“Chasing Voices: The Story of John Peabody Harrington” with Filmmaker Daniel Golding

In recognition of Native American Heritage Month, join us at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History for an evening celebrating the preservation and revival of Native languages as we watch a documentary with special regional significance. During this free public screening presented by the Santa Barbara County Archaeological Society, filmmaker Daniel Golding (a Quechan tribal member) will introduce his PBS documentary film Chasing Voices: The Story of John Peabody Harrington.

American linguist and ethnologist John Peabody Harrington amassed well over one million pages of notes on over 100 different Native American languages during his 50-year career. Descendants of these lost speakers are now reviving their languages thanks to Harrington and the tribal elders who trusted him enough to speak. One such descendant is UCSB Linguistics Ph.D. candidate James Yee, past chairman of the Barbareño Band of Chumash Indians. His aunt, the late Chumash Elder Ernestine Ygnacio-DeSoto, appears in the film, and this screening is dedicated to her memory.

Yee will give a welcoming statement in his ancestral language ‘alapkaswa’ (also known as Barbareño Chumash). After the screening, Golding and Yee will lead a panel discussion with other individuals involved in Indigenous language revitalization and answer questions from the audience.

No tickets or reservations required. For more information, contact sbcas@sbnature2.org.

Photo: J. P. Harrington posing with three Cuna (Tule) people while making dictaphone recordings of Cuna language and songs, 1924. [BAE GN 4305 A, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.]