Guide to the Indigenous Materials at the American Philosophical Society

Description: Christian Frederick Post was a Moravian missionary and observer of Native peoples and cultures; he was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1768. This journal of Post's, who was in the company of fellow colonist John Hays and Delaware leader Teedyuscung (and also mentions Delawares Isaac Still and Moses Tattamy), relates to Post's mission as a representative of the Governor and Council of Pennsylvania to the Ohio Valley Indians and the conference held near the Ohio River in 1760. Copy in clerk's hand. Concerning message carried to Mingos (Haudenosaunee, in the Ohio Valley) and other Ohio Indians, return of colonists taken captive during the Seven Years' War, and other happenings on the journey. Includes description of conjuring ceremony. This is a microfilm of an original in possession of Mrs. Henry P. Gummere.

Collection:Journal, 1760, of the great council of the different Indian nations (Mss.Film.204)

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Lenape materials, Frank G. Speck Papers

Culture:

Tutelo includes: Yesan

Shawnee

Pawnee includes: Chaticks si Chaticks, Chatiks si Chatiks

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Munsee

Nanticoke

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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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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Mohawk materials, Ely Samuel Parker Papers

Culture:

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Haudenosaunee includes: Iroquois, Onkwehonwe

Language:English

Date:Undated

Contributor:Parker, Ely Samuel, 1828-1895

Subject:Religion | Rites and ceremonies

Type:Text

Genre:Essays

Extent:20 leaves

Description: "Ancient Rites of the Condoling Council." Arthur C. Parker states that the source of this manuscript is debatable, but that it may be a copy of Horatio Hale's "The Iroquois Book of Rites."

Collection:Ely Samuel Parker Papers (Mss.497.3.P223)

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"The Good Message": A reading by Louise Deer of translation of the Handsome Lake Code

Culture:

Mohawk includes: Kanienʼkehá꞉ka

Language:Mohawk

Date:1981

Contributor:Deer, Louise | Hopkins, Alice W.

Subject:Religion | Rites and ceremonies

Type:Sound recording

Genre:Speeches

Extent:21 min.

Description: A reading by Louise Deer of a Mohawk version of part of the first day of the recitation of the Handsome lake Code, written down at the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario in 1880 by Seth Newhouse. Recorded by Alice Hopkins in Brooklyn, New York, in 1981.

Collection:"The Good Message": A reading by Louise Deer of translation of the Handsome Lake Code (Mss.Rec.117)