James Mooney - Biography

Biography

James Mooney was born February 10, 1861 in Richmond, Indiana, son of Irish Catholic immigrants. His formal education was limited to the public schools of the city. He became a self-taught expert on American tribes by his own studies and his careful observation during long residences with different groups.

In 1885 he started working with the Bureau of American Ethnology at Washington, D.C. under John Wesley Powell. He compiled a list of tribes which contained 3,000 names. It ended after the US Army's 1890 massacre of Lakota people at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Mooney was recognized as a national expert on the American Indian.

He married Ione Lee Gaut on September 28, 1897 in Washington, D.C., and had six children. One son was the writer Paul Mooney. Mooney died of heart disease in Washington, D.C. on December 22, 1921. Mooney's obituary is available on JSTOR in American Anthropologist 24, #2 (New Series), pp. 209–214.

A fuller biographical profile by George Ellison can be found in "James Mooney's history, myths, and sacred formulas of the Cherokees."