Arthur C. Parker

Arthur C. Parker

Arthur Caswell Parker (April 5, 1881 – January 1, 1955) was an American scholar. His research interests included archaeology, history, folklore and museums. He was an expert on Native American  culture. His family line was both from the Seneca and Scots-English. He was director of the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences from 1924 to 1945. He was an honorary trustee of the New York State Historical Association. He was also first president of Society for American Archaeology.

Early Life and Education

Arthur C. Parker was born in 1881 on the Cattaraugus Reservation of the Seneca Nation of New York. His father was Frederick Ely Parker. Frederick Parker was half Seneca. Parker's mother was Geneva Hortenese Griswold. She was a Scots-English-American and taught at the reservation.

Parker became an honorary member of the Seneca tribe in 1903. He got the name Gawaso Wanneh (meaning "Big Snowsnake"). Parker grew up with his grandfather Nicholson Henry Parker. Nicholson was a Seneca leader and influenced Parker. Parker learned Seneca beliefs and Christianity. Parker's great uncle was Ely S. Parker.

Parker studied on the reservation. He graduated from high school in 1897. He became an assistant archaeologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York from 1901 to 1902. Parker became friends with Frederic W. Putnam. His focus was anthropology.

Parker, however, studied at Dickinson Seminary in Williamsport, Pennsylvania from 1900 to 1903. These studies were for his ministry. He did not graduate and left beforehand. He went on to become a reporter for the New York Sun for a couple of months.

Career

Parker was an apprentice in archaeology in New York under Mark Harrington. He was later an archaeologist at several museums. These museums included Peabody Museum and the New York State Museum. For a couple years, he was an ethnologist at the New York State Library. Parker later became director of the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences.

Parker and Charles A. Eastman founded the Society of American Indians in 1911. They wanted to educate the public about American Indians. In a 1911 fire, Parker rescued many historical records from Native Americans.

Parker was the editor of the American Indian Magazine from 1915 to 1920. He won the Cornplanter Medal in 1916. This award was named after Chief Cornplanter.

He became the first President of the Society for American Archaeology in 1935. In 1944, Parker helped found the National Congress of American Indians. Parker retired from museum work in 1946.

Personal life and Death

Arthur Parker married Beulah Tahamont (1887-1945) in 1904. They divorced in 1914. His daughter, Bertha Parker, became an archeologist and ethnologist.

He died near Naples, New York on New Year's Day, 1955. He was 73 years old at his death.

Publications

• Excavations in an Erie Indian village and burial site at Ripley, Chautauqua Co., NY, New York State Museum Bulletin 117:459–554. 1907
• Secret Medicine Societies of the Seneca, American Anthropologist, n.s., 11:161–185. April–June, 1909
• Iroquois Uses of Maize and Other Food Plants, New York State Museum Bulletin 144:5–119. 1910
• Additional Notes on Iroquois Silversmithing, American Anthropologist, n.s., 13:283–293. April–June, 1911
• The Code of Handsome Lake, the Seneca Prophet, New York State Museum Bulletin 163: 5–148. November, 1912
• The Constitution of the Five Nations, New York State Museum Bulletin 184:7-188. April 1, 1916
• The Socials Elements of the Indian Problem, The American Journal of Sociology, 22:252–267. September, 1916
• The Origin of the Iroquois as Suggested by Their Archeology , American Anthropologist, n.s., 18:479–507. October–December, 1916
• Life of General Ely S. Parker: Last Grand Sachem of the Iroquois and General Grant's Military Secretary, Buffalo Historical Society, (Buffalo, New York), Publications, 23:14-346. 1919
• The Mound Builder Culture in New York, New York State Museum Bulletin 219/220:283-292, March–April, 1919. Fifteenth report of the director.
• The New York Indian Complex and How to Solve It, N.Y. State Archaeological Assoc. Lewis H. Morgan Chapter. Researches and Transactions, Vol. 2, No. 1. 1920. 20p.
• The Archaeological History of New York, Albany [The University of the State of New York] 1922. 2 vol. Originally published in New York State Bulletins 235,236, 237, 238. July–October, 1920.
• Seneca Myths and Folk Tales, Buffalo Historical Society Publications, 27, 1923. 465p.
• The Great Algonkin Flint Mines at Coxsackie, N. Y. State Archeological Assoc. Lewis H. Morgan Chapter. Researches and Transactions, 4:105–125. 1925
• An Analytical History of the Seneca Indians, N. Y. State Archeological Assoc. Lewis H. Morgan Chapter. Researches and Transactions, 6:162p. 1926
• The Indian How Book, New York, George H. Doran Company, 1931
• Skunny Wundy and Other Indian Tales, New York, George H. Doran Company, 1926
• Sources and Range of Cooper's Indian Lore Archived 2016-12-15 at the Wayback Machine, New York History, 35:445–456. 1954
• The History of the Seneca Indians, Port Washington, NY: I. J. Friedman, 1967
• Parker on the Iroquois, Edited by William N. Fenton, Syracuse University Press, 1986