We have been busy this month with six projects going up online EAP165, EAP023, EAP248, EAP526, EAP217 and EAP191. These have produced over 167,000 images which are now available to view on our website.

The first project is EAP165, this project rescued two photographic collections on glass plate negatives from Guatemala, dated from the 1890s to 1930s.

The Yas-Noriega collection is the product of two photographers. Kohei Yasu emigrated from Japan to Guatemala in 1877 where he converted to Catholicism and changed his name to Juan José de Jesús Yas. With his godson José Domingo Noriega they photographed portraits of families and individuals from all different classes and ethnic groups in Guatemala. Their photos also provide a record of local traditions and the landscape of the region at that time. In particular Juan José de Jesús Yas was known for his interest in photographing clergy and other scenes of Catholicism in Guatemala.

EAP165/1/10 Image 75

The Tomás Zanotti collection is dated from around the same period. Zanotti migrated from Italy to Guatemala in the 1890s; he also photographed portraits of families and individuals from all different classes and ethnic groups. The pictures were taken in his studio, in the subjects homes or doing activities of their choosing, these photographs show the social and cultural change occurring in the region at that time.

EAP165/2/21 Image 44

Both collections are currently held at the The Center for Mesoamerican Research (CIRMA). When they arrived at CIRMA many of the glass plate negatives were in poor condition. During the project the negatives were cleaned and packaged and are now kept in a special photographic storage area at CIRMA. The digital copies will allow greater access to these materials without causing further damage to the originals.

EAP023 and EAP248 were pilot and major projects which digitised Marathi manuscripts. Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language which is used predominately in the Indian state of Maharashtra. There is inscriptional evidence extending back to A.D. 1012 and literature beginning in the 13th century. The texts are mainly religious in their subject matter but they also give a great deal of evidence about everyday life in pre-modern India. Some relate to sciences such as medicine, astronomy, engineering, and horse breeding. They are great resources for intellectual, social and religious history.

EAP023/1/1/1 – Image 30

EAP023 focused on the collections held at the Marathi Manuscript Centre in Pune. EAP248 digitised collections in two other institutions, the Prajna Pathshala in Wai and the Anandashram in Pune.

EAP248/1/52 Image 4

EAP526 digitised the endangered monastic archive at May Wäyni, in Tigray, Ethiopia. The collection consists of 91 manuscripts; most were produced from the last two hundred years but are copies of much older texts.

The manuscripts contain material valuable for the study of Ethiopian and Eastern Christian monasticism, containing rare Christian literature, biblical and liturgical texts. The manuscripts show texts relating to the history of the monastic community and its foundation as well as historical documents relating to the history of Ethiopia and the church from the 15th to 20th century.

The old church of May Wäyni and its storage facility recently collapsed and the manuscripts had been stored in a primitive hut, lying on the floor or on rough benches. Types of damage included mould, ravages of mice, caterpillar holes, water damage, burning, and detached and torn folios. The project allowed the material to be cleaned, packaged and removed to improved storage conditions.

EAP526/1/41 Image 185

EAP217 digitised endangered archival material written in the south dialect of the indigenous Yi language in Yunnan, China. The project successfully digitised nearly 600 volumes of Yi manuscripts from the public collection in Kunming and private collections in Xinping, Yuanyang and Mengzi, dating from the 18th to the early 20th century.

The archives are important materials for research on the indigenous Yi people in Southwest China. The language has survived for six centuries but is now endangered. The archives cover a wide range of topics including calendars, epics, history, medicine, philosophy, ritual, geography, literature and music. This material written in the Yi language is not available in either Chinese or other languages.

EAP217/1/5 – Image 8

EAP191 digitised periodicals of French India that were published in Pondicherry between 1800 and 1923. These publications include fragile periodicals that were published in Pondicherry under the French colonial administration, reflecting the daily realities of colonial life in Pondicherry. Some material in this collection has not been placed online due to copyright restrictions, this material can be viewed in the British Library Reading Rooms.

EAP191/1/1/2 Image 5

Check back next month to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

This month one project went up online. EAP310 ‘The digital documentation of manuscripts in the temples of Thadrak, Tshamdrak and Nyephug'. The project digitised the entire manuscript collections of those three temples as well the manuscript collection of an additional temple, Phurdrup Gonpa.

Thadrak Temple, which is a couple of hours climb from the Bhutanese capital (Thimphu), has about seventy titles relating to philosophy, language, meditation and rituals as well as over 26 biographical and historical volumes. Little is known about Thadrak itself but it is said to have once been a thriving religious centre.

EAP310/2/1/86 – image 2

Tshamdrak temple in Chhukha district was founded by Ngawang  Drupa (1682-1748) and has been the main seat of the successive incarnate lamas of Tshamdrak. The temple has 98 volumes of the Kanjur canon as well as 222 volumes of the Tanjur canon. It also houses a set of the 46 volume manuscript Nyingma  Gyubum, as well as many terma texts including those of Sangye  Ling pa, Ratna Ling pa and Pema Ling pa. There is also a 21 volume set of hagiographies of the Drugpa Kagyu hierarchs. Besides being a prominent religious centre in western Bhutan, Tshamdrak also has a reputation for its excellence in the art of drumming.

EAP310/4/2/23 – Image 1

Neyphug monastery was founded by terton Ngawang Dragpa (1525-1599) in 1550 and has remained the main seat of the successive incarnate lamas of Neyphug. Although a fire in 1864 gutted the main residence and destroyed many historical records, it only partially damaged the main temple and the manuscript collection remained unharmed. Neyphug holds a set of the Kanjur canon created in the seventeenth century during the time of the second Neyphug lama. Books in Neyphug also include the writings of the Bhutanese chief abbot and historian Je Khanpo Yon tan Thaye  and of Neyphug's founder Ngawang Dragpa.

EAP310/2/2/27 – Image 1

The collection of the Phurdrup Gonpa Temple consists of the entire Ka-gye texts of Nyangral Nyi ma O-zer, as well as the Gongdu texts of Sangye Ling pa, and other religious and philosophical literature. Most of them are gter ma texts which are said to have been rediscovered after they were hidden in the 8th century by Padmasambhava and his disciples.

EAP310/3/2/14 - Image 15

The project created over 160,000 digital images, which are now available to view online. As well as making this previously inaccessible material available to scholars the project also ensured its preservation. The books were previously held in precarious physical conditions and were vulnerable to damage. As part of the project, the book shelves were cleaned, book covers changed and the general storage conditions were improved.

Check back next month to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

This month two projects of digital images have gone online. EAP099 ‘Collecting and preserving the records of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania in Moshi, Tanzania’ and EAP166 ‘Preservation through digitisation of rare negatives and photographs from Nepal’.

EAP166 - ‘Preservation through digitisation of rare negatives and photographs from Nepal’

EAP166 digitised two important archives of photographic images detailing the history of Nepal. The first is from noted photographer and journalist Madanmani Dixit. Madanmani and his camera were eyewitness to many of the major political events in Nepal from the 1950s-1990s.

EAP166/1/1/1 – Image 16: Convocation of Tribhuvan University

EAP166/1/1/40 – Image 9: Protest against price hike [1982]

As well as providing a record of political events the collection also contains several photos which highlight the lives of the communities of Nepal during the same period, including personal collections of Madanmani Dixit’s own family.

EAP166/1/1/3 – Image 6: Kathmandu Valley

EAP166/1/1/28 – Image 31: Small girl, collecting wood

EAP166/1/1/4 – Image 20: Madanmani Dixit with his wife

The second collection represents the photographic archive of the Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya. This contains around 3,000 black and white photographs taken between 1877 and 1950. This archive contains photographs on a variety of different subjects, but is mainly related to the Rana rulers of the time and showcases their rich lifestyle.

EAP166/2/1/3 – Image 4 - King Tribhuvan with his two wives

EAP166/2/1/10 – Image 2: A Rana lady

EAP166/2/1/28 – Image 14: Juddha S.S. leading the hunting expedition and elephants

As well as pictures of the Rana family the collection holds some other interesting photographs, such as images from the 1903-1904 ill-fated British expedition into Tibet taken by the British political officer John Claude White. There are also images from the 1920-1922 tour of Nepal, India and Japan by the Prince of Wales. 

EAP099 ‘Collecting and preserving the records of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania in Moshi, Tanzania’

The second project, EAP099, digitised records from the Lutheran Church of Moshi in Tanzania. After the creation of the German East Africa Protectorate in 1885 German missionary settlements were established across Tanzania. The records from the church in Moshi contains records which date back to 1895 and are an invaluable source of information for researchers studying the history and anthropology of northeastern Tanzania.

EAP099/1/5/1 – Image 56: From the personal collection of Bruno Gutmann

The project digitised 20,744 pages of documents, these fall into seven categories, the first of which is the most numerous: church registers (births, baptisms, communion, catechists, marriages, funerals); mission council records; education records; diaries; files on individual missionaries, notably Bruno Gutmann, and on African teachers, pastors and evangelists; photographs; first prints of hymnals and portions of the Bible in African languages.

Most of the material is in German with a small amount in English or Swahili. Some items in this collection are not available online; due to the Data Protection Act 1998 they are only available on site in the reading rooms.

EAP099/1/1/2/21 -  Image 59: Marriages, Kidia Parish

Check back next month to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group. 

This month there are two new online collections. EAP399, ‘Historical collections of manuscripts located at Al-Jazzar mosque library in Acre’ and EAP521 ‘Digitisation of manuscripts at the Al-aqsa Mosque Library, East Jerusalem’. Both projects digitised important collections of Islamic historical manuscripts and were both run by Mr Qasem Abu Harb.

EAP399 contains almost 18,000 digital images of items from Al-Jazzar Mosque. These include a collection of 50 Arabic language manuscripts, dating back to the 14th century. These unique materials are of extreme historical importance, documenting the history and cultural heritage of Palestine.

 
EAP399/1/1 – image 9

The Al-Jazzar Mosque Library, founded in 1804, was prized for its collection of Islamic literature that spanned over several Islamic periods from the 14th century to the end of the Ottoman rule in Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century. Unfortunately, the library's collections of rare manuscripts have been depleted during periods of political unrest, and more recently through vandalism and theft. The collections are also under threat from environmental factors. One of the primary motivations for digitising the collections was in order to provide an archival surrogate copy which would ensure the preservation of the material for future generations.

There were similar concerns for the preservation of the collections of EAP521 held at the Al-aqsa Mosque Library in Jerusalem.

 
EAP521/1/109 – image 4

This project digitised over 30,000 images. The materials selected included 119 rare manuscripts that span over several Islamic periods during the 12th to 19th century. There are also manuscripts included from the collections of well-known Palestinian scholars, such as Fayd Allah al-‘Alami and the Shaykh Khalil al-Khalidi and from the private collection of Shaykh Muhammad al-Khalili, who died in 1734. The latter collection was acquired by Al-aqsa Mosque Library in the 1970s. Prior to that, the collection was in the possession of the descendents of the shaykh and was moved frequently from place to place, which led to its considerable physical deterioration. The manuscripts selected for digitisation cover a wide range of subjects, including theology, the Quran and its interpretation, Islamic law, Arabic language and literature, astronomy, medicine and history.

Check back next month to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

It is with great pleasure that we have Dr Graeme Counsel as our guest blogger this month. Graeme has worked tirelessly to digitise music from Guinea. Do read this fascinating account of his time there and how the Syliphone Label came to be formed.           

My three EAP projects focused on the archiving of the music of the Republic of Guinea. In 1958 Guinea embarrassed France by voting “Non” to an offer of autonomy in a confederation of states and instead chose complete independence. Under the Presidency of the young and charismatic Sékou Touré (1958-1984), Guinea was one of the leading proponents of pan-Africanism and the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union).
 
Sékou Touré saw the development of a national identity as key to the progress of his nation. The development of culture was thus central to his government, and Sékou Touré took control of music production in Guinea through a broad cultural policy called “authenticité”. Under the policy, all private orchestras were disbanded, with the government creating new state-sponsored orchestras in each of Guinea’s 35 prefectures. The musicians of the orchestras were instructed to modernise their local musical traditions via the new Western instruments which were a feature of their groups. The government bought them their musical instruments, paid them a wage, and created national arts festivals in which their groups performed. Under authenticité all foreign music was banned from the radio, and here the government filled the gap by building a state of the art recording studio and creating its own recording label, Syliphone. The music of Syliphone was recorded on magnetic tape at the studios of Radio Télévision Guinée (RTG). Some of the music was released as 33.3 rpm and 45rpm vinyl discs; all of it was broadcast by the RTG on one of the largest radio transmitters in West Africa. Sékou Touré sent his orchestras and ensembles on tours throughout the region and continent, where they were a sensation. The result of all of these efforts and the authenticité policy was a remarkable period of creativity which saw Guinean musicians as pioneers in the creation of African popular music. Guinean music had become the voice of a new Africa.

Radiodiffusion Télévision Guinée (RTG) offices in Boulbinet
 
My first EAP project was to reconstruct the entire Syliphone catalogue of 750 songs released on 160 vinyl discs. The government’s own archive of this collection had been destroyed in the counter-coup of 1985, when jet planes bombed the national broadcaster, home of the offices of the RTG. Since the mid 1960s the RTG had housed  the sound archive, the actual contents of which were something of a mystery. My Syliphone project proceeded extremely well and in September 2008, in time for Guinea’s 50th anniversary of independence celebrations, I presented to the government the complete collection of Syliphone music digitised to compact discs. The collection was exhibited at the Musée National and in recognition the government awarded me their highest academic honour, the gold medal of the Palme Académique en Or. Such a high profile gave me considerable leverage. The swathes and labyrinths of red tape and bureaucracy required to access the RTG, a difficult place to gain access to, were slowly swept away, and I will never forget the first time I entered the sound archive. What I had heard and imagined the archive to consist of, perhaps 50 audio reels, turned into an Aladdin’s Cave of perhaps 1,000 reels. All I could do in the few weeks that remained of my project was to digitise and preserve as many of them as I could. I applied for a 2nd EAP project to archive the remainder, and returned in 2009 to complete the project.
 
Shortly after I left Guinea in 2008, Guinea’s long serving President Lansana Conté died. This heralded a coup and a new military regime, which was in power when I arrived in August 2009 and which was becoming increasingly unpopular. Guineans had suffered under one party/military rule since 1958 and the protests grew increasingly violent. On 28 September 2009 the Guinean army attacked an opposition rally and 187 civilians lost their lives with nearly 2,000 injured. Following this tragedy I realised that working at the RTG would be impossible. It was likely that the army would split, that civil war may result, that anything could happen, and when it did that the RTG (with its national TV and radio broadcasting monopoly) would be taken over by armed force. This has been the history of Guinea’s conflicts, and thousands were leaving the capital as the situation grew very uncertain. I was one of the last foreigners living downtown when, with the full support of the EAP and under the direct advice of the British and Australian governments, I had to leave and abandon the project. Shortly after the President and leader of the military junta was shot in the head, though he survived...
 
In 2010 Guinea’s first democratically elected government was in office, and in 2012, with a third EAP budget, I returned to Guinea to complete the archiving at the RTG. I worked as fast as I could, given my previous experiences, and the fact that the government had already suffered one coup attempt. In 2008 I archived 69 audio reels of music. In 2009 I had archived 229 reels, and from September 2012 to January 2013 I archived 827 reels and achieved the completion of the archiving project. In total 9,410 songs were preserved and digitised. 99.9% of the material was Guinean music, with the bulk recorded during the era of President Sékou Touré. The archive is thus a testament to his government and to the policy of authenticité. It captures an important era of African history, that of the independence period, when anti-colonial and anti-imperial rhetoric abounded and governments and artists alike looked to Africa’s history and culture for inspiration.
 
To celebrate the completion of the project the Ministry of Culture held a soirée. Many dignitaries were present including all of the chefs d’orchestre of the National Orchestras. There was a large media presence and the event was broadcast live on many radio stations. The Prime Minister sent his congratulations. Many speeches were given and the event concluded with performances by two orchestras – Keletigui et ses Tambourinis and the all-female orchestra Les Amazones de Guinée. Here is a video excerpt of their performance.  
 
The RTG archive contains many unique recordings which have never been heard outside of Guinean radio. A large proportion of the music has not been broadcast in over 20 years, as it was politically sensitive and subject to censorship. The list of artists and musicians represented in the archive is a who’s who of Guinean and African music. There are many unreleased recordings by major stars such as Kandia Sory Kouyaté, Bembeya Jazz National, Fodé Conté, and Kadé Diawara, in addition to hundreds of unreleased recordings by Guinea’s National and Regional orchestras, troupes and ensembles. There is also a wealth of material by famous Guinean artists who, as they were never commercially recorded, are virtually unknown outside of Guinea. Some of these include Farba Tela (an inspiration to Ali Farka Touré), Mama Kanté, Binta Laaly Sow, Koubia Jazz, and Jeanne Macauley. The archive collection also features thousands of traditional songs from all of Guinea’s regions and ethnic groups. Ethnomusicologists will find a treasure trove of material to assist their research.
 
All songs are catalogued in the British Library's Sound and Moving Image Catalogue and are available to listen to in the reading rooms. They can also be accessed at Guinea’s national library which is housed in the Musée National complex in Boulbinet, Conakry. The complete catalogue of the RTG recordings is available for download from my website –  www.radioafrica.com.au.

This month we have three new online collections. The first is the digital images from project EAP298, this collection preserved ethnographic material from Peru. The project focused on the three regions of Ayacucho, Arequipa and Puno which are found to the south of Lima.

 
EAP298/9/2 – Image 42

These images portray the Andean culture, showing its traditions and rituals and the distinctive regional variations. The images were collected from local intellectuals, who in the absence of written literature used audio-visual equipment to help them record the customs of their own towns.

EAP298/14/3 – Image 51

The second collection up this month is EAP466, which digitised the manuscripts of the Riyadh Mosque of Lamu in Kenya. The collection consists of approximately 130 manuscripts and holds several unique copies which represent Islamic education in East Africa.

EAP466/1/7/ image 57

EAP357 is the final collection; this project identified endangered monastic collections in the Säharti and Enderta regions of Tigray in Ethiopia. The project surveyed a total of 32 sites and found substantial collections of manuscripts. The majority of the collections were of hymns, liturgical manuscripts, homilies, Psalters and scriptures. The images displayed on the EAP website represent a sample of the manuscripts surveyed.

EAP357/1/11 – image 7

Check back next month to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

 

 

This week I received the first hard drive from project EAP373 which is currently halfway through the digitisation of Tai Ahom manuscripts from Assam.

The Ahom language stopped being spoken about two centuries ago. Similar to Chinese and Thai languages, Ahom was tonal but the tones were rarely indicated in the writing system. Although linguistically Ahom is linked to the Thai language, the content of these manuscripts differ quite dramatically from Sukhothai Thai inscriptions because the Ahoms living in Assam kept their pagan beliefs rather than adopting Buddhism. Their language does not contain Sanskrit or Pali words. The script, which is a unique alphabet related to Burmese, can only be read by a very few. Some Ahom priests are able to read these precious manuscripts but it is unclear as to how the language should be pronounced.

The Ahom culture had an extensive body of literature. Most of the manuscripts that have been digitised for EAP373 have been written on Sasi tree bark (Aquillaria Agallocha) and date from the 17th and 18th centuries, though many of them discuss and copy earlier texts relating to  Ahom life and customs. Traditionally, Ahom priests and nobles wrote histories known as bia-ran jis ‘stores of instruction for the ignorant’ and understandably these still play an important role within the community.

Below are some images of the team in Assam digitising the material and a page from an illustrated manuscript.

The digitisation team

The team at work.

'Gileshwar Bailung Nemi Mang' Manuscript written on Sasi bark.

 

This is the first of a new series of monthly blog posts which will highlight the collections that have become available to view online on the EAP website over the past month. 

 Four collections went up last month, the first of which was EAP375, this project digitised over 25,000 images of archives from the Haynes Publishing Company of Argentina.

EAP375/1/1/1 – Image 25

The Haynes publishing company was created by Albert M. Haynes, a British citizen who went to Argentina to work for the Buenos Aires Western Railway. After his retirement he founded the Haynes Publishing Company in 1904, it remained active until its closure in 1968. The company produced several publications including the magazine El Hogar and the daily newspaper El Mundo. The company was active during some important periods of Argentine history. In particular it covers the period of the presidencies of José Félix Uriburu, Agustín Pedro Justo, Roberto María Ortiz and Ramón Castillo during the Infamous Decade (1930-1943) as well as the first presidency of Juan Perón (1946-1955)

EAP375/1/1/59 – Image 82

Another collection now available is EAP368, this contains some fascinating images depicting the indigenous peoples of Western Siberia.

EAP368/1/1/1 – Image 9

The project identified glass plate negatives and photographic material depicting Western Siberian life during the early 20^th century. These were then catalogued and digitised. The images present a fascinating window into this society before it was affected by modernisation.

EAP368/1/1/1 Image 155

EAP368/1/1/1 – Image 319

The final two collections are EAP340 and EAP365. EAP340 digitised a selection of manuscript collections in the monastic church of Ewostatewos at Däbrä Särabi in Tigray, Ethopia.

EAP340/1/2 – Image 4

EAP365 was a pilot project which aimed to discover collections of lontara’ manuscripts in the Makassarese language of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Lontara’ manuscripts consist largely of chronicles or histories of local kingdoms, collections of rules relating to customary law, or court diaries/daybooks. The project was successful in collecting representative images from several lontara' in Makassar, and in a number of villages in Kecamatan Galesong south of the city.

EAP365/1/2 – Image 7

 Check back next month to see what else has been added!

 You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.