Guide to the Indigenous Materials at the American Philosophical Society

Description: This volume contains extracts of Benjamin Smith Barton's "New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America" (Philadelphia, 1797), with additions by Peter S. Du Ponceau. The bulk of the volume is comprised of word list of 54 words with equivalents listed in a range of 50-70 languages. While Barton listed no authority, Du Ponceau cited sources. Languages with words listed include Chitimacha, Atakapa, Cherokee, Osage, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Nottoway, Kansa, Omaha, Dakota, Pawnee, Nanticoke, Gros Ventres, Miami, Mi'kmaq, Seminole, Quapaw, Yuchi, Delaware, Ojibwe, Shawnee, Seneca, Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida, Tuscarora, Natches, Wyandot, Creek, Mahican, Mohegan, and many others. The word list includes the terms for God, heaven, and sky, as well as various terms relating to kinship, parts of the body, weather, and more. The volume also includes notes on sounds of the Otomi (Othomi) observations on declension; observations about the Omaha, Kansa, Oto, Arkansas, and Missouri languages; and notes on symbol and sound. Also includes a newspaper clipping of a review (in German) of Barton's "New Views" that appeared in "Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen," June 17, 1799.

Collection:A comparative vocabulary of Indian languages (Mss.497.B28)

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A. Zeno Shindler American Indian Photograph Collection

Culture:

Ute

Seminole includes: Yat'siminoli

Pawnee includes: Chaticks si Chaticks, Chatiks si Chatiks

Ponca

Potawatomi includes: Pottawotomi, Neshnabé, Bodéwadmi

Ojibwe includes: Ojibwa, Chippewa, Ojibway

Osage includes: 𐓁𐒻 𐓂𐒼𐒰𐓇𐒼𐒰͘

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

Cherokee

Cheyenne

Choctaw includes: Chahta

Dakota includes: Dakȟóta

Language:English

Date:1852-1869

Contributor:Shindler, A. Zeno (Antonio Zeno), 1823-1899

Type:Still Image | Text

Genre:Photographs

Extent:0.5 linear feet, 96 photographs

Description: Artist Antonio Zeno Shindler worked at the Smithsonian Institution from after the Civil War until the turn of the 20th century, specializing in ethnographic subjects. He was responsible for printing or taking a large number of photographs of American Indians exhibited there in 1869. The 95 studio portraits in the Shindler Collection were part of a suite of 301 images that comprised the first photographic exhibition at the Smithsonian, and that are documented in the catalogue Photographic Portraits of North American Indians in the Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution (1867). The individuals depicted were members of delegations sent to Washington during the years 1852, 1857-1858, and 1867-1869 from the following nations: Cherokee, Cheyenne, Chippewa (Ojibwe), Choctaw, Dakota Sioux (Brule, Miniconjou, Sans Arc, Santee, Sisseton, Two-Kettle, Yankton), Osage, Pawnee, Ponca, Potawatomi, Sac and Fox, Seminole, and Ute. Shindler printed the earlier photographs (mostly taken by the McClees Gallery) and was photographer for the later delegations. See the finding aid for more information. All of the photographs in this collection have been digitized and are in the APS Digital Library.

Collection:A. Zeno Shindler American Indian Photograph Collection (Mss.970.1.Sh6)

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Anathan-Jacobs Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Collection

Culture:

Stoney includes: Nakoda

Secwépemc includes: Shuswap

Ojibwe includes: Ojibwa, Chippewa, Ojibway

Métis

Kainai includes: Káínaa, Blood

Cree includes: Nēhiyaw, Cri

Dakota includes: Dakȟóta

Anishinaabe includes: Anishinaabeg, Anishinabe, Nishnaabe, Anishinabek

Blackfeet includes: Blackfoot, Niitsítapi, Siksika, Siksikaitsitapi

Language:English

Date:1905-1910

Contributor:Jacobs, Norman Leonard, 1885-

Type:Still Image | Text

Genre:Correspondence | Photographs

Extent:1 linear foot

Description: Norman Leonard Jacobs was an engineer and surveyor with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in Canada. The collection consists of his correspondence with Bessie Frank (later Anathan), an acquaintance from Pittsburgh. Jacobs wrote of daily life in Canadian cities like Winnipeg and Edmonton, interactions with First Nations, and daily hardships encountered in the field (extreme cold, snowblindness, and lack of food), but also spoke of his work with pride and enthusiasm. In addition to the letters, Jacobs wrote twenty-eight pages of a "Diary of a Tenderfoot." Also included in the collection are two photobooks and various loose photographs, which display various aspects of camp life, details of work sites and the Canadian landscape, and First Nations peoples. Some of the photographs are extremely faded. Native peoples mentioned include Ojibwe, Blackfoot, Cree, "Surteau" (likely Saulteaux),"Bloods" (Kainai), "Stonies" (Nakoda, or "Stoney"), as well as Native people at Tete Jaune Cache who are likely Simpcw. The images include family groups; men, women, and children fishing; men (some apparently hired by Jacobs or his company to act as guides and carriers in the field) working with an infant in a cradleboard; Ojibwe graves; tepees [tipis]; "Sioux" warriors; a sweat bath; horse races; individuals like Joe KaeKwitch, Chief Handorgan, Chief Wingard, Muskowken, etc. Most of these materials have been digitized and are available through the APS's Digital Library. Also see the finding aid for more background information on Jacobs and detailed itemized lists for both Series I. Correspondence and Series II. Graphic Materials.

Collection:Anathan-Jacobs Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Collection (Mss.SMs.Coll.13)

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Assiniboine materials, ACLS collection

Culture:

Dakota includes: Dakȟóta

Assiniboine includes: Assiniboin, Nakoda, Hohe, Nakota

Language:Assiniboine | English

Date:1936, 1949

Contributor:Ahenakew, Edward | Deloria, Ella Cara

Subject:Ethnography | Linguistics | Montana--History | Warfare

Type:Text

Genre:Correspondence | Grammars | Translations

Extent:64 pages

Description: The Assiniboine materials in the ACLS collection consist of two items that can be found in the "Assiniboine" section of the finding aid. Deloria's "Notes on the Assiniboine (Belknap or Watopahnatu dialect)" (item X8d.1) contains a sketch of Assiniboine grammar, compared with that of Dakota, and includes an Assiniboine text, with literal and free translation and notes, and a letter from author to Franz Boas, Jan. 6, 1936, covering the document. The other item is Ahenakew's "The creation of a new tribe" (71), an explanation of creation of Assiniboine tribe, separated from Sioux, given Ahenakew in his youth by his mission superintendent, Rev. John Hines, a battle over a girl accounted for end of connection of Red Eagle with other Sioux, and a letter of Ahenakew to Paul A. W. Wallace, May 21, 1949, commenting on Rev. Hines' relation to the author.

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

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Catawba materials, Frank G. Speck Papers

Culture:

Wateree includes: Wataree

Yuchi includes: Euchee

Tutelo includes: Yesan

Shawnee

Powhatan

Pamunkey

Naskapi includes: ᓇᔅᑲᐱ, Iyiyiw, Skoffie

Innu includes: Montagnais, Mountaineer

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Houma

Dakota includes: Dakȟóta

Creek

Catawba includes: Iswa

Cheraw includes: Saraw

Cherokee

Language:English | Catawba

Date:1914-1947

Subject:Ethnography | Anthropology | Linguistics | South Carolina--History

Type:Text

Extent:21 folders

Description: Materials relating to Speck's study of Catawba history, language, and culture. This includes Speck's correspondence with indigenous consultants such as Red Thunder Cloud, Chief Sam Blue, and Leola Blue (Catawba) and Will West Long and Climbing Bear (Cherokee); correspondence with other anthropologists and linguists, such as John Reed Swanton, William N. Fenton, Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin, C.F. Voegelin, Morris Swadesh, A. I. Hallowell, Mary Haas, and others; genealogies of twentieth-century Catawba consultants; a Catawba bibliography; notes on topics including Catawba division of time, travel and expedition, food resources, racial status in the South, and notes, possibly for a lecture, titled "The Catawba-A Small Nation Deflated"; a University of Pennsylvania student's essay on Catawba tribal correspondence with J. Walter Fewkes about Speck's Catawba field trips; field notebooks devoted to ethnologic notes, vocabulary, texts, songs, and other linguistic and cultural data; and collections of notes devoted to Catawba language and texts, general ethnological notes, and miscellaneous notes. Some of the notes and notebooks and much of the correspondence mentions other indigenous groups as well.

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

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Chukchi materials, ACLS collection

Culture:

Yupik, Siberian includes: Yupighyt, Юиты, Eskimo (pej.)

Yukaghir includes: юкаги́ры, одул, деткиль

Yeniseian

Samoyed

Sakha includes: Саха, Yakuts

Kerek

Lakota

Koryak includes: Коряки, нымыланы, чавчувены, алюторцы

Evenki includes: Эвэнкил

Itelmen includes: Итәнмән, Ительмены

Chukchi includes: Chukchee, Чукчи, ԓыгъоравэтԓьат

Dakota includes: Dakȟóta

Date:undated; 1905-1928

Contributor:Boas, Franz, 1858-1942 | Jochelson, Waldemar, 1855-1937 | Bogoras, Waldemar, 1865-1936

Type:Text

Genre:Autobiographies | Vocabularies | Notebooks | Catalogs | Stories

Extent:3 notebooks; 64 pages; over 2000 index cards

Description: The Chukchi materials in the ACLS collection consist of 10 items. These materials relate to the Northern Siberian section of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition of 1897-1902, and appear to be mostly or entirely secondary sources. Some of what Waldemar Bogoras described as "Chukchee" is in fact the Itelmen language, so it is likely the case that some of the Chukchi materials here are actually Itelmen. The majority of the Chukchi materials are in the "Non-American and non-linguistic material" section. Waldemar Jochelson's "My Life" (item 8) includes a Chukchi autobiographical story with ethnographic notes and some Chukchi language. Items ASCh.1, ASCh.2 and ASCh.3 ("Chukchi and Lakota notebook", "Chukchi word list" and "Chukchi word lists and texts") are three notebooks by Franz Boas, derived from work by Waldemar Bogoras, including some lexica and interlinear texts. Item ASCh.4 "Chukchi Lexicon" is around 2000 index cards written by Waldemar Bogoras. "The Study of Paleoasiatic and Tunguse languages in the USSR for the last ten years (1918-1928)" (item ASPa.1) summarises work on various Indigenous languages of the USSR, including descriptions of education programs at the Great Eastern Institute of Leningrad, Leningrad University, and the Khabarovsk Committee. "Catalogue of phonograph records from the Jesup North Pacific Expedition" (item ASPa.2) describes phonograph recordings obtained by Waldemar Jochelson and Waldemar Bogoras in various locations in Chukotka, Kamchatka and along the Kolyma River. In the "Eskimo (Inuit and Iñupiat)" section, Boas' "Comparative word list of Alaskan Eskimo [Iñupiat], Siberian Eskimo [Yupik], and Chukchee" (item E1.1) consists of a 1200-word comparative vocabulary that includes Chukchi. Finally, in the "Kutenai" section, Boas' "Kutenai lexicon" includes "a few" Chukchi word slips, according to Morris Swadesh.

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

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Dakota and Lakota materials, ACLS collection

Culture:

Oceti Sakowin includes: Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, Sioux

Lakota

Dakota includes: Dakȟóta

Language:Dakota | English | Lakota

Date:1838-1938 (bulk 1930s)

Type:Text

Extent:7500+ pages, 3300+ slips; 2 notebooks

Description: The Dakota and Lakota materials in the ACLS collection consist of a very large and diverse set of materials, and are located in the "Dakota" section of the finding aid, which provides a detailed listing of all contents. The vast majority of these materials were composed and assembled by Ella Deloria during the 1930s, both recorded from contemporary speakers and from various historical manuscript sources, which were sent to Franz Boas. The bulk of Deloria's materials are stories and speeches in typewritten manuscript form, with a transcription in the original language, followed by a literal word-for-word translation, then a free translation in English, and a section of footnotes commenting upon the original text and translation decisions. Some of her manuscripts occasionally lack one or more of these sections. These texts cover a wide range of topics, from traditional narratives, historical accounts, autobiographical stories, descriptions of games, customs, ceremonies, etc., and speeches, often concerning political affairs and economic conditions from the late-19th century to the 1930s. Names of numerous speakers are also given in the manuscripts themselves. Some of these materials were published, but most were not. Note that Deloria identifies the language recorded by using the terms "Teton" for Lakota language, and "Santee" and "Yankton" to indicate Eastern and Western dialects of Dakota language. The collection also includes a much smaller amount of material by Boas and others, primarily consisting of linguistics notes and musical analysis. A full list of places where the material was recorded has not yet been assembled.

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

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Dakota and Lakota materials, Franz Boas Professional Papers

Culture:

Lakota

Dakota includes: Dakȟóta

Language:Dakota | English | Lakota

Date:circa 1930s

Contributor:Boas, Franz, 1858-1942 | Deloria, Ella Cara

Subject:Economic conditions | Folklore | Linguistics | North Dakota--History | South Dakota--History

Type:Text

Genre:Grammars | Stories | Vocabularies

Extent:8 folders

Description: The Dakota and Lakota materials in the Franz Boas Professional Papers consist of 8 items in Series III. Research materials & notebooks. Six of these items are listed under "Boas, Franz--Dakota" and pertain to various linguistic features, including an incomplete glossary. See also "The story of the beginning as told in the Wakan Wacipi of Dakota" (author unidentified) and "Deloria, Ella - Report for Dr. Boas, re: Capitalism and the Dakota-Sioux."

Collection:Franz Boas Personal and Professional Papers (Mss.B.B61p)

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Dakota language, Western dialect

Culture:

Lakota

Dakota includes: Dakȟóta

Language:English | Lakota

Date:1970

Contributor:Big Crow, Moses | Carter, Richard T. (Richard Thomas), 1941- | Marshall, Joseph, Jr.

Subject:Linguistics

Type:Sound recording

Genre:Elicitation sessions | Vocabularies

Extent:1 sound tape reel (48 min.) : DIGITIZED

Description: Consists of elicited sentences in the Western dialect of Dakota made with the assistance of two consultants, Joseph Marshall, Jr. of Mission, South Dakota and Moses Big Crow of St. Francis, South Dakota. Recorded in multiple work sessions in February and March 1970. (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:Dakota language, Western dialect (Mss.Rec.84A)

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Dakota materials, American Philosophical Society Archives

Culture:

Shoshone includes: Shoshoni, Newe

Dakota includes: Dakȟóta

Language:English

Date:1797; 1822; 1976

Contributor:Du Ponceau, Peter Stephen, 1760-1844 | Melody, Michael Edward | Hutchinson, S.F.

Subject:Dance | Music | Anthropology | Folklore | Religion

Type:Text

Genre:Correspondence

Extent:4 items

Description: Four items relating to Dakota materials at the American Philosophical Society. Two 1797 items relate to the work of S. F. Hutchinson. In one, Hutchinson writes to Charles Willson Peale, describing the Calumet dance (Wakon-Mantah) of Naudowessie beyond Lake Pepin and including the score, the notation of music secured from an Indian "priest," and his own comments on the effect of music. In the other, signed by George Turner and Robert Patterson, an APS committee rejects Hutchinson's paper on Indian music as an imposition on the Society. [See also Early Proceedings (1885): 263-264.] The third letter is from Peter S. du Ponceau to Johann S. Vater regarding vocabularies of eight Indian languages, including Shoshoni, Upsaroke, Kenzes, comparative Sioux, etc.. The fourth and final item is a letter from Michael Melody to Murphy D. Smith regarding Rev. Luke Walker, a full-blooded Santee Dakota; J. R. Walker, M.D.; Dr. Walker's "The Sun Dance and Other Ceremonies of the Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota" (Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History); and the possibility that Dr. Walker is the source of Deloria's "Legends of the Oglala Sioux."

Collection:American Philosophical Society Archives (APS.Archives)