British Forum for Ethnomusicology

Ethnographic Wax Cylinders at the British Library National Sound Archive: A Brief History
and Description of the Collection
Author(s): Martin Clayton
Source: British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 5 (1996), pp. 67-92
Published by: British Forum for Ethnomusicology
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3060867
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BRMTISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY
Ethnographic
w ax
cylinders
at the
British
Lib rary
National Sou nd Archiv e:
a b rief
history
and
description
of the
collection
Martin
Clayton
The
ethnographic
w ax
cylinder
collection held
b y
the British
Lib rary
National Sou nd
Archiv e, totalling
ov er 3,000 items, contains material of considerab le mu sical and
historical interest, mu ch of w hich has b een u ntil now little know n ou tside the Archiv e.
This
paper
su mmarises the
history
of the
recordings
and their accu mu lation u nder a
single
roof , and
b rief ly
describ es their
signif icance,
w ith the aid of
qu otations
f rom
contemporary
sou rces. The
history
of the collection is discu ssed w ith ref erence to the earliest
recordings,
recordings
f rom Oceania, Au stralia, Af rica, Sou th Asia and other areas, connections w ith
other archiv es, and the cu rrent situ ation.
T IS WIDELY RECOGNISED that the inv ention of the
phonograph, b y
Thomas
ison in
1877, played
a
v itally important
role in the
emergence
of
comparativ e
mu sicology.
The f irst u se of the new
apparatu s
f or f ield
recording
w as
b y
the
American Jesse Walter Few kes,
w ho u sed it in March 1890 in the cou rse of
research
amongst
the
Passamaqu oddy
Indians
(see
Few kes
1890).
Bef ore
long
sev eral other American scholars, inclu ding
notab le researchers su ch as Alice
Cu nningham Fletcher,
Frances Densmore and Franz
Boas,
had f ollow ed Few kes'
lea
(see
H.
Myers
1992:
5-6).
Also
b eginning
in the 1890s
Eu ropean scholars, most
f amou sly
Erich v on
Homb ostel and Otto Ab raham in
Berlin, participated
in this
activ ity.
The
phonograph,
or
cylinder recorder, w as soon to b e u sed all ov er the w orld. It w as to
remain the
pre-eminent
sou nd
recording
dev ice f or f ield w ork u ntil
challenged b y
portab le
disc-recording
equ ipment
and w ire
recording systems
in the 1930s, and
u ltimately su perseded b y magnetic tape;
the
phonograph
continu ed to b e u sed f or
f ield
recording
into the 1950s
(Korgu zalov
and
Troitskaya
1993:
116).
The latest
cylinder
f ield
recording
at the NSA dates f rom 1941.
As a resu lt of this w ork, sev eral notab le collections of
cylinder recordings
w ere
b u ilt
u p.
The earliest w as the
Phonogrammarchiv
der Osterreichischen Akademie
der Wissenschaf ten in
Vienna, estab lished in 1899; the most f amou s w as the
Berlin
Phonogramm-Archiv ,
estab lished
b y
Carl
Stu mpf
in 1900 and u nder
Homb ostel's direction f rom 1905
(Stockmann
1992:
16).
Other
important
67
VOL 5 1996
68 British Jou rnal
of Ethnomu sicology,
v ol. 5
(1996)
collections w ere b u ilt
u p
at St
Petersb u rg,
Paris and elsew here. Sev eral of these
collections still su rv iv e
(see
eg.
Ziegler 1994, Pitoef f 1993:
147).
In the United
States too, early cylinders
su rv iv e in sev eral collections, inclu ding
the
Lib rary
of
Congress
Archiv e of Folk Cu ltu re and the Archiv es of Traditional Mu sic at the
Univ ersity
of Indiana
(see Lib rary
of
Congress 1984, Archiv es of Traditional
Mu sic
1975).
In this contex t, the collections
cu rrently
held at the National Sou nd Archiv e in
London are
slightly atypical.
Unlike
many
other
Eu ropean capitals,
London did
not hou se a
major
archiv e of sou nd
recordings
in the f irst half of this
centu ry:
the
b ody cu rrently
know n as the British
Lib rary
National Sou nd Archiv e
(NSA)
w as
set
u p
as the British Institu te of Recorded Sou nd as
recently
as 1955. The BIRS
w as
incorporated
into the British
Lib rary,
and renamed, in 1983.
Nor are British scholars of
comparativ e
mu sicology
particu larly
w ell know n.
Looking
at the
period
f rom the introdu ction of sou nd
recording
u ntil the
early
1920s-the
period du ring
w hich most of the
activ ity
describ ed b elow took
place-the only acknow ledged major
w ork of
comparativ e
mu sicology
b y
a
British scholar is A.H. Fox
Strangw ays'
The mu sic
of
Hindostan (1914).
Fox
Strangw ays
is seen as
something
of a one-of f . He
produ ced
his
great w ork, b ased
on f ieldw ork condu cted in
1910-11, af ter
taking early
retirement f rom his
post
as
a schoolmaster and
many years
af ter
completing
his mu sical stu dies at the Berlin
Hochschu le f u r Mu sik. A remarkab le man he
may
hav e b een-he w ent on to
b ecome mu sic critic of the Ob serv er
new spaper,
f ou nder-editor of the
jou rnal
Mu sic and Letters,
and a stalw art of the
English
Folk Dance and
Song Society-
b u t he w as not
b y any
means
typical
of British
scholarship
at this time.
This is a conv entional v iew of Britain's contrib u tion to
comparativ e
mu sicology,
that it w as in ef f ect all b u t
negligib le. Early
British contrib u tions to
the f ield, su ch as
they are, are now
largely f orgotten.
Yet the f act that the BIRS,
and
su b sequ ently
the NSA, hav e b een ab le to b u ild
u p
a su b stantial collection of
f ield
recordings
made
b y
British and British-b ased scholars, dating
b ack to 1898,
su ggests
that there w as mu ch more
activ ity
in the
discipline
than is now
commonly
assu med.
The NSA collection, cu rrently standing
at arou nd 3,200 items, is mu ch smaller
than that at Berlin,1 b u t nev ertheless su b stantial. Moreov er, many
of the
recordings
are of considerab le historical
importance.
For instance, they
inclu de
prob ab ly
the f irst sou nd
recordings
made in Af rica sou th of the Sahara
(b y
Sir
Harry
Johnston in
Uganda
in
1901, C1072)
and the f irst of Au stralian
ab original
mu sic
(b y
Baldw in
Spencer
and Francis Gillen in the same
year, C6).
The w ork of
many
notab le academics is
represented, inclu ding anthropologists
of the statu re of
A.C. Haddon, C.G.
Seligman
and Bronislaw Malinow ski, and the
great
Du tch
1
The Berlin collection stands at 15,185 cylinders, althou gh
the nu mb er of
physical
items
(inclu ding negativ es
and
du plicates)
is
considerab ly higher (Ziegler 1995).
2
Nu mb ers
pref ix ed
w ith a
capital
C are NSA collection nu mb ers. Basic inf ormation on each
collection is
giv en
in
Appendix 1, listed in collection nu mb er order. A
chronological
chart
listing
the more
important
collections is
giv en
as
Appendix
2.
Clayton: Ethnographic
w ax
cylinders
at the National Sou nd Archiv e 69
scholar of Sou th Asian mu sic Arnold Bake. The collection ab ou nds w ith
f ascinating material,
f rom the earliest collection
(recorded b y
Haddon's team in
the Torres Straits in
1898, C80),
to the
largest (b y
the
prolif ic anthropologist
N.W. Thomas, West Af rica 1908-15, C51),
to nu merou s
intrigu ing
minor
collections
(su ch
as that
b rou ght
b ack
b y trav eller-tu rned-anthropologist
Edith
Du rham f rom Alb ania in
1905, C662).
The
history of
the collection: the
f irst recordings
The earliest
ethnographic recordings
held
b y
the NSA are those made
b y
the
Camb ridge Anthropological Ex pedition
to the Torres Straits
(w hich
lie b etw een
Au stralia and New
Gu inea),
led
b y
A.C. Haddon in 1898-99
(C80, C62, C666).
We hav e
already
noted that the
phonograph
had f irst b een
ex ploited b y
J. Walter
Few kes in the United States in
1890,
and it now
appears
that its f irst u se
b y
British researchers
may
hav e ow ed
something
to international
cooperation.
Haddon w as a
correspondent
of sev eral
phonographic pioneers du ring
this
period,
inclu ding
Alice Fletcher and J.W. Few kes himself . In one letter, dated 20th March
1890
(immediately
af ter his ow n f irst
recording trip),
Few kes notes w ith
approv al
the resu lts of Haddon's earlier v isit to the Torres Straits in
1888, and
goes
on to
adv ise him of the u sef u lness of the new
recording apparatu s.
Dear Prof . Haddon,
I hav e b een mu ch interested in
you r paper
in the last nu mb er of the "Folklore" on
the
"Legends
of Torres Straits". I hav e
myself
done
something
in the
stu dy
of ou r
North American Indian f olklore, and w ill b e ab le in a short time to send
you
a
paper
on the u se of the
phonograph
in this
stu dy.
I hav e made researches on the
legends songs
etc of the
Passamaqu oddy
Indians the su rv iv ors of those w ho once
inhab ited New
England.
I hav e b een ab le to
get
them to talk and
sing
into the instru ment in their nativ e
langu age,
and to tell their stories on those
magic cylinders
of w ax w here
they
are
indelib ly
f ix ed f orev er.
I think I am the f irst to u se this instru ment f or this
pu rpose
and it seems to me to
of f er most w onderf u l
possib ilities
in this line of research. In a lectu re w hich I
gav e
on this
su b ject
I w as ab le to
repeat
their
songs
so that
they
w ere
perf ectly
au dib le
in a
large
au dience room.
The
phonograph
w ill I think
giv e
a more scientif ic tu rn to the
stu dy
of Folk
Lore f or it w ill
giv e
an ex act record of the stories
ex actly
as the Indians tell them
w ith their ex act
pronu nciation.
I send
you
this w ith a
pair
of
zoological papers
w hich I
hope may
interest
you .
Very Sincerely You rs,
J. Walter Few kes
(Few kes to Haddon, dated Boston, 20 March 1890. Haddon Collection
env elope 3)
Of
cou rse,
it is
impossib le
to know w hether or not Haddon w ou ld hav e
gone
on
to u se the machine ev en w ithou t this adv ice, b u t it almost
certainly
f irst
su ggested
the idea to him. Haddon's f amou s
ex pedition
of 1898 w as to mark not
only
the
start of British f ield
recording
b u t
(rather more
f amou sly)
the
emergence
of a
major
British school of social
anthropology
w hich w as to emb race scholars su ch
70 British Jou rnal
f Ethnomu sicology,
v ol. 5 (1996)
as
Seligman,
Malinow ski, A.R. Radclif f e-Brow n and W.H.R. Riv ers. As this
f ieldw ork-b ased anthropology dev eloped,
so did sou nd
recording,
as v ariou s
researchers f ollow ed in Haddon's
f ootsteps, many
of them
gathering
sou nd
recordings along
w ith other kinds of data. In
f act,
Haddon's
original
team
inclu ded b oth
Seligman3
and Riv ers, as w ell as Charles
Myers,
the
psychologist
and amateu r v iolinist w ho w as to make an
important,
if
largely f orgotten,
contrib u tion to
comparativ e mu sicology.
This f ormidab le team w as
completed b y
the
ethnographers
William
McDou gall
and
Anthony
Wilkin and
lingu ist Sidney
Ray (see f ig. 1).
Sev eral memb ers of Haddon's team contrib u ted to sou nd
recording, inclu ding
Myers
and
Seligman,
b u t
perhaps
most of all
Ray.
Ref erences to
recording may
b e f ou nd in Haddon's
(1901)
and
Qu iggin's (1942)
accou nts of the
ex pedition,
and in the
su rv iv ing jou rnals
and noteb ooks of Haddon, Riv ers, Seligman, Myers
and Wilkin.4 Sev eral memb ers of the team w ere to make f u rther
attempts
at sou nd
recording, yet
initial
perceptions
w ere mix ed. The
f ollow ing, typically
terse
comment f rom
Seligman's jou rnal
illu strates that the au thor-at this
point
principally
a medical man w ith no
b ackgrou nd
in
anthropology-hardly
took
sou nd
recording seriou sly.
Ray played
w ith the
phonograph
in the
ev ening,
resu lts
practically
nil.
(Seligman,
Jou rnal
entry,
5 Ju ne
1898)
In the
light
of su ch a dismissiv e attitu de, it is ironic
perhaps
that
Seligman
himself w as to b ecome one of the most
prolif ic
of sou nd recordists.
Myers,
on the
other hand,
w as
ev idently qu icker
to see the
possib ilities
of the new machine.
A f u rther
opportu nity
of
propitiating [?George].
He
b egs
me to
photograph
the
dead
b ab y.
I do so, at the same time
b ringing
dow n a
phonograph
to record the
nativ e
w ailing.... (Myers,
Jou rnal
entry,
15
Au g 1898, p.112)
Haddon's
grou p
recorded on the islands of the Torres Strait
(see f ig. 2).
Haddon, Seligman,
Wilkin and
Ray
also made a side
trip
w hich took in islands
closer to
Papu a (then "British")
New Gu inea, and coastal
regions
of New Gu inea
itself . Af ter the Torres Straits
ex pedition proper
had conclu ded, most of the team
w ent on to v isit Saraw ak,
w here
they
also made
recordings.
The resu lts of this
recording activ ity
w ere w ritten
u p
in the
Reports (Haddon 1901-35)
in the case of
the Torres material
(b y Myers,
and
b y Ray
in the case of
lingu istic stu dies5),
and
in
monographs b y Myers (1913, 1914)
in the case of the Saraw ak recordings.
Little
appears
to hav e b een done w ith the New Gu inea
recordings.
3
Then
Seligmann (he
and his w if e later
dropped
the second n).
4
See
b ib liography: particu larly interesting
are the mu sic transcriptions
in Wilkin's
jou rnal, pp.
250-1.
5
Myers
1912a, Ray
1907. A
cou ple
of
papers b y ethnomu sicologist
Alice
Moyle
describ e the
Torres Straits cylinders
as
organised b y
her arou nd 1979, and su b sequ ently
du b b ed b y the NSA
(Moyle
1983, 1985).
Clayton: Ethnographic w ax
cylinders
at the National Sou nd Archiv e 71
Fig.)1:
Memb ers
of
the
Camb ridge
Torres Strait
e-x pedition team, Mer
(Mu rray
Island), May
1898.
Reprinted f rom
Man 41
(1941)
no. 90, p.
133.
1 2 3
4 5
6
10
J. WV. McDoUGALL.
3. C. G. SELIGMAN.
5). S. H. RAY.
7. CHARtLIE ONTONG.
9. JIMMtY RICE.
4.
6.
8.
10.
7 8
C. S. MYER.S.
A. C. HADDON.
A. WILKIN.
DEBE WALl.
9
72 British Jou rnal
f Ethnomu sicology,
v ol. 5 (1996)
Fig.
2: A memb er
of
the
Camb ridge
Torres Strait team, prob ab ly
C.S.
Myers,
recording
on the 1898-99
ex pedition.
Photo: Haddon Collection, env elope
1018.
The w av e of f ield
recording
w hich f ollow ed this
pioneering
w ork w as to ow e a
lot to this
grou p
of scholars, along
w ith the more
sedentary anthropologist
Sir
James Frazer. Frazer, au thor of the monu mental The Golden
Bou gh (1890, 1900,
1911-15),
and mentor and
correspondent
of this
generation
of
anthropological
researchers, w as to some ex tent the
inspiration
f or b oth the Torres Straits and later
ex peditions.
This
archetypal
"armchair
anthropologist" spent
most of his lif e at
his b ase in
Trinity College, Camb ridge,
as a resu lt of w hich
Camb ridge
w as to
hou se the
largest
accu mu lation of
cylinder recordings
in the UK, u ntil their
transf er to the BIRS in London in the 1950s
(Ward
1984:
10).
While
Seligman,
Riv ers and others-the others, as w e shall see, largely
w ith their and
Myers'
encou ragement-continu ed
the
recording w ork, Frazer and his w if e Elizab eth
seem to hav e
prov ided
f u rther
b acking
and
logistical su pport, inclu ding
the
su pply
of b lank
cylinders
and the
hou sing
of
recordings.
Correspondence6
conf irms that Mrs Frazer took
charge
of
despatching
the
b lank
cylinders,
to tw o collectors at least. The f act that
many
of the
du plicate
cylinders
are marked w ith Mrs Frazer's name and address
su ggests
she w as also
responsib le
f or
coordinating
mu ch of the
du plication. Indeed, according
to
Frazer's
b iographer Angu s Dow nie, Mrs Frazer "trained f ield
anthropologists
to
record nativ e
speech
and
helped
to
equ ip
the
Camb ridge
Torres Straits
ex pedition
w ith
recording equ ipment" (1970: 25).
A
large proportion
of the NSA's cu rrent
collection
appears
to hav e
passed throu gh
their hands, and is know n as the
"Frazer Collection" in their
honou r-althou gh
in f act the
early history
of the
6
Betw een tw o recordists
(N.W.
Thomas and Alice
Werer)
and Frazer. See Ward 1984: 2,
11.
Clayton: Ethnographic
w ax
cylinders
at the National Sou nd Archiv e 73
collection, and the
precise
roles of the Frazers, Myers, Seligman,
Riv ers and
Haddon remains to b e clarif ied.
What w e do know is that sev eral of the Torres team w ere to record
su b sequ ently
in other areas. For instance, Seligman
retu rned to New Gu inea in
1904
(C62),
and then v isited the
ab original
Vedda
people
of Sri Lanka w ith his
w if e and f ellow
anthropologist
Brenda in 1907-8
(C83,
C86).
The Vedda
recordings
w ere w ritten
u p b y Myers
in the "Mu sic"
chapter
of the
Seligmans'
classic b ook The Veddas
(1911); Myers appears
to hav e w orked on the New
Gu inea
recordings too, althou gh
the
only pu b lished
ref erences to these
recordings
are
passing
mentions in
Seligman's
b ook The Melanesians
of
British New
Gu inea.7
Myers
w as to make f u rther u se of the Vedda
recordings
in
su b sequ ent
papers, comparing
them w ith the 1898-99 Torres Straits and Saraw ak
recordings
(Myers 1912b , 1913);
the
Seligmans
themselv es made ref erence to the
recordings,
inclu ding
translations of sev eral
song tex ts,
in the 1911 b ook,
and ref erred more
than once to the
recording process
in an earlier
paper.8
This ex tract is in
many
w ays typical
of
reports
of this
period (f or
instance in its
ju dging
the nativ es'
reaction to the machine and to
samples
of Western mu sic),
b u t the detail in the
description
is an indication of the
Seligmans' thorou ghness
as f ield w orkers
b y
this time.
When
they
w ere show n the
phonograph, comparativ ely
little
persu asion
w as
requ ired
to
get
them to
sing
into it, thou gh
some of the
English songs
w e
gav e
them
impressed
them not at all; b u t w hen the
song
w as
reprodu ced
w hich one of
them, Sitaw anniya b y name, had
su ng
into the machine, they
w ere
greatly ama7ed,
thou gh they
w ere neither so scared nor so
shy
as a
Papu an
w ou ld hav e b een. Their
astonishment w as
ex pressed b y placing
one hand ov er the mou th and chin w ith its
palmar
su rf ace tow ards the f ace, the
f ingers spread
on either side of the nose and
mou th so as to cov er the more or less nerv ou s
grin
w hich w as to b e seen on all
their f aces.
(Seligmann
and
Seligmann
1908: 160)
Recordings f rom
Oceania
Another of the Torres team, W.H.R. Riv ers, v isited the Solomon Islands, also in
1907-8, w ith his
colleagu es
Arthu r Hocart and Gerald Wheeler. This w as a
particu larly
activ e
period
f or
anthropological
research in the
region,
and
tracing
the mov ements of collectors is of ten dif f icu lt. On this
trip,
f or instance, Wheeler
split u p
f rom Riv ers and
joined
the German scholar Richard Thu rnw ald.9 Sev eral
cylinders
b eliev ed to hav e b een recorded
b y
Riv ers and/or Hocart are at the NSA
7
A letter f rom
Seligman
to
Myers,
dated 15 Nov . 1906 and held at the NSA, appears
to ref er to
w ork in
progress
on these
recordings;
"Dear Charlie, the time has
really
come to trou b le you
ab ou t those mu sic
cylinders...".
Ref erences to
songs
recorded on his 1904
trip
are f ou nd in
Seligman 1910: 116-8, 151-4,586-8.
8
Seligmann
and
Seligmann
1908. The
Seligmans'
Jou rnals and Field Notes also contain
ref erences to the
recordings (see b ib liography).
9
See Slob odin 1978: 40. Thu mw ald's ow n sou nd
recordings
are still hou sed at Berlin, as are
some of Hocart's.
Althou gh
some
correspondence su rv iv es at Berlin, the history and relationship
b etw een the London and Berlin collections has still to b e determined.
74 British Jou rnal
of Ethnomu sicology,
v ol. 5 (1996)
(C108);
other
sequ ences,
identif ied
only
as
originating
f rom this
region,
cou ld
hav e b een recorded
b y any
of half a dozen
anthropologists
or their
agents.
In
some cases
only priv ate correspondence
can aid identif ication, as in the
f ollow ing
ex ample,
w hich
presu mab ly accompanied
a
shipment
of research materials to
Riv ers. I take it to ref er to a
sequ ence
of 4
cylinders originally
f ou nd w ith the
Frazer Collection and marked
only
"New
Georgia" (C680, cyls 770-773).
I hav e
placed
4 records in case 3
they
are
v ery good.
I am
hav ing
a lot of trou b le
w ith the
cylinders
as
they
are
v ery mou ldy
and make a lot of noise w hile
recording
ou t of 20 I hav e
only
b een ab le to send
you
4
good
records. (F. Green to Riv ers.
Simb u , Solomons, 5 Jan 1909. Haddon Collection env .
12018)
Other identif ied
recordings
f rom the Pacif ic
region
inclu de those of Bronislaw
Malinow ski
(Trob riand Islands, 1918, C46), John
Layard (Vanu atu , 1914-15,
C177)
and Pau l
Montagu e (New Caledonia, 1914, C671).
Malinow ski
appears
not
to hav e u sed his
recordings
f or his
pu b lications;10 Montagu e
died
you ng,
b u t lef t
an
u npu b lished manu script dealing
w ith the mu sic he recorded
(Montagu e
c.1914). Layard
did not
pu b lish
on the mu sic he
recorded, althou gh
he had
planned to, and the
recordings
w ere w orked on in the 1950s
b y Raymond
Clau sen.1l
Layard's correspondence
sheds some
light
on the
arrangements
made f or his
recording, show ing
that
Myers
continu ed to b e an inf lu ential
f igu re
at least
u p
to
the ou tb reak of the First World War.
Dear Sir,
I am ab ou t to
go
to the New Heb rides f or the sake of
anthropological research, and
amongst
other
things
am interested in
primitiv e
mu sic.
I make b old, on the recommendation of Dr C.S.
Myers,
w ho is
lending
me
phonographical apparatu s,
to ask
you
w hether
you
w ou ld b e so
ex tremely
kind as
to send me
any
of
you r papers
on
primitiv e
mu sic that
you
can
easily
spare....
You rs
tru ly
J.W.
Layard
(Layard
to Homb ostel, Bu x ton
(Derb yshire),
24 Ju ne 1914.
Uncatalogu ed
correspondence,
Mu seu m f iir V6okerku nde, Berlin)
This nex t comment
b y Layard
illu strates the dilemma f aced
b y anthropologists
w ho w ere not mu sical
specialists-and how , once
Myers
had ab andoned the f ield,
the likes of
Layard
had
nob ody
else to tu rn to f or
help
w ith mu sical
transcription
and
analysis.
I took a nu mb er of
phonograph records, b oth of the
songs
and of the
gong [i.e.
w ooden
slit-gong]-rhythms,
some of w hich hav e now b een transf erred onto
10
Malinow ski's
papers,
held at the BLPES, may
how ev er contain some ref erences.
11
See Clau sen 1958. A b rief
paper pu b lished b y Layard
in 1944 does how ev er demonstrate that
he continu ed to u se the
recordings
in
pu b lic presentations (see Layard 1944).
Clayton: Ethnographic
w ax
cylinders
at the National Sou nd Archiv e 75
gramophone plates,
w hich aw ait detailed
stu dy b y ex perts.
...
[continu ed
in
f ootnote]
If
any
reader skilled in
comparativ e
mu sic and the scientif ic
w orking
ou t
of su ch material w ou ld care to u ndertake this w ork I shou ld b e
glad
to hear f rom
him.
(Layard
1942: 314)
Recordings f rom
Au stralia
Signif icant recordings
w ere also made in mainland Au stralia
du ring
this
period.
The f irst su ch w ere made
b y anthropologist
Baldw in
Spencer
and his local
collab orator Francis Gillen, w ith the Aranda
(Aru nta) people
of Central Au stralia
in 1901-2
(C6).
Spencer
made a second
recording trip
in 1912,
in the Northern
Territories and on Bathu rst Island: the
original
1912
cylinders
are hou sed in
Au stralia,12 b u t
copies
w ere made w hich are now at the NSA
(C681).
By
this time another
signif icant
British
anthropologist,
A.R. Radclif f e-Brow n,
had made his mark. Radclif f e-Brow n-then know n
simply
as Brow n-made a
rare f ield
trip
to
stu dy
the
Ab original people
of w estern Au stralia in 1910-12,
du ring
w hich time he made sou nd
recordings (mainly
on the islands of Dorre and
Bernier;
C682).
This
ex traordinary
f ield
trip prov ides
some of the most colou rf u l
tales of this era of
anthropology.13
It is not clear, how ev er, w hen and w here the
recordings
w ere made, and
they
w ere not
apparently
ref erred to in Radclif f e-
Brow n's
pu b lished
w orks. The
f ollow ing paragraph
f rom his co-w orker
Daisy
Bates
prov ides
conf irmation that these are Radclif f e-Brow n's
recordings.
[The nativ es] ob ligingly sang
the
songs
of
w oggu ra
and w allardoo
-
crow and
eaglehaw k
-
into Prof essor Ratclif f e-Brow n's [sic]
phonogram.
He in tu rn
regaled
them w ith Peer Gynt and Tannhau ser and
Egmont,
to w hich they
listened
politely.
(Bates 1938: 101, qu oted
in
Langham
1981: 264)
Spencer's recordings
are w ell
docu mented,14 yet they
w ere not u sed f or seriou s
mu sicological
w ork. This is
perhaps
not
su rprising: Spencer's correspondence
w ith Frazer
giv es
some indication not
only
of
recording
dates and location, b u t
also of the
v agu eness
of intention b ehind the
recording.
So f ar as the nativ es are concerned, w e hav e b een
getting phonograph
records of
their
songs, &c., and hav e taken some
thirty
of these, w hich are all more or less
su ccessf u l,
and
may
b e of interest and v alu e in
years
to come.
(Spencer
to Frazer,
Charlotte Waters, 7
April 1901; pu b lished
in Marett and Penniman 1932: 60)
In his
pu b lished
accou nt of the
ex pedition, pu b lished nearly
30
years later,
Spencer
w as more
f orthcoming.
12
At the National Mu seu m of Victoria; some 1901
cylinders
are
reportedly
held at the
Univ ersity
of Adelaide. See
Moyle
1959.
13
See Radclif f e-Brow n 1913, Watson 1946: 14-16, and Bates 1938.
14
For the 1901
trip
see Gillen 1968: 14,16,19, Marett and Penniman 1932: 60 etc., Moyle
1959:
28-29 etc., and
Spencer
1928: 355-7, 361. For 1912 see
Spencer 1913, 1914 f or itinerary;
see
Spencer
1928: 891f f and
Moyle
1959 f or
recording
details.
76 British Jou rnal of Ethnomu sicology,
v ol. 5 (1996)
The nativ es
v ery
seldom show
any special su rprise
at
anything
that the w hite man
does or
possesses. They simply
think that the w hite man's
magic
is
stronger
than
their ow n. In f act I hav e
only
f ou r times seen them show real astonishment.... The
f ou rth time w as this one in ou r
camp
on the Stev enson Riv er. The machine had a
"reprodu cer",
and w hen
they
heard their ow n v oices and the corrob b oree songs
coming
ou t of it, they
w ere not
only
alarmed b u t
completely mystif ied
and
thou ght
that, as
they
told u s, there w as a "deb il deb il" in the b ox that had seized
u pon
their
v oices, w hen
they
w ent dow n the
tru mpet
to him, and
only
let them
go
again
w hen
w e asked him to do so.
Fortu nately they
had conf idence in u s and ou r
pow er
to
control the "deb il deb il" w hom w e had
cau ght
and shu t
u p saf ely
in the b ox , and
b ring
to
nou ght any
ev il
designs
that he
might
hav e
u pon
them.
(Spencer
1928:
356-7)
Recordingsf rom Af rica
Harry
Johnston's earliest Af rican
recordings (Uganda, 1901, C107)
w ere f ou nd
w ith the Frazer collection. It is
u nsu rprising perhaps
that this remarkab le man,
w ho tu rned his hand to
ex ploring, diplomacy
and
politics
b esides
photography,
painting
and nu merou s other
pu rsu its,
shou ld b e the f irst to
attempt
sou nd
recording
in su b -Saharan Af rica.15 He w as to retu rn to
recording
in Lib eria in
1904-these
cylinders
are held in a
priv ate collection, b u t
du b b ings
are hou sed at
the NSA
(C500).
Other
important early
Af rican
recordings
inclu de those of W.S.
and K.
Rou tledge,
made in
Kenya
1907-8
(C672)-also
f ou nd w ith the Frazer
collection,
and like the
Seligmans'
Vedda
recordings
w ritten
u p b y Myers
in a
chapter
of their b ook, With a
prehistoric people (1910).16
Kenya (then
know n as British East
Af rica)
w as also the location f or
lingu ist
Alice Werner's
recordings
of 1912-13
(C145),
a reminder that
early
sou nd
recordists w ere interested not
only
in mu sic b u t also in
speech.
Werner's
recordings,
w hile not of the
highest
technical
qu ality,
are at least w ell docu mented
in inserts and an
accompanying
noteb ook f ou nd in the
lib rary
of the School of
Oriental and Af rican Stu dies in London. The
largest
collection of all is that of
Northcote
Whitridge Thomas, a
gov ernment anthropologist
in the British-
controlled territories in
Nigeria
and Sierra Leone b etw een 1908 and 1915. His
recordings (C51)
make
u p
a third of the NSA's total collection, and are in
keeping
w ith the
epic
scale of his other
collecting
activ ities. Thomas ref ers to his
cylinder
"records" in sev eral of his
pu b lished
w orks: 17 he also seems to hav e
passed
on
copies
of all or
part
of his collection to Charles
Myers,
w ho did not how ev er
pu b lish transcriptions.
15
See Casada 1977 f or details of Johnston's nu merou s
pu b lications
and an accou nt of his lif e.
16
Myers'
ref erence in a
paper
of 1907 to "a f ew imperf ectly
stu died [Af rican] records in
my
posession" (1907b : 278) may
b e to the
Rou tledge
cylinders,
or
perhaps
to those of Johnston or
some other collector.
17
See Thomas 1910, 1913-14, 1916. Fu rther
b ackgrou nd
inf ormation on Thomas is to b e f ou nd
in Alex ander 1982.
Clayton: Ethnographic
w ax
cylinders
at the National Sou nd Archiv e 77
Fig.
3: An Ashanti dru mmer
playing f or
R.S.
Rattray's phonograph,
1921-2.
From
Rattray
1923: f ig
101
(f acing p.242).
Du ring
the same
period
others w ere
recording
elsew here in
Af rica, inclu ding
one
"Temple"
in northern
Nigeria (C675, 1912).18
The latest ex tant Af rican
cylinder recordings
at the NSA are those made
b y
R.S.
Rattray among
the Asante
(Ashanti) people,
in w hat is now Ghana
(1921-2, C176; see
f ig. 3). Rattray's
transcriptions
of dru m
langu age (1923: 242-86)
w ere to catch the attention of Sir
Rob ert
Baden-Pow ell, w ho
inv estigated
the
possib ility
of
adapting
the idea f or
u se
b y
the
Boy Scou ts; Rattray's response,
he tells u s, w as to
ex periment
w ith
transmitting
morse code
signals b y
dru m
(Rattray
1923:
286). Rattray
also lef t a
catalogu e
of the
cylinders,
and ref erences to his
recordings
can b e f ou nd in his
f ield notes
(see b ib liography).
18
The recordist w as
presu mab ly
the 0.
Temple
credited as au thor of a b ook on the
people
of this
area, dated 1922.
78 Brtish Jou rnal
of
Ethnomu sicology,
v ol. 5 (1996)
Recordingsf rom
Sou th Asia
The other
major
area f or sou nd
recording
w as Sou th Asia. Commercial
recording
had
b egu n
in India as
early
as 1902
(Farrell
1993:
33),
b u t f ield
recordings
are
nev ertheless of considerab le interest f or the
v ariety
of material cov ered. Ev en
b ef ore the
Seligmans' trip
to Sri Lanka in
1907-8, Edgar Thu rston, cu rator of the
Madras Gov ernment Mu seu m f rom 1885-1908 and an
emerging anthropologist
in
his ow n
right,
had
b egu n recording
the so-called "trib al" or
ab original peoples
of
Sou th India
(C624).19
It is not
yet
know n
ex actly
w hen he
b egan recording,
b u t
correspondence
b etw een Thu rston and Riv ers makes it clear b oth that he w as
recording b y 1905, and that the
inspiration
w as another memb er of the Torres
Straits
grou p,
Charles
Myers.20
The f irst letter b elow illu strates the f act that
Myers
saw
comparativ e mu sicology
as an
integral part
of
psychological
research-hence
the tw in
requ est
to record
songs
and
inv estigate
v ision. The second ex tract here
ref ers to Thu rston's assistant, K.
Rangachari.
Tell
Myers
I hav e f or him records of
Telu gu ,
Badaga,
Chenchu and Toda
songs.
Got a
[?pretty]
case of
hereditary
colou r b lindness
among
Badagas.
(Thu rston
to
Riv ers. Ootacamu nd, 9
Au gu st
1905. Haddon Collection, env . 12040.)21
Badaga songs b eing admirab ly reprodu ced
in the
phonograph,
w hich is a
great joy
f or
Rangachari. (Thu rston to Riv ers.
"Camp",
13
Au gu st
1905. Haddon
Collection, env .
12040.)
Riv ers had w orked w ith Thu rston in the cou rse of his research on the Toda
people,
condu cted in 1901-2 and w ritten
u p
in the classic b ook, The Todas
(1906).
There is no trace, how ev er, of
any
sou nd
recordings
w hich
might
hav e
b een made on this
trip.
Thu rston himself makes f ew ref erences in his
pu b lished
w orks to mu sic or to sou nd
recording.
He does mention
"collecting"
Toda
songs
in a
paper
of 1901, althou gh b y
this he
may
mean
simply noting
dow n tex ts,
and
he makes no ref erence to sou nd
recordings
in his
major
w orks
(1906, 1909).
Riv ers makes a nu mb er of ref erences, like the
f ollow ing,
to Toda mu sic w hich
may
or
may
not mean that
recordings
w ere made at this time.
The Toda
poets
also
compose songs
on
any
f estiv e occasion, and Mr Thu rston has
recorded
ex amples
of sev eral su ch
compositions. (Riv ers 1906: 600-1).
The nex t
major
Sou th Asian f ield
recordings
are those made
b y
A.H. Fox
Strangw ays,
w ho cov ered a remarkab le
geographical
area and b readth of
su b ject
matter on his tou r of 1910-11
(C72).
His b ook of 1914 ref ers to
many
of the
19
The collection also inclu des
recordings
of Sou th Indian art mu sic.
20
Fox
Strangw ays
ref ers to
songs
of the Toda
people
"Collected
b y
Mr. Thu rston, w hose
phonograph
records are at
present
in the hands of Dr.
Myers
of
Camb ridge" (1914: 48).
21
Telu gu
is a
major Sou th Indian
langu age;
the
Badaga,
Chenchu and Toda are Sou th Indian
"trib al"
peoples.
Clayton: Ethnographic
w ax
cylinders
at the National Sou nd Archiv e 79
recordings,
b esides
telling
a nu mb er of anecdotes of his
ex perience recording
in
India.
Among
sev eral comments on the
practicalities (and impracticalities) of
f ield
recording,
the
f ollow ing
ex tract
ex presses
b oth his enthu siasm f or the w ork
and the
perils
of
transporting f ragile
w ax
cylinders.
At Allahab ad I came across some Garhw alis w ho had b een
got
dow n f rom
Mu ssou ri in the
Himalaya... They
said
they
cou ld not
sing
in the
daytime
b ecau se
they
w ere
thinking
ab ou t their w ork, so w e had a
v ery merry ev ening
in a hot tent
f rom nine o'clock to
past midnight.
There w as
great competition
to
sing
into the
phonograph
and hav e their
perf ormance
giv en
b ack to them; b u t
u nf ortu nately
only
one
phonogram
has su rv iv ed the
railw ay jou rney. (1914: 50).
Af ter Fox
Strangw ays (and another, u nidentif ied recordist w ho collected in
Balu chistan arou nd the same
time, C663), the nex t collector
represented
at the
NSA w as Arnold
Bake, w hose
cylinder recordings span
three f ield
trips
condu cted b etw een 1925 and
1941, and take in
many
areas of modem India and
Bangladesh
as w ell as
Nepal
and Sri Lanka
(C52).
In Bake's case the British
connection is that f rom 1948 he w as
employed b y
the School of Oriental and
Af rican Stu dies
(SOAS)
in
London, and earlier w as the
recipient
of a
Spalding
Fellow ship
f rom Brasenose
College,
Ox f ord w hich f u nded his third
trip
to Sou th
Asia
(1938-41).22 Correspondence
at the Mu seu m f u r Volkerku nde in Berlin
makes it clear that the
original cylinder recordings
w ere sent
there, and that those
now at the NSA w ere
copies
ordered
b y
Bake w hen at SOAS.23
Althou gh
f ew er
f ield
recordings
w ere made in Sou th Asia than in Af rica or
Melanesia, they
are
amongst
the most
important collections, partly
b ecau se Fox
Strangw ays
and Bake
w ere the
only
recordists to hav e made their
trips primarily
to
stu dy
mu sic. We
hav e
already
noted that Fox
Strangw ays' stu dy
is
regarded
as a
classic; althou gh
Bake
pu b lished
little f or someone w ho collected so mu ch, he is nev ertheless
regarded
as a
major f igu re
in the f ield.24
Recordings f rom
other areas
As w e hav e
seen, the main areas f or
recording b y
British collectors w ere in East
and West
Af rica, Sou th
Asia, Au stralia and Melanesia. It is
hardly
a
coincidence,
of
cou rse, that these areas
lay largely
w ithin the British
Empire. Still, there are a
nu mb er of
recordings
f rom other areas in the NSA collection w hich are w orth
22
Du ring w hich he recorded on a Tef i
system only
in the
early stages,
and on
cylinders
f rom
1939.
23
SOAS,
incidentally,
has nu merou s other connections w ith the NSA
cylinder collections: f or
instance,
Harry Johnston w as a co-f ou nder of the School, and Alice Wemer is another f ormer
employee.
24
Althou gh Jairazb hoy's
Bake
restu dy
w as
mainly
concemed w ith a
period
w hen the latter w as
recording
w ith a Tef i
recording system (w hich employed
a
loop
of
plastic tape
on w hich
groov es
w ere cu t w ith a
stylu s), Jairazb hoy
1991
giv es
u sef u l inf ormation on Bake's other f ield w ork, as
does
Tingey
1985. Most of the NSA
cylinders w ere made on Bake's second
trip, 1931-4; details
of these
recordings
are
prov ided
in an
u npu b lished catalogu e (Bake n.d.).
80 British Jou rnal
of Ethnomu sicology,
v ol. 5 (1996)
mentioning.
A notab le
ex ample
is the w ork of Edith Du rham,
w ho af ter
v isiting
the Balkans f irst in 19005 b ecame, af ter nu merou s retu rn v isits and a su ccessf u l
career as a trav el w riter, a
recognised
anthropologist
in her ow n
right.
Du rham,
another
correspondent
of Frazer's, made sou nd
recordings
in northern Alb ania
and
Montenegro
in 1905
(C662).
The
only recordings
made in the Americas, b esides a small
grou p thou ght
to b e
copies
f rom one of the
major
American collections
(C679),
are u nidentif ied. One
is docu mented as
coming
f rom the Parania
region
of Brazil, and ascrib ed to a
"W.F.
Cooper
of Watf ord"
(C332);
another b eliev ed to b e Sou th American is
identif ied as
simply
"Lengu a"
(C677).
Another small b u t
perhaps signif icant
set
of
cylinders,
b eliev ed to hav e
originated
w ith the German scholar Wilhelm
Heinitz, inclu des
recordings
made of
v isiting
Af rican mu sicians in
Hamb u rg
Zoo
in the 1930s and
prob ab ly
earlier
(C680, cyls
723-724 etc; see Heinitz
1931).
The last
part
of the collection is that held on b ehalf of the
English
Folk Dance
and
Song Society (C37).
Ju st u nder half of the 106 items are
recordings
of Scots
Gaelic
songs,
made
b y
or f or the collector
Lu cy
Broadw ood in 1907-8.26 The
remainder are
largely u nidentif ied, b u t
appear
to inclu de
cylinders
recorded
b y
lu minaries su ch as Cecil
Sharp, Ralph Vau ghan
Williams and
Percy
Grainger
amongst
others.27 These share w ith the Fox
Strangw ays
and Bake collections the
distinction of
hav ing
b een made
b y
collectors w ith a seriou s mu sical interest.
Connections w ith the Berlin
Phonogramm-Archiv
and other collections
The
degree
of collab oration b etw een the
Camb ridge-b ased
scholars and their
German
cou nterparts
su ch as Hornb ostel
appears
to hav e b een
qu ite
considerab le.28 For the f irst third of this
centu ry,
the Berlin
Phonogramm-Archiv
w as the f oremost
Eu ropean
centre f or f ield
recording,
and theref ore f or
comparativ e
mu sicology
as a w hole. From the
early days,
Homb ostel b oth made
his ow n
recordings (mostly
in
Berlin)
and commissioned a
greater
nu mb er f rom
ethnographers
and other trav ellers to w hom he w ou ld lend or sell
equ ipment.
The
arrangement
at this
stage
can not hav e b een dissimilar to that ru n
b y
Frazer f rom
Camb ridge;
the dif f erence is that w hereas the activ ities of the Berlin Archiv e
b lossomed, reaching
a
peak
in the 1920s and
early '30s,
the
equ iv alent activ ity
in
Britain had all b u t ceased w ith the First World War.
25
See
Hodgson's
introdu ction in Du rham 1985. Some of Du rham's
major
w orks are listed in the
b ib liography.
Her
papers, photographs
and
paintings
are hou sed w ith the Royal Anthropological
Institu te archiv es at the Mu seu m of Mankind in London.
26
See Bassin 1965, w ho ref ers to sev eral of Broadw ood's pu b lished papers.
27
An annotated
listing
of
part
of this collection is f ou nd in Yates 1982.
28
It is
perhaps signif icant that, af ter
leav ing Germany
in the early 1930s, Homb ostel made his
w ay u ltimately
to
Camb ridge (w here he died in 1935). Althou gh Homb ostel's mother w as
Jew ish, he lef t the
cou ntry initially
f or health reasons-it is
b y
no means certain that he
u nderstood the seriou sness of the
political
situ ation in
Germany
at the time, or the
personal
risks
he
may
hav e f aced. (Personal commu nications f rom Lau rence Picken and Su sanne
Ziegler. )
Clayton: Ethnographic
w ax
cylinders
at the National Sou nd Archiv e 81
It is
signif icant
that the Berlin Archiv e su cceeded in
dev eloping
a
sophisticated
system
of
cylinder du plication,
in w hich
copper negativ es (know n
as
Galv anos)
w ere made f rom the
original cylinders,
w hich w ere
generally destroyed
in the
process; nu merou s
copies
cou ld then b e made f rom each Galv ano.29
Many
researchers and other archiv es sent their
cylinders
to Berlin f or
copying,
and as a
resu lt a
large part
of the cu rrent Berlin collection is made
u p
of Galv anos.
Another measu re of the decline of British f ield
recording
is the f act that f rom
the 1920s British trav ellers w ho w ished to make sou nd
recordings
in the f ield
w ere directed to Homb ostel in Berlin rather than
any
British scholar or institu tion.
Thu s a nu mb er of later
collections, inclu ding
one recorded
b y
E.E. Ev ans-
Pritchard in Zande in
1929, w ere
acqu ired directly b y
the Berlin Archiv e.
Correspondence
in
Berlin, of w hich this is
ju st
one
instance, sheds
light
on the
this f act:
Dear Sir,
May
I ask
you r
kind
assistance, at the
su ggestion
of Mr C.G.
Seligman,
f or
particu lars
of a
light recording phonograph
and
cylinders
to take w ith me to Asia?
It seems almost
impossib le
to ob tain them in
England.
(R.C.F. Schomb erg
to
Hornb ostel, Heref ordshire, 12
April
1930.
Uncatalogu ed
correspondence,
Mu seu m f u r
Volkerku nde, Berlin.)
The Berlin collection inclu des
negativ es,
and
copies
made f rom
them, of
parts
of the collections of Bake; Thomas, Werner, Rou tledge
and
James; and Haddon's
grou p (Torres Straits and
Borneo).
These
collections, as held
cu rrently b y
the
NSA, all contain
du plicates originating
in Berlin. Of these, the b u lk of the Bake
collection w as sent in the f irst instance to
Berlin, f rom w here
copies
w ere
despatched
to London. The rest w ere
originally
hou sed at
Camb ridge
u nder
Frazer and/or
Myers' care; they
did not how ev er all reach Berlin
b y
the same
rou te.
Myers
sent a f ew of his Torres Strait and Saraw ak
recordings
direct to the
Archiv e in
1905, the docu mentation
f ollow ing
them some tw o
years
later.
Whether this letter w as addressed to
Hornb ostel, or
(more likely)
to Carl
Stu mpf ,
is not clear.
My
dear Sir,
I
hope
to send
you du ring
this w eek tw elv e
phonographic records, most of w hich
contain
songs
f rom Borneo. I
hope
to v isit Berlin f rom the 14th to the 21st of
Decemb er, and to hav e the
pleasu re
of
making you r acqu aintance du ring my stay.
... I w ill
b ring
w ith me a short
description
of the
songs
I am
sending.
You rs
sincerely,
Charles S.
Myers
(Myers
to
?Stu mpf , Camb ridge,
Nov emb er 1905.
Uncatalogu ed correspondence,
Mu seu m f u r
Voikerku nde, Berlin)
29
See Ab raham and Homb ostel 1994. Frazer also
arranged
f or
cylinders to b e
copied
in
Camb ridge, b u t
b y
a
simpler mechanical method. There is no ev idence that this w as ev er of f ered
as a serv ice to scholars ov erseas, as w as the case w ith the Berlin system.
82 British Jou rnal
f Ethnomu sicology,
v ol. 5 (1996)
Stu mpf ,
in
f act,
ref erred to
Myers's recordings
in his f amou s b ook Die
Anf dnge
der Mu sik (The origins of mu sic),
in w hich he inclu ded
transcriptions
of the tw o
Torres Straits
recordings.30
The
remaining
f ou r Af rican collections
(Werner, Thomas,
Rou tledge
and
James)
w ere sent to Berlin f or
copying
in 1929 or 1930. The
person responsib le,
or at least the
agent, appears
to hav e b een one
Dorothy Ling,
a research scholar
w ho had stu died mu sic at
Camb ridge
and
(as
this
report
makes
clear)
v isited the
Berlin archiv e in 1928-30.
Miss
Ling,
Stu dentin der Univ ersitat
Camb ridge (England)
b ereitete sich an
af rikanischem Material f u r
kiinf dige
Arb eiten v or.
Miss
Ling,
a stu dent of the
Univ ersity
of
Camb ridge (England),
w as
stu dying
Af rican material to
prepare
herself f or f u rther stu dies.31
The transf er of
cylinders
f rom
Camb ridge
f ollow ed the nex t
year,
w hen
Ling
is
also
reported
as a v isitor
(see b elow ).
These
cylinders w ere, rather
conf u singly,
catalogu ed
in Berlin as the
"Ling-Werner"
collection.
Ein sehr
groBe
Anzahl v on
Phonogrammen
w u rde v on Institu ten u nd Forschem
dem Archiv zu r
Galv anisieru ng
u nd
Au f b ew ahru ng iib ergeb en
mit dem Recht,
Kopien
f u r die Stu dienzw ecke des Archiv s herstellen zu lassen, u nd zw ar v on ...
der
Psychological Lab oratory
der Univ ersitat
Camb ridge, England....
A
large
nu mb er of
phonograms
w as
giv en
to the archiv e
b y
v ariou s institu tions
and researchers, f or
galv anising
and
storage, inclu ding
the
right
to
produ ce copies
f or
stu dy
in the
archiv e, [depositors inclu ding]
the
Psychological Lab oratory
of the
Univ ersity
of
Camb ridge....32
This accou nts f or most of the
ov erlap
b etw een the cu rrent London and Berlin
collections. The London collection also inclu des b oth a small nu mb er of
copies
of
other Berlin
cylinders (C665)
and a
near-complete
set of the "Demonstration
Collection of E. M. v on Homb ostel and the Berlin
Phonogramm-Archiv " (C664).
The Demonstration Collection w as a set of arou nd 120
du plicate cylinders,
made
b y
Homb ostel and the Berlin Archiv e in the 1920s and b eliev ed to b e the f irst
30
See
Stu mpf
1911: 123-4
(his transcription
nu mb ers 9 and 10). Stu mpf
also ref ers to
Myers
elsew here, and to the ex istence of a sou nd archiv e in
England at that time (the latter on
p. 63).
31
Staatliche Akad. Hochschu le f u r Mu sik in Berlin zu
Charlottenb u rg,
50 Jahresb ericht
(1.10.28-30.9.29), p.
43. This translation and the nex t w ith thanks to Su sanne
Ziegler. Ling
apparently
married in 1930; this f act is allu ded to in a letter f rom Prof essor Edw ard Dent of
Camb ridge
to Homb ostel, 14.v iii.30 (at the Mu seu m f u r VOlkerku nde). Under the name Sef iora
de Hemando Balmori, she mov ed to
Argentina
w here she w orked in a nu mb er of u niv ersities,
and
pu b lished
b ooks on mu sic (Girton College Register 1869-1946, p. 379).
32
Staatliche Akad. Hochschu le f u r Mu sik in Berlin zu
Charlottenb u rg,
51 Jahresb ericht
(1.10.29-30.9.30), p. 49.
Clayton: Ethnographic
w ax
cylinders
at the National Sou nd Archiv e 83
pu b lished anthology
of non-Western mu sic.33 It is not clear w hether this set once
b elonged
to one of the
Camb ridge
scholars or
originated
elsew here.34
The
second-largest
collection of
ethnographic cylinders
in the British Isles is
hou sed at the Pitt Riv ers Mu seu m in Ox f ord. This inclu des another set of
Thomas's
recordings, largely du plicating
the NSA set; negativ es
of
Rattray's
recordings
and disc
copies
of
Layard's cylinders,
as w ell as J.H. Hu tton's
recordings
f rom the
Naga
Hills in Assam
(1915),
and Diamond Jenness and A.
Ballantyne's recordings
f rom the D'Entrecasteau x Islands
(1912).
Su mmary
The main UK sou rces f or the NSA's cu rrent collection are theref ore the Frazer
Collection, prev iou sly
hou sed in
Camb ridge;
the
Camb ridge Univ ersity
Mu seu m
of
Archaeology
and
Anthropology (f rom
w hich tw o sets, those of
Rattray
and
Layard,
w ere ob tained
separately
in
1985);
the
Royal Anthropological
Institu te
archiv es and the Mu seu m of Mankind; and the
English
Folk Dance and
Song
Society.
The Bake collection,
most of w hich w as sent
initially
to Berlin,
w as
donated
b y
his stu dent Nazir
Jairazb hoy
f rom the School of Oriental and Af rican
Stu dies in
1968; tw o other
sequ ences originated
in
Berlin; the Heinitz set came
f rom
Hamb u rg,
and the details of their transf er are u nclear; f inally,
a small
u nidentif ied set
appears
to hav e
originated
f rom the
Royal
Mu seu m of Scotland.
Sev eral other
sequ ences
are as
yet
u nidentif ied.
If w e leav e aside the Bake collections, w hich are
u niqu e
in sev eral
respects,
it
appears
that all the British w ax
cylinder
f ield
recordings
at the NSA w ere made
b etw een 1898 and 1922.
Althou gh
later
cylinder recordings
are held elsew here
(su ch
as those of Ev ans-Pritchard at
Berlin),
w e can state w ith some conf idence
that the f irst
f lou rishing
of British f ield
recording
lasted f rom 1898 f or some
tw enty years
u ntil the end of the First World War, w ith a low er lev el of
recording
activ ity continu ing
into the 1920s.
Su b sequ ent history
rev eals a
generation
of
v ery
little British inv olv ement in f ield
recording
u ntil af ter the Second World War.
The
early ex plosion
of
activ ity
and its
su b sequ ent collapse
are at f irst
sight
pu zzling,
b u t
perhaps
u nderstandab le in the circu mstances.
Virtu ally
all the
British f ield recordists w ere
anthropologists,
and
conv ersely
it cou ld b e said that
v irtu ally ev ery
notab le British
anthropologist
of the time tu rned his or her hand to
sou nd
recording.
Sou nd
recordings
w ere one of
many
kinds of
ethnographic data,
made in the b elief
(or
at least
hope)
that
they
w ou ld b e u sed as su ch. Yet these
researchers lacked the
specialist know ledge
to make u se of mu sical data, and
there
appear
to hav e b een
only
tw o circu mstances u nder w hich the
recordings
cou ld b e of u se: if
they
had b een made
b y
a mu sician
(e.g. Myers,
Fox
33
See Reinhard and List's notes to the Ethnic
Folkw ays
LP FE4175 (1963).
34
The most
likely
sou rce is one C.K. Ogden
of the "International
Orthophonic
Archiv e" of
Camb ridge,
w ho
pu rchased
a
copy
of the Demonstration collection in 1928.
Correspondence
b etw een
Ogden
and Homb ostel
detailing
the transaction su rv iv es at the Mu seu m f u r V6lker-
ku nde, Berlin.
84 British Jou rnal
f Ethnomu sicology,
v ol. 5 (1996)
Strangw ays, Bake),
or if
they
cou ld b e
presented
to a
specialist comparativ e
mu sicologist
f or
analysis.
Mu ch the same cou ld b e said of scholars elsew here, inclu ding
North America
and
Germany.
Bu t in the United States a nu mb er of
mu sically-oriented
collectors
w ere activ e
(Alice Fletcher, Frances Densmore, Helen Hef f ron Rob erts and
others);
w hereas in
Germany
the
specialist comparativ e mu sicologist
E. M. v on
Hornb ostel w as
ex tremely activ e, w ith his
colleagu e
Otto Ab raham, analysing
the
recordings
of others. In Britain
relativ ely
f ew
mu sically-oriented
collectors w ere
activ e,
and the nearest
equ iv alent
to
Hornb ostel,
Charles
Myers, appears
to hav e
largely
lost interest in
comparativ e mu sicology
af ter the ou tb reak of the First
World War.
Perhaps
it is not
su rprising that, seeing
that
recordings
w ere
lying u nu sed, most
anthropologists gav e u p
sou nd
recording b y
the 1920s. Since on the one hand the
British had
ef f ectiv ely
ab andoned the f ield, and on the other sev eral of the
leading
German scholars lef t Nazi
Germany
in the 1930s f or the United States and
elsew here, it is also not in the least
su rprising
that British
activ ity
in
comparativ e
mu sicology
has b een
largely
ov ershadow ed
b y
American research ev er since. In
f act,
it is
only
the
discov ery
of these
recordings
that has alerted u s to the ex tent of
that
activ ity,
since
many
of these recordists lef t no
pu b lished
accou nt of their
sou nd
recordings
w hatsoev er.
Epilogu e:
the cu rrent situ ation
The NSA's
ethnographic cylinder
collections hav e accu mu lated ov er the last 40
years
or so, and continu e to
grow .
Ov er the cou rse of that time a nu mb er of NSA
staf f hav e taken a
particu lar
interest in the
cylinders,
su ch as f ormer International
Mu sic Collection cu rator
Lu cy
Du rain and Head of Archiv e Serv ices Alan Ward
(see
Ward
1984).
Sev eral scholars f rom
ou tside, su ch as Alice
Moyle
and Nazir
Jairazb hoy,
hav e w orked on
parts
of the collection. The time is f elt to b e
ripe,
how ev er, f or a
major
rev iew of the collection, inclu ding preparation
of a
complete
set of
digitized du b b ings
and a
comprehensiv e catalogu e.
This w ork w as
b egu n
in
1994,
w hen a
pilot stu dy
of the
f easib ility
of
digitizing
and
catalogu ing
the collections w as set
u p-"Project
Digitize"-u nder
the
u mb rella of the British
Lib rary project
Initiativ es f or Access. The
present
au thor
contrib u ted to the docu mentation
aspect
of that
pilot stu dy,
and retu rned in 1995
to w ork on a
prov isional compu ter-b ased catalogu e
of the
cylinders.
The
position
of the collection at the time of
w riting
is that a
prov isional
catalogu e
has b een created on a
compu ter
datab ase. The collection as a w hole is
b eing du b b ed, a
process ex pected
to b e
completed b y
the end of 1997
(see f ig. 4).
(Sev eral signif icant
sections w ere transf erred to
tape
in the late 1970s and 1980s,
and
parts
of the Werner and Thu rston collections
(C145, C624)
w ere du b b ed onto
digital
media in
1994.)
The NSA intends to make the collections more accessib le
to scholars
b y completing
the
du b b ing process,
and
b y continu ing
the research
process
w hich w ill enab le the entire collection to b e
properly
docu mented and a
def initiv e
catalogu e prepared.
Clayton: Ethnographic
w ax
cylinders
at the National Sou nd Archiv e 85
Fig.
4: The NSA's cu stom-b u ilt
v arispeed cylinder player,
as u sed
f or making
du b b ings.
Photo: British
Lib rary
National Sou nd Archiv e.
The National Sou nd Archiv e is
cu rrently
b ased at 29 Ex hib ition
Rd, London,
SW7 2AS. Cu ratorial serv ices are schedu led to mov e to the new British
Lib rary
b u ilding
at St Pancras, London,
in Nov emb er 1997,
w ith
listening
serv ices
f ollow ing
in
spring
1998. The
ethnographic cylinder
collections are u nder the care
of the cu rator of the International Mu sic Collection,
Dr Janet
Topp Fargion,
and
assistant cu rator Marie-Lau re
Manigand.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My
thanks are du e to the staf f of the National Sou nd Archiv e, inclu ding
Dr Janet
Topp
Fargion,
w ho commented on a draf t v ersion of this
paper,
her assistant Marie-Lau re
Manigand,
and Alan Ward. I am also most
gratef u l
to Prof . Nazir
Jairazb hoy
and Dr
Amy
Catlin f or their comments; to Prof . Artu r Simon and Dr Su sanne
Ziegler
of the
Mu seu m f u r Volkerku nde in Berlin, f or
alerting
me to the ex istence of relev ant corres-
pondence
there-and f or their
hospitality;
and to the staf f of nu merou s archiv es and
lib raries
inclu ding
the British
Lib rary, Camb ridge Univ ersity Lib rary,
the
Camb ridge
Univ ersity
Mu seu m of
Archaeology
and
Anthropology,
the Haddon
Lib rary (also
in
Camb ridge),
the British
Lib rary
of Political and Economic Science, the School of
Oriental and Af rican Stu dies
(Univ ersity
of
London), the
Royal Anthropological
Institu te and the Berlin Staatsb ib liothek f or their inv alu ab le assistance. Nu merou s
colleagu es
also deserv e
acknow ledgement
f or
responses
to
qu eries,
either
personally
addressed or
posted
on the EthnoFORUM b u lletin b oard. So
many
hav e
helped
in this
regard
that I can
only
of f er a
general
thank
you
to all.
Ex tracts f rom
manu script
sou rces are
qu oted
w ith
permission
of the
Syndics
of
Camb ridge Univ ersity Lib rary;
the Haddon
Lib rary,
Facu lty
of
Archaeology
and Anthro-
pology, Camb ridge;
and the British
Lib rary
of Political and Economic Science.
Photographs
are
reprinted
w ith
permission
of the Haddon
Lib rary,
Ox f ord
Univ ersity
Press, and the
Royal Anthropological
Institu te.
Appendix
1:
Su mmary of
the NSA
Ethnographic Cylinder
Collections
-
prov isional
inf ormation in Collection Nu mb er order
-
Key:
C Collection nu mb er
f r f rom (ie. immediate sou rce):
C Camb ridge
Mu seu m of
Archaeology
and Anthropology
B Bake
(SOAS)
E
English
Folk Dance and
Song Society
F Frazer Collection (Camb ridge)
M Mu seu m of Mankind
R Royal Anthropological Institu te
S
Royal
Mu seu m of Scotland
cyl.
no. NSA
cylinder
nu mb ers (x
=
ex clu ding)
n. nu mb er of items catalogu ed
? approx imate
nu mb er of
cylinders damaged
or missing
d. du b b ed (Yes or No)
C f r cyl. no. n. ? date d. collector region comments
6 F 1108-1200 93 19 1901-02 Y B Spencer, FJ Gillen Au stralia, Central Inc. large (32x 12cm dia.) cylinders. Cf . C681
37 E 1535-1579 45 4 1907-08 Y L Broadw ood Scotland
37 E 1580-1640 61 2 1907-19 Y Variou s (inc. R V-Williams, C Sharp) U.K. (England, Wales); Ireland
46 M 1397-1401 5 0 1918 Y B Malinow ski Papu a NG, Trob riand Is.
51 F 2153-3253 1101 81 1908-15 Y NW Thomas Nigeria; Sierra Leone Du ps at Pitt-Riv ers; 172
negs
at Berlin
52 B 1641-2150 510 14 1925-28; YN AABake Nepal; India; Sri Lanka 18+355
originals, negs
and
copies
at Berlin
1931-34,
193941
62 F 1415-1481 67 4 1898, 1904 Y CG
Seligmann
[1898 recs.
b y
Haddon New Gu inea Cf . C80, C83/86. inc. 20-25 cyls recorded in 1898
et
all
72 F 835-933, 97 15 1910-11 Y AH Fox
Strangw ays
India
x 924
80 F 1010-1107 948 18 1898 Y AC Haddon, CS
Myers,
SH
Ray,
CG Torres Straits; Papu a
New Cf . C62, C83/86, C666. 2
originals
at Berlin
Seligman,
WHR Riv ers, A Wilkin, W Gu inea
McDou gall
83 R 1297-1354 58 11 1907-08 Y CG & BZ Seligmann Sri Lanka Cf . C62,
C804
C86
83 R 1498-1509 12 3 ? Y ? Vanu atu
83 R 1510-1520 11 2 71908-09 Y (?GC Wheeler)
(?Solomon
Is), Bou gainv ille
Cf . Thu rnw ald coll. at Berlin
(?Straits)
86 F 1355-1396 42 3 1907-08 Y CG & BZ Seligmann Sri Lanka Cf . C62, C80, C83
107 F 1402-1405 4 0 1901 Y Sir HH Johnston Uganda
108 F 1406-1414 9 3 1907-08 Y WHR Riv ers, (?AM Hocart)
Solomon Is. Cf . Hocart coll'n at Berlin (19 negativ es
and
copies)
145 F 1-157 157 22 1912-13 NY A Wemer Kenya
21 negs at Berlin
176 C
235-266;
34 19 1921-22 N RS
Rattray Ghana,
Ashanti
2151-2152
177 C 267-298 32 3 1914-15 N JW Layard Vanu atu , Atchin
332 F 495-519 25 1 pre 1910 Y WF Cooper Brazil, Paraf a
624 F 164-234; 136 5 c.1905 NY E Thu rston, K
Rangachari
S. India Madras Mu seu m Collection; 2 sets
520-525;
951-1009
662 F 471-494; 25 1 1905 N ME Du rham N. Alb ania; Montenegro
824
663 F 526-536; 12 1 1911 N ? Balu chistan
924
664 ? 537-647 111 7 ?1900-13 N v ariou s v ariou s Homb ostel Demonstration Collection (f rom Berlin)
665 ? 344-355 12 1 1900-06 N v ariou s v ariou s Du plicates f rom Berlin
666 ? 385-448; 79 3 1899 N AC Haddon, CS
Myers
et al Borneo, Saraw ak 10 originals at Berlin1
648-662
667 ? 364-373, 8 3 1909 N ? Bosnia
x 367-8
668 ? 449-451 3 0 post 1910 N ? China, Canton
669 F 338-343 6 1 pre 1910 (?Wm) James Af rica, C.
670 F 452-458 7 0 post 1910 N ? Japan
671 ? 320-330 11 0 1914 N PD
Montagu e
New Caledonia
672 F 158-163; 18 0 1907-08 N WS & K
Rou tledge
Kenya 19 negs
at Berlin
935-946
673 ? 947-949 3 0 ? N
(?Pilsu dski)
Sakhalin Island
674 ? 356-363 8 1 1907 N ? (?Ukraine or Romania) Identif ied as Taraie'
675 F 299-319 21 3 1912 N O
Temple Nigeria,
N.
676 F 331-337 7 1 pre 1910 N Todd' Mozamb iqu e
677 F 1521-1532 12 1 / N James (?Mu non) (?S America) Identif ied as
'Lengu a'
678 F 1522-1534 2 0 ? N (?Walter Thomas) Su f f olk
679 F 459-470 12 2 1913 etc. N ? USA
Nb . C680
(b elow )
is a temporary identif ier f or sequ ences not
yet
allocated their ow n Collection nu mb ers
680 F 1482-1497 16 1 ? Y ? ? Du b b ed w /C62
680 ? 376-378 3 3 post 1910 N ? Solomon Is., New Georgia
680 ? 770-773 4 1 71908-09 N (?F
Green)
Solomon Is., New
Georgia
680 F 749-769; 22 6 71908-15 N NW Thomas
(?Nigeria;
?Sierra
Leone) All or most C51
strays
794
680 F 779-791; 18 3 ? N ? (?E. Af rica; ?Indonesia) Frazer Coll'n
du ps
800-804
680 ? 723-724 2 0 1931 N W Heinitz Af rica,
W. Coll'n
prob ab ly
inclu des other
cylinders, cu rrently
u nidentif ied
680 ? 805-813 9 2 1894 N T Hou gh London Not
ethnographic (English speech);
all identical
680 ? rest 128 16 v ariou s N v ariou s v ariou s Unidentif ied (inclu des sev eral
sequ ences
and
strays)
680 S 3254-3261 8 0 ? N ? (?Ch'iang) Long cyls
(15cm)
681 F 1201-1278 78 3 1912 Y B Spencer Au stralia, N.
682 F 1279-1296 18 3 1910-12 Y AR Radclif f e-Brow n Au stralia, W.
total 3261 292 1894-1941
listed
b y
Berlin as
Myers, Charles,
Indonesia 1907 (ie.
the date docu mentation w as receiv ed at
Berlin, rather than the date of
recording).
See
Ziegler
1995: 30.
88 British Jou rnal
of Ethnomu sicology,
v ol. 5 (1996)
Appendix
2:
Chronology of identif ied cylinder
collections
date Eu rope Af rica Sou th Asia Au stralia & Pacif ic
1898
Haddon, Torres Straits
& N. Gu inea.C80, C62
1899
Haddon, Borneo.C666
1900
1901 Johnston,
Uganda.C107 Spencer & Gillen, C.
Au stralia,C6
1902 C6
1903
1904 Johnston, Seligman,
New
Lib eriaC500* Gu inea.C62
1905 Du rham, Thu rston, India.C624
Alb ania C662
1906
1907 Broadw ood,
Rou tledge, Kenya.C672 ?Riv ers,
Scotland.C37 Solomons.C108
Misc., UK.C37
?Wheeler, PNG.C83
1908 Broadw ood, C672
Seligman, Sri C108; C83
Scotland.C37 Thomas, Nigeria.C51 Lanka.C83/C86 ?Green, New
Misc., UK.C37
Georgia.C680
1909 anon, C51
Bosnia.C667
Misc., UK.C37
1910 Misc., UK.C37 C51 Fox
Strangw ays, Radclif f e-Brow n, W.
India.C72 Au s.C682
1911 Misc., UK.C37 C51 C72 C682
Anon.,
Balu chistan.C663
1912 Misc., UK.C37 C51; C682
Werner, Kenya.C145 Spencer, N. Au s.C681
Temple, Nigeria.C675
1913
Misc.,
UK.C37 C51; C145
1914 Misc., UK.C37 Thomas, Sierra
Layard,
Vanu atu .C177
Leone.C51
Montagu e,
New
Caledonia.C671
1915 Misc., UK.C37 C51 C177
1916 Misc., UK.C37
1917 Misc., UK.C37
1918 Misc., UK.C37
Malinow ski,
Trob riands.C46
1919 Misc., UK.C37
1920
1921 Rattray, Ghana.C176
1922 C176
1923
1924
1925
Bake.C52(?)
1926
C52(?)
1927
C52(?)
1928
C52(?)
1929
1930
1931-4, C52
'3941
*
Du b b ings only
at NSA.
Clayton: Ethnographic
w ax
cylinders
at the National Sou nd Archiv e 89
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LOCATIONS OF UNPUBLISHED COLLECTIONS
BLPES Archiv es British
Lib rary
of Political and Economic Science, London
School of Economics.
CUL
Manu script
Collection
Manu scripts Room, Camb ridge Univ ersity Lib rary.
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92 British Jou rnal of
Ethnomu sicology,
v ol. 5 (1996)
Martin
Clayton
is Lectu rer in
Ethnomu sicology
at the
Open
Univ ersity,
w here he is a
memb er of the Mu sics and Cu ltu res Research
Grou p,
b esides
teaching part-time
at
Anglia Polytechnic Univ ersity.
His b ook Time in Indian mu sic: an
ethnomu sicological
stu dy of rhythm,
metre and
f orm
is
cu rrently
in
preparation
f or Ox f ord
Univ ersity
Press.
Address:
Dept.
of Mu sic, The
Open Univ ersity,
Walton Hall, Milton
Keynes,
MK7
6AA, England;
e-mail:
<m.r.l.clayton@open.ac.u k>;
Mu sics and Cu ltu res Research
Grou p
w eb -site:
http: //w w w .open.ac.u k/OU/Academic/Arts/mu sic/mu scu lt.htm.