Documenting and Archiving the Music of St. Lawrence Island: An Endangered Record of History and Change

Huntington Consulting, Eagle River AK

Investigators

Abstract

The songs and dances of the St. Lawrence Island Yupik record events, celebrations, activities, environmental conditions, and more in the history of the island and its communities. Available recordings are on obsolete media and are aging and susceptible to loss and damage, which would be an irreparable harm to the region's and the nation's cultural heritage. This project will prepare a digital archive of recordings of songs and dances of the St. Lawrence Island Yupik of Savoonga, Alaska, allowing for future research on the sociocultural and ethnomusicological history of this Arctic Indigenous community. In addition, sharing the results in a book will make more people aware of this rich heritage and will help the people of St. Lawrence Island better appreciate their own history and music. This will also encourage them to sustain these practices and their meaning even as their society continues to adjust and adapt in today's world. The recordings are in danger of being physically lost though damage or accidental disposal, and the information about the recordings exists at present only in the memory of one Elder. Having this record available for the future opens countless possibilities for cultural perpetuation and scholarly research. The recordings, currently on a variety of media, will be converted to digital audio or video files. The archive will be fully annotated and curated to the highest standards of data management, respecting the intellectual property of Indigenous peoples. The archive will be available publicly, with some restrictions for sensitive information and data ownership. In addition, the findings of this project will lead to a book about the recordings, the significance of music and dance for the St. Lawrence Island Yupik, and the procedures involved in creating a permanent archive for the benefit of the people of Savoonga and the nation as a whole. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.