James Mooney (February 10, 1861 – December 22, 1921) was an American ethnographer who worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology for thirty-six years and studied North American, particularly the Kiowa, Cheyenne and Cherokee tribes. He lived for several years among the Cherokee. Known as "The Indian Man", he conducted major studies of Southeastern Indians, as well as of tribes on the Great Plains. He did ethnographic studies of the Ghost Dance, a spiritual movement among various Native American culture groups, after Sitting Bull's death in 1890. His works on the Cherokee include The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees (1891), and Myths of the Cherokee (1900). All were published by the U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology, within the Smithsonian Institution.

Native American artifacts collected by Mooney are held in the collections of the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution and the Department of Anthropology, Field Museum of Natural History. Papers and photographs from Mooney are in the collections of the National Anthropological Archives, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution.

Early life

James Mooney was born on February 10, 1861, in Richmond, Indiana. He was the son of Irish Catholic immigrants, James Mooney Sr. and Ellen Devlin. His parents came from farming families in County Meath. Their next daughter, Margaret, was born in 1856. A few years later, Ellen gave birth to their son, James Mooney. James Mooney Sr. died of pneumonia when his son was only a few months old.

Mooney's mother raised her children Catholic, sending them to St. Mary's Catholic Church for religious education. Mooney and his siblings were also brought up learning about their Irish roots through their mother and grandmother's stories about Irish folklore, history and traditions. After graduation, Mooney became a schoolteacher for two semesters. In 1879, he joined the Richmond Palladium as a staff member but continued to devote his extra time to studying Native American cultures. He also increased his knowledge of Indian anthropology by studying the works of John Wesley Powell and Lewis Henry Morgan. In his book, Mooney gave a vivid and detailed picture of a major revitalization movement and showed that the Ghost Dance is an Indian nativist movement which shared key similarities with other cultural renewal efforts and religions found across many societies, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike.

Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians (1898)

"The desire to preserve to future ages the memory of past achievements is a universal human instinct,"Mooney said. "The reliability of the record depends chiefly on the truthfulness of the recorder and the adequacy of the method employed." Mooney earned the confidence of the Kiowa who told him about their system of calendars to record events. They told him that the first calendar keeper in their tribe was Little Bluff, or Tohausan, principal chief of the tribe from 1833 to 1866. Mooney also worked with two other calendar keepers, Settan, or Little Bear; and Ankopaingyadete, meaning "In the Middle of Many Tracks", and commonly known as Anko. Other Plains tribes kept pictorial records, which are known as winter counts. They were commonly created in the winter, when the people were indoors, and expressed major events of the year.

The Kiowa recorded two events for each year, offering a finer-grained record and twice as many entries for any given period. Silver Horn (1860–1940), or Haungooah, was the most highly esteemed artist of the Kiowa tribe in the 19th and 20th centuries, and kept a calendar. He was a respected religious leader in his later years. He studied their language, culture, and mythology. This comprehensive volume compiled 126 Cherokee myths, including sacred stories, animal myths, local legends, wonder stories, historical traditions, and miscellaneous myths and legends. Some myths included:

  • How the World was Made
  • Why the Deer's Teeth are Blunt
  • How the Turkey got his Beard
  • Why the Possum's Tail is Bare

The book also includes original Cherokee manuscripts, relating to the history, archaeology, geographic nomenclature, personal names, botany, medicine, arts, home life, religion, songs, ceremonies, and language of the tribe.

The Sacred Formulas of The Cherokee (1891)

Mooney conducted his fieldwork for this publication in an Indian reservation among the North Carolina Cherokee between 1887 and 1888. The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees is a smaller piece compared to its predecessor, Myths of the Cherokee. It is a succinct description of twenty-eight ritual formulas regarding the subjects of "medicine, love, hunting, fishing, war, self-protection, destruction of enemies, witchcraft, the crops, the council, the ball play, etc.," presented in the original Cherokee. It uses Sequoyah typography and is accompanied by an English translation and explanation. Mooney candidly discusses the difficulties obtaining these materials, the reluctance of his informants to make this information public.

Some critics question whether publishing these sacred chants violated the privacy of the people Mooney studied. They argue that sharing ritual material raises ethical concerns about an ethnographer's responsibility to respect Indigenous beliefs.

Historical Sketch of the Cherokee (1975)

Published posthumously, this account of the Cherokee started with their first contact with whites and, through battles won and lost, treaties signed then broken, towns destroyed and people massacred, ended around 1900. There is humanity along with inhumanity in the relations between the Cherokee and other groups, Indian and non-Indian; there is fortitude and persistence balanced with disillusionment and frustration. In these respects, the history of the Cherokee epitomizes the experience of most Native Americans, Mooney writes. This, among with most, if not all of Mooney's works, is considered dispassionate and matter-of-fact, which is why his works are found in the Bureau of American Ethnology.

Collections

Mooney curated many collections and displays during his lifetime. The Smithsonian has also preserved a James Mooney collection since his passing, which contains "field notes, drawings, maps, letters, historical research, and writings related to his research work as Ethnologist for the Bureau of American Ethnology from 1887 to 1922."

  • 1891: Commissioned model tipis and summer houses from the Kiowa
  • 1892: Began intensive field study of Kiowa winter counts and Kiowa heraldry Worked among the Navajo and Hopi, making collections for the World's Columbian Exposition
  • 1892: Mooney collected material and prepared exhibits for the Spanish-Columbian Exposition in Madrid, Spain
  • 1893: Curated World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois
  • 1897: Prepared an exhibit for Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition in Nashville, Tennessee
  • 1898: Prepared an exhibit for Trans-Mississippi International Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska
  • 1901–1906: Entered into cooperative agreement between the BAE and the Field Museum; Studied and collected Kiowa for the BAE/USNM and studied and collected Cheyenne for the Field Museum
  • 1903: Visited the Cheyenne-Arapaho agency in Darlington; finished Kiowa tipi models for the BAE's exhibit at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition
  • 1904: Supervised the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri.

Peyote controversy and ban on fieldwork

In the 1870s, a new religion developed among Native Americans living on reservations in western Indian Territory, which involved the ritual consumption of peyote. Peyote is a small cactus without any spines that causes visual and auditory hallucinations when eaten. In 1890, the Bureau of Indian Affairs banned peyotism in 1890, stating that it was a harmful drug. Mooney, who had been conducting research on peyote consumption since the early 1890s, was a strong supporter of the religion and defended it when Congress attempted to take action against its practitioners. He was also the president of the Gaelic Society of Washington, D.C., established in 1907. U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology, 1885.

  • Mooney, James. The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology, 1885-6 Annual Report, 1891.
  • Mooney, James. Siouan tribes of the East. U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, 1894.
  • Mooney, James. The Ghost-dance religion and the Sioux outbreak of 1890. U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology, 1892-3 Annual Report, 2 vols., 1896.
  • Mooney, James. Calendar history of the Kiowa Indians. U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology, 1895-6 Annual Report, 1898.
  • Mooney, James. Myths of the Cherokee. U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology, 1897-8 Annual Report, 1902.
  • Mooney, James. Indian missions north of Mexico. U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, 1907.
  • Mooney, James. The Swimmer manuscript: Cherokee sacred formulas and medicinal prescriptions, revised, completed and edited by Frans M. Olbrechts, 1932.
  • Mooney, James, 1861–1921. "James Mooney's history, myths, and sacred formulas of the Cherokees :containing the full texts of Myths of the Cherokee (1900) and The sacred formulas of the Cherokees (1891) as published by the Bureau of American Ethnology : with a new biographical introduction.
  • Ellison, George, James Mooney and the eastern Cherokees, Asheville, NC: Historical Images, 1992.

Full etexts of many of the above are available at archive.org

References

  • Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees (digitized text)
  • Ghost dance recordings of 1894 at The Public Domain Review
  • Register to the Papers of James Mooney at the National Anthropological Archives
  • Smithsonian Anthropologist JoAllyn Archambault video discussing Mooney can be viewed as part of series 19th Century Explorers and Anthropologists: Developing the Earliest Smithsonian Anthropology Collections