“Their Beautiful Storycraft”: Restoring the Original Manuscripts for Schoolcraft’s Algic Researches by William Johnston and Others

Henry R. Schoolcraft’s Algic Researches was the first significant collection of authentic Native American tales. However, it was so flawed that its import has been generally dismissed by scholars, who have shown more interest in critiquing Schoolcraft than in studying the stories themselves. It has long been known some of the manuscripts by William Johnston were in the Schoolcraft papers at the Library of Congress. I have now transcribed these and many others, restoring the originals modified by Schoolcraft for his books. The result is not only an opportunity to give credit to the Ojibwe-speaking mixed-blood collectors and translators of these tales but also to evaluate the modifications Schoolcraft made. It turns out most of the divergences from later professional collections are in the originals and cannot be attributed to Schoolcraftsmanship. One of the restored manuscripts, Chusco’s Shagwonabee as told to William Johnston in 1836, is included as an example.