Pechanga Band of Luiseño Mission Indians

The Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians will continue its ongoing collaboration with the University of California, Davis, on the J.P. Harrington Database Project, an endeavor to create a searchable database of the field notes of ethnologist John Peabody Harrington. This collection, numbering close to one million pages and housed at the Smithsonian institution's National Anthropological Archives (NAA), is one of the richest sources of information about the indigenous languages and cultures of California. Four interns, overseen by experienced staff at Pechanga and UC Davis, will transcribe the remaining microfilm reels and notes into a machine-readable format to allow for searchable content and prepare the transcriptions and database files for deposit and long-term storage at the NAA. This project makes an invaluable resource accessible to scholars and Native communities alike, increasing its utility for research purposes and as a tool for language and cultural revitalization.