Fernandeño

Object Details

Topic: Language and languages -- Documentation; Linguistics; Names, Geographical; Names, Ethnological; Ethnology

See more items in: John Peabody Harrington papers; John Peabody Harrington papers / Series 3: Papers relating to the Native American history, language and culture of southern California and Basin

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.

Existence and Location of Copies: Microfilm and digital surrogates of microfilm are available. See Volume 3, reel 106. Only original documents created by Harrington, his collaborators and field assistants, or notes given to him were microfilmed.

Scope and Contents: This sparse subseries of the Southern California/Basin series contains John P. Harrington's research on Fernandeno. It consists mainly of field notes given by Setimo Lopez. Sporadic dating and other records indicate October 1916 as the probable time of elicitation. Data include vocabulary, notes on local placename trips with Lopez around the San Fernando Valley, and tribenames. There are also comments on placenames, some based on names in the baptismal records at Mission San Fernando (identified by the abbreviation "FIb"), which Harrington had copied in 1915. Charles Bell, A. C. Caldwell, and Mrs. William Brannon provided nonlinguistic information. Harrington's wife at the time, Carobeth, was with him in California in 1916 and recorded several texts from Juana and Juan Melendrez. She wrote them in a mixture of English and Spanish, and there are no Fernandeno annotations. Mr. and Mrs. Melendrez accompanied Harrington on a trip through the San Fernando and Chatsworth areas and gave additional ethnographic information, with a sprinkling of Fernandeno terms. There are linguistic and ethnographic notes resulting from an interview on June 4, 1933, with seventy year-old Martin Feliz of San Fernando. The subseries also contains an unannotated copy of the Lord's Prayer from Exploration du Territoire de l'Oregon, des Californies et de La mer Vermeille by Eugene Duftot de Mofras (1844).