Object Details
- Local Numbers
- Accession #1976-95
- Creator
- Harrington, John Peabody, 1884-1961
- Names
- Drake, Francis, 1540?-1596
- Collection Creator
- Harrington, John Peabody, 1884-1961
- Place
- California -- History
- California -- Discovery and exploration
- Topic
- Miwok languages
- Pomo languages
- Language and languages -- Documentation
- Linguistics
- Names, Geographical
- Names, Ethnological
- Ethnobotany
- Creator
- Harrington, John Peabody, 1884-1961
- Culture
- Pomo
- Mewuk (Miwok)
- Indians of North America -- California
- See more items in
- John Peabody Harrington papers
- John Peabody Harrington papers / Series 2: Papers Relating to the Native American history, language and culture of northern and central California
- Biographical / Historical
- The appearance in March 1947 of Robert Heizer's article "Francis Drake and the California Indians, 1579," prompted John P. Harrington to conduct his own research into the circumstances surrounding Drake's landfall near Point Reyes in northern California. He made a fairly exhaustive search into the two early accounts of the voyage as well as later assessments of it. In mid-May of 1947, the arrival of several representatives from Indians of California, Inc., gave Harrington an occasion to interview Manuel C. Cordova, a Southern Pomo. He also conferred with Alfred C. Gillis, a member of that organization's advisory committee. Around June 18 a former acquaintance, Francis Elmore, arrived in town. Aware of Elmore's specialized knowledge in Navajo ethnobotany, Harrington queried him regarding all botanical references in the early accounts of Drake's landing. Sometime after May 23 and prior to July 7, Harrington also spoke with a small delegation of Indians from northern California who were pursuing a claim against the federal government. Members of this group included Judge Fred A. Baker; Bertha Stewart, a Smith River Indian; and William Fuller, a Tuolumne chief who had served as informant to L. S. Freeland ("Nancy" de Angulo) some twenty years previous, and to Charlie Kemp in 1936. During this general period Harrington consulted with Matthew W. Stirling, chief of the B.A.E., regarding the matter of Drake's landing. Stirling had made studies of Pomo sociology during the years he studied under Kroeber at the University of California; for a brief mention of this work, see Loeb (1926).
- Extent
- 1 Boxe
- Date
- 1941,1947
- Archival Repository
- National Anthropological Archives
- Identifier
- NAA.1976-95, Subseries 2.8
- Type
- Archival materials
- Field notes
- Maps
- Manuscripts
- Vocabulary
- Collection Citation
- John Peabody Harrington papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
- The preferred citation for the Harrington Papers will reference the actual location within the collection, i.e. Box 172, Alaska/Northwest Coast, Papers of John Peabody Harrington, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution. However, as the NAA understands the need to cite phrases or vocabulary on specific pages, a citation referencing the microfilmed papers is acceptable. Please note that the page numbering of the PDF version of the Harrington microfilm does not directly correlate to the analog microfilm frame numbers. If it is necessary to cite the microfilmed papers, please refer to the specific page number of the PDF version, as in: Papers of John Peabody Harrington, Microfilm: MF 7, R34 page 42.
- Rights
- Contact the repository for terms of use.
- Existence and Location of Copies
- Microfilm and digital surrogates of microfilm are available. See Volume 2, reel 5, which also contains files from other subseries. Only original documents created by Harrington, his collaborators and field assistants, or notes given to him were microfilmed.
- Genre/Form
- Field notes
- Maps
- Manuscripts
- Vocabulary
- Scope and Contents
- This subseries of the Northern and Central California series contains Harrington's research on Southern Pomo and Central Sierra Miwok, focusing on Sir Francis Drake's landfall near Point Reyes in northern California. Harrington's investigation into the location of the landing included obtaining data on tribenames and placenames in Coast Miwok territory. As a guide for elicitation from his lingusitic sources, he utilized terms listed by C. Hart Merriam (1907) and probably some additional materials from the Merriam Papers at the Library of Congress. In Harrington's notes, typed and handwritten extracts from Merriam are followed by comments from William Fuller. There is one page of placenames from Manuel C. Cordova as well as several comments of a nonlinguistic nature from Francis Elmore. The bulk of the field notes for Central Sierra Miwok and southern Pomo consists of a rough draft and typed copy of an article on Drake's landing. The final manuscript is titled "Drake on the Coast of Northern California." Both versions take the form of a "Drake questionnaire." Using linguistic and ethnographic analysis with both the Miwok and Pomo speakers, Harrington considered separately the brief vocabularies recorded in the early accounts and the various ethnological features mentioned in descriptions of the landing and of Drake's crowning. His examination of specific cultural elements, added to the archeological evidence of the "plate of brass" left by the expedition, led him to concur with Heizer's conclusion that Drake had landed at the spot currently known as "Drake's Bay." In secret, however, he inclined toward the opinion that the "Golden Hinde" had perhaps entered the nearby Limantour Estero instead. Analysis of the linguistic evidence caused him to identify the recorded words and songs as coming from the Hukkuykku' (Marin) dialect of Coast Miwok. Included with the article is a bibliography arranged in both alphabetical and chronological order. Harrington's article was never published. Within this subseries is a U. S. Department of Interior Geological Survey map of Point Reyes Quadrangle, California. It is annotated by Harrington with several references to various individuals not mentioned in the field notes. Included are brief comments on geographical features in the area surrounding Drake's Bay. Also filed in the subseries is a single page of notes made during a discussion by Harrington and Truedson regarding the brass plate. These comments were written down during the return trip from Harrington's Aleutian work aboard the ferry "Dellwood" on December 30, 1941. Also included are the names and addresses of two Coast Miwok speakers, presumably obtained at the time of his interviews with Fuller and Cordova.
- Restrictions
- No restrictions on access.
- Record ID
- ebl-1626971434170-1626971434851-4
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