| Show THE EDISON phonograph the present state of perfection of the edison phonograph led me to attempt some experiments with jt it on our new england indians as a means of preserving languages which are rapi rapidly ay becoming extinct 1 I accordingly made a visit to calais maine and was able through the kindness kindne ks of mrs W wallace brown to take upon the phonograph a collection of records illustrating the language folklore folk lore songs and counting out rhymes of the indians my experiments met with complete success and I 1 was able not only to take the records but also to take them so well that the indians themselves recognized the voices voica s of other members of the tribe who had spoken the day before one of the most I 1 interesting records which was made was the song of the snake dance sung by noel josephs who is recognized by the pas sama as the best acquainted of all with this son song 0 of old time he is always the leader in the dance and sang it in the same way as at its last celebration I 1 also took upon the same wax cylinder on which the impressions are male made his account of the dance including the invitation which precedes the ceremony in addition to the song of the snake dance I 1 obtained on the phonograph an interesting trade song and al Mohawk war bong which is very old several other bongs were recorded many very interesting old foils tales were also taken en in some of these there occur ancient songs with archaic words imitation of the voices of animals old and young an ordinary conversation veroa tion between two I 1 indiana and a cou counting out rhyme are among the records made I 1 found the schedules of the united states bureau of ethnology of great value in my work wor kand aud adopted the method of giving and english words consecutively on the cylinders the records were all numbered and the announcement of the subject surjeet made on each in english some of the stories filled several cylinders but there was little difficulty in making the changes necessary hect to pass ass from one to the other and the indians indians after some practice were able to make good records lantho in tho instrument thirty six aix cylinders were taken kenin in all one apiece is sufficient for most of the songs and for many mady of the short stories the longest story taken was a folktale which occupies nine dine cylinders about Po dump and pook 4 the black cat and the toad woman which has never been published in a detailed re port olymp work with the phonograph in preserving the language I 1 hope to give a translation of this interesting story J walter fewkes Few kesin in nature |
