Guide to the Indigenous Materials at the American Philosophical Society

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Inuit materials, Eugenics Record Office Records

Culture:

Inuit includes: Inuk, Eskimo (pej.), ᐃᓄᐃᑦ

Date:1908-1929

Contributor:Flaherty, Robert Joseph, 1884-1951 | Rasmussen, Knud, 1879-1933 | Stefansson, Vilhjalmur, 1879-1962 | Wentz, Herbert B.

Type:Still Image | Text

Genre:Essays | Newspaper clippings | Notes | Correspondence | Sketches

Extent:3 folders

Description: The Eugenics Record Office Records consist of 330.5 linear feet of materials relating to the ERO, founded in 1910 for the study of human heredity and as a repository for genetic data on human traits. The Eugenics Record Office Papers (1670-1964) contain trait schedules, newspaper clippings, manuscript essays, pedigree charts, article abstracts, reprints, magazine articles, bibliographies, photographs, hair samples, postcard pictures, card files, and some correspondence which document the projects of the Eugenics Record Office during the thirty-four years of its operation. There are Inuit (formerly Eskimo) materials located in Series I. Trait Files. These include Folder "A:974 x 98. Caucasian x Eskimo" (1927), which contains correspondence (with sketches) of Herbert B. Wentz, M.D. to Harry H. Laughlin of the Eugenics Research Association, largely about the occurence of pigmentation in children of white and Native parents, but also with Wentz's descriptions of the unfair treatment toward Native Alaskans in medicine, education, and the reindeer industry. Folder "A:979 x 80. Caucasian - Eskimo" (1919) contains a single, brief anecdotal paragraph about an Inuit woman married to a white man. Folder "A:9798. Eskimos" (1908-1929) contains several newspaper clippings and articles (from Harpers, World's Work, The Literary Digest, The New York Times, etc.) relating to the Inuit, including Vilhjalmr Stefansson's article "Wintering Among the Eskimos"; newspaper clippings showing Mrs. Frank E. Kleinschmidt sharing a meal with Inuit women and children, Mrs. Kleinschmidt with an Inuit hunter, and an Inuit girl; Robert J. Flaherty's article "Wetalltooks' Islands: How the Remarkable Information and Native Map of One Wetalltook, an Esquimo, Suggested the Belcher Island Expedition" (with photos); Flaherty's article "How I Flimed 'Nanook of the North'" (with photos); "Knud Rasmussen's Artic Odyssey: The First of Two Articles by the Leader of the Fifth Thule Expedition" (with photos); William A. Thomas's "Health of a Carnivorous Race: A Study of the Eskimo"; a New York Times spread on Earl Rossman's expedition in Nunivak (with photos); Stefansson's "The 'Blond' Eskimos"; "Eskimos Under their Skin, as seen by Rasmussen" (with photos); and three pages of references to mentions of Eskimos in medical journals, two from the Journal of Immunology, Baltimore and one from Ugeskrift for Laeger, Copenhagen.

Collection:Eugenics Record Office Records (Mss.Ms.Coll.77)

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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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Ottawa materials, Paul Radin papers

Culture:

Ojibwe includes: Ojibwa, Chippewa, Ojibway

Odawa includes: Ottawa

Anishinaabe includes: Anishinaabeg, Anishinabe, Nishnaabe, Anishinabek

Language:English | Ottawa

Date:1926 and undated

Contributor:Radin, Paul, 1883-1959 | Shomin, Joe | Miskwanda | Pontiac, Jim

Type:Still Image | Text

Description: Materials relating to Radin's study of Odawa culture and history, with some Ojibwe material as well. Several items are headed "Ojibwa-Ottawa notes," though it is unclear from the descriptions provided what might be Odawa and what might be Ojibwe. Topics include Midewewin, religion, war and warfare, medicine and magic, death and burial, life cycle, games, ceremonialism, social organization, disease, dreams, and material culture. Items include a Nanabojo text concerning White Feather; ethnographic notes from published sources; 23 pages of male and female names; photographs (1926) with explanatory notes; typed slips and field notes on slips, most of them later transcribed for typed slips; and a 1-page letter signed Ake Sulkrantz and dated Stockholm, December 2, 1950. Two items are of particular note: 1) an unfinished manuscript relating 20 dreams of Miskwanda and 10 of Jim Pontiac, together with analysis. Chapters on legend and fact in the history of L'Arbre Croche and an ethnohistoric account based on the Jesuit Relations. Not included is a proposed account of "The culture of L'Arbre Croche as illustrated by Miskwanda's drawings." Interesting narrative of Radin's field work and methods and 2) 154 original drawings by Miskwanda--traced, arranged and commented on by Radin--intended to illustrate culture of L'Arbre Croche.

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

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Wintu materials, Harvey Pitkin Papers

Culture:

Wintu includes: Northern Wintun

Takelma includes: Rogue River

Patwin includes: Southern Wintun

Maya

Miwok

Klamath

Date:1888-1953

Type:Still Image | Text | Sound recording

Description: The Wintu materials in the Harvey Pitkin Papers are extensive. Subcollection I, Series I, contains notes, notebooks, vocabularies, slip files, texts, manuscripts and phonetic tracings by Jeremiah Curtin in the late 19th century, Roland Dixon, and A.M. Halpern. Series I-B contains Pitkin's grammar slip files and vocabularies collected by Curtin. Series I-C includes Jaime de Angulo's manuscript on the Patwin language, S.A. Barrett's transcriptions and translations of speech and song recordings, Radin's "Grammatical Sketch" and Waterman's notes on Patwin phonetics. Series II-A is rich in materials collected by A.L. Krober. In Subcollection II, Pitkin's field notes are located in Series 2, Subseries 1. Subseries 2 includes Pitkin's extensive notes on his Wintu dictionary, grammar, texts, stories, and music. The manuscript of the dictionary is located in Subseries 3. There is an unpublished 416 page manuscript of stories written in both English and Wintu, songs, and transcriptions in Subseries 4. This section also includes copies of all the extant linguistic material with works by noted linguists such as Curtin, Albert Gatschet, Radin, Halpern, Morris Swadesh, Victor Golla, and J.P. Harrington. Series 6 is comprised of card file slips with comparative analyses by Pitkin of the four languages of the Wintun family.

Collection:Harvey Pitkin Papers (Mss.Ms.Coll.78)