Horatio Hale

Infobox Scientist
name = Horatio Hale
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caption = Horatio Hale
birth_date = May 3, 1817
birth_place = Newport, New Hampshire
death_date = December 28, 1896
death_place = Clinton, Ontario Canada
residence = Clinton, Ontario
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nationality = AmericanFact|date=June 2008
ethnicity =
field = ethnology
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alma_mater = Harvard University
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Horatio Hale (May 3, 1817 - December 28, 1896), American ethnologist, was born in Newport, New Hampshire.

He was the son of David Hale, a lawyer, and of Sarah Josepha Hale (1790-1879), a popular poet, who, besides editing Godey's "Ladies' Magazine" for many years and publishing some ephemeral books, is supposed to have written the verses "Mary had a little lamb," and to have been the first to suggest the national observance of Thanksgiving Day.

Hale graduated in 1837 from Harvard University, and he served as the philologist for the United States Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842, which was led by Lt. Charles Wilkes. Of the reports of that expedition Hale prepared the sixth volume, "Ethnography and Philology" (1846), which is said to have laid the foundations of the ethnography of Polynesia. After marrying a Canadian woman, Margaret Pugh of Goderich Township, he was admitted to the Chicago bar in 1855. The following year Hale moved to Clinton, Ontario, Canada, to administer the estate of his father-in-law and began to involve himself locally in real estate development and other business and educational endeavours.cite web |url=http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=6139
title=Dictionary of Canadian Biography online]

Mentored by Iroquois chiefs George Henry Martin Johnson and John Fraser, while visiting Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation and with native informants in the U.S., Hale was enabled to document the oral history and ritual of the Iroquois Confederacy through the assisted interpretation of the groups existing wampum belts.cite web |url=http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=6139
title=Dictionary of Canadian Biography online] This resulted in the eventual publication of Hale's, "Iroquois Book of Rites" (1883).

He made many valuable contributions to the science of ethnology, attracting attention particularly by his theory of the origin of the diversities of human languages and dialects--a theory suggested by his study of child-languages, or the languages invented by little children. He also emphasized the importance of languages as tests of mental capacity and as criteria for the classification of human groups. He was, moreover, the first to discover that the Tutelos of Virginia belonged to the Siouan family, and to identify the Cherokee as a member of the Iroquoian family of speech.

Besides writing numerous magazine articles, he read a number of valuable papers before learned societies. These include:
* "Indian Migrations as Evidenced by Language" (1882)
* "The Origin of Languages and the Antiquity of Speaking Man" (1886)
*"The Development of Language" (1888)
*"Language as a Test of Mental Capacity: Being an Attempt to Demonstrate the True Basis of Anthropology" (1891)

External links

*
* [http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/fghij/hale_horatio.html Anthropology Biographies--Horatio Hale]

Bibliography

*Citation
id = PMID:17829255
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17829255
last=Hale
first=
publication-date=1895 Mar 22
year=1895
title=AN INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CATALOGUE AND CONGRESS.
volume=1
issue=12
periodical=
pages=324-326
doi = 10.1126/science.1.12.324
*Citation
id = PMID:17731636
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17731636
last=Hale
first=
publication-date=1892 Jan 15
year=1892
title=THE KALAMATH NATION: III.--MYTHOLOGY AND GENERAL ETHNOLOGY.
volume=19
issue=467
periodical=Science
pages=29-31
doi = 10.1126/science.ns-19.467.29
*Citation
id = PMID:17774144
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17774144
last=Hale
first=
publication-date=1892 Jan 8
year=1892
title=THE KLAMATH NATION: II.--Linguistics.
volume=19
issue=466
periodical=Science
pages=20-21
doi = 10.1126/science.ns-19.466.20
*Citation
id = PMID:17813801
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17813801
last=Hale
first=
publication-date=1892 Jan 1
year=1892
title=THE KLAMATH NATION: I.--The Country and the People.
volume=19
issue=465
periodical=
pages=6-7
doi = 10.1126/science.ns-19.465.6
* Brinton, D. G. (1897). Horatio Hale. "American Anthropologist", "10" (1), 25-27.