The Homer Garner Barnett papers, 1934-1973, consist of papers, photographs, slides, maps, and periodicals primarily documenting his ethnological work among American Indians, Palauans, and the people of Netherlands New Guinea (Irian Jaya).
Scope and Contents:
The Homer Garner Barnett papers, 1934-1973, contain papers, photographs, slides, maps, periodicals, field notes and copies of studies done by others. Dr. Barnett, an ethnologist, anthropologist, author and teacher spent his early professional years, 1934-1943, studying Northwest Coast Indians. After the second World War, her focused on Micronesia, especially Palau, and later Netherlands New Guinea, now known as West Irian. It was during this time that he observed at close hand and became an expert in cultural change.
Between 1947 and 1970, years of drastic change for natives of Oceania, Dr. Barnett made three long stays and many shorter ones in the islands. He used his research in writing, teaching, and consulting.
His early study of Yurok, Hupa, Karok, Nuqually, Oakville and Skopomish Indians is contained in research notebooks, field notebooks and photographs. There is an interesting section on Indian Shakerism (not related to the Shaker Movement of the East). One notebook records his experience while conducting a class at Berkeley in 1943 on inter-cultural exchange of information. The later field notebooks record his observations while on Palau and New Guinea. There are also approximately 900 slides that he used in class lectures.
Dr. Barnett amassed a large collection of scholarly papers and periodicals dealing with the South Pacific area, especially during the years 1952-1960. There are a few publications in Japanese reflecting the interests of the prior trustees of Palau. There are significant numbers of scientific papers in Dutch on natives of New Guinea. He also preserved interesting examples of literature in Palauan, pidgin English and Papuan.
There is no personal correspondence other than that pertaining to setting up a study of displaced communities in the South Pacific. This study was funded over a 5-year period by the National Science Foundation. The resulting papers are on deposit at the University of Oregon.
Dr. Barnett spent 2 years (1944-1946) as Senior Fellow in ethnogeography at the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE). There are no papers in this collection dating from those years, but the BAE Correspondence files contain letters to and from Barnett during this period.
Arrangement note:
The Homer Garner Barnett papers are arranged in the following series:
(1) Material relating to the "Displaced Communities" Study, 1963-1970;
(2) Writings, 1938-1959;
(3) Field notebooks, 1934-circa 1955;
(4) Dissertation notebooks, undated;
(5) Linguistic material, 1941-1965;
(6) Scholarly serials and periodicals, 1950-1971;
(7) Processed and printed items, 1942-1974;
(8) Photographs, 1895-1955;
(9) Micronesian Monthly/Reporter, 1951-1963;
(10) Quarterly Bulletin of the South Pacific Commission, 1953-1963;
(11) Photographic slides, 1947-1953;
(12) Maps, 1887-1959
Biographical/Historical note:
Homer G. Barnett trained at the University of California at Berkeley and practiced as an ethnologist and archeologist. He specialized in culture change and applied anthropology.
Barnett's earliest field work was among American Indians of Oregon, Washington, and northwestern California--particularly the Yurok, Hupa, Yakima, and several small groups of the Oregon coast. Some of his research concerned diverse ethnological matters but much of it focused primarily on the Indian Shaker religion and the potlatch, the latter being the subject of his doctoral dissertation.
In 1939, while he was on the faculty of the University of New Mexico, Barnett served as field director of the Jemez Archeological Field School and was in charge of a project in the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico. Later in the same year, he joined the faculty of the University of Oregon and has been chiefly identified with that institution since then. In the summer of 1943, however, he participated in a World War II Far Eastern Language and Area Training Program of the University of California at Berkeley. There he helped train voluteer service men in techniques of eliciting cultural information from native informants.
In the following year, he joined the staff of the Bureau of American Ethnology and became a researcher associated with the Ethnogeographic Board, the World War II agency formed to provide scientific information about human and natural resources of the world. He served as the executive secretary of the Board's Pacific Survey Project and, later, undertook a War Document Survey concerning the Pacific to determine and advise on the disposition of documents that had been accumulated by the government.
Returning to the University of Oregon after the war, Barnett continued to work with Pacific cultures. He carried out field work in the Palau Islands under the sponsorship of the National Research Council, served as staff anthropologist for the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, and was a consultant for the government of Netherlands New Guinea. In the 1960s, he directed a program of research among communities of the Pacific displaced because of natural disasters and atomic bomb tests.
Related Materials:
In 1939, Dr. Barnett was the director of an archeological excavation in the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico. The report of this dig is NAA MS 4070. Another paper Barnett wrote, Yakima Indians in 1942 is NAA MS 4867.
Provenance:
Dr. Homer G. Barnett donated this collection to the National Anthropological Archives in 1975.
Restrictions:
The Homer Garner Barnett papers are open for research.
Access to the Homer Garner Barnett papers requires an appointment.
Barnett, H. G. (Homer Garner), 1906-1985 Search this
Extent:
0.42 Linear feet
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
1934-circa 1955
undated
Scope and Contents:
These 14 notebooks are equally divided between Barnett's two geographic areas of specialization --Northwest Coast Indians and South Pacific natives. The Indian notes were done between 1934 and 1943. The Palauan observations were made probably during 1947 and 1948, although the notebooks are not dated. The New Guinea notes are dated 1955. There is an interesting notebook made when Dr. Barnett taught a class in intercultural exchange at Berkeley in 1943. Notes on Indian Shakerism can be found in "Yakima" Book 2, p. 131. Miscellaneous papers and a card found folded inside the books are in a separate folder. Each item contains information in brackets as to where it was found. Illustrations of the material covered in the notebooks can be found in Series 8, Photographs, and Series 11, Photographic Slides. Dr. Barnett's published works draw heavily from the material in this series.
Arrangement:
Arranged alphabetically by title.
Collection Restrictions:
The Homer Garner Barnett papers are open for research.
Access to the Homer Garner Barnett papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Homer Garner Barnett Papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Barnett, H. G. (Homer Garner), 1906-1985 Search this
Extent:
0.167 Linear feet
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
1941 - 1965
undated
Scope and Contents:
Primers, dictionaries, word lists, research on linguistic methods, and newspapers (if in an indigenous dialect) are in this group. Not every item is complete in and of itself. There is a predominance of items produced by missionary endeavor. The Palauan section contains 15 separate items ranging from Psalm I to a reprint of BAE Bulletin article entitled "A Caroline Islands Script" by Saul Riesenberg and Shigeru Kaneshiro. The New Guinea pidgin English collection consists of 9 items. A small collection, 3 items, deals with research in Papuan.
Arrangement:
Arranged by language group.
Collection Restrictions:
The Homer Garner Barnett papers are open for research.
Access to the Homer Garner Barnett papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Homer Garner Barnett Papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Barnett, H. G. (Homer Garner), 1906-1985 Search this
Extent:
1.08 Linear feet
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
1942 - 1974
Scope and Contents:
This group covers the widest range of items from a rare Japanese language volume on Palauan myths to table place mats printed with the Lord's Prayer in Chinook. There is a set of directives and regulations for the Naval administration of the then (1946) newly acquired islands of Micronesia. These islands were mandated to the United States as a trust territory after the second World War. They had been a Japanese mandate between the two wars. Micronesia is now officially called the Federated States of Micronesia. The Marianas voted to become a territory of the U.S., a decision which some feel was forced on them by U.S. needs for a secure strategic base in the Western Pacific.
There are newsletters, a calendar, newsclippings, reports and reflections of attempts made by the U.S. to administer the disparate islands flung over an area as large as the U.S. itself. Of significance to researchers is the material relating to Netherlands New Guinea. Under the Dutch form of colonial government, the Bureau of Native Affairs was really a research institute, which also acted as an official advisory body. In 1955, Dr. Barnett served as a consultant. His report is found in Series 2 and contains a warning on the influences, which would soon change that area into West Irian.
Arrangement:
Arranged according to geographical area and then by date if possible. Undated items are grouped at the end.
Collection Restrictions:
The Homer Garner Barnett papers are open for research.
Access to the Homer Garner Barnett papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Homer Garner Barnett Papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Unbound pages from an album documenting Silas William Thompson's participation in the United States Navy during World War II, with particular focus on the Battles of Peleliu and Angaur and his time at Base 20 Hospital. The collection includes a group portrait of Company B-8 of the Naval Hospital Corps School, views of Base 20, the invasion of Peleliu and its aftermath, prisoners of war, Palauans on Peleliu and Angaur, and one image of Yap men dancing. Two issues of the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper declaring the Allies' victories in Europe and the Pacific, Navy certificates from the training station and hospital school, and letters from Naval administrators, are also available with the collection.
Biographical/Historical note:
Silas William Thompson was a US Navy medic during the invasions of Angaur and Peleliu during World War II.
Photo Lot 98-32, Silas William Thompson photograph collection of Peleliu during World War II, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
