Guide to the Indigenous Materials at the American Philosophical Society

Description: These materials relate to James M. Crawford's interest in and research on the Mobilian trade language, particularly research and writing relating to his prize-winning book, The Mobilian Trade Language. The bulk of Mobilian materials in the Crawford papers are located in Series III-D. Works by Crawford—Other. These include 11 folders containing numerous typed drafts of the manuscript, with copious handwritten edits, some edits typed on cards and attached the relevant page, and page proofs. There are also 6 folders of research notes containing Crawford's notes on secondary sources from the fields of history, anthropology and linguistics; notes on primary documentary sources; typed early drafts of sections of the manuscript; linguistic notes and charts; typed and handwritten transcriptions from both primary and secondary sources; timelines; outlines; bibliographic lists; a bibliography of Mary Haas; a copy of Mary Haas' “What is Mobilian?”; and several loose-page pages of handwritten text apparently from the Bible translated into an indigenous language. A significant quantity of the research material is in French, transcribed or copied from French sources. In the same series are also two copies--one with penciled edits and one clean--of Crawford's “Mobile” essay in the "Dictionary of Indian Tribes of the Americas" [1979]. In Series IV-D. Research Notes & Notebooks—Other, there is a folder titled "Mobilian Forms Collected August 27, 1970 from Leonard Lavan by J.M. Crawford Near Elton, Louisiana" containing 8 pages of notes and Vocabularies, mostly typed. Other consultants mentioned (page 7) are Daisy Sickey at Elton, Louisiana, and Maggie Poncho (Alabama) and Phoebie Celestine (Koasati) interviewed at the Alabama-Coushatta Reservation in Texas, also in August 1970; and a folder titled “Mobilian Search—Notebook,” containing one of Crawford's field notebooks in which he kept a record of a research trip in August-September, 1976 to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma in search of Mobilian words. Crawford took 36 pages of detailed notes regarding distances traveled; costs of hotels, camp grounds, meals, and other expenses; conversations with Native people about their own knowledge of languages and possible leads on Mobilian; addresses and phone numbers of other potential consultants; his conversations with people in Oklahoma and elsewhere about Title IV, bilingual language programs, the preparation of education materials for that purpose, grants, etc.; and other events of the trip such as his malfunctioning tape recorder (a serious problem because he needed to play the tape of Arzelie Langley speaking Mobilian) and his Volkswagen camper breaking down. He also included notes on words and linguistics he gathered, reminders to send Xeroxed copies of linguistic and ethnographic information (Swanton's Houma word list, Chitimacha materials in Freeman's APS list, Yuchi materials, etc.) back to people he'd met, sketch maps to help find the homes of potential consultants, what he spent on baskets and from whom he purchased, other ethnographic data he picked up, etc. Native individuals mentioned include Claude Medford, Ernest Sickey, Burley Celestine, Della Celestine, Jim Courteneaux, Edward Sylestine, Rosaline Langley Medford, Levi Fields, Sanville Johnson, Anderson Lewis, Clyde Jackson, Tom Dion, Annie Dion, Marie Dion/Dean, Rose Dean, Lillie Lewis, Jessie Lewis, Alvin and Freda Revere, Bill Crew, Lawrence Billiot, Alvin Cearley, Ken York, Barry Jim, and more. Native groups and languages mentioned include Houma, Natchez, Cherokee, Creek, Koasati, Choctaw, Chitimacha, Tunica, Biloxi, Yuchi, Chickasaw, Shawnee, etc. In other series, there is a file of largely positive reviews of The Mobilian Trade Language in Series II. Subject Files, and one box of card-sized paper slips, Mobilian-English and English-Mobilian, with penciled notes, in Series V. Card Files. Related materials include the folders titled “Columbus Museum” and “Reconnaissance of Southeastern Indian Languages—Notebook,” both of which also document Crawford's search for Mobilian, in Series IV-D. Research Notes & Notebooks—Other; and grant application materials that describe and give background for the project and give a narrative of his 1976 research trip (which greatly clarifies the notebook of the same trip) in “American Council of Learned Societies” in Series II. Subject Files. Finally, in Series I. Correspondence, there is a letter from Crawford to Miles Richardson submitting the manuscript for consideration for the James Mooney Award, which it went on to win (1976) and a marketing letter to the General L. Kemper Williams Prize committee from the University of Tennessee Press.

Collection:James M. Crawford Papers (Mss.Ms.Coll.66)

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Tuscarora materials, Floyd G. Lounsbury Papers

Culture:

Tuscarora includes: Ska:rù:rę'

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Onondaga includes: Onöñda'gega'

Oneida includes: Onyota'a:ka

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Cayuga includes: Gayogohó:no

Cherokee

Date:1946-1991

Subject:Linguistics | Religion | Folklore | Ethnography | New York (State)--History

Type:Text | Sound recording

Description: The Tuscarora materials in the Lounsbury Papers include a dictionary by Chief Elton Greene, J.N.B. Hewitt's Tuscarora version of the Seneca Cosmology, and Blair Rudes's notes as he was developing his Tuscarora Dictionary in Series II. The recordings in Series VII include Lounsbury's work with Tuscarora speaker and teacher Marjorie Printup, which includes work on grammar, stories with explanations, Christian phrases, pedagogy, and reminiscences, etc. Also included are a significant number of tapes Lounsbury made with Tuscarora speaker Nellie Gansworth, many unidentified.

Collection:Floyd G. Lounsbury Papers (Mss.Ms.Coll.95)

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Virginia materials, Frank G. Speck Papers

Culture:

Tuscarora includes: Ska:rù:rę'

Seminole includes: Yat'siminoli

Language:English

Date:1920-1947

Type:Text | Three-dimensional object | Still Image

Extent:40 folders

Description: Materials relating to Speck's interest in the various Virginia- or Chesapeake-area peoples sometimes collectively lumped as Powhatans, including the Chickahominy, Mattaponi, Nansemond, Pamunkey, and Rappahannock peoples, from the early contact period into the mid-twentieth century. The Cherokees, Seminoles, Tuscaroras, and Penobscots are also mentioned. Correspondence includes Speck's correspondence with Chickahominy consultants like Chief George L. Nelson, Mrs. S. P. Nelson, Chief James H. Nelson, and E. P. Bradby; Pamunkey consultants like Paul L. Miles and Chief O. W. Adkins; Charles Edgar Gilliam, a Petersburg, Virginia, attorney and amateur historian, etymologist, and ethnologist; and a letter from Werner Müller in Berlin to the University of Pennsylvania inquiring whether Speck's book on the Nansamond and Chickahominy Indians was published and mentioniong Speck's publications on the Rappahannock and Powhatan. Other materials, largely arranged by topic, were compiled by Speck as well as by some his students, particularly those who participated in a field research group between 1939 and 1942, such as Mary Rowell Carse, Edmund Carpenter, Royal Hassrick, John "Jack" Kremens, Maurice A. Mook, Robert Solenberger, and Theodore Stern. Of particular interest might be a folder of 1941-1946 correspondence (42 letters) and copies of various documents relating to the efforts of Speck, James R. Coates, and others to overcome the practice of Virginia draft boards to classify indigenous peoples as "Negroes" for Selective Service. Other materials include a folder on Chickahominy efforts to gain recognition, including chartering the tribe as an incorporation; two of Speck's field notebooks on the Pamunkey, Mattaponi, Rappahannock, Cherokee, and Chickahominy; Speck's reading notes on topics like gourds and the bow and arrow in early contact days; a description of "Pamunkey Town" in 1759, based on Andrew Burnaby, Travels (1760); a 1940 newspaper article titled "Virginia Indians Past and Present"; notes on Virginia Indian populations in 1668, based on figures obtained from a regulation requiring certain numbers of wolves be killed by various Indian groups; Charles Edgar Gilliam's "Historical sketch of Appomatoc Indians, 1607-1723"; and Gilliam on Powhatan Algonquian birds, etc., in colonial times. Other folders are devoted to topics such as Pamunkey hunting and fishing, Pamunkey games and amusements, Pamunkey celestial and meteorological phenomena, Pamunkey contemporary technology, Pamunkey emergency foods, Pamunkey fish, amphibians, shellfish, and reptiles, Pamunkey reptiles, Pamunkey animals, Pamunkey birds, Pamunkey mensuration, Pamunkey miscellaneous notes and correspondence, Pamunkey social organization, Pamunkey pottery, Pamunkey plants and agriculture, Pamunkey foods, Pamunkey medicines and poisons, Pamunkey folklore and language, Rappahannock field notes, Rappahannock contemporary technology, Rappahanock taking devices, Rappahannock miscellaneous notes and correspondence, Mattaponi miscellaneous notes and correspondence, Chickahominy miscellaneous notes and correspondence, field notes on Western Chickahominy, Nansemond miscellaneous notes and correspondence, and miscellaneous notes and correspondence on Virgina Indians.

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

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Wyandot materials, Floyd G. Lounsbury Papers

Culture:

Wyandot includes: Huron, Wendat, Wyandotte, Huron-Wyandot

Tuscarora includes: Ska:rù:rę'

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Oneida includes: Onyota'a:ka

Cherokee

Cayuga includes: Gayogohó:no

Language:English | Wyandot

Date:1885; 1941-1996

Type:Text | Sound recording | Cartographic

Genre:Maps | Grammars

Description: The Wyandot materials in the Lounsbury Papers are located mostly in Series II and consist primarily of secondary sources. Topics range from comparative Iroquois phonology to early French exploration.

Collection:Floyd G. Lounsbury Papers (Mss.Ms.Coll.95)