Annie Miner Peterson (1860–1939) was a Coos Indian from the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

who was a cultural and linguistic consultant to

Melville Jacobs Melville Jacobs (July 3, 1902 – July 31, 1971) was an American anthropologist known for his extensive fieldwork on cultures of the Pacific Northwest. He was born in New York City. After studying with Franz Boas he became a member of the faculty ...

, an anthropologist at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

Personal life

Annie was born in 1860 of a Coos Indian mother and a white father, James Miner, whom she never met, at the native village of Willanch (Wu'læ'ænch, meaning good-weather-place) at the present-day Cooston, on the east shore of upper

Coos Bay Coos Bay is an estuary where the Coos River enters the Pacific Ocean, the estuary is approximately 12 miles long and up to two miles wide. It is the largest estuary completely within Oregon state lines. The Coos Bay watershed covers an area of abou ...

on the southern

Oregon Coast The Oregon Coast is a coastal region of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to its west and the Oregon Coast Range to the east, and stretches approximately from the California state border in the south to the Columbia ...

. She was one of the last Coos Indians to grow up in the traditional Coos culture. As an infant she was taken by her mother to the

Coastal Indian Reservation The Coast Indian Reservation is a former Indian reservation in the U.S. state of Oregon, established in 1855. It was gradually reduced in size and in the 21st century is known as the present-day Siletz Reservation. History The Coast Reservation wa ...

Yaquina Bay Yaquina Bay ( ) is a coastal estuarine community found in Newport, Oregon, United States. Yaquina Bay is a semi-enclosed body of water, approximately 8 km² (3.2 mi²) in area, with free connection to the Pacific Ocean, but also diluted ...

, and later removed to the sub-agency at Yachats where she grew up and married, first to an abusive older Hanis man, and later to William Jackson, an Alsea Indian her own age.Jacobs, 104-114. Through their daughter, Nellie (Aason), there are descendants to the present day. Annie married three more times, unhappily, but her last marriage was a happy and compatible relationship with a Swedish logger named Carl Peterson.

Linguistic career

In 1933 while searching for a suitable consultant in the Hanis Coos language from among the eight or ten elderly Coos Indians who were still fluent at that time, Jacobs discovered that Peterson was fluent not only in Hanis, but also in Miluk Coos, a

Penutian language Penutian is a proposed grouping of language families that includes many Native American languages of western North America, predominantly spoken at one time in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. The existence of a Penutian s ...

thought to have been extinct for at least fifteen years. Through the summers of 1933 and 1934, Jacobs interviewed Peterson in those two languages, collecting 32 Coos myth texts in Miluk, eight in Hanis, and two in both Hanis and Miluk for comparison of the two languages. Wax-cylinder phonograph recordings were also taken of the myths and songs during both years. In addition, Jacobs collected from Peterson a large number of narrative and ethnologic texts in Miluk, a smaller number in Hanis, and eight texts in both Hanis and Miluk. The narrative and ethnologic texts were published in 1939; the myth texts in 1940.

Artistic and cultural career

Annie Miner Peterson was an accomplished basket maker, storyteller, and repository of Indigenous Coos languages and culture.

Death and legacy

Both Annie and Carl Peterson both died of

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

in 1939 at their home on lower Coos Bay.'' Coos Bay Times'', May 9, 1939, 3'' Coos Bay Times'', August 10, 1939, 3 (obits) Her full-length biography was published by University of Oklahoma Press in 1997: ''She's Tricky Like Coyote: Annie Miner Peterson, an Oregon Coast Indian Woman'', by Lionel Youst.

References

External links