Guide to the Indigenous Materials at the American Philosophical Society

Description: Correspondence and other materials relating to Indian affairs. Topics include diplomacy with the Haudenosaunee, including various delegations to and from the Haudenosaunee, diplomatic gifts and expenses, and Maryland's efforts to treat with anxieties about French intrigues, overtures, and inroads on Indian loyalty; land claims and disputes; Lancaster Treaty of 1744; two Delaware Indians accused of murder; Ohio Company; Indians' tensions with Virginians; and Indians in Ohio. Individuals (other than contributors) mentioned include Hotquantgoehle, Shickellamy, Andrew Montour, George Croghan, Colonel Burnett, Canasadego, Lord Cornbury, Indian Harry, Allumapis, and Lapaghpitton.

Collection:Selections from the correspondence of the Honourable James Logan, 1699-1750 (Mss.B.L82)

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Household structure among the Longhouse Iroquois of the Six Nations Reserve

Culture:

Tuscarora includes: Ska:rù:rę'

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Onondaga includes: Onöñda'gega'

Oneida includes: Onyota'a:ka

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Cayuga includes: Gayogohó:no

Language:English | Cayuga

Date:1962

Contributor:Myers, Merlin G.

Type:Text

Genre:Dissertations

Extent:315 pages

Description: This dissertation by anthropologist Merlin G. Myers was submitted to Cambridge University in 1962. The author focuses on the economic features and composition of household groups, political and ritual aspects of matrilineal descent, kinship and marriage, and the effects of these on the household group. He pays particular attention to variables relating to age, gender, and relations between generations. The study is based on Myers' field research in 1956-1958, during which he (accompanied by his wife, whose associations with Longhouse women led to some valuable insights) worked in both English and halting Cayuga. Among other sources, Myers had access to unpublished field notes of William N. Fenton, who also introduced Myers to members of the Six Nations Reserve. This item was a gift of William N. Fenton. Published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2006.

Collection:Household structure among the Longhouse Iroquois of the Six Nations Reserve (Mss.970.3.M99)

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Iroquois material

Culture:

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Onondaga includes: Onöñda'gega'

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Cayuga includes: Gayogohó:no

Language:English | Seneca | Cayuga | Onondaga

Date:1941, 1945, 1948

Subject:Music | Rites and ceremonies | Dance

Type:Sound recording

Genre:Songs

Extent:14 phonograph discs (2 hr., 20 min.)

Description: Audio recordings of Haudenosaunee speeches, ceremonies, and songs, recorded by William Fenton. The records are copies made at the Library of Congress from original field recordings made on a Presto Disk Recorder. Discs 1-4, recorded at Six Nations of the Grand River in 1945, consist of recordings of the Condolence Ceremony, demonstrated by Alexander General (Deskaheh) and David Thomas. Discs 5-10, recorded at Allegany in 1941, contain songs relating to the Little Water Medicine Society, sung by Chauncey Johnny John. Disc 11, recorded at Allegany in 1945, contains recordings of Drum Dance and Corn Dance sung by Chauncey Johnny John and Albert Jones. Disc 12-14, recorded at Six Nations of the Grand River in 1945 and 1948, consist of a variety of mostly social dance songs. The majority of this collection consists of culturally sensitive recordings for which reproduction and remote access is restricted.

Collection:Iroquois material (Mss.Rec.150)

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Iroquois past and present in the state of New York, presented by the Akwesasne Mohawk counselor organization

Culture:

Tuscarora includes: Ska:rù:rę'

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Onondaga includes: Onöñda'gega'

Oneida includes: Onyota'a:ka

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Lenape includes: Lenni-Lenape, Delaware

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Cayuga includes: Gayogohó:no

Language:English

Date:1940

Contributor:Gabor, Robert (Sagotaoala) | Fadden, Ray

Type:Still Image | Text

Genre:Posters | Drawings | Maps | Negatives

Extent:16 panels (oversized)

Description: Designer and author Ray Fadden (Aren Akweks, Tehanetorens) was a member of the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk community of Akwesasne and founder of the Six Nations Indian Museum of Onchiota, New York. As an educator, Fadden created “educational charts” to convey elements of Haudenosaunee history and culture to audiences. Early on, he enlisted the help of his son, John Fadden. Later, others were brought in to create other charts. This particular chart or poster is signed by Sagotaoala (Bob Gabor). It is comprised of four parts (photocopies of the original). Seen as a whole, the central feature of the poster is a map of Haudenosaunee territory in present-day New York State, showing the relative locations of the six nations of the Iroquois League (Haudenosaunee: Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora) and overlaid with drawings relating to Haudenosaunee history and culture. This central image is ringed with many more sketches, and around the edges the chart is bordered wtih different wampum belt designs. The sketches range from small and simple to fairly large and elaborate, and feature important people, events, places, material culture items, etc. from Haudenosaunee history and culture. This includes drawings of people like Hiawatha, Joseph Brant, Mary Jemison, etc.; material culture items like a water drum, body armor, pottery, etc.; scenes from daily life such as hunting, playing lacrosse, and a medicine man harvesting tobacco, etc.; more specific events like councils, warfare, a Dutch massacre of Delaware neighbors, and the arrival of the Tuscarora; and more recent happenings like Akwesasne Club Members on an outing and the role of Indian steel-workers in the construction of the "Rainbow Bridge" acress the Niagara River. Along with the 4-panel complete educational poster, there are 2 panels with miscellanous drawings along the edges, less polished and less specific than in the completed version, and 2 panels that together comprise a map of New York State and environs, and have the same kinds of drawings as the other two posters (albeit less polished than the 4-panel poster but more polished than in the other 2-panel item). Included in this folder are negatives of each of the 8 panels described.

Collection:Iroquois past and present in the state of New York, presented by the Akwesasne Mohawk counselor organization (Mss.970.3.F12i)

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Iroquois personal names

Culture:

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

Tuscarora includes: Ska:rù:rę'

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Oneida includes: Onyota'a:ka

Onondaga includes: Onöñda'gega'

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Nanticoke

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Cayuga includes: Gayogohó:no

Cherokee

Language:English | Mohawk

Date:1900-1951

Contributor:Barbeau, Marius, 1883-1969 | Cooke, Charles, 1870-1958

Type:Text

Genre:Personal names | Essays | Vocabularies | Stories

Extent:1380 pages

Description: This manuscript is an alphabetical list of about 6200 Iroquoian names, collected over 5 decades by Charles Cooke (Thawennensere), a Mohawk scholar from Wahta. Each entry includes the name in its Mohawk rendering, with phonetic spelling, gender, tribe, location, date, and clan. The name is then analyzed by radicals, with historical information about its bearer (where relevant). Cross reference to variants and from English names of Indians. Preface by Cooke, edited by C. Marius Barbeau, classifies names and gives numbers and sex. See also an accompanying audio collection (Mss.Rec.10), listed separately in this guide, in which Cooke reads the majority of the names. (Note: this item is currently restricted as potentially culturally sensitive pending further review. Reproduction is restricted.)

Collection:Iroquois personal names (Mss.497.3.C772)

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Iroquois personal names

Culture:

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

Tuscarora includes: Ska:rù:rę'

Tutelo includes: Yesan

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Oneida includes: Onyota'a:ka

Onondaga includes: Onöñda'gega'

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Cayuga includes: Gayogohó:no

Cherokee

Language:English | Mohawk

Date:1951

Contributor:Cooke, Charles, 1870-1958 | Barbeau, Marius, 1883-1969

Subject:Linguistics | Personal names

Type:Sound recording

Genre:Vocabularies

Extent:5 sound tape reels (4 hr., 54 min.) : DIGITIZED

Description: These recordings consist of a reading of an alphabetical listing of approximately 6200 Haudenosaunee personal names "in the Mohawk dialect", assembled by Charles A. Cooke (Thawennensere) from 1900-1951, and edited by Marius Barbeau. The accompanying manuscripts for these recordings are available in the "Iroquois personal names" collection (Mss.497.3.C772). (NOTE: This material has been digitized and can be accessed online for free by users not physically at the APS Library through a login and password. Please see our Audio Access Page for information on how to request these materials.)

Collection:Iroquois personal names (Mss.Rec.10)

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John McKesson papers, 1714-1791, pertaining to Indian affairs

Culture:

Onondaga includes: Onöñda'gega'

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Cayuga includes: Gayogohó:no

Language:English

Date:1714-1791, bulk 1778-1791

Contributor:McKesson, John, 1734-1798 | Knox, Henry, 1750-1806 | Pickering, Timothy, 1745-1829

Type:Text

Genre:Microfilms | Correspondence | Reports

Extent:1 reel

Description: These papers include correspondence and reports of proceedings concerning Indian affairs. Miscellaneous materials, mostly 1778-1791, of Timothy Pickering, Henry Knox, William Hardenburgh, John Taylor and others. Includes 94 pages, account of a meeting of New York Governor Clinton with Onondaga and Cayuga deputies at Fort Stanwix, New York in June of 1790, and 47 pages of miscellaneous material. From originals at the New York Historical Society.

Collection:John McKesson papers, 1714-1791, pertaining to Indian affairs (Mss.Film.641)

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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)

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Material on Iroquois Dialects and Languages

Culture:

Tuscarora includes: Ska:rù:rę'

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Oneida includes: Onyota'a:ka

Onondaga includes: Onöñda'gega'

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Cayuga includes: Gayogohó:no

Cherokee

Date:1950

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

Type:Sound recording

Genre:Autobiographies | Conversations | Stories

Extent:7 sound tape reels (4 hr., 25 min.) : DIGITIZED

Description: This collections consists of texts in several Iroquoian languages (Cayuga, Cherokee, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Tuscarora) recorded and played back to other speakers to test the mutual intelligibility of the languages for various speakers. The recordings comprise numerous texts in these languages, administered mutual intelligibility tests, stories, and conversations, all predominantly untranslated. Originally recorded on wire in the fall of 1950 at various locations in the United States and Canada. Later copied to sound tape reels. The Native speakers involved in these recordings are as follows. The Cayuga language speaker was Jane Owl, recorded at Cattaraugus Indian Reservation (N.Y.) The Cherokee speaker was David Owl, recorded at Cattaraugus Indian Reservation (N.Y.) The Mohawk speakers were Ernest Benedict and Sadie Curlyhead, recorded at Akwesasne (Saint Regis), and Ernest Benedict and Mr. & Mrs. Charles Benedict, recorded at Akwesasne (Cornwall, Ontario). The Oneida speakers were Harry Antone, Betsy Antone, Rosa Antone, Billy Antone, and Mr. & Mrs. Chapman Schanandoah, recorded at the Onondaga Indian Reservation (N.Y.), and Albert Christian, recorded at Nedrow (N.Y.) The Onondaga speakers were Louis Lyons, recorded at the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation (N.Y.), and George Thomas, Jr., Percy Smoke, Thomas Lewis, Pat Homer, and Floyd Henhawk, recorded at the Onondaga Indian Reservation (N.Y.) The Seneca speakers were as follows: Annie Lyons, recorded at the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation (N.Y.); a Mr. & Mrs. Smith, recorded at the Oneida Nation of the Thames in southwestern Ontario; Richard Johnny John, Colline Johnny John, Amos Johnny John, Lena Snow, Kenneth Snow, Albert Jones, Hubert Cusick, Lynn Dowdy, Henry Redeye, Elver Jacobs, and Mr. & Mrs. Laurence Jimerson, recorded at the Allegany Indian Reservation (N.Y.); Jesse Cornplanter and Solon Skye, recorded at the Tonawanda Indian Reservation (N.Y.) The Tuscarora speakers were Nellie Gansworth and William Mt. Pleasant, recorded at the Tuscarora Indian Reservation (N.Y.) (NOTE: This material has been digitized and can be accessed online for free by users not physically at the APS Library through a login and password. Please see our Audio Access Page for information on how to request these materials.)

Collection:Material on Iroquois Dialects and Languages (Mss.Rec.13)

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Materials on boarding schools, Frank G. Speck Papers

Culture:

Wichita

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

Tsimshian includes: Ts'msyan, Ts'msyen, Zimshian

Wabanaki includes: Wabenaki, Wobanaki

Seminole includes: Yat'siminoli

Seneca includes: Onöndowága

Shawnee

Shoshone includes: Shoshoni, Newe

Stockbridge-Munsee

Séliš includes: Salish, Flathead

Odawa includes: Ottawa

Penobscot

Pawnee includes: Chaticks si Chaticks, Chatiks si Chatiks

Ponca

Potawatomi includes: Pottawotomi, Neshnabé, Bodéwadmi

Quapaw includes: Arkansas, Ugahxpa

Ojibwe includes: Ojibwa, Chippewa, Ojibway

Omaha includes: Umoⁿhoⁿ

Oneida includes: Onyota'a:ka

Otoe includes: Oto, Jiwére

Mandan includes: Nueta

Menominee includes: Menomini, Mamaceqtaw

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

Munsee

Nez Perce includes: Niimíipu

Kaw includes: Kansa, Kanza

Kickapoo includes: Kikapú, Kiikaapoa

Laguna includes: Kʾáwáigamʾé, Keres, Kawaika

Lakota

Lenape includes: Lenni-Lenape, Delaware

Iñupiat includes: Инупиаты, Iñupiaq

Iowa includes: Ioway, Báxoje, Bah-Kho-Je

Isleta includes: Tiwa

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Ho-Chunk includes: Winnebago, Hoocąk

Hopi

Houma

Catawba includes: Iswa

Cayuga includes: Gayogohó:no

Cherokee

Cheyenne

Chickasaw

Choctaw includes: Chahta

Comanche includes: Nʉmʉnʉʉ

Creek

Crow includes: Apsáalooke, Absaroka

Caddo

Aaniiih includes: A'aninin, Atsina, Gros Ventre

Anishinaabe includes: Anishinaabeg, Anishinabe, Nishnaabe, Anishinabek

Apache includes: Inde

Apache, Plains

Apache, Western includes: Apache, San Carlos

Arapaho includes: Arapahoe

Arikara includes: Sahnish, Arikaree, Hundi

Assiniboine includes: Assiniboin, Nakoda, Hohe, Nakota

Blackfeet includes: Blackfoot, Niitsítapi, Siksika, Siksikaitsitapi

Language:English

Date:1939-1943

Subject:Boarding schools | Cultural assimilation | Education | Hampton Institute | Haskell Institute

Type:Text | Still Image

Genre:Rosters | Correspondence | Photographs | Lantern slides

Extent:0.25 linear feet

Description: There are a few items in the Frank G. Speck Papers currently identified as relating to Indian boarding schools. In the collection guide, under Subcollection 1, Series 1, in Section XIII, "Miscellaneous," see item XIII(22H), "Haskell Institute Roster." This document lists Native students at the Haskell Institute boarding school in 1939-1940, giving name, age, address, and tribe. (The tribes of the students included are listed above at the top of this entry.) In Section IV, "Southeast," see item IV(15H3), "Yuchi miscellaneous notes," which contains a letter from Ann Rolland (Haskell Institute), to Speck, April 6, 1941, as well as items under "C. Houma (Louisiana)" that relate to mission schools. In Subcollection I, Series II, Biographical Material, see letters (listed alphabetically by author) from Leona E. Giger and Ann Rolland, both students at Haskell in the early 1940s. Also see letter from "Redge" and Gladys Laulin regarding Chippewa boy returning home for dances. In Series III, Photographs, there is an undated photograph [#10-14(a)] from the Shingwauk Indian Residential School. See also school-related photos in folders "Creek #3," "Eskimo [Inuit] (Labrador) #4," "Houma #1," #2, #7, and #8, "Pamunkey #6," and "Penobscot: People #2." In Series IV, Lantern Slides, there are slides of Native and Black students at the Hampton Institute. More boarding school-related material may be identified in the collection with further research.

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