Bringing the Songs Home: Columbia University Begins Musical Heritage Repatriation Project in the North Slope

This article, written by Chie Sakakibara and Aaron Fox, is currently featured on the website of the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC). BASC is helping to support Aaron Fox and Chie Sakakibara in their research in the North Slope of Alaska. The article includes historical photos as well as photos from Aaron and Chie's recent research trip to Barrow, Alaska.

Further press about the project has been published in The Arctic Sounder (download the pdf). The project has also been mentioned in the "Alaska Newsreader" section of the Anchorage Daily News -- check it out here.

Website For Members of the Point Barrow Community

Click on the photo to see a large image of a photo taken by Laura Boulton during November, 1946 of the singers she recorded in Barrow, Alaska. From left to right, the identified singers in the photograph are: Leo Kaleak (seated left), Otis Ahkivgak (standing left), Willie Sielak, Guy Okakok, and Alfred Koonoalak. Not in the photo, but identified on the recordings, are three children: Mary (also known as "Eva") Ahvik, and Harold and Eddie Kagak (identified as "Eddie Orson" in Boulton's notes). Not in the photo, but prominently featured on the recordings, is singer Joe Sikvayugak (spelled "Sikvayunak" in Boulton's notes). This photo appears in two published locations. The version above is copied from Boulton's 1968 autobiography, now out of print, entitled The Music Hunter. A better-quality print was also published, but with extensive cropping, in the liner notes to Boulton's 1955 Folkways recording, now available from Smithsonian Global Sound, The Eskimos of Hudson Bay and Alaska.

 

If you are a member of the Point Barrow Iñupiat community and are looking for the website mentioned by Aaron Fox and Chie Sakakibara as heard on Earl Finkler's radio show on KBRW on Tuesday morning or at the community meeting at the Iñupiat Heritage Center on Tuesday evening, please click here for the website link.

A username and password are required to access the website. If you did not receive this information personally from Prof. Fox in Barrow, please write to him directly at aaf19@columbia.edu for the password.

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(Publicly available:)
To listen to Chie Sakakibara and Aaron Fox discuss the repatriation project with Earl Finkler on KBRW, the Voice of the North Slope (from Dec. 6, 2007) please click here (or control/right click the link to download the 19MB .mp3 file).  read more »

Elizabeth K. Keenan Wins 2007 Lise Waxer Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology

Congratulations are in order for Elizabeth K. Keenan, who won the 2007 Lise Waxer Prize for the best student paper on popular music for her paper given at the 2006 SEM conference in Hawai'i, "Straightyfest, Ladyquest, Ladyfest: Femininity, Sexuality, and Third Wave Feminism at Young Women's Rock Music Festivals." The Lise Waxer Prize is sponsored by the Popular Music Section of SEM.
 read more »

Columbia Ethnomusicologists at the 52nd Annual SEM Conference

The Society for Ethnomusicology's 52nd annual SEM Conference will take place October 24th - 28th at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. This year's theme is Music, War and Reconcilliation.

A complete list of presenters and other participants from Columbia University follows.  read more »

Columbia Ethnomusicology Field Projects

Where do Columbia University Ethnomusicologists work? All over the world!


Click on one of the markers for links to more information about specific projects. Blue markers represent current fieldwork projects by our graduate students. Red markers indicate Center repatriation projects and exchange programs. Yellow markers represent projects by Columbia Ethnomusicology faculty members. Purple markers indicated field projects completed by alumni of our program.

Use the zoom controls (+/-) and direction control arrows, or click and drag the map graphic with your mouse to navigate. You can double-click within the inset world map in the lower right hand corner to rapidly recenter the map as well.

You can view the most current Google Maps version of this map as it is developed by clicking here.
(opens in a new window).

This map is optimized for Firefox/Camino browsers and may not work correctly in all browsers.  read more »

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