James Constantine Pilling (16 November 1846, in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

– 26 July 1895) was a Congressional stenographer-transcriptionist and a pioneering

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

chiefly known for compiling a series of extensive

bibliographies Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ...

of the cultures, mythologies and languages of the North and Central American aboriginal peoples. Beginning in 1875, when he joined the survey of the American West led by Maj.

John Wesley Powell John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 – September 23, 1902) was an American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He ...

, and continuing through 1881, Pilling did extensive fieldwork and proofread Powell's ''Report on the lands of the arid region of the United States'' (1879).J. W. Powell, ''Report on the lands of the arid region of the United States, with a more detailed account of the lands of Utah,'' 2nd ed., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1879, 195 pp. (p. 9)

Education and early work

Pilling attended

Gonzaga College Gonzaga College SJ is a voluntary Catholic boys' secondary school in Ranelagh, Dublin, Ireland. Founded in 1950, Gonzaga College is under the trusteeship of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit Order), one of five Jesuit secondary schools in Irela ...

, at the time chartered by

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...

to offer university degrees but today a Jesuit high school. Having taught himself

Pitman shorthand Pitman shorthand is a system of shorthand for the English language developed by Englishman Sir Isaac Pitman (1813–1897), who first presented it in 1837. Like most systems of shorthand, it is a phonetic system; the symbols do not represent lette ...

while still in grade school, he became highly proficient as a stenographer, later working for several government agencies.

Ethnology career

In 1875,

hired him to help administer the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

(USGS) of the Rocky Mountain regions. In 1879, when Powell founded the Bureau of Ethnology (known from 1897 to 1965 as the

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 Interior D ...

or BAE), Pilling became the bureau's chief clerk. When Powell took over as director of the USGS and of the BAE from

Clarence King Clarence Rivers King (January 6, 1842 – December 24, 1901) was an American geologist, mountaineer and author. He was the first director of the United States Geological Survey from 1879 to 1881. Nominated by Republican President Rutherford B. Hay ...

(1881), Pilling became the USGS chief clerk as well, while continuing his work with the BAE."Pilling, James Constantine (1846-1895), Papers"
in p. 2 of ''Guide to the Collections of the National Anthropological Archives'',

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

. Retrieved 2010-02-04. In his unpaid hours over the next 15 years Pilling compiled an extensive bibliography of books and manuscripts on North American languages. He was also responsible for the initial development of the BAE library and for maintaining its archives system. By 1891, a debilitating illness he had contracted during his years of ethnological fieldwork forced him to resign from such administrative duties, but he continued his

ethnology Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural anthropology, cultural, social anthropolo ...

work until his death in 1895. In 1885, the BAE published his labour of love as the 1,200-page ''Proof-sheets of a Bibliography of North American Indian Languages;'' only 100 copies were printed. Scholars of American Indian languages, however, gave the work an enthusiastic reception, and their cooperation enabled Pilling subsequently to revise this monumental work and publish a series of bibliographies, each dealing with a particular family of Amerindian languages. Organizing his data sets in

card catalogue A library catalog (or library catalogue in British English) is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations. A catalog for a group of libraries is also c ...

s and using a

cross-reference The term cross-reference (abbreviation: xref) can refer to either: * An instance within a document which refers to related information elsewhere in the same document. In both printed and online dictionaries cross-references are important because ...

system, between 1887 and 1894, Pilling published revised bibliographies of

Eskimo–Aleut The Eskaleut (), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of w ...

Siouan–Catawban Siouan or Siouan–Catawban is a language family of North America that is located primarily in the Great Plains, Ohio_River, Ohio and Mississippi_River, Mississippi valleys and southeastern North America with a few other languages in the east. N ...

Iroquoian The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking. As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoian la ...

Muskogean Muskogean (also Muskhogean, Muskogee) is a Native American language family spoken in different areas of the Southeastern United States. Though the debate concerning their interrelationships is ongoing, the Muskogean languages are generally div ...

, Algonquian,

Athabaskan Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific C ...

Chinookan The Chinookan languages were a small family of languages spoken in Oregon and Washington (state), Washington along the Columbia River by Chinook peoples. Although the last known native speaker of any Chinookan language died in 2012, the 2009-2013 ...

Salishan The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a family of languages of the Pacific Northwest in North America (the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana). They are characterised by ag ...

, and

Wakashan Wakashan is a family of languages spoken in British Columbia around and on Vancouver Island, and in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington (state), Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. As is ...

language families (

Bulletins 1, 5, 6, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 19). In addition, Pilling had compiled much of the material for a proposed bibliography of Mexican languages, which was not published during his lifetime.Marcus Baker,
In memoriam: James Constantine Pilling, 1846-1895
', D. W. Gregory, 1895, p. 4. Now known as the

Uto-Aztecan languages Uto-Aztecan, Uto-Aztekan or (rarely in English) Uto-Nahuatl is a family of indigenous languages of the Americas, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The na ...

, their kinship was conclusively established by

Edward Sapir Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Sa ...

in the 1920s, but Powell had opposed such a classification scheme. Pilling's

Shoshonean languages Uto-Aztecan, Uto-Aztekan or (rarely in English) Uto-Nahuatl is a family of indigenous languages of the Americas, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The na ...

are now known as Northern Uto-Aztecan, while his Sonoran and

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...

groupings are now both considered among the Southern Uto-Aztecan languages. Pilling died of

locomotor ataxia Locomotor ataxia is the inability to precisely control one's own bodily movements. __TOC__ Disease People afflicted with this disease may walk in a jerky, non-fluid manner. They will not know where their arms and legs are without looking (i.e. a f ...

, now called

Tabes dorsalis Tabes dorsalis is a late consequence of neurosyphilis, characterized by the slow degeneration (specifically, demyelination) of the neural tracts primarily in the dorsal root ganglia of the spinal cord (nerve root). These patients have lancinating n ...

, a disease associated with untreated

syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, an ...

, in 1895.W. J. McGee, "Obituary: James Constantine Pilling." ''American Anthropologist,'' October 1895, Vol. 8, pp. 407-409.

Notes

External links

* *
James Constantine Pilling Papers
a
Newberry Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pilling, James Constantine American ethnologists 1846 births 1895 deaths Deaths from neurodegenerative disease Deaths from syphilis Gonzaga College High School alumni