6 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 196 



been one of their most able men and the most prominent literary character among 

 them, for from what has been said it must be sufficiently evident that the Chero- 

 kees have their native literature and literary men .... [He] . . . was a full- 

 blood Cherokee, speaking no English, and in the course of a long lifetime he had 

 filled almost every position of honor among his people, including those of councilor, 

 keeper of the townhouse records, Sunday-school leader, conjurer, officer in the 

 Confederate service, and Methodist preacher, at last dying, as he was born, in the 

 ancient faith of his forefathers. 



On inquiring of his daughter she stated that her father had left a great many 

 papers, most of which were still in her possession, and on receiving from the 

 interpreter an explantation of our purpose she readily gave permission to examine 

 and make selections from them on condition that the matter should be kept 

 secret from outsiders .... 



Having placed chairs for us in the shade Inall's daughter brought out a small 

 box filled with papers of various kinds .... The work of examining these was 

 a tedious business, as each paper had to be opened out and enough of it read to 

 get the general drift of the contents, after which the several classes were arranged 

 in separate piles. While in the midst of this work she brought out another box 

 nearly as large as a small trunk, and on setting it down there was revealed to the 

 astonished gaze such a mass of material as it had not seemed possible could exist 

 in the entire tribe. 



... it was with a feeling akin to despair that we viewed the piles of man uscript 

 which had to be waded through and classified. . . . but the woman was not done 

 yet, and after rummaging about inside the house for a while longer she appeared 

 with another armful of papers, which she emptied on top of the others. 



... A large number of letters and other papers were selected from the miscel- 

 laneous lot, and these . . . are now deposited . . . with the Bureau of Ethnology. 



The notations for the purpose of identification that Mooney made 

 upon the documents apparently were not all made at the same time, 

 for they exhibit two distinct styles of handwriting: a carefully formed 

 script as beautiful as engraving, and a baffling scrawl, replete with 

 eccentric abbreviations and spellings, that at times merely approaches 

 legibility. One of these captions is dated 1911, proof that Ino:li's 

 pack-rat propensities created a long task for Mooney. The initials 

 "WW" appended to many of the annotations indicate that Will West 

 Long, Mooney's informant and friend, probably upon the occasion 

 recorded above and at other times, supplied information. 



Certainly Mooney and Long worked hurriedly; for a specific caption 

 may be misleading or dowm'ight in error, indicating a too hasty 

 perusal on the part of Long or a misunderstanding of Long's exposition 

 on the part of Mooney. Some of the documents bear no identification. 



THE AUTHOR OF THE DOCUMENTS 



There was a Chief Inali, or Black Fox, who signed the Washington 

 Treaty of 1806. The name "Ino:li," although rare, is not unknown in 

 Oklahoma. It appears, for example, on a roll of a meeting of the 

 Gidu:hwa Society held at Honey Springs, A :m6:hi District, Chero- 

 kee Nation, on September 5, 1874 (Cherokee Nation Papers, MS., 



