John Reed Swanton (February 19, 1873 – May 2, 1958) was an American anthropologist, folklorist, and

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

who worked with Native American peoples throughout the United States. Swanton achieved recognition in the fields of

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, social, or sociocultural anthropology). ...

and

ethnohistory Ethnohistory is the study of cultures and indigenous peoples customs by examining historical records as well as other sources of information on their lives and history. It is also the study of the history of various ethnic groups that may or may n ...

. He is particularly noted for his work with indigenous peoples of the

Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

and

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...

Early life and education

Born in

Gardiner, Maine Gardiner is a city in Kennebec County, Maine, United States. The population was 5,961 at the 2020 census. Popular with tourists, Gardiner is noted for its culture and old architecture. Gardiner is a nationally accrediteMain StreetAmerica commun ...

, after the death of his father, Walter Scott Swanton, he was raised by his mother, née Mary Olivia Worcester,Sarah Alice Worcester: ''The Descendants of Rev. William Worcester''. Boston: E. F. Worcester, 1914, p.112. his grandmother, and his great aunt. From his mother, in particular, he was imbued with a gentle disposition, a concern for human justice, and a lifelong interest in the works of

Emanuel Swedenborg Emanuel Swedenborg (, ; born Emanuel Swedberg; 29 March 1772) was a Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic. He became best known for his book on the afterlife, ''Heaven and Hell'' (1758). Swedenborg had a ...

.Julian H. Steward, ''John Reed Swanton (1873–1958): A Biographical Memoir''. Washington D.C.: The National Academies Press, 1960. He was inspired to pursue history, and, more specifically, anthropology by his reading of

William H. Prescott William Hickling Prescott (May 4, 1796 – January 28, 1859) was an American historian and Hispanist, who is widely recognized by historiographers to have been the first American scientific historian. Despite having serious visual impairm ...

, ''The Conquest of Mexico.'' Swanton attended local schools and then entered

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, earning an AB in 1896, an AM in 1897, and a PhD in 1900. His mentor at Harvard was

Frederic Ward Putnam Frederic Ward Putnam (April 16, 1839 – August 14, 1915) was an American anthropologist and biologist. Biography Putnam was born and raised in Salem, Massachusetts, the son of Ebenezer (1797–1876) and Elizabeth (Appleton) Putnam. After leavin ...

, who sent him to study linguistics with Franz Boas at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1898 and 1899, as he worked on his PhD dissertation, ''The Morphology of the Chinook Verb''.William Sturtevant: ''History of Research on the Native Languages in the United States''. In: Heather K. Hardy and Janine Scancarelli (eds.), ''Native Languages of the Southeastern United States'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005, pp. 8–65 . Swanton esp. mentioned on pages 50 ff. and others. Bibliography on pp. 503, 536 ff.

Career

Within months of receiving his doctorate from Harvard, Swanton began working for the Bureau of American Ethnology of the

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 ...

Washington, DC ) , 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 ...

, at which he continued for the duration of his career, spanning more than 40 years. Swanton first did fieldwork in the Northwest. In his early career, he worked mostly with the

Tlingit The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),

and Haida. He produced two extensive compilations of Haida stories and myths, and transcribed many of them into Haida. These transcriptions have served as the basis for

Robert Bringhurst Robert Bringhurst Appointments to the Order of Canada (2013). (born 16 October 1946) is a Canadian poet, typographer and author. He has translated substantial works from Haida and Navajo and from classical Greek and Arabic. He wrote ''The Eleme ...

's translation of the poetry of Haida mythtellers

Skaay Skaay was a blind, crippled storyteller of the Haida village of Ttanuu born c. 1827 at Qquuna. Skaay could neither read nor write, but his stories of Haida mythology have survived in the form of written transcriptions taken down by John Swanton ...

and Ghandl. Swanton spent roughly a year with the Haida. Another major study area was of the

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 ...

-speaking peoples in

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

, and Oklahoma. Swanton published extensively on the

Creek people The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsChickasaw The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classif ...

, and Choctaw. He also documented analyses about many other less well-known groups, such as the

Biloxi Biloxi ( ; ) is a city in and one of two county seats of Harrison County, Mississippi, United States (the other being the adjacent city of Gulfport). The 2010 United States Census recorded the population as 44,054 and in 2019 the estimated popu ...

, Ofo, and Tunica, the last of which supplemented earlier work by

Albert Samuel Gatschet Albert Samuel Gatschet (October 3, 1832, Beatenberg, Canton of Bern – March 16, 1907, Washington, D.C.) was a Swiss-American ethnologist who trained as a linguist in the universities of Bern and Berlin. He later moved to the United States and s ...

. He worked with Natchez speaker

Watt Sam Watt Sam in 1908 holding a bow. From a series of photos taken by John R. Swanton, near Braggs, Oklahoma. Watt Sam (October 6, 1876 – July 1, 1944) was a Natchez storyteller and cultural historian of Braggs, Oklahoma and one of the two last na ...

and argued in favor of including the

Natchez language The Natchez language is the ancestral language of the Natchez people who historically inhabited Mississippi and Louisiana, and who now mostly live among the Muscogee and Cherokee peoples in Oklahoma. The language is considered to be either unrelat ...

with the Muskogean language group. Swanton wrote works including partial dictionaries, studies of linguistic relationships, collections of native stories, and studies of social organization. He worked with Earnest Gouge, a Creek who recorded a large number of traditional stories at Swanton's request. These materials were never published by Swanton. They have recently been published online as ''Creek Folktales by Earnest Gouge'', in a project by

The College of William and Mary ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

which includes some of the recordings by Gouge. Swanton also worked with the Caddo, and published briefly on the

quipu ''Quipu'' (also spelled ''khipu'') are recording devices fashioned from strings historically used by a number of cultures in the region of Andean South America. A ''quipu'' usually consisted of cotton or camelid fiber strings. The Inca people ...

system of the

Inca The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admin ...

Professional affiliations

Swanton was one of the founding members of the Swedenborg Scientific Association in 1898. He was president of the American Anthropological Association in 1932. He also served as editor of the American Anthropological Association's flagship journal, ''American Anthropologist'', in 1911 and from 1921 to 1923. Swanton was also a member of the American Folklore Society, serving as its President in 1909.

Personal life

Swanton married Alice M. Barnard on Dec. 16, 1903, with whom he had three children: Mary Alice Swanton, John Reed Swanton, Jr., and Henry Allen Swanton. He died in

Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...

, on May 2, 1958, at the age of 85.

List of works

* 1898. "The Distinctness and Necessity of Swedenborg’s Scientific System", ''The New Philosophy'', Vol. 1 No. 1, January, 1898. * 1905. "Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida", ''Publications of the

Jesup North Pacific Expedition The Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897–1902) was a major anthropological expedition to Siberia, Alaska, and the northwest coast of Canada. The purpose of the expedition was to investigate the relationships among the peoples at each side of the ...

'' 5(1); ''American Museum of Natural History Memoirs'' 8(1). Leiden: E.J. Brill; New York: G.E. Stechert. * 1905. "Haida Texts and Myths: Skidegate Dialect", ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin'', No. 29. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. * 1909. "Tlingit Myths and Texts", ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin'', No. 39. Smithsonian Institution; Washington, D.C.:Government Printing Office. * 1911
"Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico"
. ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin'', No. 43. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, available on ''Portal to North Texas'' Website, University of North Texas * 1918. "An Early Account of the Choctaw Indians", ''American Anthropologist'', Vol. 5, pp. 51–72. * 1922. "Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors", ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin'', No. 73. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office. * 1927. "Religious Beliefs and Medical Practices of the Creek Indians", ''Forty-Second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology'', pp. 639–670. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. * 1928. ''Emanuel Swedenborg, Prophet of the Higher Evolution : An Exposition of the Cosmic Theory Set Forth By Emanuel Swedenborg''. New York: New Church Press. * 1928. "Social Organization and the Social Usages of the Indians of the Creek Confederacy", ''Forty-Second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the Years 1924–1925'', pg. 279–325. Washington, D.C. Government Printing Office. * 1929. "Myths & Tales of the Southeastern Indians", ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin'', No. 88, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. * 1931. "Modern Square Grounds of the Creek Indians", ''Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections'', Vol. 85, No. 8., pp. 1–46 + Plates. * 1931. "Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians", ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin'', No. 103. Washington, D.C.:Government Printing Office. * 1942. "Source Material on the History and Ethnology of the Caddo Indians", ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin'', No. 132. Washington, D.C.:Government Printing Office. * 1943. "The Quipu and Peruvian civilization", ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin'', No. 133. Washington, D.C.:Government Printing Office. * 1946. ''The Indians of the Southeastern United States''. ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin'', No. 137. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. * 1952. ''The Indian Tribes of North America''. Smithsonian Institution ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin'', No. 145. Washington: Government Printing Office * 1952
Swanton, "California Tribes"
''The Indian Tribes of North America''. Smithsonian Institution ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin'', No. 145. Washington: GPO, ''Native American Documents Project'', California State University. San Marcos, 2007 With

James Owen Dorsey James Owen Dorsey (October 31, 1848 – February 4, 1895) was an American ethnologist, linguist, and Episcopalian missionary in the Dakota Territory, who contributed to the description of the Ponca, Omaha, and other southern Siouan languages. He ...

: * 1912. ''A Dictionary of the Biloxi and Ofo Languages''. ''Bureau of America Ethnology Bulletin'', No. 47. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.:Government Printing Office.

References

External links

1873–1958, ''E Museum'', Minnesota State University Mankato.
BC Bookworld Search
{{DEFAULTSORT:Swanton, John R. 1873 births 1958 deaths Harvard University alumni American folklorists History of British Columbia Native American history of Alaska People from Gardiner, Maine People of pre-statehood Alaska Linguists of Siouan languages Linguists of Muskogean languages Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences American Anthropologist editors 20th-century American anthropologists 20th-century linguists Linguists from the United States Presidents of the American Folklore Society