Recorded in: Washington (D.C.), United States, July 2, 1972.
Restrictions:
Restrictions on access. Some duplication is allowed. Use of materials needs permission of the Smithsonian Institution.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.
The collection consists of four (4) drawings of Zuni dry paintings, or sandpaintings, collected by Matilda Coxe Stevenson.
A note on one of the drawings reads: "drawn by Nick; described by Nick in Great Fire Society." A description of the dry painting which this drawing illustrates was published in Stevenson, Matilada C. "The Zuni Indians: Their Mythology, Esoteric Fraternities, and Ceremonies," Twenty-third Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1901-1902. (1904) 507.
The remaining three drawing are unidentified. Two of the drawings represent the same design, but there is no identification of the artist or the ceremony in which the painting is used. All three of the unidentified drawings resemble the drawing by Nick in style and in details of the design.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Historical Note:
Sand paintings were made by the Zuni and Navajo as part of healing rituals or ceremonies. The artist would use naturally colored grains of sand, pouring them by hand to create elaborate "paintings."
Biographical Note:
Matilda Coxe Stevenson (1849-1915; though her birth year is often erroneously listed as 1850) was the first woman to study the American Southwest and the first (and for a long time the only) female anthropologist hired by the US government. Born Matilda Coxe Evans in 1849 in San Augustine, Texas, Stevenson was brought to Washington, D.C., as an infant. She was educated at Miss Anable's English, French, and German School in Philadelphia and through private studies with her father and Dr. William M. Mew of the Army Medical Museum. In 1872 she married James Stevenson, a geologist with the US Geological Survey of the Territories. From 1872-1878, Matilda joined James on Ferdinand V. Hayden's geological surveys to Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah, and assisted him by compiling geological data. When the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) was created in 1879, Matilda Stevenson was appointed "volunteer coadjutor [sic] in ethnology" and she went with James on his BAE expeditions to the Southwest.
After James Stevenson's death in 1888, BAE Director John Wesley Powell hired Matilda Stevenson to organize her husband's notes. In 1889, Stevenson became regular BAE staff. From 1890 to 1907, Stevenson did substantial individual fieldwork at Zuni and published "The Zuni Indians: Their Mythology, Esoteric Fraternities, and Ceremonies" in the Bureau of American Ethnology's Twenty-Third Annual Report (1901-2). Starting in 1904, Stevenson conducted comparative studies at Zia, Jemez, San Juan, Cochiti, Nambe, Picarus, Tesuque, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, and Taos. In 1907 she purchased a ranch (Ton'yo) near San Ildefonso, which became her base for fieldwork. Stevenson died in Maryland on June 24, 1915.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 2037
INV 08631001
INV 08631002
INV 11014800
INV 11014900
Related Materials:
The National Anthropological Archives holds Matilda Coxe Stevenson's papers in MS 4689.
The Smithsonian Institution Collections and Archives Program's Cross-Collections Guide to Matilda Coxe Stevenson, written by Abby Clouse-Radigan, PhD, provides information on object collections related to Stevenson, as well as additional biographical information and notes on Stevenson's correspondence in the National Anthropological Archives.
This collection contains 195 slides that were taken by photographer Luther A. Douglas on the Navajo (Diné) Reservation in April of 1964.
Scope and Contents:
Catalog numbers: S03663 - S03686 and S07774 - S07945
This collection contains 195 color slides which were taken in April of 1964 on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico by photographer Luther A. Douglas. The photographs depict Diné (Navajo) everyday scenes (portraits/ landscapes) including images of trading posts, Hogans or Diné (Navajo) houses, schools, hospitals, churches, sheep corrals, performances for tourists, and ceremonies. Douglas used both a Yashica and a Rollei, which worked best for his field expeditions. He may have used these cameras during this visit to the Navajo Reservation.
Arrangement note:
This collection is arranged according to catalog number.
Biographical/Historical note:
Luther A. Douglas was born in Idaho in 1919 and died in 1976. Douglas had a rough childhood and at the age of 8 was left without parents. His father passed away before he was born, and his mother was on the run with her then boyfriend after robbing a bank. Douglas was abandoned by his mother on the Navajo reservation and he walked to the nearest trading post where he was then noticed by a Diné (Navajo) family who took him home and cared for him. He lived with this family for just under a year until a social worker visited and took him back to Idaho where he was put into foster care. Since then he had an admiration for Diné (Navajo) culture, as he experienced daily life and some ceremonies while living with the Diné (Navajo) family. This was the first time he was able to experience being part of a family and he believed that they saved his life in many ways.
In his adult life, Douglas pursued independent studies for more than four decades traveling to the Navajo reservation many times and recording knowledge of the Navajo culture, focusing on the preservation of sand paintings. He was a craftsman and an ethnographer with lifelong interests in the Diné (Navajo) culture, and even experimented and mimicked sand paintings but it was noted by his wife they were altered in various and minimal ways in order to alter the ceremonial paintings. His wife, Conda Elisabeth (Betsy) Douglas worked closely with him and often accompanied him during lectures and slide programs.
In 1954 Douglas was elected as a Fellow of the International Explorers Clubs in recognition of his studies of Diné (Navajo) culture. In 1960s Douglas worked as a Research Associate or Field Agent for the Museum of the American Indian and traveled out to the Diné (Navajo) Reservation during this time. In 1976 he received recognition as an outstanding Idaho citizen since the time of Idaho's formation as a Territory at the Idaho Bicentennial celebration.
Separated Materials:
NMAI also holds the following reports written by Luther Douglas: Storytelling Among the Navajo , 1965 and Survey Report on Navajo Ceremonial Practices , undated. These are held in the Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation Records, NMAI.AC.001, Box 213, folders 15 and 16.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Some materials in this collection are restricted due to cultural sensitivity.
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Genre/Form:
Color slides -- 20th century
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Luther Douglas Diné (Navajo) slides, image #, Collection NMAI.AC.393; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation Search this
Collection Director:
Heye, George G. (George Gustav), 1874-1957 Search this
Container:
Box 251, Folder 9
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
undated
Collection Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Collection Rights:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish or broadcast materials from the collection must be requested from the National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiarchives@si.edu.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation Records, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation Search this
Collection Director:
Heye, George G. (George Gustav), 1874-1957 Search this
Container:
Box 265, Folder 8
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
Jan-Feb 1904
Scope and Contents:
Correspondents: Frederick Starr, G.E. Kastengren, Walter Hough, George Bird Grinnell, L.O. Howard, Homer Sargent, William H. Goodyear, William Curtis Farabee, Thomas S. Dozier, Benjamin Talbot Babbitt Hyde, George Grant MacCurdy, Louis Agassiz Fuentes, J.W. Volz, E. H. Thompson, Frederick W. Hodge, Frederick E Hyde, Jr., Grace Nicholson, Franklin W. Hooper, Mr. Fuller, Charles de Kay, Henry M. Whelpley, Frederic Ward Putnam, Henry Hales, Otis T. Mason, George Dorsey, Warren K. Moorehead, John F. Kerr, Antonio Penafiel, F. Stanley Livingston, M.C. Long, A. Fogg, Romiett Stevens, Sumner Matteson.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Collection Rights:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish or broadcast materials from the collection must be requested from the National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiarchives@si.edu.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation Records, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation Search this
Collection Director:
Heye, George G. (George Gustav), 1874-1957 Search this
Container:
Box 265, Folder 9
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
Mar-Apr 1904
Scope and Contents:
Correspondents: M.C. Long, George DeForest Smith, L.O. Howard, Romiett Stevens, Richard Wetherill, James E. Lough, George Kunz, Zelia Nuttall, Lizzie Fulton, Edgar L. Hewett, T. Mitchell Prudden, Frederick W. Hodge, Frederic Ward Putnam, William Henry Holmes, Constance Goddard DuBois, Evelyn Valentini, Franklin W. Hooper, W. J. Andrus, Charles W. Mead, C.H. Townsend, Homer Sargent, John H. Cobbs, L. H. Brittin, Walter L. Johnson.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Collection Rights:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish or broadcast materials from the collection must be requested from the National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiarchives@si.edu.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation Records, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Some items are in fragile condition. Please seek assistance with the following items of correspondence:
Byrd, Charlene Hodges: General Correspondence, 1946 May 15; 1946 July.
Cummings, Grace E. Shimm: Cummings, Charles Gilmor, 1907 May 13; 1907 May 20; John W, 1890 July 28.
Shimm, Sarah A: General Correspondence, 1881 May 6.
Other Correspondence: William P. Ryder, 1877.
Collection Rights:
This collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Collection Citation:
Charlene Hodges Byrd collection, circa 1750-2009. National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
This project received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
