Guide to the Indigenous Materials at the American Philosophical Society

Description: Materials relating to Speck's research and other professional activities. Items include Speck's notes taken during graduate work at Columbia University under Franz Boas, and utilized for his own anthropology courses at the University of Pennsylvania; Speck's miscellaneous notes comprising circa 500 bibliographic cards and reading notes sorted out by tribe and/or language, dealing with tribes and countries in which Speck did no field work [other entries of this type are to be found among the various groups of materials in the Speck collection, according to tribe]; correspondence concerning exhibits and specimens for the Chicago World's Fair and for the Exposition of Indian Tribal Arts in New York City; two letters from Boas regarding the work of the Committee on Research in Native American Languages; correspondence regarding topics such as the double-curve motif, family hunting areas, indigenous foods and cooking methods, wampum, silverwork, birch-bark technique, baskets, Speck's research and publications, the research and publications of others, obtaining indigenous material cultural specimens for Speck, purchases of indigenous material culture specimens (baskets, masks, etc.) from Speck, Speck's identification of items in the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University, Speck's bibliography, and Speck's obituary; letters requesting copies of Speck's publications, or acknowledging the transmission of publications between Speck and others; copies and/or drafts of several of Speck's presentations and publications, including "Lectures on Primitive Religion," "Land Ownership Among Hunting Peoples in Primitive America and the World's Marginal Areas," "Review of Lowie's Introduction to Cultural Anthropology," and "The Double-Curve Motive in Northeastern Algonquian Art"; a bibliography of Speck's publications through 1942; rough drafts of miscellaneous papers, 1928-1948; Speck's notes on topics such as crane posture; Birket-Smith's 1946 "Plan for Circumpolar Research"; ten distribution maps for circumpolar culture traits, colored in with crayon to show distribution of traits including divination and miracle shamanism, sweat bath, turtle Atlas myth and world-tree concept, bone divination, bear veneration, curative power of mystic words and formulae, dog-ancestor myth, dog as soul leader, curvilinear patterns, and confession to cure taboo violation; and a prepublication manuscript of Hallowell's "The nature and function of property as a human institution" with additions and corrections.

Collection:Frank G. Speck Papers (Mss.Ms.Coll.126)

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Molala materials, ACLS collection

Culture:

Molala includes: Molalla, Molale

Language:English | German | Molala

Date:1890

Contributor:Boas, Franz, 1858-1942

Subject:Ethnography | Linguistics

Type:Text

Genre:Notebooks | Shorthand

Extent:1 notebook

Description: The Molala materials in the ACLS collection consist of 1 item in the "Chinook" section of the finding aid. This item is "Field notes on Chinookan and Salishan languages and Gitamat, Molala, and Masset" (item Pn4b.5). Notebook 4 of these notes includes ethnographic notes on Molala. Some or most of this material is written in German shorthand.

Collection:ACLS Collection (American Council of Learned Societies Committee on Native American Languages, American Philosophical Society) (Mss.497.3.B63c)

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Muscogee (Creek) materials, Mary R. Haas Papers

Culture:

Muscogee includes: Muskogee, Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek

Language:English | Muscogee

Date:1930s-1970s

Subject:Folklore | Kinship | Linguistics | Music | Oklahoma--History

Type:Sound recording | Text

Genre:Field notes | Place names | Stories | Vocabularies

Extent:7 linear feet

Description: The Muscogee (Creek) materials in the Mary R. Haas Papers are extensive, with materials found in most sections of the collection. In Series I, see especially the correspondence with professional colleagues such as Franz Boas, Jack Martin, William Sturtevant, and others regarding the Muscogee language, as well as correspondence with her Muscogee-speaking consultants, such as James Hill and Watt Sam. Other relevant letters in Series 1 include a "Creek language" subject heading listed with the item. The most extensive amount of material can be found in the "Creek" section of Series 2. This section contains 10 boxes of material. Prominent materials in this section include Haas's original 22 field notebooks, containing vocabulary elicitation, stories, and accompanying notes, recorded in 1941 in Eufaula, Oklahoma, Nonnie Scott, Arthur E. Raiford, James Hill, Jim Marshall, Jim Bullet, Don Starr, Peter Ewing, John Toney, Tom Tiger, Wesley Tauyan, Ollie Tauyan, John Thompson, Tom Red, Johnson Late, and Dan Cooke, plus others only identified with initials; 6 notebooks by James Hill, writing in the Mvskoke writing system, containing stories; Victor Riste's 4 field notebooks from 1931, containing stories and elicited vocabulary with multiple consultants listed; various linguistic notes and other materials derived from the above-listed notebooks; pedagogical materials for Muscogee language learning; a range materials on Muscogee (Creek) history; and more. Series 3 contains a small number of items labelled "Creek." In Series 9, there is additional extensive files linguistic material in the form of lexicons and grammatical notes, as well as ethnographic notes. Some Creek terms are also included in files comparing it with other languages. Lastly, in Series 10, there is a brief "Creek Texts" audio recording from the 1970s, as well as "Creek Text and Conversation" with Watt Sam and Nancy Raven in 1931.

Collection:Mary R. Haas Papers (Mss.Ms.Coll.94)

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Nahua materials, ACLS collection

Culture:

Nahua

Date:1912-1924, 1928, 1930, 1940, 1949-1950, 1953

Subject:Ethnography | Linguistics | Music | Orthography and spelling | Stories

Type:Text

Genre:Bibliographies | Essays | Stories | Vocabularies

Extent:359 pages, Circa 750 slips, 1 notebook (314 pages), 1 volume (168 pages)

Description: The Nahua materials in the ACLS collection consist of numerous items in the "Nahuatl" section of the finding aid, which contains a full listing. Prominent materials include texts recorded by Boas from Milpa Alta speakers, including Doña Luz Jiménez, in 1912 (item U7b.4). There are also additional texts, recorded by Miguel Barrios Espinosa in 1950 San Juan Tlilhuacan, Delegacion de Azcapotzales, Mexico City (item U7b.9). Mason (and possibly also Boas') "Nahuatl vocabulary" (item U7b.3) contains 750+ word slips based upon work by Simeón and Mason. "Vocabularies Nawatl" (item U7b.12) by Leon and Swadesh consists of vocabulary of 3 Nahuatl dialects (identified as Telina, Ilamalan, and San Pedro [Atocpan?]) based on field work in 1939 with 4 speakers. There are additional grammatical studies and linguistic treatments by Whorf, Barlow, Croft, and Ripley. Some Nahuatl vocabulary can also be found in comparative Uto-Aztecan materials in the "Uto-Aztecan" section of the finding aid.

Collection:ACLS Collection (American Council of Learned Societies Committee on Native American Languages, American Philosophical Society) (Mss.497.3.B63c)

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Nahua materials, Field notebooks and anthropometric data

Culture:

Nahua

Language:English | Nahuatl, Morelos | Spanish

Date:1930

Contributor:Boas, Franz, 1858-1942

Subject:Linguistics

Type:Text

Genre:Essays

Extent:1 folder

Description: The Nahua materials in the Boas Field Notebooks and Anthropometric Data collection consist one folder, "Spanish Element in Modern Nahuatl," containing a draft article.

Collection:Franz Boas early field notebooks and anthropometric data (Mss.B.B61.5)

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Nanticoke materials, Frank G. Speck Papers

Culture:

Tuscarora includes: Ska:rù:rę'

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Onondaga includes: Onöñda'gega'

Oneida includes: Onyota'a:ka

Nanticoke

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Lenape includes: Lenni-Lenape, Delaware

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Cayuga includes: Gayogohó:no

Language:English | Nanticoke

Date:1914-1943

Contributor:Speck, Frank G. (Frank Gouldsmith), 1881-1950 | Boas, Franz, 1858-1942 | Mooney, James, 1861-1921

Type:Text

Genre:Correspondence | Notes

Extent:3 folders

Description: Materials relating to Speck's study of Nanticoke language, history, and culture. Includes Speck's miscellaneous Nanticoke notes, comprising a letter from Wes (?) to Speck, June 24, 1943, concerning Nanticoke J. Barton Cheyney to Speck, October 31, no year, concerning Delaware-white-Nanticoke relations; James Mooney to Speck, February 15, 1916, concerning Speck's Nanticoke article (1915); Franz Boas to Speck, March 29, 1916, on same subject. [See also Speck (1915).] Other materials include a document describing a meeting of Delaware, Nanticoke, and Canadian Iroquois in the presence of Speck and recounting injustices suffered by Native peoples in the United States and Canada [see also #1755] and Speck's notes on the Tuscarora in Canada, which include names for the Nanticokes in Cayuga, Tuscarora, Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga, and Oneida; notes on wampum, folklore, and the Canadian Tuscarora; and some Nanticoke vocabulary.

Collection:Frank G. Speck Papers (Mss.Ms.Coll.126)

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Ndau materials, ACLS Collection

Culture:

Zulu includes: AmaZulu

Ndau

Kwakwaka'wakw includes: Kwakiutl

Language:Ndau | English | Kwak'wala | German

Date:1921, 1947, undated

Contributor:Boas, Franz, 1858-1942 | Simango, Columbus Kamba | Rumberger, Joseph Paul | Hunt, George

Type:Text

Extent:218 p., ca. 1850 slips and 39 notebooks

Description: All Ndau materials in the ACLS collection are by C. Kamba Simango working with Franz Boas in the 1920s, or are derived from this. Three sets of texts (items AfBnd.4, AfBng.1 and AfBng.2) written by Simango describe topics including general home life, food, childrearing, marriage, religion and beliefs about death, and some autobiography. Some texts appear to have been later published as "Tales and Proverbs of the Vandau of Portuguese South Africa" (1922). The text items also include lexica, marginalia by Boas, a song, kinship terms and an illustration, and item AfBnd.4 "Texts on Ndau culture" also includes description of George Hunt's Kwak'wala language work. Item AfBnd.3 "Ndau lexica and ethnographic slips" contains ethnographic notes of mostly unidentified topics, but especially witchcraft, and 39 short notebooks of mostly Chindau lexica. The two main Chindau lexica (both "Chindau lexicon", items AfBnd.1 and AfBnd.2) total around 1700 slips. Zulu culture is also sporadically referenced in the above items. Finally, "An Analysis of Chindau, A Bantu Language of South East Africa" (item AfBnd.5) is an MA thesis by Joseph Rumberger derived from these materials. Boas published "Ethnographische Bemerkungen über die Vandau" in Zeitschrift Für Ethnologie 55(1), 1923 (in German) describing his work with Simango.

Collection:ACLS Collection (American Council of Learned Societies Committee on Native American Languages, American Philosophical Society) (Mss.497.3.B63c)

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Nisga'a material, Field notebooks and anthropometric data

Culture:

Nisga'a includes: Nass, Nisgha, Nishga, Nishka, Niska, Nisqa'a

Language:English | German | Nisga'a

Date:1888

Contributor:Boas, Franz, 1858-1942

Subject:British Columbia--History | Ethnography | Linguistics

Type:Text

Genre:Diaries | Notebooks | Shorthand | Vocabularies

Extent:1 notebook

Description: The Nisga'a materials in the Boas Field Notebooks and Anthropometric Data collection consist of varied linguistic or ethnographic notes, some possibly in German shorthand, located within Field notes 1888 #1.

Collection:Franz Boas early field notebooks and anthropometric data (Mss.B.B61.5)

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Nisga'a materials, ACLS collection

Culture:

Nisga'a includes: Nass, Nisgha, Nishga, Nishka, Niska, Nisqa'a

Language:English | German | Nisga'a

Date:circa 1894; After 1911; 1920

Contributor:Boas, Franz, 1858-1942 | Matheson, G. | Sapir, Edward, 1884-1939 | Schulenburg, A. C. | Stirling, Matthew Williams, 1896-1975

Subject:Biography | Linguistics

Type:Text

Extent:Circa 3,300 slips, 241 pages, 4 notebooks

Description: The Nisga'a materials in the ACLS collection consist primarily of materials in the "Nass (Nisga'a)" section of the finding aid. The earliest item (Pn5b.3) is a roughly 500-word Nisga'a-English list compiled by Boas from his own work and that of Schulenberg's "Die Sprache der Zimshian-Indianer." There are subsequent texts and vocabularies recorded by Boas, Sapir, and Stirling within this section. Also included is the first half of a Nisga'a-German dictionary compiled by Boas (item Pn5b.4), and an extensive lexicon by Stirling numbering over 3000 word slips (item Pn5b.1). In the "Tsimshian" section of the finding aid, see also Boas' "Texts and word lists in Tsimshian, Ts'ets'aut, and Nisga'a" (item Pn5a.5), which includes original field notes, texts (most published), song texts, musical scores, and some shorthand notes. Overall, material described in the collection as "Nass" or "Nass River" is Nisga'a, though some may be intermixed among Tsimshian materials.

Collection:ACLS Collection (American Council of Learned Societies Committee on Native American Languages, American Philosophical Society) (Mss.497.3.B63c)

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Nlaka'pamux material, Field notebooks and anthropometric data

Culture:

Nlaka'pamux includes: Nlakapamuk, Nłeʔkepmx, Ntlakyapamuk, Thompson

Language:English | German | Nlaka'pamuctsin

Date:1888

Contributor:Boas, Franz, 1858-1942

Subject:British Columbia--History | Ethnography | Linguistics

Type:Text

Genre:Diaries | Notebooks | Shorthand | Vocabularies

Extent:1 notebook

Description: The Nlaka'pamux materials in the Boas Field Notebooks and Anthropometric Data collection consist of varied linguistic or ethnographic notes, some possibly in German shorthand, located within Field notes 1888 #2.

Collection:Franz Boas early field notebooks and anthropometric data (Mss.B.B61.5)