A drum group in Barrow, Alaska, whose songs are being held by the Center for Ethnomusicology at Columbia University. Photo from Smithsonian/Folkways Records
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act enables tribes to reclaim artifacts and remains but what about the voices of their ancestors? The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History hosts a lecture on that issue next week. Trevor Reed, a member of the Hopi Tribe of Arizona, will address efforts to recover recordings of intellectual property that are being held by museums, educational institutions, agencies and corporations around the world. Reed serves as the director of the Hopi Music Repatriation Project. He's been working with the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office and the Center for Ethnomusicology at Columbia University, to return these recordings to their rightful owners in Indian Country. The Columbia center holds copies and rights to the Laura Boulton Collection of Traditional Music. The recordings include 129 songs from the Hopi Tribe and about 120 from Alaska that the university has said it will return to the Iñupiat people. The lecture takes place at 7pm on April 2.
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