FIRST DAKOTA SIOUX TRANSLATION OF THE BOOK OF NUMBERS (1872)

A RARE MISSIONARY IMPRINT, ONLY ONE COPY RECORDED AT AUCTION

Thomas Smith Williamson, translator. Wicoicage, Hdinanpapi, Lewi Toope, Qa Wicayawapi. The First Four Books of Moses, in the Dakota Language. New York: American Bible Society, 1872. 

12mo, 4 1/4 x 6 5/8 in., pp. 3-254. Rebound in modern brown morocco, gilt spine titles.

FIRST EDITION DAKOTA SIOUX TRANSLATION OF NUMBERS. A Bibliographical Check List of North and Middle American Indian Linguistics, Dakota 25; Darlow & Moule 3144n; Pilling pp. 78-79.

Thomas Smith Williamson (1800–1879) was the son of a South Carolina plantation owner who relocated to Ohio in 1805, having resolved to emancipate the enslaved people he had inherited. Williamson later studied medicine, graduating from Yale in 1824.

Following the death of three of their young children, Williamson and his wife, Margaret Poage, committed themselves to missionary work. In 1834, they were appointed by the American Board to serve Native Americans west of the Mississippi River, and by 1835 had settled in present-day Minnesota among the Dakota. Williamson devoted the remainder of his life to this work, with a particular focus on translating the Bible into the Santee dialect. In collaboration with fellow missionary Stephen Return Riggs (1812–1883), he completed a full translation of the Bible in early 1879, just three months before his death. Issued in parts over time, the present volume reprints his earlier translations of Genesis (1842 and 1865) and Exodus and Leviticus (1869; see Lot ##), and includes his translation of Numbers.

Also issued in the same year by the American Bible Society under the title Woope Mowis owa kin Dakota iapi en Pejuta Wicaśta kaga [=The Law Written by Moses, in the Dakota language.] 

VERY RARE. Only 1 copy has sold at auction. OCLC locates just 6 copies, (though some other copies may exist bound with other editions of the Bible).  

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