John Peabody Harrington (April 29, 1884 – October 21, 1961) was an American

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and

ethnologist Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Scien ...

and a specialist in the

indigenous peoples of California Indigenous peoples of California, commonly known as Indigenous Californians or Native Californians, are a diverse group of nations and peoples that are indigenous to the geographic area within the current boundaries of California before and afte ...

. Harrington is noted for the massive volume of his documentary output, most of which remains unpublished: the shelf space in the

National Anthropological Archives The National Anthropological Archives is the third largest archive in the Smithsonian Institution and a sister archive to the Human Studies Film Archive. The collection documents the history of anthropology and the world's peoples and cultures, ...

dedicated to his work spans nearly 700 feet.

Early life and education

Born in

Waltham, Massachusetts Waltham ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the Technological and industrial history of the United States, American Industrial Revoluti ...

, Harrington moved to California as a child. From 1902 to 1905, Harrington studied

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

and classical languages at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. Harrington completed his Stanford undergraduate degree with courses at a summer school at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

where he met

Alfred Kroeber Alfred Louis Kroeber ( ; June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the fi ...

. He began but did not complete graduate studies in Germany at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

, where he studied under

Franz Nikolaus Finck Franz Nikolaus Finck (26 June 1867 – 4 May 1910) was a German philologist, born in Krefeld. He was a professor of General Linguistics at the University of Berlin. Finck visited the Aran Islands of Ireland, where he lived with speakers of Irish ...

. Like Harrington, Finck was a fieldworker who studied a broad range of languages in situ (especially dialects of Irish and

Caucasian languages The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Linguistic comparison allows t ...

)., and Walsh argues that Finck may have been a formative influence on Harrington, who expressed his admiration for Finck in an obituary in the ''American Anthropologist''. Harrington became intensely interested in

Native American languages The Indigenous languages of the Americas are the languages that were used by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas Pre-Columbian era, before the arrival of non-Indigenous peoples. Over a thousand of these languages are still used today, while m ...

and

ethnography Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

Linguistic legacy

Rather than completing his doctorate at the Universities of

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, Harrington became a high-school language teacher. For three years, he devoted his spare time to an intense examination of the few surviving

Chumash Chumash may refer to: *Chumash (Judaism), a Hebrew word for the Pentateuch, used in Judaism *Chumash people, a Native American people of southern California *Chumashan languages, Indigenous languages of California See also

* Pentateuch (dis ...

people. His exhaustive work came to the attention of the Smithsonian Museum's

Bureau of American Ethnology The Bureau of American Ethnology (or BAE, originally, Bureau of Ethnology) was established in 1879 by an act of Congress for the purpose of transferring archives, records and materials relating to the Indians of North America from the Departme ...

. 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 the

* Pentateuch (dis ...

Mutsun Mutsun (also known as San Juan Bautista Costanoan) is a Utian language spoken in Northern California. It was the primary language of a division of the Ohlone people living in the Mission San Juan Bautista area. It initially went extinct in 193 ...

, Rumsen,

Chochenyo The Chochenyo (also called Chocheño, Chocenyo) are one of the divisions of the Indigenous Ohlone (Costanoan) people of Northern California. The Chochenyo reside on the east side of the San Francisco Bay (the East Bay), primarily in what is no ...

Kiowa Kiowa ( ) or Cáuigú () people are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe and an Indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colora ...

, Chimariko,

Yokuts The Yokuts (previously known as MariposasPowell, 1891:90–91.) are an ethnic group of Native Americans native to central California. Before European contact, the Yokuts consisted of up to 60 tribes speaking several related languages. Yokuts ...

Gabrielino The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . In the precolonial era, the people lived in as many as 100 villages and primarily identified by ...

Salinan The Salinan are a Native American tribe whose ancestral territory is in the southern Salinas Valley and the Santa Lucia Range in the Central Coast of California. Today, the Salinan governments are now working toward federal tribal recognition ...

, Yuma, and Mojave, 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 and

realia Realia may refer to: * Realia (education), objects from real life used in classroom instruction * Realia (library science), three-dimensional objects from real life that do not easily fit into the traditional categories of library material * '' ...

of every stripe; a later cataloger described how opening each box of his legacy was "an adventure in itself." 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. Harrington is virtually the only recorder of some languages, such as Obispeño (Northern) Chumash,

Kitanemuk The Kitanemuk are an Indigenous people of California and were a tribal village of the Kawaiisu Nation. The Kawaiisu traditionally lived in the Tehachapi Mountains and the Antelope Valley area of the western Mojave Desert of southern Californi ...

, and Serrano. 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 - first using wax cylinders, then aluminum disc

He is credited with gathering some of the first recordings of native languages, rituals, and songs, and perfecting the

phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...

of several different languages. Harrington's attention to detail, both linguistic and cultural, is well-illustrated in "Tobacco among the

Karuk The Karuk people ()Andrew Garrett, Susan Gehr, Erik Hans Maier, Line Mikkelsen, Crystal Richardson, and Clare Sandy. (November 2, 2021) ''Karuk; To appear in The Languages and Linguistics of Indigenous North America: A Comprehensive Guide (De G ...

Indians of California," one of his relatively few formally published works. Rumsen Cultural Bearer Isabel Meadows works with J.P. Harrington In 1933, at age 87,

Isabel Meadows Isabel Meadows (July 7, 1846 – May 21, 1939) was an Ohlone ethnologist and the last fluent speaker of the Rumsen language, Rumsen Ohlone languages, Ohlone language. She also spoke Esselen. She worked closely with the anthropologists from the Smi ...

was invited to Washington D.C., to assist Harrington with his research on the Rumsen life, language, and culture in the

Carmel Valley, California Carmel Valley is an Unincorporated area#United States, unincorporated community in Monterey County, California, United States. The term "Carmel Valley" generally refers to the Carmel River (California), Carmel River watershed east of California ...

and

Big Sur Big Sur () is a rugged and mountainous section of the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of the U.S. state of California, between Carmel Highlands and San Simeon, where the Santa Lucia Range, Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from th ...

regions. Isabel was last known speaker of their language. They worked together until the end of her life, on May 20, 1939, at age 94, in Washington D.C. A more complete listing of the languages he documented includes: *

Abenaki language Abenaki (Eastern: ', Western: ), also known as Wôbanakiak, is an endangered Eastern Algonquian language of Quebec and the northern states of New England. The language has Eastern and Western forms which differ in vocabulary and phonology an ...

Achumawi language The Achumawi language (also Achomawi or Pit River language) is the indigenous language spoken by the Pit River people in the northeast corner of present-day California. The term Achumawi is an anglicization of the name of the Fall River band, '' ...

* Applegate Athabaskan language *

Atsugewi language Atsugewi is a recently extinct Palaihnihan language of northeastern California spoken by the Atsugewi people of Hat Creek and Dixie Valley. In 1962, there were four fluent speakers out of an ethnic group of 200, all elderly, and the last of th ...

Cahuilla language Cahuilla , or Ivilyuat ( or ), is an endangered Uto-Aztecan language, spoken by the various tribes of the Cahuilla Nation, living in the Coachella Valley, San Gorgonio Pass and San Jacinto Mountains region of southern California.

Central Pomo language Central Pomo is an extinct Pomoan language spoken in Northern California Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmo ...

Central Sierra Miwok Central Sierra Miwok is a Miwok language spoken in California, in the upper Stanislaus and Tuolumne valleys. Today it is spoken by the Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians of California, a federally recognized tribe of Central Sierra Miwok ...

Chemehuevi language Colorado River Numic (also called Ute , Southern Paiute , Ute–Southern Paiute, or Ute-Chemehuevi ), of the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, is a dialect chain that stretches from southeastern California to Colorado. Individ ...

Chimariko language Chimariko is an extinct language isolate formerly spoken in northern Trinity County, California, by the inhabitants of several independent communities. While the total area claimed by these communities was remarkably small, Golla (2011:87–89) b ...

* Chumash languages *

Coast Miwok language Coast Miwok was one of the Miwok languages spoken in California, from San Francisco Bay to Bodega Bay. The Marin and Bodega varieties may have been separate languages. All of the population has shifted to English. Grammar According to Catherine ...

Coast Yuki language Yuki, also known as Ukomno'm, is an extinct language of California, formerly spoken by the Yuki people. The Yuki are the original inhabitants of the Eel River area and the Round Valley Reservation of northern California. Yuki ceased to be used ...

Mutsun language Mutsun (also known as San Juan Bautista Costanoan) is a Utian language spoken in Northern California. It was the primary language of a division of the Ohlone people living in the Mission San Juan Bautista area. It initially went extinct in 193 ...

Cupeño language The Cupeño language is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language, once spoken by the Cupeño people of southern California, United States. Roscinda Nolasquez (d. 1987) was the last native speaker of Cupeño. The Cupeño people now speak English. The nati ...

* Diegueño language *

Esselen language Esselen is the now-extinct language of the Esselen (or self-designated ) Nation, which aboriginally occupied the mountainous Central Coast of California, immediately south of Monterey (Shaul 1995). It was probably a language isolate, though has ...

* Fernandeño language * Gabrielino language * Galice Athabaskan language *

Hupa language Hupa ( native name: , ) is an Athabaskan language (of Na-Dené stock) spoken along the lower course of the Trinity River in Northwestern California by the Hoopa Valley Hupa () and Tsnungwe/South Fork Hupa () and, before European contact, by ...

Juaneño language The Acjachemen () are an Indigenous people of California. Published maps often identify their ancestral lands as extending from the beach to the mountains, south from what is now known as Aliso Creek in Orange County to Las Pulgas Canyon in t ...

Karuk language Karuk or Karok ( or ) is the traditional language of the Karuk people in the region surrounding the Klamath River, in Northwestern California. The name ‘Karuk’ is derived from the Karuk word , meaning “upriver”. Karuk is classified as s ...

Kato language Cahto (also spelled Kato) is an extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses th ...

* Kiliwa Ute language *

Kitanemuk language Kitanemuk is an extinct Northern Uto-Aztecan language of the Serran branch. It is very closely related to Serrano, and may have been a dialect. Before its extinction, it was spoken in the San Gabriel Mountains and foothill environs of Southern ...

Klamath language Klamath (), also Klamath–Modoc () and historically Lutuamian (), is a Native American language spoken around Klamath Lake in what is now southern Oregon and northern California. It is the traditional language of the Klamath and Modoc peoples ...

Konomihu language Konomihu is an extinct Shastan language formerly spoken in northern California. There may have been only a few speakers even before contact, and they self-identified as Shasta by the turn of the 20th century. Konomihu may have been the most div ...

Lake Miwok language The Lake Miwok language is an extinct language of Northern California, traditionally spoken in an area adjacent to the Clear Lake. It is one of the languages of the Clear Lake Linguistic Area, along with Patwin, East and Southeastern Pomo, and ...

Luiseño language The Luiseño language is a Uto-Aztecan language of California spoken by the Luiseño, a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people who at the time of first contact with the Spanish in the 16th century inhabited the coastal ar ...

Mattole language The Mattole, including the Bear River Indians, are a group of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans in California. Their traditional lands are along the Mattole River, Mattole and Bear River (Humboldt County), Bear Rivers near C ...

Mojave language Mohave or Mojave is the native language of the Mohave people along the Colorado River in northwestern Arizona, southeastern California, and southwestern Nevada. Approximately 70% of the speakers reside in Arizona, while approximately 30% reside i ...

Northern Pomo language Northern Pomo is a critically endangered Pomoan language, formerly spoken by the indigenous Pomo people in what is now called California. The speakers of Northern Pomo were traditionally those who lived in the northern and largest area of the Po ...

* Northern Sierra Miwok language *

Paipai language Paipai is the native language of the Paipai, spoken in the Baja California municipality of Ensenada (settlements of Arroyo de León (Ejido Kiliwas), Camalu, Cañón de la Parra, Comunidad Indígena de Santa Catarina, Ejido 18 de Marzo (El Ála ...

* Paiute language * Rogue River Athabaskan language *

Salinan language Salinan is the historical indigenous language of the Salinan people of the central coast of California. It has been extinct since the death of the last speaker in 1958. The language is attested to some extent in colonial sources such as Sitjar ...

Serrano language Serrano (Serrano: ) is a language in the Serran branch of the Uto-Aztecan family spoken by the Serrano people of Southern California. The language is closely related to Tongva, Tataviam, Kitanemuk and Vanyume, which may be a dialect of Serran ...

Shasta language The Shasta language is an extinct Shastan language formerly spoken from northern California into southwestern Oregon. It was spoken in a number of dialects, possibly including Okwanuchu. By 1980, only two first language speakers, both elderly, ...

Shoshoni language Shoshoni, also written as Shoshoni-Gosiute and Shoshone ( ; Shoshoni: soni ta̲i̲kwappe'', ''newe ta̲i̲kwappe'' or ''neme ta̲i̲kwappeh''), is a Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family, spoken in the Western United States by the Shoshon ...

Southeastern Pomo language Southeastern Pomo, also known by the dialect names Elem Pomo, Koi Nation Lower Lake Pomo and Sulfur Bank Pomo, is one of seven distinct languages comprising the Pomoan language family of Northern California. In the language's prime, Southeaster ...

Southern Pomo language Southern Pomo is one of seven mutually unintelligible Pomoan languages which were spoken by the Pomo people in Northern California along the Russian River and Clear Lake. The Pomo languages have been grouped together with other so-called Hokan ...

Takelma language Takelma is the language that was spoken by the Latgawa and Takelma peoples and the Cow Creek band of Upper Umpqua, in Oregon, United States. The language was extensively described by the German-American linguist Edward Sapir in his graduate th ...

Tübatulabal language Tübatulabal is an Uto-Aztecan language, traditionally spoken in Kern County, California, United States. It is the traditional language of the Tübatulabal, who have switched to English. The language originally had three main dialects: Bakalan ...

Upper Umpqua language Upper Umpqua is an extinct Athabaskan language formerly spoken along the south fork of the Umpqua River in west-central Oregon by Upper Umpqua (Etnemitane) people in the vicinity of modern Roseburg. It has been extinct for at least seventy years ...

Wappo language Wappo is an extinct language that was spoken by the Wappo tribe, Native Americans who lived in what is now known as the Alexander Valley north of San Francisco. The last fluent speaker, Laura Fish Somersal, died in 1990. The loss of this languag ...

Nisenan language Nisenan (or alternatively, Neeshenam, Nishinam, Pujuni, or Wapumni) is a nearly extinct Maiduan language spoken by the Nisenan people of central California in the foothills of the Sierras, in the whole of the American, Bear and Yuba river draina ...

Wintu language Wintu is a Wintu language which was spoken by the Wintu people of Northern California. It was the northernmost member of the Wintun family of languages. The Wintun family of languages was spoken in the Shasta County, Trinity County, Sacramento R ...

Yana language The Yana language (also Yanan) is an extinct language that was formerly spoken by the Yana people, who lived in north-central California between the Feather and Pit rivers in what is now the Shasta and Tehama counties. The last speaker of the ...

Yokuts language Yokuts, formerly known as Mariposa, is an endangered language spoken in the interior of Northern and Central California in and around the San Joaquin Valley by the Yokuts people. The speakers of Yokuts were severely affected by disease, mission ...

Yurok language Yurok (also Chillula, Mita, Pekwan, Rikwa, Sugon, Weitspek, Weitspekan) is an Algic language. It is the traditional language of the Yurok people of Del Norte County and Humboldt County on the far north coast of California, most of whom now ...

Personal life

Harrington was married to

Carobeth Laird Carobeth Laird (née Tucker; formerly Harrington; July 20, 1895 – August 5, 1983) was an American ethnographer and linguist, known for her memoirs and ethnographic studies of the Chemehuevi people in southeastern California and western Arizona. ...

(née Tucker) from 1916 to 1923, a relationship that Laird later chronicled in her 1975 memoir ''Encounter with an Angry God''. They had one daughter, Awona Harrington.Laird, Carobeth. 1975. ''Encounter with an Angry God: Recollections of my Life with John Peabody Harrington.'' Malki Museum Press, Banning, CA.

References

External links

J.P. Harrington Database Project
*
Victor Golla, California Indian Languages (UC Press, 2011)

() * ttp://keepersofindigenousways.org/id12.html Keepers of Indigenous Ways: J.P. Harrington Biography
"Reconstituting the Chumash: A Review Essay," Peter Nabokov, American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 4, Special Issue: The California Indians. (Autumn, 1989), pp. 535-543.

John P. Harrington Papers 1907-1959 (some earlier)

''Los Angeles Times'' article and video
about Harrington's research amongst the Chumash

at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrington, John Peabody American ethnologists Archaeologists of California 1884 births 1961 deaths People from Waltham, Massachusetts Writers from Massachusetts Stanford University alumni Smithsonian Institution people Linguists of Na-Dene languages Linguists of Uto-Aztecan languages Linguists of Yuman–Cochimí languages Linguists of Chumashan languages Linguists of Utian languages Linguists of Chimariko Linguists of indigenous languages of North America 20th-century American anthropologists