Untitled - Smithsonian Institution

[N MEMORIAM—JAMES MOONEY
(PL 1)
I consider it an obvious act of piety to dedicate tliis paper to the
memory of the scientist who devoted so much of his erudition and
enthusiasm to the ethnological study of the North American Indians,
'
and particularly of the Cherokee; to a man without whose previous
intelUgent research and pubhcations the following pages could not
now be offered to the pubUc.
The glowing tribute paid to him in the name of his colleagues and
friends by Dr. John R. Swanton in the American Anthropologist,
volume 24, No. 2, April-June, 1922, pages 209-214, has done him justice
from one quarter only. Doctor Swanton was the eloquent spokesman
of James Mooney's white friends. When I went to hve with the
Cherokee of the Great Smoky Mountains to continue the work of
Mooney I found that his departure had been felt as cruelly by his
Indian friends as by his white colleagues. The mere statement that
I came to stay with them with the same purpose in view as had uq^do'
(Mooney's Cherokee name, meanuig "moon") served as the best
introduction I could have desired. People who looked askance, and
medicine men who looked sullen when first approached, changed as if
touched by a magic wand as they heard his name and as I explamed
my connection with his work.
From all that I heard I concluded that his life and his dealings with
our mutual friends, the Cherokee, were a stimulating example for
me, and I was well satisfied whenever I heard my conduct and my
person not too unfavorably compared with that of my sympathetic
predecessor.
The line of research which Mooney had started in the Cherokee field
was too interesting not to be followed up ;
the results he had obtained
demanded still a considerable amount of further study, both in the
field and at the desk. It is sad indeed that he did not have the satisfaction
of seeing this manuscript pubhshed before he passed away
from his beloved Cherokee studies. But the fife of a scientist and a
pioneer like Mooney is not of threescore and ten only. He continues
to Hve for generations in his splendid and altruistic work, in monuments
more durable than stone.
I consider it a great honor and an enviable privilege to link my name
with his, and at the same time to be able to contribute something
more to the memory of James Mooney, by offering to the public the
results of our joint work contained in the following pages.
Frans M. Olbrechts.
Kessel-Loo, Belgium,
Christmas, 1928.
7548°—32 2 xvii