“The Indian Man” and the Irishman: James Mooney and Irish Folklore

From late 1905 to mid-1906, Douglas Hyde traveled throughout the United States on a publicity and fundraising campaign on behalf of the Irish-language movement in Ireland. In May 1906, Hyde and his wife Lucy visited Washington, D. C. where, for the second occasion during his American mission, he met President Theodore Roosevelt.¹ The president of the Gaelic League had learned to his delight at their first meeting that Roosevelt was interested in Irish matters and knowledgeable about the Irish storytelling tradition.² Having listened to Hyde describe the voluntary efforts of the Gaelic League, Roosevelt promised that he would urge wealthy Irish Americans to fund Celtic Studies chairs in American universities.³

Hyde spent several days in the capital on his second visit. In his memoir, he recorded:

An Tríomhadh Lá Fichead de Bhealtaine [1906]. Chuaigh mé i n-éinfheacht le mo shean-charaid Séamus Ó Maonaigh go dtí an Smithsonian Institute. Tá leabhar mór sgríobhtha aige-sean do thug sé dham roimhe seo, agus ní dóigh liom go bhfuil fear eile i nAmerice a bhfuil oiread eólais ar na hIndianachaibh aige agus atá aige-sean. Do chuir sémé i n-aithne domhórán de na daoinibh atá gnóthach ar obair an Institiúid agus ó bhí fhios aca gur chruinnigh mé féin sgéalta imeasg na nIndianach i gCanada, naMilisítí, nuair bhímé ann, duisín de bhliantaibh roimhe sin, agus gur chuirmé i gcló iad i bpáipéar Americeánach, do rinneadar ball de’n Institiúid díom.⁴

[The Twenty-Third of May [1906]. I went in the company of my old friend Séamus Ó Maonaigh to the Smithsonian Institute. He has written a big book that he had given me before this, and I don’t think that there is another man in America who knows as much about the Indians as he does. He introduced me to many of the people who are active in the work of the Institute and since they knew that I had gathered stories amongst the Indians in Canada, the Miliseets, when I was there a dozen years before that and that I had published them in an American paper, they made me a member of the Institute.]

“Séamus Ó Maonaigh” was none other than James Mooney (1861–1921) who in 1906 was a senior and much-traveled member of the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE), a part of the Smithsonian Institution.⁵ Mooney had to his credit an impressive list of publications on aspects of Native American culture, including the controversial The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 (1896), which had examined the circumstances surrounding the mass killing of natives at Wounded Knee in South Dakota.⁶ Mooney was a first-rate researcher who had spent extended spells living with Native communities and learning their languages. In 1893, a journalist had labeled him “The Indian Man,” adding that he was “Probably the man who knows more of the North American Indians than anybody else in the world.”⁷ Anthropologists continue to view The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 (1890) as a “classic” book.⁸ Mooney’s work in general remains the initial point of contact for many readers, both scholarly and nonacademic, when they set about learning about Native American culture.

According to Hyde, Mooney was an old friend. Unfortunately, we do not know when the two first met.⁹ In his comments, Hyde stressed Mooney’s credentials. He noted that the Smithsonian had honored Hyde for minor newspaper articles that he had published about Aboriginal Canadians while he taught at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada, during the academic year 1890–1891.¹⁰ While acknowledging through the use of the name “Séamus Ó Maonaigh” that he was aware of Mooney’s Irish background, the extract is interesting for what Hyde did not say. Hyde had published important collections of Irish folklore, such as Leabhar Sgeulaigheachta (1889) and Beside the Fire (1890), works that would have merited...