Fwd fom R Kentta re Nez Perce CJ recordings

[David Robertson]

[I think this one didn't get through to the list on the first try.  --  DDR]

That's a good story to hear about. Morris was not the only Indian to own and
use wax cylinder recording equipment though.

Here at Siletz, Hoxie Simmons - half Galice Creek Athabaskan, and 1/4
Yamhill Kalapuya was recorded by Leo Frachtenberg, around 1914-16, and
numerous other linguists over the years: Jacobs, Swadesh, Harrington,
Hoijer, and others. It was probably after working with Frachtenberg that
Hoxie really gained an interest in the recording equipment, though he was
probably exposed to the process when Sapir was here in 1906 recording
Frances Johnson speaking Takelma language at Upper Farm on the Siletz River.
Sapir supposedly also recorded "Coquelle Hunter" here at that same time and
possibly others, but that collection has never been located.

I'm not sure when Hoxie acquired his cylinder recording machine, but I do
have 2 damaged cylinders that Hoxie recorded. One is supposed to be his son
Lester Simmons (Galice, Yamhill, Molalla, Wasco) and Joe Washington (Shasta)
singing gambling songs and the other is supposed to be the recording of a
speech made on Government Hill -  which is the old Siletz Agency and Siletz
Tribal Headquarters. I'm not sure who was supposed to have made the speech.
I'm not sure that either is playable, and keep meaning to contact the
Libaray of Congress about them. Have also considered working directly with
the Cutting Corporation or UofW or somebody else who may be able to advise
me on them. Somebody needs to develop a digital reader for wax cylinders and
aluminum discs so that blemishes won't send the needle skipping and they can
be digitally recorded and restored. The 2 cylinders I have are pock marked
for some reason, and I think a regular needle player would'nt be able to
follow the grooves. My uncle George Kentta also recorded Hoxie and Archie
Johnson (Shasta and Coquelle)on tape recorders in the 1960's. He would have
to put it out of sight to record Archie, othewise he would get proccupied or
nervous about being recorded, though he was recorded by Frachtenberg along
with Hoxie in the 1910's, and by other linguists over the years too. He was
a little self-conscious about his voice giving out too... He would say "he
used to be called Shantie Tyee, but now Kluxta iskum niga lacoo". I can't
remember if he used the word Kluxta in that phrase, so that word might be
wrong.

A thought also came to mind reading the story on the Nez Perce
recordings.... Archie Johnson went to Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania
in the 1890's. Corbett Lawyer, a Nez Perce was his classmate and I think
roommate. Archie told my uncle that he and Corbett were great friends and
would talk in Chinook Wawa (Jargon) a lot.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Robertson" <ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
To: <CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 8:09 AM
Subject: Nez Perce recording of CJ discovered


> The following is excerpted from the "Boise Weekly", May 3, 2006.  --  Dave
R
>
>
> MAY 3, 2006
> Old, Weird Idaho
> Hearken to Idaho's earliest recordings, and meet the players who want you
> to listen back even further
>
> BY NICHOLAS COLLIAS
>
>
> "THIS IS SAM MORRIS TALKING"
>
> Dr. Loran Olsen has spent over 30 years cataloging and recording Nez Perce
> music, but he still only calls it his "hobby." While Olsen is perhaps the
> pre-eminent academic authority on Nez Perce music--indeed, my calls to
> various tribal agencies all resulted in referrals back to him--he says
> professional distance is essential to his authority.
>
> "My field is piano and composition," he says. "My doctor's degree is in
> hand. I have no vested interest in doing anything other than helping
> people."
>
> By "vested interest," of course, he is referring to money--the calling
card
> of the numerous "shady characters" he has encountered in his hobby over
the
> years. And so in 1987, when he learned that a dealer in Nez Perce
artifacts
> had come into the possession of an authentic Edison Standard Model D
> recording machine, complete with 69 beeswax recording cylinders whose
> contents were unknown, Olsen had only one recourse--he had to make his
> hobby somebody else's vested interest ... preferably somebody not shady.
>
> After borrowing 10 of the cylinders, each of which can hold approximately
2
> minutes of recordings, and verifying their authenticity with the help of a
> Library of Congress sound engineer, Olsen says realized that the cylinders
> were "a priceless collection" of long-unheard Nez Perce music.
>
> "Our objective became simply to keep them in the Northwest," he
> recalls. "So many of these types of Indian artifacts simply disappear.
They
> end up in Europe and places like that. We just didn't want that to
happen."
>
> After no buyers could be found, the Washington State University Libraries
> stepped forward and made the purchase--sort of. Today, the delicate
> cylinders are on permanent loan to the Library of Congress. But digital
> copies of 61 of the 69 recordings (the other eight were either irreparably
> damaged or contained commercial musical recordings) are available at a
tiny
> handful of Northwest locations--including a nondescript cardboard box in a
> back room of the new Idaho History Center.
>
> With funding help from both the Idaho Humanities Council and the Idaho
> Commission on the Arts, the recordings were digitally enhanced back in
> 1994, and Olsen and a committee of Nez Perce elders, tribal historians and
> translators were able to delve into them. What they heard was this:
>
> "This is Sam Morris talking. He is saying: 'This is the way that the
people
> played or had fun. This is a great feeling to know. Now the war dancers
> will take a moment of rest. All of you ladies, sing along. Take part in
the
> singing. All you women, sing loud."
>
> Sam Morris, (his Nez Perce name translates to "Horse Blanket") was a
> mysterious Nez Perce man born in Washington in about 1856. He made the
> recordings between 1909 and 1912, probably in and around Lapwai, after
> already having led a life that typified the upheaval taking place in
Native
> American culture in the late 19th century.
>
> On one hand, he was the half-brother of the warrior Yellow Wolf, a famed
> Nez Perce leader in the Nez Perce War during the 1870s. Yellow Wolf even
> makes an angry speech on one of Morris's recordings. On the other hand,
> Morris actually served as a scout for the U.S. Army in the early stages of
> the war, and Yellow Wolf would reportedly not enter Morris's house for
many
> years because of it. Similarly, while Morris's recordings, most of which
> comprise a short spoken introduction followed by loud drumming, yelling
and
> chanting, contain both tribal and Christian religious elements, he claimed
> in correspondence to have "no religion of any kind."
>
> "He didn't buy into either of the war factions, really. He was just kind
of
> a loner," Olsen explains. "But he would be kind of a leader at the [Nez
> Perce] dances. We get an idea for what it was like at the turn of the
> century, as these young warriors became old, and as they came back and
> reminisced about all these experiences they had had."
>
> Morris's recordings, it should be noted, aren't the first musical
> recordings made in Idaho, or even the first recordings of Nez Perce music.
> Those titles go to ethnographer Herbert Spinden, who visited the Nez Perce
> village of Lapwai in 1907 and made 37 cylinder recordings, and famed
> anthropologist Alice Fletcher, who recorded Chief Joseph singing mournful
> war songs with other tribe members in Washington, D.C., in 1897.
>
> However, Morris's recordings, while less consistent in sound than
Spinden's
> or Fletcher's, are the special for another reason: They are Idaho's first
> independent music. They're made for listening, not for study by outsiders.
> Spanning nearly an hour and a half, Morris's collection shows an artist's
> eye for capturing all the passion, contradiction and desperation in his
> embattled community. On one track, he captures his son, Jim Morris,
playing
> the fiddle at a Nez Perce square dance. On another, he records a group of
> Nez Perce singing a Protestant hymn in Chinook Jargon, a trade language
> used by several regional tribes in the 19th century. The numerous war
> dances and "Hitting the Rawhide" songs (where women would sing all night
> before the tribe's men left for war) are packed with mournful, intimate
> wailing, but Morris also includes rare gems like imported songs from Sioux
> and Crow tribes, and even some occasional laughter--like when a man
telling
> a hunting story says he shot a white-tailed deer and another man teases
> him, "Were there any witnesses?"
>
> Where Morris bought the Edison recorder, or where he even got the idea,
> isn't clear. The devices were widely available after the turn of the
> century, and Olsen estimates their cost to be about $30, plus 25 cents for
> each cylinder.
>
> "We're guessing that he must have heard Herbert Spinden making his
> recordings in 1907," Olsen says. "He was probably there watching. We can
> only guess." After the recordings were made, according to Olsen's 1999
> report "A Legacy From Sam Morris," the cylinders sat in Morris's attic for
> years, where his family occasionally listened to them--and children played
> with them as toys. After being officially "returned" in tape form to the
> Nez Perce tribe in 1995, they are today regarded as one of the most
> significant auditory "finds" in decades.
>
> "This is the only instance we know of where an Indian had his own machine
> and was recording music purely for his own purposes," Olsen says. "It's
for
> his own family and his own joy."
>
> ...
>
> To listen to free MP3s of selections from the Nez Perce music collection,
> including the oldest recorded music made in Idaho, or to hear the
Williams'
> New Columbia Fiddlers performing songs from the Lewis and Clark era, visit
> www.boiseweekly.com.
>
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