demic anthropology, and by Mark Raymond Harrington, who
was to be his colleague and relative by marriage. At Professor
Putnam's suggestion, Harrington introduced Parker to field
archeology on the shell heaps of Oyster Bay.

When not at the American Museum, "Putnam's Boys"--
Parker, Harrington, Alanson Skinner, Frank G. Speck--and
other Indian buffs frequented the soirees of Harriet Maxwell
Converse, impressario to the Iroquois and amateur folklorist. ⁴
Mrs. Converse had developed, notably at Cattaraugus, a re-
markable rapport with Seneca traditionalists, who admitted
her to ceremonies, entrusted her with tribal relics, and from
whom she heard explanatory myths, origin legends, and sto-
ries. These she wrote up in an imaginative fashion. On her
death in 1903, Parker was named literary executor, and one of
his first projects on going to Albany as archeologist at the New
York State Museum was to edit and supplement the Converse
oeuvre for publication. ⁵

Parker's collection of folktales was incidental to his devel-
oping career as a professional archaeologist. He had declined
to go the academic route to the Ph.D. under Boas at Columbia
University and found more congenial a museum career under
the tutelage of Professor Putnam. This decision markedly af-
fected his later life when people insisted on addressing him as
"DoctorParker" and he knew he had not earned the title, unlike
his professional contemporaries. His interest in the oral lit-
erature of his people was rekindled when Putnam sent him
with Harrington to explore sites in southwestern New York,
notably on his native Cattaraugus Creek. He tells us in the
foreword to this book how Seneca annalists, whom he names
(p. xx ), soon visited the dig and related tales and oral history
of the old people. It was then that Parker began to note the
plots and incidents in their narratives from which he would
construct his own versions. He knew that Jeremiah Curtin and
J. N. B. Hewitt had preceded him, but he decided not to use
previous collections for comparative purposes and to preserve
the literary integrity of his own materials. ⁶

Mrs. Converse and Professor Putnam were behind Parker's

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