LibGuides: W. Brent Burgin Archives: The Work of Frank Speck

Catawba & Cherokee

Catawba Herbals and Curative Practices
By Frank G. Speck
The Journal of American folklore, 1944, Vol.57 (223), p.37-50
Catawba Texts
By Frank G. Speck
1969
The Cane Blowgun in Catawba and Southeastern Ethnology
By Frank G. Speck
American Anthropologist, 1938, Vol.40, p.198
Catawba Religious Beliefs, Mortuary Customs, and Dances
By Frank G. Speck
Primitive man (Washington, D.C.), 1939, Vol.12 (2), p.21-57
Catawba Games and Amusements
By Frank G. Speck
Primitive Man (Washington, D.C.), 1944, Vol.17 (1/2), p.19-28
Siouan Tribes of the Carolinas as Known from Catawba, Tutelo, and Documentary Sources
By Frank G. Speck
American Anthropologist, 1935, Vol.37 (2), p.201-225

Cherokee Dance and Drama by Frank Speck and Leonard Broom
Call Number: E 99 .C5 S66 1983
Traditionally, the Cherokees dance to ensure individual health and social welfare. According to legend, the dance songs bequeathed to them by the Stone Coat monster will assuage all the ills of life that the monster brought. Winter dance (including the Booger Dance) are to be given only during times of frost. The summer dance (the Green Corn Ceremony and the Ballplayer’s Dance) are associated with crops and vegetation. Other dances are purely for social intercourse and entertainment or are prompted by specific events in the community.
Decorative Art and Basketry of the Cherokee by Frank Gouldsmith Speck

Gourds of the Southeastern Indians: A Prolegomenon on the Lagenaria Gourd in the Culture of the Southeastern Indians
By Frank G. Speck
First in a series of monographs on the ethnography of the gourd.

Frank Speck in N’Daki Menan: Anthropological Photography in an Extractive Zone
By Siobhan Angus, Fall 2020
Re-Reading American Photographs
Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art

Frank Gouldsmith Speck was an American anthropologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He was specialized in the Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples of the United States and First Nations peoples of eastern boreal Canada.

Expedition Magazine: Frank G. Speck
By Elisabeth Tooker, 1987
Excerpts from the 1951 A. Irving Hallowell obituary of Frank Speck in American Anthropologist.
Frank Speck: NY Times Obituary
February 8, 1950, NYT Page 27
"Dr. Frank G. Speck, Anthropologist, 68; Authority on American Indian Tribes Dies --Professor at U. of P. and Writer"
Frank Speck, Penn Anthropologist
Expedition, 2020, Vol.62 (2), p.47
Frank Speck came to the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) as a Harrison Fellow in 1907, and was the first student to graduate with a Penn Ph.D. in anthropology in 1908. Over the course of five decades, he worked with Indigenous informants from Algonquin, Cherokee, Mohegan, Naskapi, Nanticoke, Penobscot, and other Native nations in the eastern US and Canada.
American Philosophical Society Archives: Frank G. Speck Papers
The Frank G. Speck Collection
By Anthony F. C. Wallace
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society; Vol. 95, No. 3 (Jun. 12, 1951), pp. 286-289.

Iron hammered knife used as a pottery making tool by the Catawba Indians of York County, South Carolina. Collected by anthropologist Frank Speck in 1929 and currently housed at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian.

The storyteller, Watie Akins, is a distinguished elder from the Penobscot Nation and an accomplished musician. The photographs are from the Frank G. Speck collection, which Watie also used as a resource in researching his reinterpretation of traditional music. This is part of the larger exhibition "Through Indigenous Eyes" available through the American Philosophical Society.

Documented by journals of Frank G. Speck as having been filmed in Lake St. John with the St. Augustine band of Innu from December 29 1929 to January 7 1930. Video courtesy of Penn Museum.

About Speck's Work

Reading "An Almost Erased Page": A Reassessment of Frank G. Speck's Catawba Studies
By James H. Merrell
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 127, No. 4 (1983), pp. 248-262.
"Would You Believe That, Dr. Speck?" Frank Speck and The Redman's Appeal for Justice
By Siomonn Pulla
Ethnohistory, 2008, Vol.55 (2), p.183-201
Discussions relating to Frank Speck's contributions to anthropology during the early twentieth century mainly focus on his representations of aboriginal territoriality in eastern Canada. This essay situates Speck and his contributions to anthropology within the larger context of aboriginal issues in Canada during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Cultural Persistence versus Local Adaptation: Frank G. Speck's Catawba Indians
By George Hicks
Ethnohistory, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Autumn, 1965), pp. 343-354.

Catawba Archives: Frank G. Speck
National Museum of the American Indian: Frank Gouldsmith Speck Photograph Collection
The British Museum: Frank G. Speck
A number of masks collected by Speck were obtained for the Inverarity Collection in 1949 and subsequently came to the British Museum in 1976.

Incised gourd from the Frank G. Speck Collection of the American Philosophical Society Museum.

The Nanticoke Community of Delaware
By Frank G. Speck

Study of Other American Indain Tribes

Ethnology of the Yuchi Indians by Frank G. Speck
The Yuchis, one of the more resilient peoples of the southeastern United States, were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory along with their neighbors in the 1830s. In the early 1900s, as this study shows, much of their traditional way of life remained.
Ceremonial Songs of the Creek and Yuchi Indians by Frank G. Speck and J. D. Sapir
Midwinter Rites of the Cayuga Long House by Frank G. Speck
During his last years ethnohistorian Frank G. Speck turned to the study of Iroquois ceremonialism. This 1950 book investigates the religious rites of the Cayuga tribe, one of six in the Iroquois confederation that occupied upstate New York until the American Revolution. In the 1930s and the 1940s Frank Speck observed the Midwinter Ceremony, the Cayuga thanksgiving for the blessings of life and health, performed in long houses on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario.
Collaborating with Alexander General (Deskáheh), the noted Cayuga chief, Speck describes vividly the rites and dances giving thanks to all spiritual entities. Of special interest are the medicine societies that not only prescribed herbs but used powerfully evocative masks in treating the underlying causes of sickness.
The Rappahannock Indians of Virginia by Frank G. Speck

Beothuk and Micmac
Frank Speck examines the Beothuk of Newfoundland, as well as the Micmac Indians of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. There is also some limited information on the Micmac of Prince Edward Island.
Part I : studies of the Beothuk and Micmac of Newfoundland.
Part II : Micmmac hunting territories in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
Beothuk and Micmac: Re-examining Relationships *
By Ingeborg Marshall; Acadiensis, Vol. 17, No. 2 (SPRING/PRINTEMPS 1988), pp. 52-82

The Iroquois: A Study in Cultural Evolution by Frank G. Speck
Originally prepared as background material for interpreting exhibits at the Cranbrook Institute of Science and illustrated with objects from the Institute's collections, this book is a nontechnical discussion of the social and economic organization, mode of life, arts and crafts, and ceremonial properties of the Iroquois Indian Nation.
Montagnais Art in Birch Bark by Frank Gouldsmith Speck
Indian Notes And Monographs, Miscellaneous Series, V11, No. 2.
Decorative Art of Indian Tribes of Connecticut by Frank G. Speck
"Decorative Art of Indian Tribes of Connecticut" gives a detailed knowledge of the decorative art of the eastern Algonkin tribes, the discovery of specimens furnished by several aged Indians of the Mohegan and Niantic tribes of eastern Connecticut.
The Double-Curve Motive in Northeastern Algonkian Art (Classic Reprint) by Frank G. Speck
A discussion of the use of several design elements in Algonkian art by different native groups, with emphasis on a primary element known as the double-curve motive, as well as their origin, nature, and possible symbolism. Among the tribes identified in the paper as users of the double-curve motive are the Montagnais, Naskapi, and Eskimo of Labrador.

A Study of the Delaware Indian Big House Ceremony, in Native Text Dictated by Witapanóxwe
By Frank G. Speck, 1931
Includes plates of illustrations showing face paintings in color.