Guide to the Indigenous Materials at the American Philosophical Society

Description: These language texts, produced in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, include dictionaries, grammars, vocabularies, and religious materials (primarily Christian) of the Assiniboine, Blackfoot (including the Piegan dialect), Chelan (an Interior Salish group speaking Columbia-Wenatchi), Coeur d'Alene, Wenatchi (Columbian), Colville (Okanagan), Crow, Kalispel (including Gros Ventre), Kutenai (Ktunaxa), Nez Perce, and Yakama (Yakima) languages. From originals on deposit by the Oregon Province Archives of the Society of Jesus at the Pacific Northwest Indian Center, Spokane, Washington. Guide book included.

Collection:Indian language collection: the Pacific Northwest tribal languages (Mss.Film.1365)

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Iroquois (Mohawk) grammar and dictionary, 1853

Culture:

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:French | Mohawk

Date:1853

Contributor:Marcoux, Joseph, 1791-1855

Subject:Missions | Linguistics | Iroquoian languages | Religion

Type:Text

Genre:Microfilms | Dictionaries | Grammars

Extent:1 reel

Description: "Grammaire iroquoise on la Langue Iroquoise reduite en principes fixes," by French Sulpician missionary and linguist Joseph Marcoux. Contains also: Dictionnaire Iroquois-Francais, 1844, 833 pages (many blank); Dictionnaire Francais-Iroquois, 693 pages (many blank); and a brief (1 page) comparison with Huron. From original in the Archives of the Mission Iroquoise de Saint-Regis and the Mission Caughnawaga (Kahnawake), Caughnawaga, Quebec.

Collection:Iroquois (Mohawk) grammar and dictionary, 1853 (Mss.Film.579)

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Ktunaxa materials, ACLS collection

Culture:

Ktunaxa includes: Kootenai, Kootenay, Kutenai, Tonaxa

Colville includes: sx̌ʷyʔiɬpx

Language:Chinook Jargon | English | Kutenai | Okanagan (nsyilxcən)

Date:1891, 1894, 1913-1927, 1947

Type:Text

Extent:19 notebooks, 66 bluebooks, 1052 loose pages, approx. 5600 word slips

Description: The Ktunaxa materials in the ACLS collection are extensive and concentrated primarily in the "Kutenai" section of the finding aid, which contains a full listing of all contents. The earliest materials in this section linguistic manuscripts by Jesuit missionaries such as Phillippo Canestrelli (item Ku.15) and John Post (item Ku.11), as well as extensive linguistic and anthropological field notes by Alexander Chamberlain (items Ku.9 and Ku.10), all from the 1890s. Subsequently, James Teit's "Traditions and information regarding the Tonaxa" (item Ku.16) from 1913 includes ethnographic and historical information, recorded in part at Tobacco Plains. The most voluminous amount of material overall is that of Franz Boas, recorded in the 1910s, which includes numerous field notebooks, lexical files, and related notes (items Ku.1, Ku.2, Ku.3, Ku.4, Ku.5, Ku.6, Ku.7, Ku.8, and Ku.17). Finally, see also Paul Garvin's field notes from 1947, containing Lower Kutenai recorded at Bonner's Ferry, Idaho; Cranbrook, B.C.; Creston, B.C.; and Elmo, Montana (item Ku.14 for the notebooks, and Ku.13 for slips).

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

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Kwakwaka'wakw materials, ACLS collection

Culture:

Wiwekam

Wiweqayi

Zulu includes: AmaZulu

Tłatłasikwala

Nak'waxda'xw includes: Nakoaktok, Nakwoktak, Nakwaxda'xw

Namgis includes: Nimkish, Nimpkish

K'ómoks includes: Comox

Kwakwaka'wakw includes: Kwakiutl

Kwagu'ł

Dzawada'enuxw includes: Tsawataineuk

Gopinuxw

Gusgimukw includes: Koskimo

Gwa'sala

Heiltsuk includes: Bella Bella, Haíɫzaqv

Gwatsinuxw includes: Quatsino

Gwawa'enuxw

Da'naxda'xw

A'wa'etłala

Date:1893-1951

Type:Still Image | Text

Extent:Approx. 10,000 loose pages, 10 notebooks, 7000+ cards, 10+ maps

Description: The Kwakwaka'wakw materials in the ACLS collection are located predominantly in the "Kwakiutl" section of the finding aid, which contains a full listing of all materials (other relevant sections are "Northwest Coast", "Bella Bella (Heitsuk)", and item AfBnd.4 in "Non-American and non-linguistic material"). Some of the larger individual sets of materials listed within this section also have their own specific tables of contents (available upon request) detailing their often highly diverse contents. Overall, the vast majority of the material is made of of 1) manuscripts sent to Boas by George Hunt from the 1890s to the 1930s, frequently in both Kwak'wala and English, covering a very broad range of Kwakwaka'wakw history, culture, languages, customs, and traditions; and 2) field work materials recorded by Boas and Boas' own analyses of material sent by Hunt, covering a similar range of topics. Additional materials by other individuals focus especially on linguistic and ethnographic matters. Also see the guide entry "Kwakiutl materials, Franz Boas Papers" for information on the correspondence between Boas and Hunt, which gives additional context to the materials in the ACLS collection.

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

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Lenape materials, Frank Siebert Papers

Culture:

Onondaga includes: Onöñda'gega'

Penobscot

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Munsee

Lenape includes: Lenni-Lenape, Delaware

Cherokee

Abenaki includes: Abnaki

Date:1930-1941; 1981-1983

Type:Text | Sound recording

Description: The Lenape (or "Delaware") materials in the Siebert collection can be found in Series IV, V, VII. Original notes can be found in Series V: Notebooks, in the folders "Delaware Texts" and "Munsee Field Notes from Nicodemus Peters, Smoothtown, Six Nations' Reserve, Ontario" from 1938. Many of the other materials are from secondary sources. Of interest is geographic diversity of Delaware materials ranging from Willy Longbones in Oklahoma to the Munsee speakers in Ontario. There are also a number of Munsee recordings in Series XII.

Collection:Frank Siebert Papers (Mss.Ms.Coll.97)

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Linguistics materials, Paul Radin papers

Language:English

Date:Undated

Contributor:Radin, Paul, 1883-1959

Subject:Linguistics

Type:Text

Genre:Notes | Vocabularies | Grammars | Dictionaries | Drafts

Extent:7 items

Description: Materials relating to Radin's linguistic studies. No clearly identified language. Includes lexical slips, phonetic charts, interlineal translations (One Rib is mentioned), vocabularies (deer hide is mentioned), notes on third plural, etc. Also includes "Is there a substratum language in America?" an outline attempt to classify languages by common phonetic characteristics.

Collection:Paul Radin papers (Mss.497.3.R114)

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Meskwaki materials, Frank Siebert Papers

Culture:

Shawnee

Penobscot

Ojibwe includes: Ojibwa, Chippewa, Ojibway

Quapaw includes: Arkansas, Ugahxpa

Menominee includes: Menomini, Mamaceqtaw

Meskwaki includes: Mesquakie, Musquakie, Sac, Sauk, Fox, Sac-and-Fox

Miami includes: Myaamiaki

Cherokee

Cree includes: Nēhiyaw, Cri

Date:1945-1992

Subject:Linguistics | Kinship | Ethnography

Type:Text

Genre:Grammars | Dictionaries

Description: The Meskwaki materials in the Siebert collection are listed under the term "Fox" and can be found in Series IV, V, VII. Much of the material consists of secondary sources, although there is some material in Siebert's notebooks (Series V). Siebert's interest in Meskwaki was primarily in terms of comparative linguistics.

Collection:Frank Siebert Papers (Mss.Ms.Coll.97)

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Mi'kmaq materials, Selected materials, 1676-1930, on Indian linguistics

Culture:

Mi'kmaq includes: Micmac

Language:French | Mi'kmaq

Date:circa 1816-1820 and undated

Contributor:Bellenger, Joseph-Marie, 1788-1856 | Maillard, Antoine Simon, -1768

Type:Text

Extent:5 items

Description: Part of a collection comprised of religious and linguistic materials in various Native American languages. Many were written by Jesuit missionaries of New France. These particular items include a catechism for Mi'kmaq children; a Mi'kmaq grammar copied by Rev. M. G. P. Cote, cure de Ste. Croix, and given by him to the Seminaire de Quebec in 1907; missionary Joseph-Marie Bellenger's book of Sunday sermons, including instructions and notes about the Mi'kmaq language (with Bellenger's observation that his notes are based on Maillard but that he has often had to supply endings), as well as a page of pictographs; Pierre-Antoine-Simon Maillard's manuscript containing religious doctrine and exercises, a table of deaths, notes on the principles of the French languages, and a table of contents, with a biographical note by Bellenger added in 1816 and 10 pages of pictographs with their meanings in Mi'kmaq; and Maillard's 1820 volume on the Mi'kmaq language, copied by Bellenger. Originals in the Archives de l'Archeveche de Quebec and at the Universite Laval, Seminaire de Quebec.

Collection:Selected materials, 1676-1930, on Indian linguistics (Mss.Film.453)

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Mohawk materials, Floyd G. Lounsbury Papers

Culture:

Tuscarora includes: Ska:rù:rę'

Shawnee

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Language:English | Mohawk

Date:1863; 1903; 1949-1972

Type:Text | Sound recording

Description: The Mohawk materials in the Lounsbury Papers are primarily found in the "Mohawk" section of Series II: Research Subject. This section contains materials Lounsbury recorded directly with Mohawk speakers from Kahnawake such as Minnie Diabo and Louise Diabo, who Lounsbury appears to have first met via the Mohawk community in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. The section also contains notes by Gordon Day, Marius Barbeau, J.N.B. Hewitt, and others. There are also notes for a Mohawk dictionary collected by Gunther Michelson between 1961-1994. The recordings in Series VII include a series entitled "The Mohawks Learn Mohawk," of Lounsbury talking with students in a classroom setting. There are also recordings of Lounsbury teaching at Yale with the Mohawk speaker Minnie Diabo

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

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Mohawk materials, Indian manuscripts, 1661-1879

Culture:

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

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:French | English | Wyandot | Algonquin | Mohawk

Date:1770; 1818

Contributor:Mathevet, Jean Claude, 1717-1781

Type:Text

Extent:2 reels

Description: Thirty-nine volumes of relgious materials and translations prepared by French Sulpician missionaries in New France in Iroquoian languages, as well as Algonquin and Algonquian languagues. Materials include Mathevet's translation into Mohawk of the Old Testament (3 volumes); New Testament (8 volumes); sermons (10 volumes); formal religious materials (16 volumes); an anonymous Algonquin manuscript; and an anonymous volume of catechism, prayers, and hymns in Huron. Originals in Seminaire de Montreal, les Pretres de Saint-Sulpice.

Collection:Indian manuscripts, 1661-1879 (Mss.Film.1109)