Foreword

Ever since the invention of the phonograph, making possible the recording of music, there has been a continuous interest in the music of the first Americans, the Indians of North America. Recognizing the important role of music in Indian culture, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, folklorists, and amateur collectors have amassed over the years a formidable body of material that has been housed in museums, university libraries and the homes of the collectors. With the foresight and imagination of Professor George List and Frank J. Gillis, the Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana University, initiated by George Herzog, has acquired an outstanding library of music and oral data from around the world in which the collection of North American Indian music is perhaps the largest and most complete one available today.

The tremendous work of compiling and editing this catalogue has been done with care, and an intuitive understanding and sensitivity to the needs of students and scholars. The American Museum of Natural History Collection includes the recordings of Franz Boas, Natalie Curtis Burlin, Earl Pliny Goddard, George Grinnell, George Herzog, Alfred Kroeber, Washington Matthews, Edward Sapir and Frank J. Speck. The Frances Densmore Collection from the Library of Congress numbers twenty-one tribal groups and culture areas. To these substantial collections have been added the more recent work of individual scholars.

An alphabetic index to culture or tribal groups, not to be confused with culture areas, ranging from Abenaki to Zuni, will prove helpful to the researcher interested in locating material for a particular tribal group or a Pueblo village. A second index to subject descriptions is detailed and extensive in its coverage, listing more than 2,500 subjects and ranging from Acorn(Miwok) to Yuwipi(Dakota/Sioux). This section will be most valuable to anthropologists, ethnomusicologists and folklorists intent on locating material relating to culture elements and practices that find realization and expression in music and the spoken word.

A review of the catalogue reveals interesting facts regarding the study of the North American Indian. The two largest tribes, the Navajo and the Dakota/Sioux, are represented respectively by fifty-nine and thirty-four listings. The Southeastern tribes, Cherokee and Creek have respectively fourteen and eleven entries, whereas the California tribes, Hupa and Luiseño have only two entries. It is apparent that many of the culture/tribal groups listed in the appendix represent tribes of small population, many of which are acculturated to the extent that though they are highly conscious and proud of their “Indianness,” they have lost much of their language, their music and religion. One dare not draw any substantive conclusions from the quantitative rating of the collections in the Archives of Traditional Music, but one may speculate as to why there are these differences. It is possible that students and scholars have preferred to work with groups of larger population where the prospect of a larger yield in data is more inviting. The Archives, despite its impressive collection, does not claim to be definitive and complete, and there is the possibility that further acquisitions may contribute to the groups that are presently sparsely represented. The relation between population and music culture shows the larger groups having a more highly developed and sophisticated music than the groups with a limited population. To explain this difference one would need to take into consideration the history, economy, religion and, in short, every cultural aspect of the group. It is the stimulus from personal contact either within the group or from without that results in musical creation and development, and it would seem that the opportunities for this stimulus would be greater in a larger society than in a small group.

The Archives of Traditional Music, its personnel, and especially the editor of the catalogue, Ms. Dorothy Sara Lee, are to be thanked for the production and publishing of this excellent catalogue which will serve anthropologists, folklorists, ethnomusicologists, students, and aficionados of North American Indian music for years to come. One hopes that future collectors will deposit their tapes, records, and notes in the Archives, thereby sharing their material with other students and scholars.

Pound Ridge, New York

Willard Rhodes