James Mooney

James Mooney (February 10, 1861 – December 22, 1921) was an American ethnographer who lived for several years among the North Carolina Cherokee. Known as "The Indian Man", he conducted major studies of Southeastern Indians, as well as of tribes on the Great Plains. He did ethnographic studies of the Ghost Dance, a spiritual movement among various Native American culture groups, after Sitting Bull's death in 1890. His most notable works include ''The Siouan Tribes of the East'' (1894) and ''The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890'' (1896), the latter being the first thorough study of a Native American religion resulting from a major cultural disruption. His works on the Cherokee include ''The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees'' (1891), and ''Myths of the Cherokee'' (1900). All were published by the U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology.

Native American artifacts collected by Mooney are held 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. Provided by Wikipedia