Details

Latitude

-10.05897

Longitude

147.782

Start Date

1904-01-01

End Date

1904-01-01

This episode explores some of the earliest sound recordings made by ethnographic expeditions. The recordings are of songs that were sung in Hula village in the Rigo district of Central Province of British New Guinea - now known as Papua New Guinea. These songs were recorded on wax cylinder by Charles Gabriel Seligmann during the 1904 Daniels Ethnographical Expedition to British New Guinea and are now held in the collection of the British Library. We at PARADISEC are collaborating with the British Library and the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies on a research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The project, called True Echoes, is working to reconnect living communities with these old recordings, to understand what they mean to people today, and what they tell us about the past and the present in Papua New Guinea. PARADISEC undertook participatory research with Roge and Gulea Kila who are Hula speakers in the Rigo District, Central Province and are part the PNG diaspora community in Sydney, NSW. Roge and Gulea Kila talk about aspects of life in Hula village that are evoked by the singing about the traditional lifestyle and relationship to daily life, the environment, cultural traditions and activities, events and stories. By listening to these recordings taken over 100 years ago, it has evoked emotional and exciting rediscovery of the past and captures contemporary perspectives on history and culture. (AH & SG, True Echoes Project, May 2021)

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