Aaron McGaffey Beede Papers

[emilylevine]

I was wondering if anyone has done any work with the Beede Collection at the University of North Dakota? Aaron McGaffey Beede was an Episcopal Missionary on Standing Rock and later a judge in Sioux County. As far as I know, he learned Lakota and he recorded a lot of information on Lakota culture. His journals are really annoying to read---the handwriting is impossible. Someone--his daughter?--has transcribed some of the journals and the collection includes those typescripts. His poetry is pretty much romantic drivel but I think there may be some useful information in the journals.

[lgarcia]

Emily:
I looked at his papers twenty or more years ago. There are two collections, one at University of North Dakota, Grandforks and the other at the Institute for Regional Studies in Fargo.
I don't think the Heritage Center in Bismarck has any of his papers. He has a lot of pieces of gold hidden here and there in the papers. You are right his handwriting is very bad. I gave up
trying to read it. The main part of the Grandforks collection deals with Inyansan, the massacre at Whitestone Hill. There is a ledger book with the Legend of Devils Lake dictated to him by Rising Sun
from Belcourt. As you guessed it, the legend is hand written. one would have to be a handwriting expert to figure out the text. Beede was stationed at Cannonball, which is the Yanktonai section of the
Standing Rock Rez. He is writing in Dakota/Nakota, not Lakota if I remember correctly.
Toksta ake,
Louie
Ft. Totten, ND

[emilylevine]

Thanks, Louie. There is some Beede correspondence with people in the SHSND in Bismarck---Gilmore, for sure but, yes, the bulk of Beede's papers are at Grand Forks. Maybe some day someone will have the patience to read all those journals of scribble. I did scan a bunch of his letters and some of the journal transcripts.

[kingsleybray]

Coming in late, Emily, but did you or Louie see anything in the Beede papers that might correspond to what George E. Hyde wrote: " . . . up to 1910 the people of the Saone group [northern Teton divisions] retained some recollection of events as far back as 1740. The Beede tradition (still in manuscript) are mostly from Saone sources and contain enough material on the early period to indicate that the Saones migrated to the Missouri by a northern route. The lack of references in these [Beede] traditions to the Tetons of the Oglala and Brule group is a clear indication that the latter tribes were not with the Saones during the movement to the Missouri." (RED CLOUD'S FOLK, p. 19 fn.)

In the Bibliography, p. 321, Hyde lists Beede's "Sioux Traditions (manuscript). This material was collected among the Saone and Yanktonais Sioux groups. Dr. Beede died at his home, Fort Yates, N. D., in 1934. He gave me much interesting material on the Sioux migration to the Missouri."

Beede corresponded with Grinnell and Hyde, perhaps the 'manuscript' referred to was sent to them. On the other hand perhaps a copy remained in his own papers. I would love to track it down.

[emilylevine]

Hi Kingsley
I came back from my archive research trip with so many thousands of pages of photocopies and scans that I haven't processed them yet. I was just just copying like crazy---and at Grand Forks you could use their fancy scanner for free. I have read a lot of handwritten archival material but nothing I've seen compares to the indecipherable scribble of Beede! If I remember correctly, I concentrated on the material that his daughter had transcribed. It is unfortunate as there are scores of journals that Beede kept. When I do go through it this winter--along with other Beede material I copied at NDSU and at Bismarck--I will keep my eyes open and share what may be of interest.

[dposthum]

Emily,

I believe a student from Indiana University, Kristen Alten, who worked with Ray DeMallie was doing her dissertation on the Beede material. This was years ago, though, so I'm not sure what the status is of that now. I have scanned the entire Beede collection and use it in my work on Lakota belief and ritual. Vine Deloria, Jr. discusses an excerpt from Beede's Western Sioux Cosmology paper in one of the chapters in his collection Spirit and Reason. Other than that, I'm not sure who all has dipped into the material and used it in publications.

Kingsley,

The Beede papers are chock full of great ethnographic stuff on the early migrations and divisions of the Sioux. Also great info on intertribal relations and spirituality. The problem for me, aside from the difficult handwriting, has been finding sources that corroborate Beede's data, because much of it is relatively unique, all based on oral tradition from the Northern Lakotas and Yanktonais. Exciting stuff though!

[kingsleybray]

Thanks, dposthum, this is an exciting development. I have inboxed you -- Kingsley

[carlo]

Hi dposthum,
Could you share more on the intertribal relations you mentioned? I would be especially interested in interaction (either bellicose or peaceful) between the Saones and the Crows.
Carlo