Sound and vision blog

Mahomed's Baths from 1826. Alamy.

The NHS as we know it today has been built – and continues to be sustained – by migrant contributions. South Asians have played a major role in this. But did you know that we can place South Asians in the medical profession in Britain long before the NHS was formed? In fact, in this oral history clip from the Millennium Memory Bank (BBC) you can hear Bari Chohan describe how his family arrived in England in the 1870s, having practiced homeopathy and ophthalmology on the subcontinent. They then opened a series of medical clinics in various cities throughout the UK, including in Brighton, Harrogate, Sheffield, Bradford and Manchester. It was Bari’s great uncle Dr Chirag Din who practiced in Harrogate in the early 1920s. He later married his colleague and practice nurse, Florence, moving to her hometown of Middlesbrough, where he settled.

Listen to Bari Chohan interviewed by Neil Gander © BBC

Download Bari Chohan extract transcript

South Asians have not only been in Britain for a long period of time – longer than common perception – but they have been circulating within professional and community networks, actively shaping the island nation we know today. Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1830s to the present is a new research project that sheds light on this British history.

The project will reveal stories like Bari’s in a new digital resource, exploring the significance of South Asian people and communities as agents of change to Britain's cultural, economic, political and social life from the period of empire in the 1830s to the present. The project team will conduct their own oral history interviews, in collaboration with The British Library, as well as showcase testimonies collected during other projects. This will be in conjunction with archival research. Remaking Britain is an AHRC-funded research project led by the University of Bristol and Queen Mary University of London in partnership with the British Library.

We’d love to hear from anyone who has oral history collections on South Asians in Britain, expressions of interest in oral history participation, or any information relating to the rich history of South Asians in Britain from the 1830s to the present. You can find more information on our website or contact us on email: [email protected] 

Bari's interview (reference C900/01572) was recorded in 1999 by Neil Gander for BBC Radio as part of the ground-breaking BBC and British Library Millennium Memory Bank project which explored British life at the end of the 20th century. The Millennium Memory Bank holds over 5,000 oral histories recorded by local and national BBC radio stations, from which each participating station broadcast a series of programmes on 16 common themes. All of the full unedited recordings and the subsequent programmes are archived and made available at the British Library. The collection is copyright of the BBC.

This week's recording of the week was written by Dr. Maya Parmar, Research Fellow for Remaking Britain, Queen Mary University of London. 

The Sıbızğı Recordings from Northern Xinjiang Collection (British Library ref: C1960) includes digital copies of several home-made cassettes, radio interviews, and film soundtracks from northern Xinjiang, documenting the repertoire of the bi-phonic, end-blown flute sıbızğı (also: sybyzghy), played among Kerey (also: Kereit or Kerei) Kazakhs. The collection contains more than eight hours of music and folk narratives, 309 recording pieces in total. Historically, the sıbızğı was played by eloquent Kazakh orators, often village leaders, at anniversaries, celebrations, and discussions of village affairs. Each sıbızğı melody relates to a unique folktale, of ancient warriors, modern rebel heroes, animals and hunters, birds, orphans, and famous poets of the Kazakhs. Geographically, the sıbızğı tradition is performed primarily in modern-day Xinjiang and western Mongolia. Most Kazakhs in this region trace their ancestors to the Orta Cüz (Middle Horde) group, and the majority of sıbızğı players, though by no means all, are Kerey Kazakhs, whose clans, families, and villages share cultural memory through performance and recordings of the sıbızğı repertoire.

Above: A map of sıbızğı sound collections in Xinjiang. The collections document performances by musicians in northern Xinjiang, including the regions of Altay, Qumul, and Erenqabırğa, a strip region from Sauan to Urumchi.

The origin

According to oral literature, the sıbızğı was created by shepherds while grazing, making a múñlı (sad, melancholy, or sorrowful) sound, which has a pronounced difference from the ‘cheerful’ sound produced by the dombıra (dombyra). Some folktales take the following form:

During a time of many hardships for the Kazakhs of the steppes, a cruel bay (rich lord) sent two orphans to watch over a flock of sheep and protect them from wolves, threatening to beat them if they failed in their task. One day, the younger boy thought he heard the howl of a wolf and drove the sheep to a new location. Over several days he heard the howl again and again, until he realised that the sound was not a wolf after all, in fact it was the wind blowing through hollyhock reeds that had been eaten by the sheep. Plucking one from the ground, he began to blow into it, putting his fingers over the various holes in the stem to change its pitch. One night, the other boy heard this strange new sound and asked, 'Are you crying?' The younger shepherd boy replied, 'No, I am playing a melodious voice.' Since that day, the boys began playing the hollyhock reeds together, creating new sounds. Later, the practice spread to the people, and the hollyhock came to be called 'sızılğı'. Over time, folk intellectuals adapted the reeds with two, three and four holes to make new sounds, and this came to be called sıbızğı.

While found in hardly any written, published sources, such origin stories about the sıbızğı are abundant among the community of sıbızğı players and their listeners. Most of the folktales refer to the Syr River region as an important place in the origin of the sıbızğı, partially because of the legend of Qorqıt Ata (Grandfather Qorqıt; Korkut Dede in Turkish), a famous poet, philosopher, epic chanter, and a high-ranking baqsı (shaman) in both the historical Turkic world and folk literature. Qorqıt Ata was born in the 8th century AD in the Syr River region and served as the prime minister of five khanates in his lifetime. According to The Book of Qorqit Ata, a compilation of oral literature, Qorqıt and the Prophet Muhammad lived at the same time, and the Kazakh national instrument – the qobız – was invented by Qorqıt, who also left a large number of mythological musical accounts to the later Kazakh nation.

Listening example 1

'Qorqıttıñ Küyi' (The Tune of Qorqıt), performed by Tölegen Qúndaqbay-úlı. There are a few sıbızğı pieces that depict the life of Qorqıt, and many sıbızğı players believe Qorqıt is also the inventor of sıbızğı.

Listening example 2

'Aqsaq Qúlan Cosığan' (The Crippled Red Horse Is Running), performed by Mansur Böreke-úlı.

The complexity of the stories about the early mythological history of the sıbızğı indicates a diverse and cross-regional array of folklore throughout Xinjiang and Central Asia. Sıbızğı tunes often feature folk tales with relatively concrete historical accounts up to the era of Ghengis Khan in the 12th century, also highlighting the shared cultural roots of residents in the Altaic region – merged tribes of Kazakhs and Mongols. For example, 'Aqsaq Qúlan' (Crippled Red Horse) presents a tragic, but philosophical, story of the Mongolian Khan and his son: Genghis Khan loved his son Jöchi, so much so that he ordained that anyone who brought news of the boy’s death to him would have their head filled with lead. One day, the poet Ketquba had a nightmare of Jöchi tumbling from his horse and dying, a vision that proved to be correct. To inform the Khan, Ketquba played his dombıra, making a sound like a galloping horse. Upon hearing the song, Genghis Khan trembled and wept, asking, 'Why does this song make me feel so sad, as if it heralds the news of Jöchi’s death?' The poet put down his dombıra and explained the story of Jöchi’s death in a poem. The Khan was ready to kill Ketquba in the manner he had ordained, until the poet countered: 'It was not I, but the dombıra who told you of your son’s death through sound.' True to his word, the Khan filled the dombıra with lead. In modern-day Kazakh legend, this is how the dombıra got its soundhole.

Throughout the history of the Kazakh nation, there have always been individuals combining the roles of philosopher, poet, and musician, and the same applies to sıbızğı performers. The first widely recognised sıbızğı master was Asan Qayğı Sábyt-úlı, a famous 14th-century Kazakh philosopher, aqın (poet), cırau (folk singer), by (debater and judge), and prophet. He served as an important minister of the Golden Horde and the Kazakh Khanate. According to the sources, Asan Qayğı worried about all matters concerning the life of the Kazakhs, from personal disputes to clan affairs. He rode a celmaya (white camel) all his life, in search of a cerúyiq (paradise), rich in water and plants and free from feuds and inequality.

During the Ablay Khan era in the 18th century, the skilful sıbızğı tradition became highly developed in the Syr River region. Berdiqoja was a famous sıbızğı player of this age, who served the Khan by playing tunes about historical heroes and their martial exploits. In the 19th century, Cılqışı Ahtan-úlı was a well-known sıbızğı master, and later performers called him the Sıbızğı Piri (The Angel of the Sıbızğı). Cılqışı was the first to have the mixed role of sıbızğı master and by, and was highly respected in solving village affairs through gatherings that featured the playing of the sıbızğı. In early 20th-century Altay, there were four prominent bys who are still venerated by contemporary sıbızğı masters, among whom Bensenbi was better known as a composer on dombıra and sıbızğı.

Contemporary practices

Until the later 20th century, any gathering including sıbızğı playing was also regarded with reverence, rather than viewed as normal entertainment. Carole Pegg (1991), writes of the necessity 'for every Kazak family to own one (sıbızğı) and to keep it in a respected place, even if they could not play' (p. 75). In any gatherings where the flute is present, storytelling, mainly in question-and-answer form, and sıbızğı playing function as one, addressing topics of history, social justice, and important public initiatives. Even today, cyın (gatherings or assemblies) and toy (parties) are still important parts of collective life within a Kazakh clan. In such events, talking and discussing issues are major activities, while music-making can serve either as an interlude to such discussions, or sometimes as the central focus.

In recent times, playing dombıra and singing án (folksongs) have become more popular, and the role of the sıbızğırole has diminished, yet historically the sıbızğı played an essential role, and continues to represent a significant cultural memory for Kerey Kazakhs. The use of the sıbızğı to control a crowd’s mood through music, or influence the atmosphere of a gathering during a moment of musical storytelling, is a deeply embedded historical practice that for many Kazakh musicians represents a more ‘true’ vision of Kazakh culture than the dombıra.

Prof. Talğat Múqışov of the National Conservatory of Kazakhstan offers the following explanation of the instrument’s historical development in Kazakhstan: before Kazakhstan’s independence in 1991, the sıbızğı was not as popular as now. In 1934, during the Soviet era, the Symphony Orchestra of Qurmangazi was established in the city of Almaty, and the flute replaced other wind instruments, including the ‘unfortunate’ sıbızğı. At that time, musical instruments that could not fully represent the spirit of the entire Soviet people would not be considered 'qualified musical instruments'. A 'real instrument' was one that could play any kind of music in a symphony orchestra. As the sıbızğı only plays Kazakh music, it was regarded as a mere 'national musical instrument' that could only be played on limited stages. According to Múqışov, the sıbızğı currently represents the true 'Kazakh spirit' that has been driving the enthusiasm of the participants in the region’s 'new folk music' (Múqışov 2016).

Above: Sıbızğı player Nığımet Qabdolla-úlı in his home in Qútıby County, date unspecified.

Above: Sıbızğı player Qúttıbay Sıdıq-úlı in a public assembly, 5 May 2002.

Above: Students playing sıbızğı, Qútıby County, 2014. Photo by Xiaoshi Wei. 

Recordings

Since the 1960s, the sıbızğı has been recorded for radio, mainly on open-reel tapes, the first ever medium to capture and preserve the sound of the sıbızğı. Due to the high acoustic fidelity of open-reel tape and to the diffusion of radio, recording artists began to be viewed with respect and to gain higher status across Xinjiang. In the early days of the radio network, artists who were played on radio, e.g., Qoşanay and Tölegen, were held in particularly high regard.

Since the 1980s, the rise of cassettes has given people a more personal connection to their recorded music, with greater autonomy over their use of the medium itself. Because of the compactness of the cassette machine, the sıbızğı community started to believe this was more advanced technology. In village life, being recorded, similarly to being photographed, became seen as an ‘advanced’ act. People began to make personalised programs on cassette to document sıbızğı gatherings, creating playlists with the music in their preferred order. Recording is also an act that can strengthen ties between clan members: events involving the sıbızğı frequently include discussion of migration history, forging strong relationships between performers within the same clans. At parties or gatherings where old friends and relatives reunite after a long time, people play songs and talk about their shared relatives who were lost along the way. Sıbızğı players would intentionally play tunes about the journey of life. Lengthy spoken introductions before each tune talk about those who were lost, and the act of recording helps to preserve these interpersonal moments.

Since the 2000s, historical recordings of the sıbızğı began to appear on VCD (Compact Disc Digital Video) and on the internet. At present, the younger generation can access performances by their fathers’ contemporaries from mobile phones and computer screens. Although the traditional large gatherings that centre on sıbızğı performance have begun to diminish, the historical recordings still function as a means to pass down the music.

Above: Sıbızğı player Mansur Böreke-úlı.

Above: A family cassette tape of performance by Mansur Böreke-úlı.

Above: A family cassette of performances by Tölegen Qúndaqbay-úlı.

Above: Múhamet Áubákir-úlı in a recording session with Urumchi-based sıbızğı players Beyilqan Qalyakbar-úlı and Qúsman Maqmırza, date unspecified.

Above: VCD of the documentary film Máñgilik Sarın: Qútby Öñiriniñ Sıbızğı Táryhi (Eternal Melody: History of the Sıbızğı in the Qútby Region), 2007.

Listening example 3

'Marğabıldıñ Qara Qasqa Atınıñ Şabısı - Bastapqı Şabısı' (The Running Posture of Marğabıl’s Horse - Beginning), performed by Nığımet Qabdolla-úlı.

This tune portrays a historical horse-racing gathering among the Kerey and Nayman tribes of Xinjiang Kazakhs. It highlights the historical rivalry between the two tribes and the sense of prideful superiority the Kerey feel over the Nayman, a sentiment that still prevails among Kerey cultural insiders, even those who live hundreds or thousands of miles from their homelands.

Above: The poster of the publication Ripples: Historical Recordings of Sıbızğı, with written text in Kazakh (in both Cyrillic and Arabic alphabets), Chinese and English.

Recovering home cassettes

Starting in 2013, Prof. Xiao Mei at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music has been financially supporting my initiative to collect and document a large number of homemade cassette recordings of sıbızğı performance. With the goal of creating an archival package containing interviews, audio recordings, and edited texts, I conducted fieldwork in Altay, Qútıby, Urumchi, Şiñgil, and Qumul, gaining access to several individuals’ private recordings. At the individuals’ homes, I also created digital copies of their private cassettes; more than 400 recordings of sıbızğı tunes were collected from families in northern Xinjiang, allowing researchers to examine the repertoire, content, and stories behind the music in unprecedented scope. The Sıbızğı Recordings from Northern Xinjiang Collection, now deposited at the British Library, displays the significance of Kazakh musical heritage, documenting a way of life that is rapidly changing and helping to preserve an image of longstanding traditional musical practice, capturing performances by masters of the sıbızğı who have since passed away.

This post was written by Dr Xiaoshi Wei, Newton International Fellow at SOAS University.

Reference

Pegg, Carole. 1991. 'The Revival of Ethnic and Cultural Identity in West Mongolia: the Altai Uriangkhai Tsuur, Tuvan Shuur and Kazakh Sybyzgy'. Journal of the Anglo-Mongolian Society, 12 (1-2): p. 71.

Múqışov, Talğat. Interview. Conducted by Qahar Erbol, 24 May 2016.

Núsúltan Núrahmet-úlı. Múratqan Bybyrál-úlı, and Örken Qaydar-úlı. 2007. Mañgilik Sarın: Qútıby Öñiriniñ Sıbızğı Táryhi (永恒的旋律：呼图壁地区斯布孜额介绍, 'Eternal Melody: History of Sıbızğı in the Qútıby Region'). Şyncyañ Dıbıs-Beyne Baspası (新疆音像出版社).

Various Artists. 2023 (forthcoming). Ripples: Historical Recordings of Sıbızğı in Xinjiang (Толқын: Сыбызғы үнінің тарихы, 波浪：斯布孜额历史录音). Recordings compiled and liner notes written by Xiaoshi Wei.

Written by Val Harding and Julie Begum from the Swadhinata Trust ahead of their British Library event 'Songs of Freedom: Celebrating Fifty Years of Bangladesh' on 16 December 2021.

In 2016 we set up an oral history project at the Swadhinata Trust aiming to document multi-generational experiences of Bengali music in Britain. The Swadhinata Trust is based in East London and is a secular group that works to promote Bengali history and heritage amongst young people. To date we have collected 30 interviews and various musical recordings that are now available to listen to in British Library Reading Rooms as the 'Bengali music and musicians in the UK Collection' (BL REF C1796).

Bengali Women and children at Shahid Minar at Altab Ali Park in Tower Hamlets, London, for a trans-national commemoration event © Swadhinata Trust

There has been a South Asian presence in Britain for over 400 years, and music has inevitably played a part in this presence. In the first half of the 20th century lascars and seamen from the north east of India who worked for British owned ships and the Merchant Navy began to settle in London’s East End, the Midlands and Northern cities. The Bangladeshi community of today grew from these roots.

In 1971 the nation of Bangladesh was born after a war of liberation from the rule of West Pakistan, and this year, 2021, marks the 50th anniversary of independence. The suppression of Bengali language and culture by West Pakistan was a key trigger in the liberation struggle. The celebration of Bengali language and culture is thus an essential and prominent aspect of Bengali identity in the UK today.

In his interview from our 'Bengali Music and Musicians in the UK' collection, Mahmudur Rahman Benu tells the story of the troupe of artists he led singing liberation songs in 1971. Like many of the interviews in this collection, it is in English and Bengali language and includes many musical demonstrations.

The history of 1971 is again reflected in an interview with singer and songwriter Moushumi Bhowmik who wrote the well known song 'Jessore Road' - inspired by Allen Ginsberg’s 1971 poem 'September on Jessore Road'. Other stories from 1971 come from two sisters, Yasmin Rahman and Rumana Khair, whose parents were activists in London during 1971.  Yasmin and Rumana sang as children at meetings and rallies supporting the war effort. They describe their experience in this excerpt from an interview:

excerpt of interview with Yasmin Rahman and Rumana Khair [BL REF C1796/15]

Download Transcript

From the mid-1950s through to the 1970s Bengali migrants to the UK faced many barriers. The late 1970s saw the emergence of community activism to fight racism, and with it, a gradual emergence of music that hitherto had been kept hidden behind closed doors. In her interview, Julie Begum explains how her experience of music started when she was a teenager in London, living in Tower Hamlets in the late 80s and early 90s. She describes how her and her Bengali friends were part of the community around the 'Asian underground sound', going to raves in warehouses where artists such as brothers Farook and Haroon Shamsher began to DJ as 'Joi'.

Since then, there has been a prolific growth of music making. Our interviews document migration and musical development in the UK, annual cultural events such as the Boishaki Mela (Spring Festival), music history from Bangladesh and West Bengal, theatre, and the music of the younger generations in the UK and in Bangladesh itself.

These areas are illustrated across various interviews in the collection. An interview with Mukul Ahmed, director of the theatre group Mukul and the Ghetto Tigers, demonstrates the integration of Bengali music and song into theatre. Present-day interest and innovation from the younger generation is illustrated in the interview with a ten-year-old performer, Anvita Gupta. The sound artist Abdul Shohid Jalil talks about his composition of Bengali inspired electronic music. The history of music in Bengal itself is also reflected in the interview with sarod player Somjit Dasgupta.

Bengali music is a broad term that encompasses musical practices in both Bangladesh and West Bengal in India. Before partition in 1947 this was one region, Bengal, sharing the same language, culture and music. The music of this region includes classical, folk and modern traditions, and notable composers of songs such as Rabindranath Tagore and Kobi Nazrul Islam. Our interviews include those who learn and perform these genres, and even present-day songwriters and composers, and the younger generation who are producing a fusion of music that reflects their Bengali and British backgrounds.

Our aim is to document music in the community and the culture that surrounds music. Our interviews are with community members and community music schools. The more professional and well-known musicians that we have interviewed are musicians working with the community, running classes and teaching, and involved in everyday community music making, such as Himangshu Goswami, Mahmudur Rahman Benubhai, tabla player Yousuf Ali Khan, singer Alaur Rahman, and teachers at the Udichi School of Performing Arts. Some of our interviewees are also people from other South Asian and non-Bengali backgrounds who participate and enjoy Bengali music.

Amongst those interviewed who migrated to this country, either as children or adults, there is often an expression of the hardship of psychological adjustment to living in the UK. For some who were practicing musicians or students of music back in Bangladesh and or India there was a period of time on arrival here when they could not find their voice and found themselves unable to express themselves through singing or music in the way they did back home. The process of overcoming this has been gradual, and only achieved through the encouragement of friends and family. These processes are succinctly expressed in interviews with Alaur Rahman, Moushumi Bhowmik and Nadia Wahhab.

We hope you will enjoy the interviews in the 'Bengali Music and Musicians in the UK' collection both at the British Library and also at the Swadhinata Trust. Please get in touch as we are always happy to hear from you regarding any aspect of our project.

Follow @BL_WorldTrad, @BLSoundHeritage, and @soundarchive for all the latest news.

The Eric Raff 1924 Efate, New Hebrides Cylinder Collection (C83) is a set of twelve black wax cylinders recorded in 1924 on the island of Efate in Vanuatu. The collection was previously known as the RAI Vanuatu Cylinder Collection as the cylinders came into the Library from the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1983, but with no documentation as to when they were recorded or by whom.

Their British Library shelfmarks are C83/1498 to C83/1509. Three cylinders, C83/1504, C83/1506, and C83/1508, are badly broken and so could not be dubbed. It is one of two collections from Vanuatu within the True Echoes project at the British Library; the other is the John Layard 1914-1915 Atchin, New Hebrides Cylinder Collection (C177).

Above: The cylinders of the Eric Raff 1924 Efate, New Hebrides Cylinder Collection (C83)

The cylinders were accompanied by 28 sheets, formerly held together by small rusty pins, but there was no information about the recordist or the date. The papers are carefully typed out translations and transcriptions of songs and stories from various villages on Efate.

Above: A transcript of the recording "The song to warn Iakokae-Iako" as performed by Miriam of Malavau. This is the third page of the original documentation for the cylinder collection. Held by the British Library's World and Traditional Music section.

We started the historical research by compiling a document of everything we knew about the collection, and a list of any possible recordists, from anthropologists to government officials, from missionaries to traders, who spent time on Efate between 1898 and the 1930s. We circulated this document to researchers working in Vanuatu today.  We looked at handwriting, and other likely characteristics of the recordist. Chris Ballard at the Australian National University helped us to deduce who the recordist was. We can now say that the cylinders were recorded by Eric Maitland Kirk Raff (1892–1927), an Australian Presbyterian missionary who was based at Vila on Efate from 1917 to 1924.

Eric was born in Victoria, Australia, on 29 March 1892. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in Melbourne on 18 October 1916, and formally appointed as minister of the Margaret Whitecross Paton Memorial Church in Vila on the same day. On 9 December 1916, he married Ruth (née Baird), and on 17 January 1917, they left Australia for Vanuatu, then called the Anglo-French Condominium of the New Hebrides.

Sarah Walpole, archivist at the RAI, found correspondence from 1927 between Ruth Raff and Sir Everard im Thurn, a former President of the RAI, which gave us a much better understanding of this collection. Ruth noted that Eric made thirteen 4-minute Edison phonograph records “in Vila … early in 1924” (Raff 1927b). The collection only comprises twelve cylinders now; we do not know what happened to the thirteenth. The cylinders are unusual as they hold 4 minutes of recording as opposed to the more usual 2 minutes; the phonograph used to record them operated at a faster turning speed. These particular kind of cylinders were very fragile, which explains why three of the twelve surviving cylinders are badly broken. We do not know how or where Eric obtained the phonograph or the cylinders.

The Raffs left Efate in 1924 due to Eric’s ill health, and travelled to Scotland. Later that year, Eric wrote to both the Edison Bell Works and the Gramophone Company as he wanted to have permanent copies of the cylinders made; neither company could help. Ruth also noted that they tried to enlist the help of Alfred Cort Haddon – “a friend at Cambridge (an ethnologist whom we had met in the Islands) tried to interest Dr Haddon, but apparently nothing came of it – I think they said their funds were low!” (Raff 1927b). Haddon led the 1898 Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits and the cylinders produced during this expedition are now in the collections of the British Library’s Sound Archive. Further information on this collection, known as C80, can be found in this Sound & Vision blog post.

In July 1926, Eric received a reply from Thomas Joyce, Deputy Keeper of the Department of Ceramics and Ethnography at the British Museum, indicating that he would purchase Raff’s “New Hebrides Records” at 5 shillings a piece (Joyce 1926).

Eric died on 22 March 1927 in Bournemouth at the age of 34. Ruth was determined that the “valuable phonographic records of old native songs (both legends & songs fast dying out)” collected by her husband should not be lost to science (Raff 1927a). During a stay in Edinburgh in April and May 1927, she typed up all of the legends to give to Thurn; she mentioned “more interesting notes on early Efate” that she could send to him later (Raff 1927d). It is not clear whether this material has survived. It is also not clear what happened to the cylinders. Ruth may have sold them to the British Museum when she visited London in early June before her departure for Australia on the 16th June (Raff 1927c).

The level of detail on the accompanying documentation, including corrections on the covering List of Records as well as on the transcriptions and translations, indicates that both Eric and Ruth were familiar with the languages represented in the collection.  This documentation indicates that there were originally 30 songs recorded. Six performers are noted by name and village: Miriam of Malavau, Meny of Fila, Turi of Leleppa, and Kaltaban, Leiboni, and Tavero of Meli. Four songs were performed by “Pango women.” Nganga, probably a chief of Meli, is noted as the translator of three songs. Initial research indicates that most of the songs are from the languages of North Efate (Nakanamanga), South Efate (Nafsan) and Mele-Fila (specifically the Meli dialect).

Above: A map of Efate highlighting Port Vila and the villages of the C83 Vanuatu performers. Map data ©2021 Google.

The clip that we would like to share with you today is from the first song on cylinder C83/1498, Iakokae-Iako, by Miriam of Malavau.

Clip from C83/1498, Iakokae-Iako by Miriam of Malavau

Research to find out more information about the performers and the genres of the songs and stories told, as well as the languages featured in the recordings, will be done by our project partners at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre / Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta (VCC / VKS). Ambong Thompson is Manager of the National Film, Sound and Photo Unit that manages the Vanuatu Cultural Centre’s collection of film and audio recordings and photographic collections of cultural events, ceremonies, celebrations, performance, practices and activities. Through the True Echoes project, digital copies of Eric Raff's 1924 recordings will be accessioned into the VCC collection.

Above: Ambong Thompson, Manager of National Film, Sound and Photo Unit at Vanuatu Cultural Centre.

Ambong said,  

“We have already identified three fieldworkers from Mele, Ifira and Pango to work with staff from Vanuatu Cultural Centre… We have already spoken to, and had a good response, from Mele village. Some people from Mele Village have heard about the project and were very delighted.”

The VCC is working to identify the right people and equipment to undertake participatory research for this project. Ambong noted that these are “very old recordings and will make a major contribution towards our collections”.

References:

Joyce, Thomas Atholl. 1926. ’T.A. Joyce, Dept. of Ceramics and Ethnography, British Museum to Rev. E.M. Raff.’ Ethnomusicology Committee. Wiley Digital Archives: The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. No Date. http://WDAgo.com/s/5bb00889. Accessed 8 June 2021.

Raff, Ruth. 1927a. Letter from Mrs Ruth Raff to Sir Everard im Thurn, 27 March 1927. Ethnomusicology Committee. Wiley Digital Archives: The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. http://WDAgo.com/s/47577a34. Accessed 8 June 2021.

Raff, Ruth. 1927b. Letter from Mrs. Ruth Raff to Sir Everard im Thurn, 14 April 1927. Ethnomusicology Committee. Wiley Digital Archives: The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. http://WDAgo.com/s/3bf69adf. Accessed 8 June 2021.

Raff, Ruth. 1927c. Letter from Mrs. Ruth Raff to Sir Everard im Thurn, 8 May 1927. Ethnomusicology Committee. Wiley Digital Archives: The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. http://WDAgo.com/s/4ccaadc9. Accessed 8 June 2021.

Raff, Ruth. 1927d. Letter from Mrs Ruth Raff to Sir Everard im Thurn, 10 May 1927. Ethnomusicology Committee. Wiley Digital Archives: The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. http://WDAgo.com/s/211a4c36. Accessed 8 June 2021.

Vicky Barnecutt, True Echoes Research Fellow

The True Echoes research project launches its new website today, providing access to in-depth research on the British Library’s extraordinary collection of Oceanic wax cylinders.

The website, true-echoes.com, was originally planned as an output for the end of the project. However, due to the impacts of COVID-19, particularly on international travel, we decided to bring forward the development of the site and adapt it as a valuable tool for online collaboration and research with True Echoes’ Oceanic partners. These cultural institutions in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and Australia represent the countries from which the recordings originate.

True Echoes – funded by the Leverhulme Trust and BEIS – aims to reconnect the digitised recordings and increase their visibility and accessibility for the Oceanic communities from which they originate. The website will be a key factor in this. It will be used as a tool by fieldworkers during the participatory research phase of the project, enhancing understanding of the collections through local knowledge and cultural memory, and will remain available for individuals and communities to research and listen in their own time. It will also enable diaspora communities to access the research and recordings. Website users are encouraged to add comments on the collections, providing further information about the recordings and contributors.

Above: Cardboard container for wax cylinder C46/1398 with inscription 'Gumagabu by Paluwa good' written in blue crayon.

The True Echoes website will also be a vital resource for those interested in the early history of anthropology; the cylinder collections represent some of the earliest uses of sound in British anthropological research and the earliest documentation of oral traditions from Oceanic communities. The cylinders were recorded between 1898 and 1918 and include music, stories, speeches and many different types of songs, including hunting songs, hymns, funeral dirges and lullabies.

The website’s current focus is the Malinowski Cylinder Collection [C46], five wax cylinders recorded by renowned anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea, during fieldwork between 1915 and 1918. Vicky Barnecutt, True Echoes Research Fellow, has conducted this research in partnership with Prof Don Niles, Acting Director of the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies and True Echoes Co-Investigator.

Above: Malinowski seated with a group of men holding lime pots. Image courtesy of LSE Library: MALINOWSKI/3/18/2

Further information and resources will be added to the website throughout 2021 and 2022 as research is carried out on other Oceanic wax cylinder collections.

The website has been developed by Andrew Pace, who previously worked on the British Library’s Peter Kennedy Archive website, with direction and support from me.

The website sits outside of the British Library’s Sound & Moving Image catalogue and so provides an alternative platform for sharing in-depth research findings about the collections, including their historical contexts, provenance and value to originating communities today.

The website provides detailed information, where available, about performers, whose names were previously missing from the cylinder metadata. Maps highlight the variety of recording locations and journeys made by the original recordists. Contemporary photographs from related collections in other UK and international institutions further illustrate the collections, locations and contributors.

Rebekah Hayes

True Echoes Research Fellow

For further information about the True Echoes project, visit the True Echoes website or email the team at [email protected].

Above: A selection of the wax cylinders recorded in Papua New Guinea in 1898 and 1904.

This month marks the mid–point in the True Echoes research project, launched in July 2019. True Echoes is centred on the British Library’s Oceanic wax cylinder collections, recorded by British anthropologists in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. These collections represent the earliest recordings of Oceanic oral traditions. In recognition of their cultural heritage significance, they are included on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.

True Echoes - funded by the Leverhulme Trust and BEIS - aims to increase the visibility and accessibility of these collections for people in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and the Torres Strait Islands, Australia, reconnecting these rare and vivid recordings with the communities from which they originate.

I am working as Principal Investigator, and my team includes Research Fellows Vicky Barnecutt and Rebekah Hayes. We work in partnership with Oceanic cultural institutions, which represent the countries from which the recordings originate. These partners include:

• Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies [IPNGS]
• Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures – Australia [PARADISEC]
• Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta
• Solomon Islands National Museum and Archives
• Tjibaou Cultural Centre, New Caledonia
• Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies [AIATSIS]

The impact of Covid-19 has meant travel restrictions both internationally and within the Oceanic countries. However, the project has responded with determination and due to positive collaboration and communication with our UK and international partners and the academic community, we are now poised for the next stage of the project in 2021.

Collaboration – Travel restrictions allowed us to focus on historical research and our initial response was to target digitised content available through libraries and museums. During the first UK lockdown, there was some concern over access to sources held in libraries and museums, which had not been digitised. Concern soon faded as we were met with astonishing benevolence and the sharing of research from academics who have worked in these areas, including Heather Donoghue (UEA), Michael Young (ANU), Gunter Senft (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics), linus digim’Rina (UPNG), Tim Thomas (Otago), Martha MacIntyre (Melbourne), Jude Philp (Sydney/Macleay Museum), and Kirk Huffman (independent researcher).

Additional support from our partners, including Anita Herle and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge (MAA) and AIATSIS, as well as SOAS Library through their extended access to materials through digitisation, has resulted in a wealth of resources which were not previously available pre-Covid.

The result is a significant body of historical research developed by True Echoes Research Fellow Vicky Barnecutt and Don Niles, Acting Director of IPNGS and True Echoes co-investigator. These results are to be published via the upcoming True Echoes website.         

Communication - Contingency planning soon turned to the development of the True Echoes website as a means of addressing communication issues. Originally planned for release at the end of the project in 2022, the website allows us to share the outputs of historical research, metadata for the digitised cylinder recordings and photographs mapped from related UK collections. The website has been primarily designed as a research platform for use by True Echoes researchers and the first version will be launched this week to enable researchers in Papua New Guinea to prepare for fieldwork in early 2021.

Continuation - The True Echoes project is now poised to start the participatory research phase where local researchers will work with Oceanic heritage communities to learn more about the historic recordings and their contemporary meanings. This will also include the dissemination of research findings and the documentation of current practices through interviews and new audio-visual recordings. Reports from the field via our international partners will start in 2021 and we look forward to sharing these soon.

More information about the international partners is included here.

IPNGS is a national cultural institution founded in 1974, one year before Independence. They research, document, archive, and promote Papua New Guinea cultures with a focus on music/dance, ethnology, and literature. The Music Archive aims to reflect all music/dance-related research done in Papua New Guinea. It includes around 12,000 hours of recordings, as well as films, photos, and printed works.

Above: Image of the IPNGS building

PARADISEC is a digital archive of records of some of the many small cultures and languages of the world. They work to preserve materials that would otherwise be lost. PARADISEC accessions, catalogues and digitises materials, and preserves digital copies. In this way PARADISEC can make recordings available to the people and communities recorded, and to their descendants. PARADISEC was founded in 2003 and their collection now represents over 1,200 languages. It is a consortium of the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University. Amanda Harris, Director of the PARADISEC Sydney Unit, is also a Co-Investigator on the project. Visit PARADISEC’s website for more information about their work.

The Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta – led by Director Richard Shing – supports the preservation, protection and promotion of Vanuatu’s cultural heritage. VKS plays a major role in the documentation of traditional knowledge and artefacts, surveys of cultural and historical sites, and the discovery of significant archaeological sites. Their National Film, Sound and Photo archive is responsible for important cultural collections of film, photo and audio recordings. Learn more about the Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta via their website.

Above: The Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta building

The Solomon Islands National Museum – established in 1969 and led by Director Tony Heorake – preserves, protects and promotes local customs and traditions. Working with local communities, the museum aims to research and manage cultural and natural heritage, encourage economic development through cultural enterprise, and promote peace through respect of culture. The museum has supported many research projects, including the National Site Survey Project. These programmes enhance the development of the museum and Solomon Islands, and encourage a better understanding of the people, culture and environment. Learn more about the Solomon Islands National Museum on their website.

Above: The Solomon Islands National Museum

The Tjibaou Cultural Centre – led by Emmanuel Tjibaou – researches, collects, enhances and promotes New Caledonia's indigenous cultural heritage. This includes linguistic and archaeological heritage, as well as contemporary forms of cultural expression, such as broadcasting and art. The Centre also develops indigenous artistic creation, and facilitates regional and international exchanges. The Centre - inaugurated in 1998 - includes exhibition spaces, an art centre, and a specialised multimedia library. Visit the Tjibaou Cultural Centre’s website for more information.

AIATSIS is a research, collections and publishing organisation, which promotes knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, traditions, languages and stories, past and present. AIATSIS has a growing collection of over one million items, including films, photographs, audio recordings, art and artefacts, as well as printed and other resource materials. AIATSIS, based in Canberra, also conducts community-based research in a variety of sectors, including languages, health, native title, and education. AIATSIS, originally established by an Act of the Parliament of Australia in 1964 as AIAS, was reconstituted in 1989 as AIATSIS. True Echoes is working closely with Lara McLellan, Audiovisual Collection Manager, and Grace Koch, Visiting Research Scholar. Learn more about AIATSIS on their website.

Above: The AIATSIS building, Maraga

As well as MAA, Cambridge, True Echoes is also working with the British Museum. This will help us to reconnect the cylinder collections with related materials dispersed across different UK cultural heritage institutions.

The research team will learn more about the collections as well as the development of audio within the field of anthropology. They will also learn about the impact of reconnecting Oceanic communities with their documented cultural traditions.

The True Echoes project will highlight the different cylinder collections over the next few months to share more about these fascinating recordings and the team’s research so far. In the meantime, please get in touch with us via our email address [email protected] for more information.

Isobel Clouter

True Echoes Principal Investigator

Curator, World and Traditional Music

By Dr Hannah Silva, British writer and performer and Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London.

Paula Varjack selfie.

“What you actually do is you use your eyes as a pen,” David J is telling me how he learned to freestyle, “off the dome.” We’re sitting in a studio at the British Library, recording an interview for an archive: Black British Poets in Performance.

David J developed his craft out loud. When freestyling “it’s your life really that gets played out.” He describes hiding in a corner: “a silent child hears more.” He picked up vocabulary from books in the family home, medical journals and the Encyclopedia Britannica, and integrated it into his freestyling, “we can have fun ’cause my family is medical so we’re gonnna do vocal autopsies so everyone is… ah! nah he’s gonna rip em apart... nah I’m gonna do it clinically, ’cause mum’s a health visitor.”

Throughout these interviews it becomes clear that writing ‘out loud’ and ‘on the page’ are not differentiated practices, that performance is as much a part of ‘writing’ as writing is performance.

Here’s Anthony Joseph discussing how vocalising a poem can connect you to “other musical ideas”:

Anthony Joseph [47.55-48.24] ref. C1874_1

Download Anthony Joseph transcript.

Vocalisation is a way of embodying writing, engaging not just the ears in listening, but the breath, diaphragm, larynx, and vocal folds. Malika Booker comments that she likes to walk whilst she writes: “because I need to get the rhythm, I need to hear things I need to feel things […] writing is not just a solitary sitting down act.”

In the padded windowless room David J is looking at me, “you see Hannah” and looking around: “you see: speaker” and now he’s inhaling the words and mixing them with “what’s inside of you… your thought.”

David J [17.56-18.33] ref. C1874_15

Download David J transcript.

Kayo Chingonyi comments that “the label of ‘poetry’ has shrunk over the centuries”, that performance has often not been accorded the same importance as “dancing that intellect on the page.” He analyses the racialised aspect of labels such as spoken word and performance poetry and how this is linked “to having bodies”:

Kayo Chingonyi [26.37-27.30] ref. C1874_9

Download Kayo Chingonyi transcript.

Jacob Sam-La Rose discusses the importance of having spoken word and performance poetry in archives that can be accessed by poets developing their craft:

Jacob Sam-La Rose [19.50-20.40] ref. C1874_16

Download Jacob Sam-La Rose transcript.

This is that kind of resource.

These interviews feel groundbreaking because of the depth to which each poet discusses their craft. As Malika Booker says, this is “an artform that needs to be interrogated.” Every interview is over an hour long, and is accompanied by readings. We discuss how labels can exclude, and conversely how self-naming can be a creative act. We have conversations about the Black British voice, the Lyric I, presence, audiences, artistic development, performance poetry criticism, and poetry within theatre. We discuss influences and inspirations, and zoom in on moments of writing and performing.

Booker writes on her feet both at the early compositional stage, and sometimes in performance. In our interview she explains that her poem ‘My Mother’s Blues’ was edited in performance in response to her audience. Initially she wasn’t “sure how to use the ‘pain’.” She wrote “twenty-six drafts, trying to figure it out.” It was only when she did it for an audience that she realised the poem was “important.” Her description provides an example of how the body, voice and audience can all play a part in the writing of poetry, she treated “the performance space as a laboratory.” It also illustrates the interactive joys of a poetry night:

Malika Booker [45.50-52.00] ref. C1847_12

Download Malika Booker transcript.

Other unforgettable moments in this archive include Paula Varjack revealing that her name and performance persona were constructed around a pair of sunglasses. Lemn Sissay, whom I interviewed by a pool in Brazil, demonstrating how he started to deconstruct the moment of performance as it happens, and how he uses gesture as part of his writing (read more here: Lemn Sissay: Defamiliarsation and Performed Palimpsests. There’s Inua Ellams on guerrilla gardening, Karen McCarthy Woolf on vulnerability and hybridity and how trauma made her especially sensitive to sound, and a chat with Raymond Antrobus and Deanna Rodger behind the Latitude Poetry Tent (already a historical event).

Also – we had fun. Here’s Joshua Idehen parodying poetry styles and prosodies:

Joshua Idehen [55.28-56.28] ref. C1874_5

Download Joshua Idehen transcript.

The poets in this archive are there because I wanted to talk to them, and because they were willing to talk to me. My own research interests and my connections and friendships inevitably shaped it. The interviews were recorded several years ago and the poets would record different interviews today, but this archive enables us to, as Sam-La Rose puts it, “chase back movements and ways of thinking.” It is by no means a finished project and I hope it continues to be expanded and that the interviews are an exciting resource that supports further research.

Thank you to all the poets who agreed to talk to me for the archive, and all those who talked to me outside of the British Library context too. So far this archive contains interviews with Raymond Antrobus, Dean Atta, Malika Booker, Kayo Chingonyi, Inua Ellams, Anthony Joseph, Ria Jade Hartley, Joshua Idehen, Keith Jarrett, David J, Chanje Kunda, Deanna Rodgers, Jacob Sam-La Rose, Andra Simons, Lemn Sissay, Mark Mace Smith, Paula Varjack, Indigo Williams and Karen McCarthy Woolf.

The archive was constructed as part of an AHRC collaborative doctoral award with Stirling University and The British Library.

This collection is available in the Library's Reading Rooms and will be online next year. If you would like to browse the collection online, please enter C1874 into the Library's Sound and Moving Image Catalogue.

Since 2015, Christian Poske has conducted his PhD research on the Bengal recordings of the Arnold Bake Collection. A Collaborative Doctoral Scholarship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK, situated his PhD within two institutions: the British Library Sound Archive and SOAS, University of London. He conducted his fieldwork in Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Bangladesh from April to October 2017, revisiting the locations of Arnold Bake’s fieldwork. Christian's fieldwork investigated the aims and methods of Bake’s research in the early 1930s and studied the continuity and change in the devotional and folk music and dance documented by Bake. Christian is completing his PhD in Music this year at SOAS and in addition to his research has been engaged as a cataloguer for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project. He currently works as Bengali Cataloguer at the Department of Asian and African Collections at the British Library.

The audio recordings from the Christian Poske Collection have recently been catalogued and will be available for on-site listening at the British Library when the Reading Rooms re-open. For now, those interested can access the descriptions of the recordings by browsing the Sound and Moving Image catalogue for catalogue entries under collection number C1795. This blog post written by Christian Poske is an insightful introduction to the collection through his fieldwork in Jharkhand and West Bengal.

The restudy of historical sound recordings often gives unexpected results. During my research on the cylinder recordings of the Dutch musicologist Arnold Bake (1899-1963) at the British Library Sound Archive, I came across a number of sparsely documented recordings made at a Christian mission for the Santals, a South Asian aboriginal people centred in the Indian state of Jharkhand today. When I conducted my fieldwork in 2017, I found out that one of the church songs recorded by Bake is still popular among converts in the region.

'Recently, I had the opportunity to start recording Santal music… To really get in touch with the Santals, I have turned to the currently most important authority in this field, Dr Bodding... However, he is a missionary, and as he helped me along, we arrived at a huge boarding school for Santals. But it looks worse than it is. The mission has the policy to change as little as possible. Language, music and customs are, if anyhow possible, retained. All melodies used in the church are pure Santal melodies, although the words were made Christian... The music as such is quite unlike Hindu music, and their whole musical sense is very different. They love polyphony a lot when they get to hear it. I have recorded a sample (which hardly has any scientific value) how the Santal singing master of the school edited a song with four voices without actually ever having a European education, he does not speak a word of English, for example. The boys sing it with passion, which you could never expect from the Hindus…'
(Arnold Bake, letter to Erich M. v. Hornbostel, 15.4.1931, Berlin Phonogram Archive)

With these words, Bake explained his fieldwork at the Kairabani mission to Erich M. v. Hornbostel (1877-1935), the director of the Berlin Phonogram Archive. The Norwegian missionary Paul Olaf Bodding (1865-1938) of the Santal Mission of the Northern Churches had arranged Bake’s visit to Kairabani.

'The new Kairabani Church at the consecration, 1926' (Photographs of the Danmission, Copenhagen/ International Mission Photography Archive, USC Digital Library)

In the letter to Hornbostel, Bake referred to the church song 'Boge gupi do' ('The Good Shepherd') that had been composed by the Norwegian missionary Lars Olsen Skrefsrud (1840-1910) around 1886 (Gausal 1935: 70). Skrefsrud, one of the founders of the Santal Mission of the Northern Churches, settled in India to make sustained efforts to convert the Santals from animist belief to Christianity. He learned Santali language from 1867 onwards and published the first comprehensive grammar of the language a few years later (1873), which introduced a romanisation system providing the language with the first standard script that is still used by converts today, with minor amendments made by Bodding.

From left to right: Missionaries H. P. Børresen, H. J. Muston, L. O. Skrefsrud, with Santali hunting priest, chiefs (with turbans), hunters, and musicians (Santal Parganas, 1874) (Photographs of the Danmission, Copenhagen / International Mission Photography Archive, USC Digital Library)

Bake recorded solo and choral renditions of the song 'Boge gupi do', which is based on a traditional Santali melody, as he correctly noted. However, the choral version had not been arranged by the Santali choir leader of the Kairabani mission, but by an organist of the Santal Mission of the Northern Churches (Rạṛ Puthi 1929: preface).

'Boge gupi do' performed by male singer, Kairabani, March 1931 (C52/1641)

'Boge gupi do' performed by male choir, Kairabani, March 1931 (C52/2128)

Arnold Bake’s views on the Santals and their music and dance were influenced by colonial ethnographic clichés of aboriginal peoples that he replicated in his correspondence and publications (Bake 1936-37: 68), where he portrayed the Santals as a natural and pleasure-loving people, fond of music, dance, and drinking, and overall in a half-civilised state. One month after his visit to Kairabani, he filmed Santali dances at a Hindu festival in the village Kankalitola near Santiniketan. In a letter to his relatives, he described what he had seen in Kankalitola as 'a real nature dance':

'I am so curious what you will think of the films from Kankalitola that we left behind in Calcutta last week to reproduce. It was the typical male and female dances. You will see, I think, why the missionaries are against this dancing, it is very sensuous, yet it has great charm… And so entirely unaffected, a real nature dance.' (Arnold Bake, letter to his mother-in-law, 20.5.1931, Mss Eur F191/8, 191)

In Kairabani, he photographed Santali pupils playing their instruments at the mission, but he seems to have been dissatisfied with the sober ambience of the premises. To also have a picture of a Santali musician in a natural environment, he probably arranged a photo with one of the musicians outside:

Santali flute player by a pond, photograph by Arnold Bake (Kairabani mission, March 1931)

In this period, Hornbostel and other comparative musicologists collected recordings from musicologists and ethnographers worldwide at the Berlin Phonogram Archive 'to save what can be saved' of the traditional musics of the world threatened by the spread of Western culture (Hornbostel 1904-5: 97). Such recordings were expected to be made in surroundings free from European cultural influences. Therefore, Hornbostel marked all of Bake’s recordings from the mission as “worthless” (Ziegler 2006: 101-2), notwithstanding whether these featured traditional Santali or Christian songs. The reason for Hornbostel’s drastic measure was his suspicion that exposure to western church music had affected the Santals’ renditions of their own traditional songs. In his reply to Bake, he only hinted at his reservations:

'I am already very excited about the recordings and hope that you will have more opportunity for interesting recordings... of the Santals. In general: the more you record, the better, provided that the music is not europeanised yet.'
(Erich M. v. Hornbostel, letter to Arnold Bake, 5.7.1931, BPA)

When I began to evaluate Bake’s recordings at the British Library Sound Archive in 2015, I could not distinguish traditional from Christian songs among the Kairabani recordings due to my lack of knowledge of Santali language. Through my fieldwork, I was able to find out more. In Jharkhand, I visited the Kairabani mission school that still exists today. Here, I met the Santali language teacher Ignatius Besra, who helped me with the evaluation of the recordings at his home in Dumka. As he recognised the song 'Boge gupi do' (C52/2128), he rushed from the desk in the living room to another room to bring the church song book Sereń Puthi. He showed me the lyrics and said it was a 'hit' still popular among converts today. When I left, he gave me his copy on the way. I visited the Kairabani mission for the last time the following day and asked a schoolteacher to sing the song for me:

'Boge gupi do' performed by Nalini B. Hansdak Kairabani, May 2017 (C1795/11)

Mansaram Murmu, a doctoral researcher from Visva-Bharati University, translated it for me in Santiniketan two months later:

            Boge gupi do / A good shepherd -
            Ac’ren bhiḍhiko, boeha, / for his sheep, brothers,
            Ạḍiy’ jotonko; / he cares a lot.
            Sahre jaegate / Towards a good place,
            phạria dak’ jharanatey’ / to a spring of clean water,
            Ạyur idiko. / he leads them.

            Mit’ bhiḍiy’ at’len khan, / When a sheep gets lost -
            Ạuri ńame dhạbic’ doe / until he retrieves it,
            Gupi pańjaye. / he searches it.
            Uni ńamkate / When he has found it,
            Tarenrey’ ladeye / he carries it on his shoulder
            Rạskạ monte. / gladly.

            Ac’ak’ oṛak’te / At his home,
            Seṭerkate do boeha / when he has arrived, brothers,
            Peṛae jarwako, / he invites its kin,
            Onkoe metako / and tells them,
            Rạskạk’pe iń tuluc’, / Rejoice with me,
            Bhidin ńamkede. / I have found the lost sheep.

            Tạruc’e hec’len khan /When the tiger comes
            Ṭheṅga epelkate doe / he brandishes the stick
            Teṅgo darame; / and saves them. .
            Ac’ren bhiḍiko / His sheep,
            Maraṅ mũhim khongey’ / from huge danger
            Aḍ bańcaoko. / he saves them.

            Bhiḍi ńutumte / For the sheep,
            Boge gupi do boeha, / a good shepherd, brothers,
            Jiwiy’ alaea; / sacrifices his life.
            Jisui nonkaket’, / Jesus does like this
            Bańcao akat’bonae, / he has saved you
            Soetan tạrup’ khon. / from the grasp of the devil-tiger.

            Sereń Puthi (2015: 168)

Carrying out fieldwork with Bake’s recordings showed me the advantages of reconnecting cultural heritage communities with historical sound recordings that are insufficiently documented. Apart from the ethical imperative of making recordings from the colonial period accessible in countries of origin again, community engagement often brings valuable information to light that makes it possible to enhance the archival documentation of recordings, which ultimately makes the material more meaningful to everyone.

This blog is derived from my PhD research “Continuity and Change: A Restudy of Arnold Adriaan Bake’s research on the devotional and folk music and dance of Bengal 1925-1956”, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK, Award No. 1664039.

Further Reading:

Rạṛ Puthi: Book of Melodies (Choral Book). 1929. Dumka: The Santal Mission of the Northern Churches.

Sereń Puthi ["Book of Songs"]. 2015. Dumka: Dumka Diocesan Council (NELC).

Bake, Arnold A. 1936-7. ‘Indian Folk-Music’. Proceedings of the Musical Association 63: 65– 77.

Gausdal, Johannes. 1935. Contributions to Santal Hymnology. Bibliotheca Norvegiæ Sacræ 11. Bergen: Lunde.

Hornbostel, Erich Moritz von. 1904-5. ‘Die Probleme Der Vergleichenden Musikwissenschaft’. Zeitschrift Der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft 7: 85-97.

Skrefsrud, Lars Olsen. 1873. A Grammar of the Santhal Language. Calcutta: Calcutta School Book and Vernacular Literature Society.

Ziegler, Susanne. 2006. Die Wachszylinder Des Berliner Phonogramm-Archivs. Veröffentlichungen des Ethnologischen Museums Berlin. Berlin: Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.