This subseries of the Northeast/Southeast series contains John P. Harrington's Algonquian research. It consists primarily of material he collected; there is very little original data, most of which are undated. The topics covered are Cheyenne grammar, Fox linguistic notes, Menominee grammar, Miami-Peoria grammar, Mohegan-Pequot-Montauk vocabulary, Montagnais miscellaneous notes, Nanticoke-Conoy-Unalachtigo linguistic notes, Ojibwa linguistic notes, Potawatomi linguistic notes, and comparative and miscellaneous notes.
The Cheyenne material consist of two pages of grammatical excerpts from Rodolphe Petter's English-Cheyenne Dictionary (1915).
The Fox notes stem from conversations which Harrington had with Truman Michelson on the Fox syllabary and grammar. One note is dated September 24, 1924; others are undated. One page gives the etymology of the word Chicago and a Potawatomi equivalent. Phonetic material (former B.A.E. MS 6021 pt. and 6025pt.) is based on William Jones's "Algonquian (Fox)" (1911). A bibliography is included, mainly on Michelson's publications and manuscripts which he submitted to the B.A.E.
The Menominee files contain a phonetic key from Leonard Bloomfield's Menomini Texts (1928), a short report on a conversation with Michelson (former B.A.E. MS 6025pt. and 6030), and a brief description of Menominee tentshaking was excerpted from W. J. Hoffman's The Menomini Indians (1896).
Miami-Peoria vocabulary were copied from Albert Gatschet's B.A.E. manuscripts 3025 and 3026b. (Those entries marked 3026b are no longer listed as part of that B.A.E. manuscript.)
An 1890 copy of a 1798 Montauk vocabulary taken by John Lyon Gardiner was loaned to Harrington by Foster H. Saville. There are also a three-page typescript of this manuscript and several pages of a Mohegan-Pequot bibliography.
For Montagnais, there are three bibliographical notes. Two placenames came from J.N.B. Hewitt in November 1926.
Reading notes on Nanticoke, Conoy, and Unalachtigo were taken principally from Speck's The Nanticoke and Conoy Indians . .. (1927) and from Hodge's "Handbook" (1907). Some linguistic and ethnohistoric material is included and there is a brief bibliography.
Ojibwa forms the largest portion of this subseries. It includes notes from a joint interview conducted most likely in 1940 with C. F. Voegelin and his informant, Gregor McGregor, who was technically considered a speaker of Ottawa. There are also notes Harrington took of Voegelin's lecture at the University of Michigan on June 25, 1940 (former B.A.E. MS 6020pt.). There is a slight emphasis on placenames in an otherwise random vocabulary. From James Hammond Trumbull's Notes on Forty Algonkin Versions of the Lord's Prayer (1873), Harrington copied the Southern Chippeway version (pp. 74 -75) and penciled in a slightly different English translation. A final potpourri of undated notes includes a miscellaneous vocabulary from secondary sources and a few pages of grammatical material. The etymologies of several Ojibwa words are briefly developed. Frederic Baraga's A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language is the most frequently cited source (former B.A.E. MS 6020pt. and 6025pt.).
The Potawatomi files contain material from Harrington's interview with Chief Simon Kahquados in Blackwell, Wisconsin (n.d.) with whom he recorded general ethnographic information, particularly regarding the loss of Potawatomi lands due to Indian Office policies and illegal acts of the Menominee. A brief vocabulary is included. Unrelated to this interview is a Potawatomi phoneme chart.
Comparative material includes reading notes regarding the earliest appearances of certain Algonquian phonetic sounds. Harrington consulted primarily the works of Sir Isaac Pitman, Jean Claude Mathevet (Nipissing, Abnaki), and Silas Tertius Rand (Micmac). Additional peripheral bibliographical information is identified in the notes. The only date recorded is March 26, 1951. There are other scattered reading notes with Menominee, Cree, Fox, and Ojibwa phonetic comparisons, based mainly on Leonard Bloomfield's Menomini Texts (1938) and Plains Cree Texts (1934). One page of Arapaho terms was copied from Kroeber.
In the category of general linguistic and ethnographic notes (former B.A.E. ms. 6025pt.), information results from various conversations with fellow linguists: Truman Michelson and J.N.B. Hewitt on September 24, 1924; Hewitt in November 1924 and November 1926; Michelson in October 1930; and Michelson and Frank G. Speck in May 1934. Under the heading "The Southern Delawares," Harrington arranged random information on the Virginia Indians, touching briefly on history and ethnography. He included some Abnaki, Cree, and Cherokee linguistic terms, as well as a general bibliography. Vocabulary material in this series (former B.A.E. MS 6025pt.) consists of terms from various Algonquian languages, most probably taken from unidentified printed sources. One note gives "The Chief from Mass[achusetts]" as an informant. One group of terms is compared with Natick words and with a vocabulary recorded by Roger Williams.
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 Western Abenaki, Eastern Abenaki, and Passamaquoddy research. The bulk of the notes consists of Maine placenames culled from numerous secondary sources ranging from seventeenth-century documents to publications of the 1940s, and also including little known local histories, old maps and atlases, highway and forestry maps, and unidentified newspaper clippings. Located here also are lesser numbers of placenames of other states in the Northeast and the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick. Most of the material was reheard by St. Francis, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy speakers, with an occasional Malecite, Micmac, and Menomini comparison.
The Western Abenaki (St. Francis) section contains vocabulary entries semantically arranged in about a dozen categories. The most extensive section (former B.A.E. MS 6029pt.) is that of Maine placenames copied from secondary sources. The most frequently cited sources were Joseph Laurent's New Familiar Abenakis and English Dialogues (1884), and Henry Lorne Masta's Abenaki Indian Legends, Grammar and Place Names (1932). This section also contains placenames of the New England States, New York, and the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick, along with a few Penobscot and Passamaquoddy equivalences. The notes on tribenames include names found in the texts and maps of seventeenth-century voyages of discovery and in early histories of New England and Canada. Old and New World names and ethnic and race designations are also found in this category. The files also include a typed draft, with related notes (former B.A.E. ms. 6029pt.), dated 1950, titled "The Abnakis and Their Language." According to Harrington's introduction, the dialect is that of St. Francis and is based on terms from Laurent and Masta. There are notes covering phonetics and morphology, the latter arranged according to grammatical word form. Extensive hIstorIcal background material was sent to Harrington by T .R.L. MacInnes, secretary of the Indian Affairs Branch of the Department of MInes and Resources in Ottawa. A Mr. A. E. St. Louis did the actual research of the department's records and included some Huron data.
The Eastern Abenaki (Penobscot) vocabulary is semantically arranged in about ten categories, with occasional Passamaquoddy comparisons and a few Malecite terms. Ethnographic data sometimes accompany the linguistics. Harrington also etymologized certain phenomenal and geographic terms from the placename appendix of Joseph Nicolar published by Fannie Hardy Eckstorm (cited in the notes as "Eckst.") in Indian Place-names of the Penobscot Valley and the Maine Coast (1941). Some of the tribenames were formerly part of B.A.E. manuscript 4463. He also consulted other published sources.
Eastern Abenaki grammatical notes include phonetics and morphology, with great emphasis on the former. Some St. Francis and Passamaquoddy comparisons culled from Harrington's notes are interfiled. There is also a small assortment of random historical and ethnographical reading notes culled from various secondary sources, most of which are identified in a related bibliographical section. A few bits of historical information come from Dana and Watso. There are no linguistic elaborations.
Materials relating to Penobscot and Passamaquoddy placenames primarily center around a proposed paper titled "The Indian Placenames of Maine" (former B.A.E. mss. 4463pt. and 6029pt.). A short introductory draft is followed by a linguistic study of placenames of Maine organized according to its sixteen counties. One brief section organized by regions and trails probably represents a discarded plan of procedure, and there is one group of miscellaneous names. Many terms bear the identification "Pen." for Penobscot and "Pass." for Passamaquoddy. If not identified, they are usually in the Penobscot dialect and given by Dana. There are a few Malecite and Micmac equivalences and one or two Menomini names. Two segments on Maine sites contain no linguistic elaborations. One list, organized by county and generally entered one item to a page, parallels the section described above. It comes from the same secondary sources and evidently was accumulated as a guide to the later rehearings. The second group, collected from various sources, provides historical information only (former B.A.E. ms. 6029 pt.). Placenames from other states and provinces include rehearings on the placename Massachusetts, New Brunswick placenames, and a miscellaneous group of unsorted and discarded notes. There is also linguistic treatment of "Pomole" and "Glooscap" texts, with an emphasis on Maine placenames (former B.A.E. MS 4463 pt.), as well as a typescript titled "A Short History of the Passamaquoddy Indians" in English.
Among Harrington's files are also notes for three proposed papers. One paper is on the name "Tarentine" as applied to native Americans of the East Coast. Harrington found evidence of its use among the records and histories of early voyagers to America. The second paper was to be a commentary on the Abenaki vocabulary compiled in 1605 by James Rosier, a member of the expedition under Captain George Waymouth (Weymouth). Harrington made a copy of the Waymouth terms while in New York City in November 1949. Both sets of notes contain occasional references to Laurent and Masta, but no linguistic data. A third paper was called "Bashaba and Bessabes Are Two Different Words." From numerous accounts of the earliest recorded voyages to the New World, Harrington accumulated reading notes to prove that Bashaba was a general name for a chief and that Bessabes was the personal name of a particular chief. Again there are no linguistic etymologies.
Biographical / Historical:
John P. Harrington accumulated information on these languages between April 24 and October 24, 1949. Most of his time was spent in Old Town, Maine, although he worked also in Bangor, at the State House Library in Augusta, at the Maine Historical Society in Portland, and in Eastport, Maine. He secured linguistic information from St. Francis speakers of Odanak near Pierreville, Quebec, and from a colony of Abenakis in Albany, New York. In November and December of 1949 while on trips between New York City and Washington for other reasons, he carried the notes with him for further sorting and rearranging. Reports indicate that in 1952 he was in the process of assembling an extensive study on the Abenaki, possibly incorporating data on the vocabulary, grammar, history, and ethnography of both Abenaki languages.
The principal St. Francis speakers that he worked with were Oliver Obomsawin (Ol.) and Alfred Miller (Am., AI.) of Odanak, and George Dennis (Geo., Den.) and John Watso of Albany. Watso introduced Harrington to Edwin E. Nagazoa (Ed., Nag., N.) and Maude Benedict Nagazoa, the former described as a perfect Abenaki speaker. Others that he worked with include Thomas Sadoquin, Mrs. Daylight (Mrs. D., D.), Antoine Medzalabolet, Chief Charles Nolet, and Dominico Berni. Berni's role is somewhat uncertain. He may have translated a letter of inquiry to the Bureau of American Ethnology which Harrington was assigned to handle, and which may have had nothing to do with Abenaki. Andrew E. Dana (And.), Frank and Mary Mitchell, and Charles John Saulis provided Penobscot and Passamaquoddy material, yielding extensive placename etymologies. Penobscot and a few Malecite (spelled "Malacite" throughout Harrington's notes) terms came from Harry Francis whose mother, Mary Jean Francis, was a Malecite Indian. Others that he worked with were Lena Mitchell, Laura, and Mr. and Mrs. William Neptune of Pleasant Point, near Eastport, Maine. William Neptune was a Passamaquoddy but Harrington credited him with Wawenock data.
Field notes and correspondence indicate that Harrington consulted with Dr. Frank T. Siebert,Jr., in person and by mail.
Arthur E. Edgerley at the State Highway Commission office in Augusta provided bits of history surrounding the sites as well as names of some of the people who formerly inhabited them.
John Peabody Harrington papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The preferred citation for the Harrington Papers will reference the actual location within the collection, i.e. Box 172, Alaska/Northwest Coast, Papers of John Peabody Harrington, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
However, as the NAA understands the need to cite phrases or vocabulary on specific pages, a citation referencing the microfilmed papers is acceptable. Please note that the page numbering of the PDF version of the Harrington microfilm does not directly correlate to the analog microfilm frame numbers. If it is necessary to cite the microfilmed papers, please refer to the specific page number of the PDF version, as in: Papers of John Peabody Harrington, Microfilm: MF 7, R34 page 42.
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.
Truman Michelson's handwritten linguistic notes with paradigms (some extracted from the literature) for the following languages: Montagnais, Menominee, Meskwaki (Fox), Cree, Natick, Ojibwa, Passamaquoddy, and Shawnee.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 2691
Local Note:
Title changed from "Various verbal tables of different Algonquian tribes" 4/14/2014.
Truman Michelson's handwritten linguistic notes on various Algonquian languages from his work with students at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania during the winter of 1911-1912. The notes include information about the students he worked with, vocabulary, grammar, and an Arapaho text. Mary Belgarde and Patrick Azure provided information on Turtle Mountain Chippewa (which Michelson determined is Cree); Dorothy Morse on Northern Chippewa (near Duluth); Flora Masta on Abenaki; Grover Allen (a Kickapoo) on Potawatomi; Louise Kitchikum (likely Kachicum) on Menominee; and Bruce Groesbeck on Northern Arapaho.
Arrangement:
Notes are organized by language.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 2703
Local Note:
Title changed from "Materials relating to various Algonquian languages" 4/15/2014.
Contents: Words and lists of days, months and years and other time divisions, approximately 100 pages. (includes Maya, Aztec, etc.) Color adjectives, 8 pages. Totemic clans of all tribes, 37 pages. Personal names (Chiefs, etc.), 25 pages. (Personal names of "Knisteneaux or Crees, Shawnee, Crow, Dakota, Arikaras, Cheyennes, Blackfeet, Piegan, Menomoni, Peoria, Otawa, Sauk").
Menominee linguistic notes and texts from Truman Michelson's fieldwork among the Menominee in Wisconsin in 1910. He obtained texts and Menominee names for various tribes from Judge Peroute, a priest of the Grand Medicine Society. Captain John V. Satterlee of the Indian Police at Keshena served as interpreter and also provided Michelson with linguistic information, such as vocabulary.
Menominee notes and texts from Truman Michelson's fieldwork among the Menominee in Wisconsin in 1910. The texts consist of Menominee stories from Judge Peroute, a priest of the Grand Medicine Society, in English. Captain John V. Satterlee of the Indian Police at Keshena provided Michelson with Menominee names for various tribes. There are also notes on the Grand Medicine Society.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 2824
Local Note:
Title changed from "Texts, linguistic notes, legends" 5/1/2014.
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