Frank Gouldsmith Speck Cherokee Collection 1880-1948

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Frank Gouldsmith Speck Cherokee Collection 1880-1948

http://www.amphilsoc.org/mole/view?docId=ead/Mss.572.97.Sp3L-ead.xml

From the 1920s through the 1940s, the University of Pennsylvania anthropologist Frank Gouldsmith Speck worked on Cherokee language and culture with his primary consultant, Will West Long. Raised in Big Cove, North Carolina, Long was a respected elder and spent much of his adult life attempting to record and preserve traditional Cherokee culture. The Speck Cherokee Collection consists of diaries, accounts, and medicinal texts in Cherokee collected by Will West Long and Morgan Calhoun, accompanied by notes by Speck and John Witthoft. Among these are several diaries kept by Long (mostly 1904-1917), records of the Gadugi (a Cherokee mutual aid group), accounts, records of births and deaths at Big Cove, Cherokee-English vocabularies, and material collected on Cherokee botany collected by James Mooney in 1887. Several of the items contain information on Cherokee medicine, including formulae and curing charms.

0.5 Linear feet

American Philosophical Society

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SNAC Resource ID: 6631119

Related Entities

There are 7 Entities related to this resource.

Mooney, James, 1861-1921

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6g81bmh (person)

James Mooney was the main speaker at the event. From the description of Address for the one hundredth anniversary of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania 1979 [manuscript] (Historical Society of W Pennsylvania). WorldCat record id: 314404182 ...

Unidentified

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6r33q1z (person)

Calhoun, Morgan

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6vj899w (person)

ᏫᎵ ᏪᏍᏗ 1870-1947

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6jq4njk (person)

ᏫᎵ ᏪᏍᏗ, Will West Long, was a member of Eastern Cherokee and lived in Big Cove, Qualla Boundry Reservation, as of 1946 where he made the masks for their ceremonial dances. An accomplished mask maker and master of Cherokee dance and drama, Will West Long (1870-1947) was born in the remote western North Carolina community of Big Cove. Raised in the traditions of the Cherokee, Long attended Hampton Institute in Virginia when he was 25 years old. He lived off the Qualla Boundary until 1904, when he...

Speck, Frank G. (Frank Gouldsmith), 1881-1950

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w618362d (person)

Frank G. Speck was an anthropologist. From the description of Naskapi scenes, [ca. 1930]. (American Philosophical Society Library). WorldCat record id: 122523446 From the guide to the Naskapi scenes, [ca. 1930], Circa 1930, (American Philosophical Society) Frank Gouldsmith Speck was an anthropologist. From the description of Delaware Indian material, 1928. (American Philosophical Society Library). WorldCat record id: 122440271 From the descripti...

Witthoft, John

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6dz3np5 (person)

John Witthoft taught in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. From the description of Miscellaneous manuscripts, 1959-1969. (University of Pennsylvania Library). WorldCat record id: 191213574 Born October 4, 1921 in Oneonta, New York, John Witthoft had an unusual childhood. Suffering from scarlet fever at age 6, the disease left him with permanent eye damage and life-long tremors. His family saw these physical afflictions as retribution for his di...

Will, West Long, 1870-1947

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6546861 (person)

An accomplished mask maker and master of Cherokee dance and drama, Will West Long (1870-1947) was born in the remote western North Carolina community of Big Cove. Raised in the traditions of the Cherokee, Long attended Hampton Institute in Virginia when he was 25 years old. He lived off the Qualla Boundary until 1904, when he returned to Big Cove, where he remained for the rest of his life. For almost 30 years, Long served on Tribal Council, where he was instrumental in establishing the Cherokee...