CENTER NEWS WINTER 1993 • VOLUME XV, NUMBER 1

American Folklife Center • The Library of Congress tory in the Library of Congress, thus allowing the Library "to provide for Board of TrustPes schools, libraries, and individuals, William L. Kinney, Jr., Chair, recordings of American folk music, South Carolina American poetry read and inter­ John Penn Fix III, Vice Chair, preted by its makers, unpublished Washington string quartets, new American mu­ Nina Archabal, Minnesota sic and other similar materials." In Lindy Boggs, Louisiana; 1942, the Archive of Folk Culture Washington, D.C. issued its first albums of recorded Carolyn I Iecker, Maine folk music. The recordings were eo­ Robert Malir, Jr., Kansas ited by Alan Lomax, then head of the Judith McCulloh, Illinois Archive. Each album consisted of Juris Ubans, Maine five 78-rpm records pressed in black shellac (the famous clear red vinyl The American Folklife Centerwas Ex Officio Members created in 1976 by the U.S. Congress was to come later). The albums pa­ to "preserve and present American James H. Billington, triotically mixed ten-inch and folk1ife" through programs of re­ Librarian of Congress twelve-inch records--shellac was search, documentation, archival Robert McCormick Adams, being rationed in 1942. preservation, reference service, live Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution performance, exhibition, publica­ In describing the project for the tion, and training. The Center incor­ Anne-Imelda Radice, Acting Chairman, Carnegie Corporation, Librarian of porates the Archive of Folk Culture, National Endowment for the Arts Congress Archibald MacLeish ex­ which was established in the Music Vacant, Chairman , pressed the desire to make the mate­ Division of the Library of Congress rials in the Library's collections in 1928, and is now one of the largest National Endowment for the Humanities collections of ethnographic material Alan Jabbour, Director, widely available: "It seems to me from the United States and around American Folklife Center thatwecaneithereducatetheAmeri­ the world. can people as to the value of their cultural heritage and their national FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS civilization, or sit and watch the de­ Administration James Hardin, Editor struction and disintegraton of that Alan Jabbour, Director David A. Taylor, Editorial Advisor culture and that civilization byforces Ray Dockstader, Deputy Director Timothy Lloyd, Editorial Review now so ruinously active in this Timothy Lloyd, Assistant to the Director John Biggs, Library of Congress world." Doris Craig, Administrative Assistant Graphics Unit, Designer A new venture with a similar Hillary Glatt, Program Assistant Folklife Center News publishes ar­ impulse was launched on March 15, Camila Bryce-Laporte, ticles on the programs and activities of 1993, with a symposium and recep­ Program Coordinator the American Folklife Center, as well tion, and the story is told in three Jennifer A. Cutting, as other articles on traditional expres­ articles in this issue of Folklife Center Program Coordinator sive culture. It is available free of charge News . The Endangered Music Project Acquisitions from the Library of Congress, Ameri­ had its inception in 1990whenGrate­ can Folklife Center, Washington, D.C. Joseph C. Hickerson, Head ful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart 20540-8100. Folklife Center News does visited the Library of Congress and Processing not publish announcements from other Stephanie A. Hall, Archivist began to investigate the recordings institutions or reviews of books from in the Archive of Folk Culture. As he Catherine Hiebert Kerst, publishers other than the Library of Congress. Readers who would like to explained, "I knew it was Alexan­ America n Memon; Project dria and the Vatican Library all rolled Programs comment on Center activities or news­ letter articles may address their re­ into one, the Oz of archives-the Peter T. Bartis, Folklife Specialist marks to the editor. ultimate wine cellar. I couldn't wait Mary Hufford, Folklife Specialist to get in there and start sampling the David A. Taylor, Folklife Specialist vintage." Publications Cover: Choc6 Indians from the upper Hart proposed a joint venture James Hardin, Editor part of the Sambu River on the with the Center for a series of re­ Public Events Panama-Colombia border, recorded cordings from the Archive collec­ Thea Caemmerer, Coordinator for the Archive of Folk Culture in tions to be issued on the Rykodisc Reference 1949 by Norwegian filmmaker Per label, certain that there would be a Gerald E. Parsons, Reference Librarian Host. Archive of Folk Culture wide audience for music that once Judith A. Gray, Folklife Specialist would have been regarded as too Administrative Office exotic to appeal to popular taste. Tel: 202 707-6590 "There are enormous stockpiles of Reference Service EDITOR'S NOTES information in our repositories," he told Music Division interviewer Ann Tel: 202 707-5510 The Oz of Archives Federal Cylinder Project McLean. "Alan [Jabbour] is sitting Tel: 202 707-1740 on a gold mine here. And I believe it In 1941,agrantfrom the Carnegie should be for the people, because Corporation made possible the es­ tablishment of a Recording Labora­ continued on page 15 2 Folklife Center News Opening Up the "Oz of Archives'': Mickey Hart and the Endangered Music Project

Mickey Hart (center) at the Library of Congress on March 9, 1991, with Alan Jabbour (left) and Mike Donaldson (right) , head studio engineer for the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. Hart visited the Library to work on the selection and digital mastering of rare field recordings from the rainforests of tropical Central and South America. His interest in traditional music from throughout the world led him to the Archive of Folk Culture, where he conceived the idea for a series of commercial re leases that has become the Endangered Music Project.

By James McKee rainforests of Panama's Darien Prov­ American Highway would herald ince withconflicting feelings of hope an invasion of industrial and trade "The isolation which had preserved and imminent loss. Host had heard interests into the region, setting in their ancient customs was in the pro­ tales of the Embera Choc6 Indians of motion the machinery of irrevocable cess of breaking down. It was the the upper Sambu River Valley, change. beginning of a development which mountain dwellers who had hidden After making his way to the se­ contained the germ of a complete themselves from the outside world cluded mountain valleys of the change in their mode of life." since a smallpox epidemic in the Choc6, Host shot more than ten thou­ Per Host, What the World Showed 1920s wiped out a large part of their sandfeet of film andrecorded a num­ Me population. ber of songs on magnetic tape, in­ His hopes of filming a seques­ cluding a spellbinding fever-curing In 1949 the Norwegianfilmmaker tered forest society were mixed with chant sung by a renowned shaman Per Host journeyed into the fears that the completion of the Pan- named Gajego.

Winter 1993 3 One year later, when Host re­ of ecosystems and the loss of cultural Wayana songs recorded in an office turned to Darien to shoot additional diversity, and strategies for preserv­ of the Dutch Consulate in Paramaribo, footage, his fears were confirmed: ing the oral traditions of culturally during an impromptu session; the Panamanian government had threatened peoples. granted a large concession to a tim­ An evening reception celebrating From the Enrique Pinilla Folk and ber company to extract mahogany the release of The Spirit Cries was Indian Music of Peru Collection from the region, and soldiers had hosted by Librarian of Congress (1963-64), songs of the Ashaninka been dispatched to put down any James H. Billington in the Library's Indians, featuring their striking imi­ possible resistance. Many of his Great Hall. Guests included Grate­ tative polyphony; Choc6 friends had succumbed to tu­ ful Dead members Jerry Garcia, berculosis brought to their village by Mickey Hart, and Bob Weir; Don From the Kenneth Bilby Jamaican Christian missionaries. Gajego's tra­ Rose, president of Rykodisc; Sen. Maroon Collection (1977-78), two ditional medicine, so effective against Patrick Leahy; and congressional possession-trance dances from the spirit-caused afflictions, was no representatives Neil Abercrombie, Kromanti Play, one of the most purely match for the diseases brought by the Anthony Beilenson, Sherrod Brown, African of the Caribbean musical­ foreigners. Death usually came Vic Fazio, Joe Knollenberg, Jerry ritual complexes; within a few weeks. Lewis, Norman Mineta, Jim Moran, Lewis Payne, Robert Underwood, From the Carol and Travis Jenkins er Host probably never and Tom Lantos. Garifuna Collection (Belize, 1981), a thought that his field record­ Coproduced by HartandJabbour, variety of religious and dance mu­ ings, safely stored in the Li­ The Spirit Cries contains music from sics, including the bawdy social com­ P brary of Congress's Archive six collections recorded between 1949 mentary of the punta dance and the of Folk Culture, would be heard by a and 1987. Some of the disc's high­ strikingly beautiful abaimahani and worldwide audience. But for the past lights are: arumahani songs, created while the three years his work, and that of four composer is dreaming or in a trance; other collectors and several dozen From the Per Host Panama/Choc6 and performers, has been the focus of the Indian Collection (1949), an Embera Endangered Music Project, a public­ healing ritual performed by the sha­ From the Kenneth Bilby Aluku Ma­ priva te cooperative venture between man Gajego, who shakes a palm frond roon Collection (French Guiana and the American Folklife Center and 360° over a man to drive feverish spirits Suriname, 1981-84), ritual and social­ Productions, the California-based from his body; dance drumming, popular music, production company of Mickey Hart, and solo game-songs accompanied percussionist for the rock group the From the David Findlay Suriname by the agwado, a three-stringed bow Grateful Dead. The purpose of the Wayana Collection (1952), a pair of unique in the New World. project is to select Archive field re­ cordings of cultural traditions that are threatened or under stress, digi­ tally remaster them using state-of­ the-art sound processing equip­ ment, and release them on compact disc. Proceeds from the project will help support the performers on the disc and their communities, and will help produce future releases. The first title in the Endangered Music Series, The Spirit Cries: Music from the Rainforests of South America and the Caribbean (Rykodisc CD 10250), was released on March 15, 1993, in conjunction with a Folklife Center symposium at the Library entitled "Music and Cultural Con­ servation." Symposium participants included Mickey Hart, Center direc­ tor AlanJabbour,AlukuMaroonmu­ sicians Alei'na Apalobi and Sephira Mai's, filmmaker Diane Kitchen (who Choc6 traditional showed Roots and Thorns, her new healer Gajego film on the Ashaninka of Peru), recording a fever ethnomusicologists Kenneth Bilby, curing chant for Steven Feld, James McKee, and Tho­ Per Host, Darien mas Vennum, and Jason Clay, direc­ rainforest, tor of Cultural Survival Enterprises. Panama, 1947. Discussion focused on such topics as Archive of Folk the relationship between destruction Culture

4 Folklife Center News Anthropologist and ethnomusi­ cologist Kenneth Bilby, whorecorded two collections featured on the disc, contends that cultural assimilation is often a prelude to ecological disaster:

When people are rapidly deprived of the cultural understandings and modes of expression that give meaning to their lives, their ca­ pacity to resist domination and guide the direction of future change is gravely impaired. The social and cultural fragmentation that results opens the way for opportunistic commercial exploi­ tation from outside, thus hasten­ ing ecological destruction.

While the Grateful Dead has pro­ moted environmental causes through benefit concerts and activist spokesmanship over the past two­ and-a-half decades, drummerMickey Hart has quietly developed his own Wayana Indians photographed on a visit to the Dutch Consulate, Paramaribo, brandof musical conservation. Hart's Suriname, 1952. Photo by David Findlay CD series The World- which com­ prises more than seventeen releases hat is endangered practitioners of cultural traditions ranging from collaborations with music? To most such as music and dance. Airto Moreira and Phillip Glass to people, the term en­ Each of the groups featured on the soundtrack for Apocalypse Now­ W dangered brings to The Spirit Cries has been threatened provides a popular forum for musi­ mind images of tamarins, tree sloths, in recent decades. The Embera and cal traditions that may be considered or undiscovered miracle plants in Wounan Choc6-who have fared endangered. For example, the songs danger of perishing as 32 million acres better than most Indian groups be­ of the Sudanese oud master Hamza of rainforest disappear worldwide cause of Panama's efforts to establish El-Din, heard on the album Eclipse each year. In Central and South semi-autonomous geopolitical units and the Nubian music featured on America, however, uncontrolled de­ (comarcas)-are threatened by rapid Music of Upper and Lower Egypt docu­ forestation has also had devastating deforestation to clear land for cattle ment the cultural disruption that fol­ effects upon cultural groups whose ranches. The Ashaninka have been lowed the completion of the Aswan lives are traditionally tied to the forced from their homelands as a High Dam. The Gyuto monks of rainforest. In the past several decades, result of Peru's campaign to Fesettle Nepal, heard on the album Freedom tropical forest cultures of the Ameri­ Andean peoples in the eastern for­ Chants from the Roof of the World, were cas have seen game resources de­ ests, initiatives for industrialized ag­ forced to flee Tibet after many of pleted, lost vast tracts of land to ex­ riculture, and conflicts with the Shin­ their brothers were killed or jailed by panding agriculture, and witnessed ing Pathand the Tupac Amaru Revo­ the communist Chinese. the demise of hundreds of plant spe­ lutionary Movement. The Jamaican Hart's twin commitments to mu­ cies used in healing and ritual. To Maroons of Moore Town have seen sical and human rights and his near­ many of these peoples, losing the the decline of the Kromanti Play be­ legendary pursuit of audio perfec­ forest is synonomous with losing a cause of missionary proselytization, tion find their most rarified expres­ primary source of spiritual power. and rapid development of Jamaica's sion in Voices of the Rainforest, an as-· To view tropical forest cultures as North Coast threatens the remaining tounding soundscape of music and threatened only in an environmental forest in the Blue Mountain region. daily life among the Kaluli people of sense is to ignore the array of twenti­ Because of the stagnation in local the Bosavi Rainforest, Papua New eth-century social, economic, and economies, the Garffuna have in­ Guinea. The Kaluli, who in the last political forces that have conspired creasingly abandoned their tradi­ twenty years have experienced pro­ against them as well. Government tional beachside settlements to seek found social changes as a result of oil colonization programs, tourism, drug employment in the cities of Belize, exploration, intensive logging, and trafficking, guerrilla warfare, West­ Honduras, and the United States; an ever-expanding network of roads, ern political structures and educa­ those who remain are isolated from have also experienced the disastrous tional systems, missionary initia­ their kin abroad. The imposition of effects of these developments upon tives, and mass media have hastened French-style local governments has their musical and ritual life. Hart ar­ the decline of indigenous languages, marginalized the Aluku Maroons and ranged a six-week trip to Bosavi for the loss of social and political au­ Wayana communities of French Steven Feld, the Western Hemi­ tonomy, and the dwindling of skilled Guiana. sphere's foremost authority on Kaluli

Winter 1993 5 music. Feld recorded music, bird work. Iwould listen to them over making suggestions and revisions. calls, and insect noises, exploring and over ... in different environ­ It was also my job to look for photo­ different height zones of the forest ments, on the beach, in the house, graphs. At the Smithsonian's Hu­ canopy. Hart then spent more than in the car .. . . I would listen in the man Studies Film Archives, I dis­ four months in the studio mixing the morning, the afternoon, and the covered documentation of the component tracks to re-create the evening, and the selection re­ Ashaninka of Peru, collected by film­ spatialized "up-over-lifting-sound" vealed itself to me. maker Diane Kitchen for her docu­ aesthetic central to Kaluli musical mentary of Ashaninka life, Before We life. Hart made his final selection in Janu­ Knew Nothing. Thumbing through ary 1991 while on the Hawaiian is­ the file, I found more than twenty art's collaboration with lands, in the Kona region. Known by four-by-five black-and-white the Library of Congress the project team as the "Kona Edit," Ashaninka portraits, daily scenes, began in 1989, when he these thirty-seven pieces from six and a shot of canoeists set in stark H madea visittotheAmeri­ collections were the foundation of relief against the shimmering sur­ can Folklife Center looking for pho­ The Spirit Cries. face of the Tambo River and dwarfed tographs to illustrate Planet Drum. Although most of the original re­ by the intricate chiaroscuro of the Over the course of several meetings, cordings were made on then state­ rainforest rising behind them. I im­ he and Jabbour began planning a of-the-art equipment, their sound mediately knew that this was our disc featuring collections from the quality does not match today's au­ cover photograph. Kitchen, a pro­ Archive. As Hart said, "I knew that dio standards. Hart's next step was fessor of film at the University of you were holding these tapes, and to digitize, remix, and remaster the Wisconsin-Milwaukee, readily it's always been my dream to open Kona Edit. Engineer Mike Donald­ agreed to let us use the photograph up these vaults, these archives and son from the Library's Recording and a portrait of two men playing bring them into the private sector .. . . Laboratory transferred the record­ panpipes. we had a couple of meetings and we ings from Library preservation tapes formed this alliance, and now it's to digital audio tape (DAT), super­ or many listeners the eclec­ coming to fruition." vised by Hart and Jabbour during ticism of The Spirit Cries will The Spirit Cries took time and Hart's March 1991 visit to the Li­ shatter monolithic notions painstaking effort to prepare for re­ brary. The DAT master was then F of what rainforest music lease. During the summer of 1990, sentto Hart's studio in northern Cali­ should sound like. African-influ­ prompted by Mickey Hart's initial fornia, where Hart and his longtime enced drumming, call-and-response inquiry, the American Folklife Cen­ engineers Tom Flye and Jeff Sterling singing,andchordophone traditions ter secured Kenneth Bilby as a con­ began the restoration process. are interspersed with Amerindian­ sultant to identify collections in the Flye's goal was to create "a new influenced monophonic chants, two­ Archive with rainforest-related re­ environment for each piece to live partpolyphony, and Western-influ­ cordings from the tropical Ameri­ in," and each piece presented unique enced popular music. The powerful cas. He identified eight Archive col­ problems requiring a unique resto­ syncretism of Garifuna music, the lections with rainforest recordings ration strategy. All the recordings product of a now-coastal group of comprising more than ninety hours were ''bathed" with Sonic Solutions, African slave descendants who ab­ of music. a computerized noise-reduction sys­ sorbed Amerindian and Hispanic Next, I joined the project to make tem that removes tape hiss, micro­ elements as they made the transi­ reference copies of the /1 studycollec­ phone bumps, and other distur­ tion from an island/rainforest cul­ tion" and to develop a narrowed­ bances. Some of the tracks were ture to a mainland beach culture, down selection to facilitate intensive treated with electronic reverberation; perhaps best illustrates the adapt­ listening. I selected eight hours of on others, an ambient effect was cre­ ability, tenacity, and dynamism that music strong enough to warrant fur­ ated by re-recording the music as it characterizes these rainforest cul­ ther consideration. While keeping played through a pair of large loud­ tures as a whole. As Jabbour ob­ in mind the need to provide a repre­ speakers positioned in a meadow served: sentative picture of each collection, behind Hart'sstudio. Hartcompares my goal was to assess each the restoration work to that done on What we see here is rainforest collection's strong points and choose Old Masters, and stresses that his communities that have encoun­ aim was to allow the luster of the the selections which best represented tered African-American imports, those strengths. My selection crite­ original to shine through: "It's sort runaway slaves and freedmen ria were different for each collection. of like the Sistine Chapel-you can who found their own life in the There was so much good material only go so far before you hit the rainforest; therefore, you find in that much of it was necessarily left paint. We [drew] back before we took the rainforest not solitude and on the original reels. away the original intent of the mu­ sequester but creative inter­ sic." Copies of the eight hours of audi­ change, and this CD captures the tion tapes were given to Mickey Hart, Meanwhile, Ken Bilby and I were energy and magic of that inter­ who made the second cut: busy writing the liner notes. The fax change. machines were rarely silent as drafts My selection process was mostly bounced back and forth between the earplay . ... I didn't want it to be East and West Coasts with Jabbour, Notwithstanding the wide range of anethnography specifically of the Hart, editor Caryl Ohrbach, and pro­ musical styles and the broad geo­ area, I wanted it to be a popular duction manager Howard Cohen graphical, cultural, and historical dif-

6 Folklife Center News ferences among the groups, The Spirit There are two ways of looking at necessarily the prime ingredient Cries displays a thematic coherence. music. There's a technical way, for this kind of music. One common thread is the transfor­ which has nothing to do with the mational function of the music, spiritual, and then there's a spiri­ We are now distributing copies which accompanies a variety of life­ tual way, which has nothing to of The Spirit Cries among the com­ cycle activities such as birth, initia­ do with technique. The spiritual munities in which they were re­ tion, and death, as well as healing way you tune yourself into this corded. Cassettes and CDs were and divination, often in combina­ music when you are making it given to Aluku musicians Sephiro tion with rainforest plants and asso­ has nothing to do with technique, Mai:s and Alei:na Apalobi on their ciated elemental spirits. For Hart, it has to do with the transforma­ return to French Guiana, where they these liminal experiences and the tional moment. It has to do with will give them to friends and fellow unity of inspiration and action im­ creation, not re-creation. These musicians. Radio airplay among the bue the music with an elusive qual­ are individual moments ... never Aluku is also assured: one CD.copy ity that takes priority over the me­ to be repeated. Of course, tech­ of The Spirit Cries has found its way chanics of performance: nique doesn't hurt, but it's not to TRM, a low-wattage radio/TV station located on the Lawa river in the heart of Aluku territory. In Ja­ maica, Kenneth Bilby has delivered copies to the Maroon musicians of Moore Town and to Jamaican radio stations. We are now making plans to send copies of The Spirit Cries to Belize, Panama, Peru, andSuriname; and Mickey Hart and Folklife Cen­ ter staff are already discussing the next release in the series. The Endangered Music Project deals in amplification (by using the same technologies that sometimes threaten these musics to make them more widely accessible), reflexivity (by providing cultural groups with the means .to examine their distant and recent pasts), and legitimization (by giving oral traditions the status in their communities that flows from recognition by national institutions and contemporary media). By re­ storing and repatriating these mu­ sics, and by rewarding the perform­ ers for their efforts, the Endangered Music Project seeks to provide tradi­ tional peoples of the world, threat­ ened by ecological and cultural com­ promise, with a newly restored glimpse of their collective pasts to carry into the next century.

References

Hart, Mickey, and Alan Jabbour. In­ terview with Ann McClean. Wash­ ington, D.C., November 23, 1991.

Host, Per. What the World Showed Me: My Adventures from Arctic to Jungle. Rep. Vic Fazio speaking about the work of the Folklife Center atthe March 15 reception Translated by Katherine John. New in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress: "It's really hard to imagine yourself in the York: Rand McNally, 1955. canopy of the rainforest when you're under this sort of canopy, but I think the Folklife Center really does for all of us what our imagination can't always do, and that is to bring James McKee is an ethnomusicologist together the past and the present that is constantly evolving in a way that allows us who assisted in the production of The to appreciate our heritage even more .. .And this effort today is, I think, typical of the Spirit Cries for the American Folklife work [Alan Jabbour and the people who work with him at the Folklife Center] do, the Center's Endangered Music Project. bringing together of contemporary music and musicians to appreciate what is all too rapidly vanishing, a part of our common history." Photo by Yusef El-Amin

Winter 1993 7 ''The Spirit Cries: Music from the Rainforests of South America & the Caribbean'' •

Aluku performers Ale"ina Apalobi and Sephiro Ma"is and anthropologist Ken Bilby at the March 15 symposium "M usic and Cultural Conservation." Photo by Yusef El-Amin

By Kenneth Bilby and James McKee creoles influenced by European and the rainforest reflects the creative African languages. What links them friction of cultural encounters among Thousands of miles separate the is that their ways of life bind them to Africans, Europeans, and the indig­ peoples whose voices and instru­ their forest environment in one of enous peoples of the Americas. In ments you will hear on the new re­ the Western Hemisphere's remain­ the rainforests, as in New York, Ha­ cording The Spirit Cries: Music from ing tropical rainforests. vana, and Rio de Janeiro, the vision the Rainforests of South America & the Music is one of the keenest cul­ of three continents has come together Caribbean . Some are South Ameri­ tural tools that these people possess in a new music. can Indians whose ancestors arrived for the spiritual encounter with their Among all these people, the natu­ in the Americas thousands of years gods, their neighbors, and the ral environment remains insepara­ ago; others are African-Americans rainforest that surrounds them. It bly linked to belief systems and spiri­ whose forbears were brought as serves as a medium of spiritual com­ tual values. Whether derived from slaves from Africa but a few centu­ munication, while at the same time Native American or African sources, ries ago. Some speak Native Ameri­ binding communities together. Like or a hybrid of various traditions, can languages, while others speak other items of culture, this music of much of the music on this record is

8 Folklife Center News integrally connected to settings lived and worked in their own vil­ illustrate the evolution of the where healing, spiritual forces, and lages, seasonal migration to Garifuna from an island rainforest practical knowledge of the forest Tegucigalpa and other inland cities culture to a mainland beach culture converge. in search of wage labor has become and exemplify the adaptability that increasingly necessary for many to has enabled them to maintain a uni­ The Garifuna of Belize survive. fied cultural front in the face of dis­ The eclectic language of the placement and migration. The story of the Garifuna, the Garifuna is a mixture of Carib and Drums are the most important Black Caribs of the Central Ameri­ Arawak, heavily influenced by instruments in Garifuna dance and can Coast, begins in 1635, whenSpan­ French, Spanish, and English. Their ritual. The most common is a cylin­ ish slave ships bound for Barbados music forges African, Native Ameri­ drical, snared drum made from local sank near the island of Bequia, in the can, and European elements into a hardwoods and played with the Lesser Antilles. Many African slaves wide variety of styles unified by com­ hands. Secular dance songs require escaped to nearby St. Vincent, where mon themes such as death, two drummers. The support drum­ they intermarried with the aborigi­ unrequited love, longing, travel, and mer provides a steady rhythmic pat­ nal Caribs. Their descendants thrived alienation. Echoes of Africa by way tern and the lead drummer plays as a rainforest culture until 1797, of the Caribbean are heard in elaborate patterns on top of this when the British Navy deported Garffuna drumming; song types rhythmic palette. Onritual occasions them to islands in the Bay of Hondu­ such as abaimahani and arumahana three drummers are employed. ras. From the Bay Islands the Black point to Native American roots; Caribs made their way to the main­ berusu songs, punta dances, and The Indians of Choc6 land, where they established beach Catholic hymns show the Hispanic settlements. Today about seventy­ influence of the Central American The lowland rainforests of the thousand Garifuna live in fifty coast­ mainland; and holiday masquerades Choc6, a region of coastal Colombia line communities in Belize and Hon­ have antecedents in English and southern Panama, receive al­ duras. While in the past the Garifuna mumming. These diverse influences most three hundred inches of rain-

THE SPIRIT CRIES: Endangered Music of South America and the Caribbean

Surinam and French Guiana: The Aluku and Wayana

Peru: Shipibo Peru: Ashaninka ---..:i...... ( Where the people on the recording live

Winter 1993 9 fall per year, making it one of the jungles of the Amazon Basin, the soon followed by foreign and do­ wettest places in the world. The Ucayali River of eastern Peru mestic oil and timber interests. Choc6 is home to over eight thou­ traverses La Selva, one of the most Both groups use rainforest plants sand species of plants, many of them formidable tropical rainforests in for dyes, body paints, and medi­ unique to the area. The Noanama, the Western Hemisphere. With vir­ cines, and both induce visions with the largest Native American group tually no dry season, these vast low­ the aid of psychotropic plants allied in the region, grow cassava, plan­ lands teem with plant and animal with spirit counterparts. The tains, sugar cane, and a variety of life. After heavy rainstorms the for­ Ashaninka, for example, believe tropical fruits. The women raise do­ est floor is flooded, inhibiting large­ that a shaman who takes a certain mestic animals while the men, re­ scale agriculture and ground travel. drug becomes spiritually linked with nowned as canoeists, travel great The Ucayali serves as the only prac­ its source, the ayahuasca plant. In an distances by river to fish and to clear tical transportation for many of the altered state of consciousness, the new land for planting. Noanama 250,000 Native Americans who live shaman performs ritual songs that music includes agricultural ceremo­ here. unite everyday life with the divine nies, healing rituals, and creation The Shipibo have a history of realm of the gods. myths. Instruments include canoe­ contact with the Incas and estab­ shaped struck slit-logs, single and lished ambivalent relationships with The Aluku and the W ayana double-membraned drums, pan­ Spanish missionaries beginning pipes, end-blown and side-blown around 1532. The Ashaninka (also Virtually all ofFrench Guiana and flutes, seashell trumpets, bull­ known in Spanish as the Campa), Surinameis blanketed by rain forest. roarers, and whistling tops. whose origins lie in the Orinoco re­ Dispersed in little villages on some gion, rebuffed Franciscan attempts of the larger interior rivers live a The Shipibo and the Ashaninka to convert them as early as 1635. number of small indigenous popu­ Outsiders arrived to the region in lations. One such waterway, the In its nine-hundred-mile course great numbers during the rubber Law a River, forms part of the border from the Andes highlands to the boom of the early 1920s; they were between French Guiana and

Garffuna drummer performs for a spirit possession ritual, Dangriga, Belize, 1981. Photo by Carol Jenkins

10 Folklife Center News Suriname. More than two centuries their Wayana neighbors. They also by the Kromanti drums, the ago, two very different peoples, the possess a rare African-derived in­ Kromanti specialist, or fete-man Wayana and the Aluku, came to­ strument called agwado, a gourd ("fight-man"), vanishes into the gether on this frontier and formed through which three small musical night, guided by the possessing an almost symbiotic relationship. bows are inserted. The bow strings spirit. For hours he collects the wild The Wayana are a Native Ameri­ are plucked and the gourd resonator plants the spirits show him. Each can people. The Aluku (also known tapped to accompany solo songs. plant has its own spirit, its own as the Boni) are Maroon descendants Although the rain forest sur­ source of healing power. The fete­ of African slaves who escaped from rounding the Wayana and Aluku man works with other spirits of the coastal Surinamese plantations dur­ villages remains virtally untouched, forest as well-spirits manifested in ing the eighteenth century. Like the the two communities have been ex­ forms such as crayfish, vultures, and Jamaican Maroons, they successfully posed to intense economic and cul­ yellow snakes. When he returns, he adapted to the interior rainforest, tural pressures since 1969, when uses the powers of all these spirits to forming a new African-American much of their territory was incorpo­ effect the miraculous cures and spiri­ society even as they fought a guer­ rated fully into the French state. Since tual healing for which Maroons are rilla war against the Dutch colony. then, village life has been radically known throughout the island. In 1776-77, under pressure from transformed by large-scale migra­ In recent years the Maroons have Dutch colonial troops, the Aluku tion, French schools, municipal poli­ been visited by missionaries from moved across the borderinto French tics, welfare payments, European evangelical sects, many of whose Guiana, where they have remained mail-order catalogs, and individual leaders try to stamp out African­ ever since. land ownership. Once self-sufficient derived religious practices. Though During this turbulent period, the societies well-adapted to the rain the Kromanti rites are still practiced Aluku and the Wayana joined in an forest, the Aluku and Wayana are in private, trained Kromanti special­ alliance sealed with sacred oaths. now ethnic enclaves. Whether their ists are diminishing, and only a hand­ Today Aluku and Wayana garden­ unique knowledge, wisdom, and ful of exemplary Kromanti drum­ ers sometimes make their camps and artistic skills will survive the next mers remains. The Kromanti musi­ gardens alongside one another, and two decades is far from certain. cal tradition, one of the most African children from adjoining camps may to have survived in the Western play together and grow up speaking The Jamaican Maroons World, allows Maroons to tap the both languages. Members of the two powers of those early ancestors who groups often visit one another's vil­ Most Caribbean islands were first unlocked the secrets of the natu­ lages and sometimes participate in once covered by rainforests. Today ral environment. Just as north coast each other's ceremonies. In fact, the only a fraction of the forest canopy development now threatens the Aluku and Wayana today agree that remains, and some countries, such rainforest surrounding the Maroon they share a common territory. In as Haiti, have been entirely denuded. settlements, so the missionaries and spite of striking cultural differences, Jamaica has been more fortunate. proselytizers threaten to silence the they have managed to live in peace­ Those few visitors who climb the Kromanti drums. ful coexistence, maintaining mutual back roads into the eastern hills of respect toward each other's way of the island find themselves in an­ Kenneth M. Bilby is an anthropologist life. other world. Here in the Blue Moun­ on the staff of the Center for Folklife Wayanamusicincludesarichva­ tains and the John Crow Mountains Programs and Cultural Studies at the riety of styles connected with social there is well over one hundredsquare Smithsonian Institution. He has stud­ dances, initiation rites, funeral cer­ miles of undisturbed rainforest. ied the music of the Jamaican Maroons emonies, shamanistic healing, and Within this region lies Moore Town, since 1977 and the music of the Aluku other functions. Instruments include the main village of the Windward since 1983 . a rasp made from a turtle shell, vari­ Maroons, descendants of African ous transverse flutes made from slaves who escaped from coastal James McKee is an ethnomusicologist deer-bone and bamboo, a large end­ plantations during the seventeenth who assisted in the production of The blown bamboo trumpet, and seed­ and eighteenth centuries and waged Spirit Cries for the American Folklife pod rattles tied around the ankles a guerrilla war against British colo­ Center's Endangered Music Project. for dancing. Songs are often per­ nists for nearly a century. Maroon formed unaccompanied as well. The hunters still range over the moun­ Aluku musical tradition is one of the tain wilderness in search of the wild most African to have survived in the pig, and Maroon herbalists still seek Americas. Music serves many pur­ out rare medicinal plants far from poses, from funeral and mourning human habitation. rites and healing ceremonies to so­ The early Maroons were faced cial dances and events revolving with the forbidding task of surviv­ around cooperative labor. Most ing in the Jamaican rainforest. As Aluku styles use three drums-the much as anything else, Maroon el­ lead drum, supporting drum, and ders today agree, it was the spiritual pulse-keeper. Some styles also em­ tradition of the Kromanti Dance that ploy a long wooden board beaten by ensured the ancestors' survival. In several players wielding pairs of the later hours of the dance, after an sticks andankle rattles acquired from ancestor has been called into his head

Winter 1993 11 The Politics of Atnplification: Notes on ''Endangered Music'' and Musical Equity

By Stephen Feld

Ten years ago my politely obscure academic life as a researcher into the music and culture of the Papua New Guinea rainforests was interrupted by a phone call. The voice on the other end turned out to be Mickey Hart. After he came over to talk a bout New Guinea drums, we listened to a soundscape tape I had just made of rainforest birds and the music they inspire in a New Guinea commu­ nity. When the half hour encom­ passing the sounds of a whole day in Bosa vi was over, Mickey looked over at me and said, "that's incredible . . . and it's much too important to be kept an academic secret." And then, hardly missing a beat, he suggested playing it during intermission at a Grateful Dead performance! I gulped. "You want to play this at a Grateful Dead show?" Mickey smiled. "Of course! Don't you un­ derstand? Ifl'm hungry to hear this, thousands of others are too!" I was stunned by the passion and directness of this statement. Mickey seemed impatient, almost insulted that music like this wasn't readily available for everyone to hear. Hardly the kind of attitude I was used to among my academic col­ leagues, whose vision was over­ whelmingly less populist. Even though many in myprofession, those of anthropology, ethnomusicology, and folklore have spent years living with other people and, insome cases, deeply and sincerely absorbing their systems of knowledge, academics Aluku performers AleYna Apalobi and Sephiro Ma'ls singing in the Great Hall of do not typically imagine themselves the Library of Congress, March 15. Photo by Yusef El-Amin as activists in the process of making other worlds more known and ap­ instance, telling a class of twenty wondered, was Mickey putting me preciated-except within the tiny about the destructive effects of log­ on? Or could it really be true that a world of their own, the world of the ging and mining on rainforest envi­ world of people, like those who love academy. ronment and culture, and Mickey's rock and roll music, would also have This made me think a lot about work, amplifying music live and on the desire to listen to a Papua New the difference between my work, for record for millions of people. And I Guinea musical world? 12 Folklife Center News will come back to that ques­ The idea of "endangered music," recorded. Lack of circulation, like tion and the stories that an­ then, is a way of talking back to a lack of royalties, even came to be swer it in a minute, but I world that has become musically di­ linked to claims for musical authen­ I want to first consider "en­ minished and a world that, despite ticity. In other words, the less com­ dangered music"-how it is both a rapid advances in the spread of tech­ mercial the product and its distribu­ term of alarm and a term of celebra­ nology, is actually less bearable. Rais­ tion, the more "pure" the music was tion; and how the idea is linked to an ing the cry of"endangered music" is thought to be. So marginality in the agenda that uses recording technol­ a way of urging the amplification of marketplace was sometimes taken ogy to promote musical empower­ voices to actively counter the thin­ to validate "real," "authentic," ment. ning out or the silencing of musical "ethno" music. This was often a re­ The idea of "endangered music" diversity. sult of academic hostility to involve­ immediately calls to mind the more The "endangered music" idea is ment with popular commercial en­ familiar idea that is a mainstay of also a way of talking back to those in terprise. ecology, the idea of"endangered spe­ the environmental movement who It is an unfortunate irony, but cies." In both cases the terms remind imagine that the only thing at stake many attempts to respect musical us that loss of diversity is a form of in ecological destruction is cute and diversity also, unwittingly, repro­ impoverishment, whetherin the bio­ cuddly animals and the plants that duced musical colonialism bybring­ logical or cultural sphere. More im­ Western pharmacy needs to cure ing us recordings whose exotic con­ portantly, these kinds of loss and cancer. Hearing "endangered mu­ tent was matched by their muffled impoverishment are linked together, sic" dramatically reminds us that grooves. That is why the alternative as every instance of the thinning out the struggle for these places is about that Mickey has insisted on is so of biological diversity is connected much more-for societies under important-thatthe best equipment, to the thinning out of cultural, lin­ threat, for the survival of people engineers,budgets, and distribution guistic, andartistic diversity. So, link­ whose knowledge and management networks can and should be shared ing the struggles for environments of the local environment is central to beyond the world of Western popu­ withthe futures of the peoples whose expanding global knowledge, in­ lar and elite arts. This kind of activist lives are tied to them is essential to cluding medicinal resources. stance on musical empowerment promoting the integrity of ecology imagines that the people recorded and human rights. hile "endangered mu­ and listeners everywhere can be But there is some risk in voicing sic" may be a new la­ beneficiaries of a different kind of these concerns with the word endan­ bel, the urgency to rec­ musical equity. gered. Equating music and culture W ognize and foster mu­ That is where Mickey's concern with animal and plant species might sical empowerment is neither new and mine came back together. Once lead some to believe that this is about nor unique to the Library of Con­ his Rykodisc series The World was in human zoos, reservations, and con­ gress Endangered Music Project. place, Mickey offered to produce a servation parks, or about a desire to Some have forcefully voiced these new soundscape recording for me. freeze time, to deny change and his­ concerns before, perhaps none more Our goal was to dramatically am­ tory. Those ideas have to be rejected. strongly than Alan Lomax, whose plify the musical ecology of the Indigenous peoples, and indeed all term "cultural equity" and center Bosavi rainforest in Papua New dominated peoples, need control for its promotion through the "glo­ Guinea and its significance to the over the terminology and imagery bal jukebox" of songs he and others Kaluli people, whose music is di­ of how their interests and identities have collected has been an inspira­ rectly inspired by the sounds of sur­ are represented. For some, a term tion to many who have followed rounding birds, crickets, and water­ like "endangered music" may feel along this path. falls. Mickey's crew customized the inappropriate, and outsiders must But there are some new alliances best field recording package avail­ be sensitive to that response. now being created to promote this able, I went off and made new re­ Yet, for those of us working from musical and cultural equity. And cordings, and thenspentfour months another position, those of us who one key development involves editing with great engineering help are trying to create an alliance be­ people with the access and ability to and great equipment. Then the re­ tween activists for ecological and share the best in musical technology cording was launched with tremen­ cultural survival, "endangered mu­ and distribution networks. To un­ dous support from Rainforest Ac­ sic" is a very useful term. When en­ derstand the change they are bring­ tion Network and Rykodisc, who vironmentalists report that we lose ing about, we must remember that continue to enthusiastically promote thousands of species of plants and for many years indigenous peoples it and explore new audiences. Com­ animals every year, we should be and dominated minorities often took ing from the nickel-and-dime, do-it­ asking, in parallel, how many cul­ a second-class ride on cheap record­ yourself, "sorry, there's no budget tures and languages are we losing? ing equipment. The intentions to for that" world of academia, I have And with them, how many myths honor the music might have been been overwhelmed by all this. The and stories? How many songs and there, but much so-called "noncom­ idea that there are people who really instruments? How many human ar­ mercial" recording involved mini­ care about making distant musics tistic inventions? It is the existence malaudio quality, minimal budgets, available in this kind of high-qual­ of questions and issues like these and lack of promotion and circula­ ity, high-profile way opens a new that make the phrase "endangered tion. Not to mention few or no royal­ page in the story of musical activ­ music" an important one in an activ­ ties to return to the musicians or ism. And with it potential for new ist vocabulary. community where the music was cultural dialogues, like this one:

Winter 1993 13 n one of the sequences of people living in far away lands, listeners weep, Ulahi is wondering Voices ofthe Rainforest you listening to me, I haven't heard if, when we hear her voice, we might can hear Ulahi, the disc's yourland names, so whoare you? feel both her sense of recognition 0 featured composer, sing­ That's what I'm saying; you, and her sense of loss. ing songs with the water flow of a Steve, having come here before, This connection across huge cul­ local creek. After singing the first of you can say, "my name is Steve, tural divides has touched many lis­ the new songs she had composed America man," but all the others, teners in America and Australia. It since my return, Ulahi spontane­ what are your names? "Many touched Kaluli people, too. For ex­ ously launched into a tag melody. people will hear your Bosavi ample, after listening to the record­ Her words were: songs," you said like that to me ing in its entirety just a few months before, but thinking about it, sing­ ago,Ayasilosaid tome, "Maybe your wo:-wo: ni America kalu-o-e ing by myselfl'm thinking, "What people can hear us now, maybe they gi wi oba-e are your names?" that's what I will understand about our place." ni Australia gayo-e was thinking. I don't really know And Kaluli people are even more gi wi oba-e your land names, just America, excited about the commercial suc­ ni America kalu-o-e Australia, so I'm sadly singing cess this recording has had, because gi wi oba-e like that so that they can hear it. the Bosavi Peoples Fund, a trust to ni Australia gayo-e distribute its royalties, has been able ni America kalu-o-e To understand this you must to fund needed projects in this iso­ a-ye wo:-wo: know that Kaluli songs are maps of lated community that is currently local lands. These songs take their spinning in the chaos of local oil and (calling) my America men listeners on journeys, and these jour­ gold development and logging. what are your names? neys are memorial ones, tracing the my Australia women paths of spirit birds by citing all of ut, at the risk of sounding who can you be? the forest places they might frequent. ungracious, I must voice my America men Because I told Ulahi that many new concern that projects like who are you? people would hear her songs, she Bthese don't become a kind my Australia women wanted to reach out to them. And of musical tokenism. Here is what I my America men the Kaluli way to connect with oth­ mean: there are around 750 lan­ calling out "wo:-wo:" ers near or far is by singing their guages spoken in New Guinea, and lands, citing the placenames that just as many different artistic uni­ Ulahi repeated these phrases sev­ make up the journeys we call biogra­ verses there. And there is just one eral times; then, as my tape recorder phy. So Ulahi's little improvisation commercially available CD, of a kept running, she switched to speak­ emerged at a moment when she Papua New Guinea music and envi­ ing voice, and said: thought about a world of people ronment. And that one might-just who would hear her, a world she'd possibly, maybe, hopefully-be Well, myself, thinking about it, never personally encounter. Her available at your local record shop. speaking sadly, I won' t see your words imagine our humanity and But let's remember, it's only one re­ place but you see mine, I don't presence, as well as our strangeness, cording. How long until we have the know your names, so I'm won­ our absence. Like all Kaluli singers next? And the next? And how long dering, I'm thinking like that, you whose best songs might make their until all of these musics, these

,...... I' ! .. j .i-. Alan Jabbour and Mickey Hart at the March 15 symposium "Music and Cultural Conservation." At an earlier interview with Ann Mclean of the Library's Music Division, Hart spoke of his interest in world music:

"There is no such thing as isolated music anymore, ... unless you're behind monastery walls for six hundred years where you get a music that is pure in that respect. [But] we 're not really looking for music that is pure, because this music has a need in the community. It has a real function. This is not art music. This music goes through every part of life. This music accompanies every ceremony, every rite. It's very important music, and this music has been able to live on and still continues." Photo by Yusef El-Amin

14 Folklife Center News At a reception in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, March 15, Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, and Mickey Hart, along with Senator and Mrs. Patrick Leahy. The Vermont senator acknowledges being a fan of the group for years. Photo by Yusef El-Amin

peoples, their artistic achievements, Department when a copy of the tape EDITOR'S NOTES (from page 2) their survival struggles are a routine was placed in every high school in part of our cultural consciousness? the country. That is why I want to that's what it's all about, that's what That's why Mickey's admonition of end by emphasizing how important the Library of Congress was made ten years ago keeps ringing in my it is that projects like this do not just for, dissemination of information .... head: "this music is too important to impact our airways, record stores, The time is right for it, you under­ be kept an academic secret." And all and home stereos; do not justend up stand; this couldn't have happened the more so when the music is tied to enlightening and gratifying us. The before now. It's not like. anybody promoting more equitable futures. recordings, the royalties, the activ­ was holding out. I mean, there was Like all aspects of life and envi­ ism, the enthusiasm-allof this must not a market, really, for this the last ronment, music is part of a precari­ get back into the communities where few years. Now, we're able to take ous ecology. This precarious ecol­ it came from. This is where it can these valuable recordings, and ogy is why some music is "endan­ have the kind of impact on live mu­ spruce them up and release them in gered," and why we are here, par­ sic-making, on cultural and envi­ CD. The time is right now, the people ticipating in this rite of amplifica­ ronmental integrity that will fully want to hear it, and it's time [for this tion. It is a rite that celebrates the justify the mission of these projects. music] to be released." creators and the music that can be heard on The Spirit Cries. It is also a Steven Feld is director of the Center for The Spirit Cries: Music from the rite to remember that while we live Folklore and Ethnomusicology and pro­ Rainforests of South America & the ·in a world of tremendous cultural fessor of anthropology and music at the Caribbean (Rydodisc CD 10250) is loss, musical diversity can still be University of Texas at Austin. available from the Library of Con­ actively amplified. And one forceful gress Sales Shop and at music stores contribution to doing that is to cre­ nationwide. ate new links between the academic, public, and commercial sectors in order to extend to indigenous and dominated peoples the networks of FOLKLINE music recording, distribution, and broadcast that have excluded them For timely information on the field of folklore and folklife, including for far too long. This is what the training and professional opportunities and news items of national collaboration of the Library of Con­ interest, a taped announcement is available around the clock, except gress, Mickey's 360° Productions, during the hours of 9 A.M. until noon (eastern time) each Monday, and Rykodisc signifies to me. when it is updated. Folkline is a joint project of the American Folklife I recently experienced the excite­ Center and the American Folklore Society. Dial: ment that Voices ofthe Rainforest gen­ erated whenI played it back in Bosa vi 202 707-2000 communities, and the excitement in the Papua New Guinea Education

Winter 1993 15 Smithsonian ethnomusicologist Thomas Vennum, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, Rykodisc president Don Rose, and Center director Alan Jabbour at the Library of Congress, March 15, for a symposium and a reception in celebration of the Rykodisc release The Spirit Cries: Music from the Rainforests ofSouth America & the Caribbean, a selection from the Archive of Folk Culture. Photo by Yusef El -Amin

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