Bertha Parker Pallan

Bertha Parker Pallan

Bertha Parker Pallan (Cody) at Gypsum Cave c. 1930
Born 30 August 1907
New York
Died 8 October 1978 (aged 71)
Los Angeles
Fields Archaeology, ethnology
Institutions Southwest Museum

Bertha "Birdie" Parker (August 30, 1907 – October 8, 1978) was an American archaeologist.

Biography

Bertha "Birdie" Parker was the first American Indian female archaeologist, of Abenaki and Seneca descent. She was born in 1907 in upstate New York. Her mother, Beulah Tahamont (later Folsom), was an actress. Her father, Arthur C. Parker, was an archaeologist and the first president of the Society for American Archaeology.[1] Her maternal grandparents were the actors Elijah “Chief Dark Cloud” Tahamont and Margaret (Dove Eye) Camp. As a child, she assisted her father in his excavations. She and her mother left her father and moved to Los Angeles around 1914.[2] She and her mother reportedly performed with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus as part of the “Pocahontas” show during her teenage years.[2]

She married her first husband, Joseph Pallan, in the early 1920s. They had a daughter, Wilma Mae ("Billie") Pallan in 1925. After their divorce, in 1931 she married the paleontologist James Thurston. He died after a sudden illness in 1932, and she herself became ill for an extended period of time.[3] From 1936–1978 (her death) she was married to Espera Oscar de Corti, also known as the actor Iron Eyes Cody.[4] Her daughter Billie died of a gunshot wound on her grandmother's farm in 1942 at the age of 17.[5] She and Iron Eyes also had two adopted sons, Robert "Tree" Cody and Arthur William Cody (1952–1996).

Bertha died in 1978; her grave simply reads "Mrs. Iron Eyes Cody".

Archaeological career

As early as 1927, Pallan began archaeological work with her uncle M. R. Harrington. She participated in excavations at the site of Mesa House, and it may have been the 1929 expedition that she discovered the pueblo site of Scorpion Hill while walking with her young daughter Billie. She excavated the site herself, taking notes, photos, and later publishing the results; the finds were exhibited in the Southwest Museum.

She worked at Gypsum Cave in 1930, a site that Harrington had claimed to have the earliest evidence for human occupation of North America during the Pleistocene.[6] Bertha served as the expedition secretary, a position that included cleaning, repairing, and cataloging finds; in addition, she explored the rooms of the cave in her spare time and was able to reach into some of the most inaccessible crevices. It was on one of these occasions that she discovered the skull of a species of extinct giant ground sloth, Nothrotherium shastense Sinclair.[7] Harrington noted that the find was the most important of the expedition because it brought the support of additional of institutions, namely the California Institute of Technology and later the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

While on this expedition, she discovered the site of Corn Creek after seeing fossil camel bone protruding from an eroding lake bed.[8] She was among the first Native American woman archaeologists.[9][10]

From 1931 to 1941, she worked as an Assistant in Archaeology at the Southwest Museum and published a number of archaeological and ethnological papers in the museum journal, Masterkey, from the early 1930s through the 1960s. These included papers such as “California Indian Baby Cradles”, "Kachina Dolls" and several articles on the Yurok Tribe, for example, “Some Yurok Customs and Beliefs”.

Publications

The following are listed as they appear in a list compiled by Marge Bruchac.[11]

Published under the name of Bertha Parker Thurston:

Published under the name of Bertha Parker Cody:

Published under the name of her Yurok interviewee, Jane Van Stralen:

References

  1. ↑ "SAA Native American Scholarships". Society for American Archaeology.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Hayden, Julian D. (2011). Field Man: Life as a Desert Archaeologist. University of Arizona Press. p. 22.
  3. ↑ Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Chip; Colwell-Chanthaphonh, John Stephen (2009). Inheriting the Past: The Making of Arthur C Parker and Indigenous Archaeology. University of Arizona Press. p. 172.
  4. ↑ Waldman, Amy (January 1999). "Iron Eyes Cody, 94, an Actor And Tearful Anti-Littering Icon". New York Times.
  5. ↑ "Wilma Mae Pallan". Rootsweb.
  6. ↑ Harrington, M.R. (June 1930). "Ashes Found with Sloth Remains". The Science News-Letter 17 (478): 365. doi:10.2307/3905773.
  7. ↑ Harrington, M.R. (April 1940). "Man and Beast in Gypsum Cave". Desert Magazine: 3–5.
  8. ↑ Rafferty, Kevin (1984). Cultural Resources Overview of the Las Vegas Valley. p. 19.
  9. ↑ "Bertha Parker Pallan [Cody] (1907-1978)". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  10. ↑ Browman, David L. (2013). Cultural Negotiations: The Role of Women in the Founding of Americanist Archaeology. Lincoln: UNP - Nebraska. pp. 127–129. ISBN 978-0-8032-4547-1.
  11. ↑ Bruchac, Marge. "First Female Native American Archaeologist". H-Net Email Listserv.

External links