Sound Collections
The Museum's sound collections contain unique historical field recordings, most of which are directly connected to collections of objects and photographs held by the Museum. The sound collections exist in a variety of historical formats, such as wax cylinders, reel to reel tapes, and audio tapes. The Museum is currently seeking funding to enable the collections to be digitized and catalogued, enabling the material to be heard by both specialists and the general public alike for the first time.
An Asante drummer playing ntumpane (pair of drums)
with Robert
Sutherland Rattray's gramophone in the
foreground. Photograph by Robert Sutherland
Rattray,
1921-1932. PRM 1998.312.379
Enquiries: ms-photo.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk
Original fieldwork recordings
Northcote Whitbridge Thomas collection [1914.79.1 – 448]
Collection of 448 wax cylinders recorded in southern Nigeria, 1909-14.
Diamond Jenness collection [acquired 1912]
Collection of 94 wax cylinders recorded in D'Entrecasteaux Islands.
John Henry Hutton collection [acquired 1919]
Collection of 14 wax cylinders recorded in Nagaland, NE India.
Robert Sutherland Rattray collection [1941.3.159-172]
Collection of 14 copper matrices of wax cylinder recordings, from Ashanti, Ghana, 1920s.
Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard collection [acquired 1974]
Collection of 86 wax cylinders, mostly Zandeland, Southern Sudan, 1928-30. Documented.
Raymond Clausen collection [acquired 1993]
Collection of 525 reel-to-reel recordings from Vanuatu. Well-documented.
Fr. Damien Webb collection [2003.88]
Collection of about 200 reel-to-reel recordings from UK, Europe, E. Africa relating to children's games and songs. For some examples of Webb's recordings and photographs of English children's games, see the British Library Playtimes website.
Louis Sarno collection [1997.21.2]
Collection of 426 audio cassettes of Bayaka music from Central African Republic. Documented.
Ann Osborne collection [2009.142]
Collection of reel-to-reel tapes and 32 cassette tape copies of same, consisting of audio field recordings among the Uwa of Colombia, 1970s. Documented.
Jonathan Ambache/ Richard Saumarez Smith collection [2008.113.2.1 - .6]
Six tape reels of musical recordings made among the Chocó of Colombia during an expedition in 1965.
