Now and Then -- John Peabody Harrington: A man obsessed (fwd link)

[Mia Kalish]

John Peabody Harrington was the man who had hidden, in one of his texts on
Tewa, the clue to why Indigenous languages seemed to be so badly
misrepresented. I have used this quote over and over in my papers. 

There are many parts of speech,  each of which behaves differently, and for
which we have in English no satisfactory nomenclature. Perhaps they may all
be reduced to 'nouns,' 'pronouns,' 'verbs,' and 'modifying elements'
(Harrington, 1910).

I don't have the page number, but here is the source, Harrington, John
(1910). A Brief Description of the Tewa Language. Papers of the School of
American Archeology, No. 17, Washington, D.C. The Smithsonian

I remember at the time I was trying to piece together the puzzle pieces that
would tell me why what I could see about AmerInd languages didn't fit with
what people were writing about them. There was this general sense that there
was only on Ontology and one Epistemology. Then, one day a miracle occurred
and I found Harrington. His little clue told me to look for the
(mis)representations, and that my intuitions were correct. From Harrington,
I would Powell, and reading his 1880 Introduction to the Study of Indian
Languages with Words Phrases and Sentences To Be Collected. Washington:
Government Printing Office made everything really, really clear, not only
the words that we have and don't have, and the total disparagement of
Indigenous societies, but also the power issues (Powell was director of the
Smithsonian; it was a polite from of Bowdlerism). 

I did some research in the summer of 2005, using the Hierarchical
Superiority of the Races metaphor with Conceptual Blending Theory technology
as the method of inquiry to investigate whether anthropological writings can
be filtered out and identified in such a way as to provide a kind of proof
of the omissions caused by the bias and bigotry of the time, as they
influenced academic writing, and it turned out that this worked pretty well.
I added the feminist viewpoint that characteristics can be communicated
using grammatical structure. Here's a small excerpt from that report: 

 

The Grammar tree was composed of 3 subnotes: "Active voice associates
primitiveness"; "Passive voice hides skill"; and, "Pejorative phrase".
Pejorative phrases include "these Apache", "all the hostiles", "in
aboriginal times",  and, "myths, and folk beliefs". "Pagan" is popular in
the Menominee document. Particular grammatical forms are also used to
conform to cultural expectations and to both embed and reference cultural
codes (Stories metanarrative). Active voice is used when the writer wishes
to reinforce some popular aboriginal characterization, as for example "The
Apache, however arrogant may have been his relations with his fellowmen, was
entirely cognizant of his abjectness and dependence before natural forces"
(Opler & Castteter, 1935). Passive voice is used when the writer wishes to
disassociate skillfullness, intelligence or cognitive involvement from the
Ndn people, as in "The lower leg bone of the deer was ground down to make a
drill. Later the iron-tipped arrow was used as a boring tool" (Opler &
Castteter, 1935). Overall, Stories, and their components as defined by
Carter (1993), are used frequently to invoke cultural codes and conventions,
to offer conjecture, to imply causality, and to structure time and events.

 

So while some people answer the question, Who is John Peabody Harrington? by
saying that he was a man obsessed, in my life, he was the bright comet who
lit the path to understanding. 

 

Mia  

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]
On Behalf Of phil cash cash
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 9:13 AM
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: [ILAT] Now and Then -- John Peabody Harrington: A man obsessed (fwd
link)

 

Now and Then -- John Peabody Harrington: A man obsessed

By Nancy Alexander, President, Highland Historical Society, Special to
Highland

Community News

 

Who is John Peabody Harrington?

 

He was a linguist and ethnographer, whose obsessive life's work lay not in a

single great discovery, but in the preservation of millions of words and

customs of Native Americans, which even in the early 1900s, were becoming

extinct. His work has become of increasing value to the many Native American

people who are trying to piece together their languages and customs.

 

Full article link below:

http://www.highlandnews.net/articles/2008/02/21/entertainment/04harrington.t
xt

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