The collection consists of linguistic elicitations of different aspects of Shawnee grammar and vocabulary, and conversation, anecdotes, discussion, and personal narratives relating to Shawnee customs and history. The linguistic material includes elicitation of passive, imperative, hortative verbs, and other verb forrms, vocabulary for times of the day and year, weather, gender and age, color terms, and miscellaneous adjectives and full sentences. The other material includes a narratives given in Shawnee on on traditional roles of men and women and the use of eagle feathers in doctoring, and English anecdotes and conversation relating to topics such as: different types of dances, the Shawnee Indian Agency, economic and agricultural conditions during the Depression, memories of farming and hunting during childhood, traditional medicine, the keeping of fire, how people and tribes were created and how they learned to make fire, the treatment of women in Shawnee society, little people, the passing down of knowledge through elders, doctoring, the use of tobacco and peyote, and personal stories. Recorded in Oklahoma in 1994.

Audio recordings, primarily linguistic field recordings of Native American languges, removed from the James M. Crawford papers. The bulk of the recordings are in three areas: Alabama songs, stories, and fiddle music; Cocopa folklore, autobiographical stories, songs, and elicited words and sentences; Yuchi autobiographical stories, conversations, and elicitied word lists. Other material includes: Cherokee conversations; Chickasaw word and phrases lists; readings from a Chontal-Spanish dictionary; a Diegueño text; words lists and discussion regarding the Mobilian trade language (Yama); intermixed Mobilian, Choctaw, and Koasati word lists; Mohave songs, with explanations; a Navajo elicitation session, with interview and conversation; elicited Shoshoni expressions; Tolowa songs, Yavapai word lists and texts; and Yuki words and expressions. The small amount of non-Native American material in the collection generally consists of unidentified conversations, readings of English and Russian texts, and recordings of baby talk.