Dakota materials, American Philosophical Society Archives
Language: English
Date: 1797; 1822; 1976
Contributor: Du Ponceau, Peter Stephen, 1760-1844 | Melody, Michael Edward | Hutchinson, S.F.
Subject: Dance | Music | Anthropology | Folklore | Religion
Type: Text
Genre: Correspondence
Extent: 4 items
Description: Four items relating to Dakota materials at the American Philosophical Society. Two 1797 items relate to the work of S. F. Hutchinson. In one, Hutchinson writes to Charles Willson Peale, describing the Calumet dance (Wakon-Mantah) of Naudowessie beyond Lake Pepin and including the score, the notation of music secured from an Indian "priest," and his own comments on the effect of music. In the other, signed by George Turner and Robert Patterson, an APS committee rejects Hutchinson's paper on Indian music as an imposition on the Society. [See also Early Proceedings (1885): 263-264.] The third letter is from Peter S. du Ponceau to Johann S. Vater regarding vocabularies of eight Indian languages, including Shoshoni, Upsaroke, Kenzes, comparative Sioux, etc.. The fourth and final item is a letter from Michael Melody to Murphy D. Smith regarding Rev. Luke Walker, a full-blooded Santee Dakota; J. R. Walker, M.D.; Dr. Walker's "The Sun Dance and Other Ceremonies of the Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota" (Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History); and the possibility that Dr. Walker is the source of Deloria's "Legends of the Oglala Sioux."
Collection: American Philosophical Society Archives APS.Archives