Sound Recordings The most frequently requested sound recordings in the NAA are the Native American myths, legends, stories and songs recorded by John Peabody Harrington (1884-1961) for the Bureau of American Ethnology. Working with storytellers and performers from thirty-five tribes, Harrington and his field assistants produced more than 1,300 sound recordings on wax cylinders and aluminum disks between 1912 and 1941. The archives has all of Harringtons aluminum disks, as well as newly mastered reel-to-reel audio tapes from which duplicate cassettes are produced on demand. Duplicate sound recordings from the Harrington Collection can be purchased for $18 each. To place an order, please refer to the recordings Inventory Number in SIRIS (the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System). To begin, select Archival, Manuscript, and Photographic Collections, then select National Anthropological Archives from the list of repositories. A keyword search for Harrington recording Juaneno, for example, will retrieve a list of 151 sound recordings. To display individual records, select Full Description. The Inventory Number (INV) appears as the final item in each record. Sound recordings from the Harrington Collection and most other collections will be transferred to audio cassette on demand. To place an order, please write [email protected]. All of the Smithsonians wax cylinder recordings – including those produced by Frances Densmore, Jesse Walter Fewkes, James Mooney, Truman Michelson and J.N.B. Hewett – were transferred to the National Archives and, later, the Library of Congress. Many of these early recordings are available on audio tape from the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress. To learn more about these recordings, please consult The Federal Cylinder Project: a Guide to Field Cylinder Collections in Federal Agencies. (Washington, D.C.: American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 1984-1985).
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 14:54:47 +0000