The Siouan Tribes of the East

by James Mooney

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

101 pages, Hardcover

First published August 21, 2008

About the author

James Mooney (James^Mooney) was an American ethnographer who lived for several years among the Cherokee. He did major studies of Southeastern Indians, as well as those on the Great Plains. His most notable works were his ethnographic studies of the Ghost Dance after Sitting Bull's death in 1890, a widespread 19th-century religious movement among various Native American culture groups, and the Cherokee: The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees (1891), and Myths of the Cherokee (1900), all published by the US Bureau of American Ethnology. Artifacts from Mooney are 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

Reviews

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

Horatio Hale's Tutelo vocabulary established compelling relationship between the Dakotan languages and what has become known as the "Eastern Siouan" language branch. Unfortunately, James Mooney's book "The Siouan Tribes of the East" is filled with leaping speculations, contradictory claims, and suffers from some blind spots. The extent historical and ethnographic record just doesn't have enough information to back up Mooney's assertion that "some 40" or more tribes spoke an eastern Siouan language and shared cultural similarities. See Carl F. Miller's 1957 reappraisal of Mooney's work in American Anthropologist magazine. In my own evaluation, the Occaneechi were almost certainly Muscogean, the Tutelo may have been Siouan as per Hale's language records, but the rest of the tribes are too forgotten for any strong statements. James Mooney's work is worth reading, but should be taking with a big dose of salt, and read critically. Although his work has been the established dogma of piedmont anthropology, it is by no,means built upon secure foundations.