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Omaha Indians Music - Wax Cylinder (1895-1897) Hethu’shka Songs (2-CD Set) | Timeless Echoes of Original Omaha Indian Musical Heritage:
In 1976 the American President signed the American Folklife Preservation Act for the establishment of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The Center was charged with helping to preserve and present American folklife, defined as the "traditional, expressive, shared culture" of various groups in the United States. In the words of Public Law 94-201, "it is in the interest of the general welfare of the Nation to preserve, support, revitalize, and disseminate American folklife traditions and arts." |
In its first few years, the Center began carrying out documentation projects in several locations, including amongst the Omaha Indians in Nebraska. The staff conceived a project to work with materials already in the Library's Archive of Folk Culture by ways of the unique wax cylinder recordings placed in the Library of Congress over the years since the mid-1930s. The Federal Cylinder Project was inaugurated in 1979 to preserve, document, catalog, and disseminate the information contained in these early field recordings. In the case of the Omaha Indians, the antique recordings were made by Francis La Flesche, the son of an Omaha chief and the 19th century historian Alice Fletcher. The ultimate objective of this exercise in cultural preservation was to return these recordings to their source - this was finally done, and today the Omaha Indians are in possession of the oldest surviving recordings of their rich and varied music. The Wax Cylinder (1895-1897) Hethu’shka Songs 2-CD Set features 44 renditions by the honored warrior class of the Omaha Indians, first immortalized by the earliest sound recording technology known to man - the Edison phonograph.
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