The Project Gutenberg EBook of Siouan Sociology by James Owen Dorsey

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Title: Siouan Sociology

Author: James Owen Dorsey

Release Date: October 10, 2006 [Ebook #19518]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIOUAN SOCIOLOGY***

Siouan Sociology

A Posthumous Paper - Fifteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to
the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1893-1894, Government
Printing Office, Washington, 1897, pages 205-244

by James Owen Dorsey

Edition 1, (October 10, 2006)

In 1871, at the age of 23, James Owen Dorsey, previously a student of
divinity with a predilection for science, was ordained a deacon of the
Protestant Episcopal church by the bishop of Virginia; and in May of that
year he was sent to Dakota Territory as a missionary among the Ponka
Indians. Characterized by an amiability that quickly won the confidence of
the Indians, possessed of unbounded enthusiasm, and gifted with remarkable
aptitude in discriminating and imitating vocal sounds, he at once took up
the study of the native language, and, during the ensuing two years,
familiarized himself with the Ponka and cognate dialects; at the same time
he obtained a rich fund of information concerning the arts, institutions,
traditions, and beliefs of the Indians with whom he was brought into daily
contact. In August, 1873, his field work was interrupted by illness, and
he returned to his home in Maryland and assumed parish work, meantime
continuing his linguistic studies. In July, 1878, he was induced by Major
Powell to resume field researches among the aborigines, and repaired to
the Omaha reservation, in Nebraska, under the auspices of the Smithsonian
Institution, where he greatly increased his stock of linguistic and other
material. When the Bureau of Ethnology was instituted in 1879, his
services were at once enlisted, and the remainder of his life was devoted
to the collection and publication of ethnologic material, chiefly
linguistic. Although most of his energies were devoted to the Siouan
stock, he studied also the Athapascan, Kusan, Takilman, and Yakonan
stocks; and while hi