I recently found a wonderful article from 2009, written by
Kim Walters and Michael Khanchalian, in the Autry’s Convergence magazine. Keeping Archaeology Alive- The race against
time to save the Lummis sound recordings. I wanted to write a post to synopsize
this interesting article.
Lummis, founder of the Southwest Museum, dedicated much of
his life to preserving cultures that he felt were vanishing. He also believed
that a large part of the culture of the Hispanic people of the Southwest would
be forgotten if not recorded. The music, he felt, was as important as the
visual records that he photographed during his travels.
In 1904, the newly founded Southwest Society began recording
Californio folksongs on Edison recorder and wax cylinders. In a passage from
his 1923 Spanish Songs of Old California songbook
Lummis explained:
Personally, I feel
that we who today inherit California are under a filial obligation to save
whatever we may of the incomparable Romance, which has made the name California
a word to conjure with for 400 years. I feel that we cannot decently dodge a
certain trusteeship to save the Old Missions from ruin and the Old Songs from
oblivion. And I am convinced that from a purely selfish standpoint, our musical
repertory is in crying need of enrichment-more by heartfelt musicians that by
tailor-made ones, more from folksong than from potboilers. For 38 years I have
been collecting the old, old songs of the Southwest; beginning long before the
phonograph but utilizing that in later years. I have thus recorded more than
450 unpublished Spanish Songs (and know many more in my “Attic”). It was barely
in time, the very people who taught them to me have mostly forgotten them, or
dies and few of their children know them. But it is a sin and a folly to let
each song perish. We need them now!
The singers that Lummis hired for his Hispanic music
recordings were mostly from families in Los Angeles. The recordings included
Serenades associated with rancho life and nursery songs from the Mission schools.
Almost all of the recordings were done at El Alisal, Lummis’ home in Highland
Park.
In addition to Hispanic music, the collection includes
several hundred Native American songs from 23 different tribes. The wax
cylinder collection contains more than 900 recordings, including about 450
Spanish songs and more than 100 Isletan songs. The entire Lummis archive held
by the Braun Research Library includes correspondence, sheet music, song
workbooks and photographs of the singers.
I’m hoping that we will be able to include some of these
exciting recordings in the documentary. Through the tireless efforts of many, including Dr.
Michael Khanchalian and his team, there are now over 450 cylinder that have
been digitized. Lummis would be so pleased!
