Don Niles
Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, Boroko, Papua New Guinea

 
In 1979, I began work at the Music Department of the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies (IPNGS). My main job at that time was to organise the growing collection of music recordings there. Having just completed a thesis that considered recordings from one part of PNG made over a seventy-year period, I was a bit disappointed to discover that the IPNGS collection consisted almost entirely of new recordings, lacking any historical depth whatsoever. Since that time, we have devoted much energy to researching the whereabouts of early PNG recordings, located in archives throughout the world, and arranging their repatriation.

One collection, well-known because of a monograph concerning part of it, was made by Rudolf Pöch, 1904-6, the founder of modern anthropology in Austria. While most collectors of the period used cylinder recordings, Pöch utilised a special machine for disc recordings developed by the Phonogrammarchiv in Vienna, the first sound archive. Pöch's recordings were made at three localities: Potsdamhafen, near present-day Bogia in Madang province (1904, in collaboration with Fr Franz Vormann), Cape Nelson, Oro province (1905), and the capital, Port Moresby (1906). While concentrating on the music and speech of the traditional inhabitants of these areas, recordings were also made of workers from other parts of the country that were resident at the time.

Additionally, two other major collections of PNG materials are housed in Vienna. Fr Wilhelm Schmidt, best known for his interpretation of linguistic and anthropological material collected by missionaries and the establishment of the Anthropos Institut and eponymous journal, undertook his own research in 1907 when Bonifaz (Tamatai) Pritak-Mawi, a teenage boy from Karesau Island (East Sepik province) was brought to Europe. Over a very intensive two-day period, 42 recordings were made.

Finally, Fr Josef Winthuis, an MSC priest, made cylinder recordings in the Tolai village of Tavuiliu (East New Britain province), 1908-9, some of which were transferred onto discs in Vienna. Winthuis was the first missionary to make field recordings in PNG. Some of his original cylinders now appear to be housed in Berlin, but how these two collections compare has not been established.

While not the earliest recordings made in PNG, the recordings in Vienna are comparatively well documented and have certainly been very well looked after. Most importantly, the Phonogrammarchiv has begun an ambitious project of publishing their historical collections on compact disc, in order to make them readily accessible to researchers. I was asked to prepare notes for the three PNG collections. All technical, editorial, and production details would be handled by the expert staff in Vienna.

This was a tremendous opportunity. It is certainly rare to publish any early recordings, but here was the chance to publish not just extracts but entire collections, and without being restricted to a couple pages of notes! Furthermore, the Phonogrammarchiv had the funds to make this a reality.

At first, I envisaged a series of fieldtrips to all the places concerned, seeking to update information on all the recordings, transcribe the vernacular texts and supply translations, obtain data on performers, etc. While these were noble thoughts, they were impractical if we wanted the publication to appear any time soon. The editors in Vienna wisely reminded me that the goal was to make the recordings available.

Consequently, my work focussed on: modifying geographic, village, and ethnic group identifications to reflect modern usage; locating writings by the collectors which concerned their recording activities; updating comments on the music as a result of subsequent work; researching biographical details about the collectors and situating their work in a historical context. Of course, any work on the recordings themselves is highlighted. Such information is provided in the notes of the accompanying booklet as introductory sections to the recordings themselves. Thanks to generous support, invaluable documents were obtained during two short trips to Vienna.

The main source of information about the individual recordings are the accompanying documentation, called Protocols. All of the original Protocols are reproduced as TIFF files on the accompanying CD-ROM; the booklet itself contains annotated English translations. As such old recordings frequently challenge modern-day listeners because of their noise and limited frequency range, music transcriptions were prepared to assist listeners. Photographs of and by the collectors, maps, and line drawings further illustrate the booklet.

While there are obviously many highlights among such early recordings, a few deserve special mention: recordings of Ahuia Ova, collaborator with many researchers, such as Haddon, Seligman, Malinowski, Barton, Belshaw, as well as Pöch; the amazing musical knowledge of 15-year old Tamatai; the first recording of Tok Pisin (as well as many other local languages). Not surprisingly, the music recordings run the gamut from performances only vaguely recognisable by descendants today because the music has not been performed for many decades (e.g., Monumbo), to complete recognition and identification (e.g., Tolai).

This publication will hopefully stimulate future work on the materials it contains from ethnomusicologists, linguists, and anthropologists, particularly amongst Papua New Guineans themselves. Already, recordings deemed to be of insufficient quality for musical transcriptions have proven invaluable in establishing the continuity of Tolai cultural traditions in a paper by IPNGS ethnomusicologist Julie To'Liman-Turalir.

It is hoped that the present publication will also lead to related projects, e.g., documentation, publication, and repatriation of the c. 1500 photographs taken by Pöch. Invaluable in this enterprise would be Pöch's diaries, but their whereabouts are presently unknown (any leads from Oceania Newsletter readers would be very welcome).

This publication of early recordings of Papua New Guinea music is an excellent example of the kind of collaboration which can take place between dedicated individuals and institutions. Its value can only truly be gauged by the future work it encourages.

 
Publication details:

Papua New Guinea (1904-1909): The Collections of Rudolf Pöch, Wilhelm Schmidt, and Josef Winthuis. Book (223 pp.), five compact discs (OEAW PHA CD 9/1-5), and one CD-ROM (OEAW PHA CD-ROM/9). Dietrich Schüller, series editor. Gerda Lechleitner, editor. Don Niles, notes. Erna Mack, music transcriptions. Tondokumente aus dem Phonogrammarchiv der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften: Gesamtsausgabe der Historischen Bestände 1899-1950 / Sound Documents from the Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences: The Complete Historical Collections 1899-1950, series 3. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2000. ISBN 3-7001-2920-3.

 
Order from:

Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
P.O. Box 471
Postgasse 7/4
A-1011 Wien
AUSTRIA

Tel.: +43-1-51581/401-406 / Fax: +43-1-51581/400
E-mail: verlag@oeaw.ac.at
Internet: http://www.oeaw.ac.at/verlag