
Recordings of Maine’s Passamaquoddy Tribe restored more than a century later - mstats
https://artscanvas.org/arts-culture/historic-recordings-of-maines-passamaquoddy-tribe-restored-more-than-a-century-later
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rolltiide
Any of these tribes could be the next Monaco, which was also in disrepair for
centuries

The first step is recognizing the 500+ individual semi-autonomous cultures
instead of an amorphous "indigenous peoples"

The next step is releasing maps that show tribal lands as distinct
administrative districts, just like Monaco, San Marino, Andorra etc in Europe,
but as any other state in the US

They have all autonomy to have their own courts and distinct systems of
governance, and the federal government barely leverages its enforcement powers
over any of them

Navajo Nation spans 3 states and you need a special map to see it, all while
the laws there are completely different including their own business formation
statutes. Doesn't make sense this has gone on so long.

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rjplatte
Whoa, never heard anyone talk about my ancestors before! My great-great
grandmother was Passamaquoddy, and absolutely nobody knows who they are.

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gwbas1c
Would be nice if there were direct links to the recordings.

(I don't want to click around the podcast version of this story just to hear
short snippits.)

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OnlyOneCannolo
Some of the recordings are on the tribe's website [1].

[1]
[https://passamaquoddypeople.com/collection/1890-passamaquodd...](https://passamaquoddypeople.com/collection/1890-passamaquoddy-
phonograph-recordings)

~~~
CharlesW
Wow, these are amazing. My immediate thought is that tools like iZotope RX (in
the hands of the right person) could be used to make them much better.

~~~
joveian
Some of those old recordings are really low quality to start with. There are a
couple of maybe unprocessed tracks from 1899 on the "Ojibway Music from
Minnesota" CD that the Minnesota Historical Society released in 1988. I'm not
seeing it freely available anywhere but it looks like at least last.fm has a
page for it (however the CD only has 15 tracks and they list 20, not sure
why...). The 1899 tracks are the two by Swift Flying Feather, "Moccasin Game
Song" and "Love Song" (not the others of the same names on that CD that are
from the 70s and 80s). The track "Dream Song" by Kimiwun was recorded by
Frances Densmore in 1910 and is much clearer (the "Women's Dance Song" by
Ponemah Singers is a 1972 version of the same song from the same community).
They are all excellent songs. I can highly recommend the whole CD. According
to the booklet there were also 6 recordings of Swift Flying Feather made in
1869 by Alice Fletcher. I'm not sure if those (or any other of these old
recordings) are available anywhere. Edit: The page I link to below mentions
these as being 1899 so I think the 1869 was a typo in the booklet and the two
Swift Flying Feather tracks on the CD are the recordings made by Fletcher in
1899.

I think this page is a small part of the text from the booklet that came with
that CD:

[http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-ojibway.html](http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-ojibway.html)

Looking more, they have the rest of the booklet text also:

[http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-continuity.html](http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-continuity.html)

[http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-dream.html](http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-dream.html)

[http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-mocassin.html](http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-mocassin.html)

[http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-story.html](http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-story.html)

[http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-love.html](http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-love.html)

[http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-contemporary.html](http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-contemporary.html)

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xref
I can highly recommend the children’s book Thanks to the Animals by Allen
Sockabasin, a Passamaquoddy storyteller and historian

As a bonus the last couple pages of the book, after the story, tell some
history of the tribe’s seasonal migration and the pronunciation of many of the
animal names. It’s really great

[https://www.tilburyhouse.com/product-page/thanks-to-the-
anim...](https://www.tilburyhouse.com/product-page/thanks-to-the-animals)

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dasKrokodil
How did they transfer the recordings from the cylinders to some more modern
media? Did they simply play them on one of the original devices and recorded
that? Or were the cylinders laser scanned or something? I think the article
doesn't say, and I couldn't listen to the podcast yet.

