. Con 32 ilustraciones y 1791 figuras en el texto. [Traducción de María Martínez Peñaloza]
Il manoscritto messicano vaticano 3738, detto il Codice Rios, riprodotto in fotocromografia a spese di sua eccellenza il duca di Loubat per cura della Biblioteca Vaticana
Author:
Loubat, Joseph Florimond duc de 1831-1927 Search this
Observations on T110 as the syllable ko / Nikolai Grube, David Stuart. Landa's second grapheme for u / Victoria R. Bricker. A variant of the chak sign / David Stuart
