Guide to the Indigenous Materials at the American Philosophical Society

Description: This entry concerns materials relating to Speck's general study of Native American peoples, languages, and cultures east of the Mississippi, as well as to his activities as a consulted expert in the field. Includes Speck's miscellaneous notes on the southeast; notes on "tribal remnants" in the southeast; notes on shamanism in the northeast; notes on the 1941 symposium Man in Northeastern America; offprints, drafts, and synopses of the work of others, sometimes with Speck's notes, including several that were printed in Frederick Johnson's 1946 volume based on the symposium, Man in Northeastern North America; archaeological reports on southeastern pottery, mound sites, and the Georgia coast; a student's master's thesis on mound-builders; and letters from various correspondents regarding eastern Indian baskets, museum specimens, the sale of Indian art and specimens, the ethnohistory of the southeast, Indian place names, archaeological sites in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, scapulimancy, copies of Indian treaties from a museum in Nova Scotia, and other topics.

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

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Lenape materials, Frank G. Speck Papers

Culture:

Tutelo includes: Yesan

Shawnee

Pawnee includes: Chaticks si Chaticks, Chatiks si Chatiks

Nanticoke

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Munsee

Lenape includes: Lenni-Lenape, Delaware

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Cayuga includes: Gayogohó:no

Abenaki includes: Abnaki

Language:English | Delaware

Date:1895-1948

Type:Still Image | Text

Extent:57 folders

Description: Materials relating to Speck's study of Lenape (or "Delaware") history, language, and culture. Speck's correspondence with Delaware collaborators in Oklahoma relating to Lenape history, ethnographic data, linguistics, museum specimens, and reservation affairs, etc., might be of particular interest; there are also several tales related by Witapanóxwe, or War Eagle, other tales and texts (some with interlineal translation) from Josiah Montour and other unknown contributors, and 11 sketches of Lenape art designs. Other correspondence touches on Speck's efforts to collect specimens (and individuals and institutions interested in acquiring them), his efforts to collect paintings and sketches of ceremonies and designs, his fieldwork and expenses, financial support from the University of Pennsylvania and Indiana Historical Society, Shawnee data on Oklahoma Delawares, the Big House Ceremony, efforts to acquire a Delaware Big House to erect in Harrisburg, Delawares-as-women, etc. There are also at least 82 pages (in three folders) of Speck's field notes of ethnographic and linguistic data, and over 50 pages (in two folders) of Speck's miscellaneous notes (including some correspondence) on topics such as Gladys Tantaquidgeon and Lenape designs, botanical specimens, linguistic materials, museum specimens, the Walam Olum, the "Six Nation Delaware reservation", the celestial bear theme, native religion, reviews of Speck's publications, etc. Other notes cover Delaware grammar and vocabulary, Delaware clans and social organization, dualism in Delaware religion, the influence of Christianity on Delaware religion, the provenance of Delaware museum specimens obtained from Delawares in Oklahoma and Canada, biographical information on Joseph Montur and Nicodemus Peters, etc. There are also various drafts, essays, lectures and other writings by Speck on topics such as Delaware religion, ceremonies, peyote rites, designs, population, remnant populations in the east, history, place names, a Delaware bibliography and a notebook of reports to the University of Pennsylvania Research Committee on fieldwork among Oklahoma Delaware, St. Francis Abenaki, Munsee and Six Nations (Haudenosaunee) Delaware, Tutelo, Cayuga, 1931-1936.

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