The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Is there any site out that has a good selection (for listen or download) of the many Native American cylinders recorded by ethnographers in the late 19th through early 20th centuries?

If you can count Geoffrey O'Hara's recreation of "Navajo Indian Songs" on Blue Amberol as a Native American Cylinder, I can post the recording on this thread.

I believe Library of Congress have some collection of Native American recordings from 1890s and early 1900s, but I'm not sure that they were cylinder recordings. (I'm sure there are some 'Indian Songs' on The Berliner collection page.)

Google up "Frances Densmore" and you should get many hits relevant to your interest. She was an early ethnomusicologist who made field recordings of Native American music. Some of these may be available today through the Library of Congress, as mentioned.

Here's a start: http://siarchives.si.edu/research/scise ... smore.html

Tank you for the advice

Thanks, I'll follow up on those tips !

I see this is quite an old, thread, and I found reference to this on a page about Geoffrey O'Hara. I have been working on similar projects conserving languages that are perishing. Pablo Helgueara being the expert of whom to record, and arranging the recording session, I being the acoustical wax cylinder recording engineer. (Similar to the session shown in the O'Hara photo.) Since 2003, I have collaborated with Pablo Helguera, who is a historian, and Director of Education at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, in New York City. We have collected, and put to wax several hundred cylinders over the years. This project is called "The Conservatory of Dead Languages": Chief Marie Smith Jones (1918-2008) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Smith_Jones is preserved on metallic soap and was the last person who spoke Eyak, an Alaskan native language. Some cylinders contain examples of languages from central and south America. Such as Cristina Calderón who was one of the last speakers of Yaghan language, Chile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristina_Calder%C3%B3n The Collection also has some narrated stories spoken by Pablo as well. We also had a recording session using the Edison studio recording head at the Nelson Atkins Museum Of Art in Kansas City. In fact they purchased the Yaghan and Eyak cylinders, and a cylinder of Princess Alista Thorne of the San Carlos Apache Tribe.
You may go and see the collection at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in KC. I am also told that the collection is also located in other museums throughout the world. I have been inspired by the work of Jesse Walter Fewkes, Frances Densmore,Geoffrey O'Hara,John and Allen Lomax. Sometimes I think with care the wax cylinders can outlast digital media.