Chasing Voices: The Story of John Peabody Harrington

For 50 years, controversial ethnographer John Peabody Harrington crisscrossed the United States, frantically searching and documenting dying Native American languages. Harrington amassed over a million pages of notes on over 150 different tribal languages. Some of these languages were considered dead until his notes were discovered. Today tribes are accessing the notes, reviving their once dormant languages, and bringing together a new generation of language learners in the hope of saving Native languages.

Top Cast

Jack Marr

Self - John P. Harrington's assistant

Kathryn Klar

Self - Harrington biographer, UC Berkeley

Ernestine DeSoto

Self - Barbareño Chumash, daughter of last native speaker

Gertrude Van Fleet-Dash

Self - Mojave Elder

David Oechsner

Self - Fort Mojave Tribe