Gordon Marsh

[Lance Foster]

>

Hi all-

I was wondering who out there has done research on the life of Gordon
Marsh, Chiwere scholar extraordinaire. I remember seeing a short
biography on him in an article in a book of biographies of either
linguists, anthropologists, or scholars of American Indians. I
photocopied the article, but unfortunately it as well as all of my
research materials remain in storage in the lower 48 (I am in Alaska
now). I also learned more about him in a series of letters with some
scholars (Nancy Lurie? Mildred Mott?). I have microfilms of his work
(also in storage) from the American Philosophical Society, which was
done by Marsh in several seasons of fieldwork in the 1930s-- he even had
a special typewriter created for it. His major professor at Columbia was
Franz Boas. Unfortunately as he did his fieldwork, Boas retired, so
Marsh lost his major prof. Boas had been interested in collecting
everything Native American, but the new paradigm in anthropology and at
Columbia was more along the lines of social theory, and Marsh could not
find anyone on the faculty who was interested in what he was doing. In
frustration, Marsh turned in his typewriter, his notes, etc. to the
American Philosophical Society, and went to Alaska to become a Russian
Orthodox monk! Years later he went to the southwest, Arizona and/or
Texas. I received an email from some former parishioners who remembered
attending his Masses in Texas, where he is said to have died in the
1970s or 1980s.

As I was doing my research, the thing that really bummed me out was
finding that William Whitman published Marsh's work verbatim as his own
in 1947. In any case this is the impression I get, since Whitman did not
list Marsh as a coauthor, the work is verbatim from Marsh's fieldnotes,
Whiteman only acknowledges Marsh in an offhand manner, he uses Marsh'
orthography, and in fact the last page of Whitman's article is
incomplete... with the rest of the page still to be found in Marsh! At
most Whitman should be listed as the editor of that work, not the
author.

Anyway, I would like to know if anyone has followed Marsh's work (Dr.
Furbee? Anyone?). I would like to see an article or something done to
set the scholarly record straight, not to bash Whitman but to give Marsh
proper recognition. I am sure all scholars know how important this is,
and how if the same thing happened to you, you would like if someone
eventually set the record straight for you.

Lance Foster