FOREWORD 



The music in this volume includes only a segment of recorded 

 Iroquois songs. It presents the repertoire of a few leading singers 

 from 2 of the 20 reservations in New York State and Canada: Alle- 

 gany, with Coldspring longhouse, and Tonawanda. The scores are 

 transcriptions from recordings by two collectors, William N. Fenton 

 and Martha Champion Huot (now Mrs. E. P. Randle), between 1933 

 and 1951: 



1933, by Fenton at Coldspring, cylinders transferred to 10 disks, deposited at 

 Yale University, then Columbia University, then Indiana University Ar- 

 chives of Folk and Primitive Music; duplicates authorized by George 

 Herzog in 1949. 



1936, by Randle and Fenton at Tonawanda, 53 disks, deposited at Columbia, 

 then Indiana Archives; duplicates authorized by Herzog in 1951. 



1941, by Fenton at Coldspring, 29 disks (Nos. 34-62), originals at Library of 

 Congress Archives, copies provided by Fenton in 1948, selections published 

 in Fenton, 1942. 



1945, by Fenton at Coldspring, 5 disks (Nos. 33-38), Library of Congress, copies 

 by Fenton in 1949, selections published in Fenton, 1948. 



1948, by Fenton at both longhouses, 2 tape reels, transcriptions from originals in 

 his private collection. 



1950 and 1951, by Fenton at Coldspring, 4 tape reels, transcriptions from originals 

 in his private collection. 



Copies of all 12-inch disks are in the Library of the American Philosophical 

 Society. 



THE INVESTIGATIONS 



Between 1933 and 1937 Fenton lived on both the Coldspring and 

 Tonawanda Reservations and collected materials for his dissertation 

 at Yale University. The Institute of Human Relations sponsored 

 these trips to Coldspring in 1933 and 1934. Frank Speck encouraged 

 the work and suggested a method of outlining ceremonies (Fenton, 

 1936, 1941). The stay at Tonawanda extended for 2}^ years, from 

 February 1935 to September 1937, in the employ of the U.S. Indian 

 Service. In 1936, Fenton enlisted the collaboration of Randle, then 

 a graduate student at Columbia University. He rounded up the 

 singers and took the texts; she made the records, which sampled 

 virtually all song types. By this time Fenton could cope with the 

 Seneca language and was able to sing many of the songs. 



Later, as a staff member of the Bureau of American Ethnology 

 and, with funds from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, using recording 



