John P. Harrington | |
|---|---|
 Harrington in 1924 | |
| Born | (1884-04-29)April 29, 1884 |
| Died | October 21, 1961(1961-10-21) (aged 77) |
| Education | Stanford University,UC Berkeley,University of Leipzig,University of Berlin, |
| Occupation(s) | Linguist,Field ethnologist |
| Spouse | Carobeth Laird |
John Peabody Harrington (April 29, 1884 – October 21, 1961) was an Americanlinguist andethnologist and a specialist in theindigenous peoples of California.
Harrington is noted for the massive volume of his documentary output, most of which remains unpublished: the shelf space in theNational Anthropological Archives dedicated to his work spans nearly 700 feet.[1]
Born inWaltham, Massachusetts, Harrington moved to California as a child. From 1902 to 1905, Harrington studiedanthropology and classical languages atStanford University. Harrington completed his Stanford undergraduate degree with courses at a summer school at theUniversity of California at Berkeley, where he metAlfred Kroeber.
He began but did not complete graduate studies in Germany at theUniversity of Leipzig, where he studied underFranz Nikolaus Finck. Like Harrington, Finck was a fieldworker who studied a broad range of languagesin situ (especially dialects ofIrish andCaucasian languages),[2] and Walsh argues that Finck may have been a formative influence on Harrington, who expressed his admiration for Finck in an obituary in theAmerican Anthropologist.[3] Harrington became intensely interested inNative American languages andethnography.
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Rather than completing his doctorate at the Universities ofLeipzig andBerlin, Harrington became a high-school language teacher. For three years, he devoted his spare time to an intense examination of the few survivingChumash people.
His exhaustive work came to the attention of theSmithsonian Museum'sBureau of American Ethnology. Harrington became a permanent field ethnologist for the bureau in 1915. He was to hold this position for 40 years, collecting and compiling several massive caches of raw data on native peoples, including theChumash,Mutsun,Rumsen,Chochenyo,Kiowa,Chimariko,Yokuts,Gabrielino,Salinan,Yuma, andMojave, among many others.
Harrington also extended his work into traditional culture, particularly mythology and geography. His field collections include information on placenames and thousands of photographs. The massive collections were disorganized in the extreme, and contained not only linguistic manuscripts and recordings, but also objects andrealia of every stripe; a later cataloger described how opening each box of his legacy was "an adventure in itself."[4] He published very little of his work; many of his notes appear to have been deliberately hidden from his colleagues. After his death, Smithsonian curators discovered over six tons of boxes stored in warehouses, garages and even chicken coops throughout the West.[5]
Harrington is virtually the only recorder of some languages, such asObispeño (Northern) Chumash,Kitanemuk, andSerrano. He gathered more than 1 million pages of phonetic notations on languages spoken by tribes from Alaska to South America. When the technology became available, he supplemented his written record with audio recordings - many recently digitized[6] - first using wax cylinders, then aluminum discs.[1]
He is credited with gathering some of the first recordings of native languages, rituals, and songs, and perfecting thephonetics of several different languages.[7] Harrington's attention to detail, both linguistic and cultural, is well-illustrated in "Tobacco among theKaruk Indians of California," one of his relatively few formally published works.[8]
A more complete listing of the languages he documented includes:[9]
In 1933, at age 87,Isabel Meadows was invited to Washington D.C., to assist Harrington with his research on theRumsen life, language, and culture in theCarmel Valley, California andBig Sur regions. Isabel was the last known speaker of theRumsen language.[10] They worked together until the end of her life, on May 20, 1939, at age 94, in Washington D.C.[11]
Harrington was married toCarobeth Laird (née Tucker) from 1916 to 1923, a relationship that Laird later chronicled in her 1975 memoirEncounter with an Angry God. They had one daughter, Awona Harrington.[12]
