Passamaquaddy songs join Elvis and Dylan in National Recording Registry

By Rhiannon Varmette

WASHINGTON--In a search for the most important recordings in America, the Library of Congress has chosen songs by Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. – and Passamaquoddy songs and stories from Calais, Maine.

The historically significant songs and stories, recorded in 1890 on wax cylinders, were chosen last month as one of the first 50 entries in the library’s National Recording Registry.

The registry is a list of important recordings in U. S. history that experts have decided are significant. Each year, 50 recordings will be added to the registry, and the library will work to collect, preserve and present the recordings.

Staff at the library said the cylinder recordings were a natural choice for the first registry list.

“The first registry has an emphasis on firsts – musical firsts and technical firsts and even cultural innovation,” said Sam Brylawski, head of the recorded-sound section at the library.

“The recordings of the Passamaquoddy Indians are believed to be the first field recordings by an ethnographer. In addition, they’re the first recordings of Native Americans.”

Thomas Edison developed the recording cylinders in 1878 and Jesse Fewkes, an anthropologist from Boston, was preparing to use the equipment to record Hopi and Zuni tribes in the Southwest.

Fewkes decided to test the equipment cylinders closer to home first and traveled to Calais in March 1890, where he made the Passamaquoddy recordings.

When Wayne Newell, director of bilingual and bicultural education programs at Indian Township, first heard the recordings on cassette, the recording quality was so poor that no one bothered with them, he said in an interview Tuesday.

Now, with the use of computer and recording technology, the recordings are being used in classrooms to teach Passamaquoddy children their native language and history.

In a Bangor Daily News article published in July, Newell described how the recordings helped revive a little piece of Passamaquoddy culture:

“When we had the National Native American Celebration at the school, all the men decided to do the Snake Dance – the Snake Dance is a gathering song. So we relearned based on those tapes. I copied that section, and I fixed it up. By the time the celebration came, we all knew that song. That is one of the nice things we can do.”

The Fewkes recordings contain songs and descriptions of customs and mythology. Elementary school children can now listen to those recordings.

“It enables us to take teaching directly from another generation and another century,” Newell said. “It’s a marvel to hear someone from two or three generations ago. We hope to be able to preserve them for another generation and another century.”

The library staff working on the registry echoes Newell’s hope.

“I think we tend to have short memories about our cultural history. and it’s useful for people to lean and appreciate recordings that are over 100 years old,” Brylawksi said.

Selections for the registry include both speech, such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats on the radio and a reading of “Casey at the Bat,” and music – Bob Dylan’s “Freewheelin',” a gramophone recording of “Stars and Stripes Forever” and Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.”

The registry was created under the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 and is modeled after the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. The public can nominate recordings for the registry that are at least 10 years old.

Published in The Bangor Daily News, in Maine.