James Mooney (1861-1921) 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.^[1] His most notable works were his ethnographic studies of the Ghost Dance, a widespread religious movement among various Native American culture groups. It gave hope for transcendence and victory over the US soldiers.

[edit] Biographer

James Mooney was born in 1861 in Richmond, Indiana. His formal education was limited to the public schools of the city. He became a self-taught expert on American tribes by his own studies and his careful observation during long residences with different groups.^[2]

In 1885 he started working with the Bureau of American Ethnology at Washington, D.C. under John Wesley Powell. He compiled a list of tribes which contained 3,000 names. It ended after the US Army's 1890 massacre of Lakota people at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Mooney was recognized as a national expert on the American Indian.^[3]

Mooney's obituary is available on JSTOR in American Anthropologist 24, #2 (New Series), pp. 209-214.

His son was the American writer Paul Mooney.

[edit] Works written by James Mooney

• Myths of the Cherokees (1888) OCLC 39982772
• Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees (1891) OCLC 17725090
• Siouan Tribes of the East (1894) OCLC 4314005
• The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outreak of 1890, Part 2 of 14th Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 641-1136, Washington GPO 1896.
• The Messiah Religion and the Ghost Dance; Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians (1898) OCLC 963677 (1979 reprint:OCLC 26956541)
• James Mooney's History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees James Mooney, Introduction by George Ellison^[4]

[edit] References

1. ^ "Register to the Papers of James Mooney", National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, accessed 10 Nov 2009
2. ^ "Register to the Papers of James Mooney", National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, accessed 10 Nov 2009
3. ^ "Register to the Papers of James Mooney", National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, accessed 10 Nov 2009
4. ^ Ellison, George; Mooney, James E. (1992). 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, James Mooney and the eastern Cherokees. Asheville, NC: Bright Mountain Books (Historical Images). ISBN 0-914875-19-1. 

[edit] External links

• Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees (digitized text)

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