The anthropologist Oswald Werner was a member of the faculty at Northwestern University from 1963 until his retirement in 1998. A student of Navajo language and culture, he had a particular interest in Navajo medicine and science. The Werner Collection consists of two of Oswald Werner's early works on Navajo language and culture: his dissertation, "A typological comparison of four trader Navaho speakers" (Indiana University, 1963) and a paper "The Navaho ethnomedical domain: prolegomena to a componential semantic analysis" (1964).

Navajo conversation between two speakers recorded in Alburquerque, New Mexico in the summer of 1995.

Field recordings made on the Navajo Indian Reservation during July-September of 1969. Interviews with multiple Navajo speakers, consisting of elicitation of Navajo words and phrases, with commentary and questions.

Navajo word lists for vowel contrasts and tones recorded with 5 monolingual and 10 bilingual Navajo speakers.

Navajo language recordings made by Andrej A. Kibrik in Arizona in 1995. Consists of three stories told in Navajo, two retold in English, including discussion, and two poems read, translated, and discussed. Also includes elicitations focusing on coordinate constructions and adverbial clause constructions.

A student of Edward Sapir's at the University of Chicago (PhD, 1931), Harry Hoijer began his career in linguistics with intensive fieldwork on the Coahuiltecan language, Tonkawa, though shortly thereafter he turned to an intensive study of Athapaskan, including several Apache languages, Navajo, Sarsi (Tsuut'ina), and Galice. Employed as an instructor at the University of Chicago for several years, Hoijer moved to the new Department of Anthropology at UCLA in 1940, where he remained until his retirement. The Hoijer Collection contains textual materials representing comparative linguistic studies of Athapascan languages, including Dakelh ("Carrier"), Dënesųłiné ("Chipewyan"), Galice, Navajo, Tsuut'ina ("Sarsi"), and five Apache languages and dialects, (Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Mescalero, Lipan, and San Carlos). The collection also includes four audio recordings of Gwich'in ("Loucheux"), and copies of texts collected by Hoijer from colleagues Berard Haile, Diamond Jenness, David Mandelbaum, Chic Sandoval, and Edward Sapir.

This is part of the large inventory for the Franz Boas Papers (Mss B B61). For complete information concerning this collection, please view the Collection Description .