Massachusett Psalter (Experience Mayhew, trans.)

Massachusee Psalter: asuh Uk-kuttoohomaongash David Weche Wunnaunchemookaonk Ne ansukhogup John, Ut Indiane kah Englishe Nepatuhquonkash. (Second title:) The Massachuset Psalter: or, Psalms of David With the Gospel According to John, In Columns of Indian and English. Boston, N.E.: B[artholomew] Green and J[ames] Printer for the Honourable Company for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, 1709



8vo. Text in 2 columns;  very lightly browned, one running head shaved. Contemporary, probably original, sheep, in brown cloth drop-box with red leather spine label; rubbed, small chip at outer corner of upper cover.

Sidney A. Holly  (bookplate printed by E. Phinney) -- Rhode Island Historical Society (presented by C. F. Tillinghast, 1846, stamps and release stamps)

Sabin 45537; Church 835; JCB III, 128; Evans 1380; Pilling, Algonquian Languages, p. 348; Littlefield, Early Mass. Press II, p. 55 (Green) and 77-78 (Printer); Darlow & Moule 6739

The renowned Massachusett Psalter, complete with the Indian title-page preceding the English, and with the genuine final blank, in its first binding.  After Eliot's Indian Bible, this is the most important monument of the Massachusett language. Mayhew's version of the Psalms and Gospel of St. John is based upon Eliot's, but the spelling varies considerably and there are other revisions in the verses. The book gains added interest from the fact that it went through the hands of an Indian printer, the J. Printer of the title-page. James, the Printer, was a native Indian who was taught English at the Indian Charity School at Cambridge. In his youth he was apprenticed to Samuel Green, the printer at Cambridge, and worked for him for many years, subsequently moving to Boston with Green's son Bartholomew. He was the first North American Indian to be known as a printer.

This revised version of the Psalms and Gospel of St. John was made by Experience Mayhew (1673-1758), who learned the Indian language of Martha's Vineyard as a boy, and later studied other dialects. He translated a lecture by Cotton Mather into the Indian tongue in 1707, and seems to have been what one might term a moderate Calvinist in matters of belief.