Finding Aids to Individual Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture

The Harold C. Conklin Philippine Collection

AFC 2001/007

Prepared by Judy Ng

Library of Congress
Washington DC,
April 2002

Table of Contents

Collection Summary

Collection Summary by Format

Administrative Information

Provenance
Processing History
Location of Materials
Access
Restrictions
Related Collections
Preferred Citation

The Collector

Key Subjects

Subject Headings
Languages
Musical Instruments
Key Ceremonies, Events, and Rituals
Recording Locations

Scope and Content Note

Collection Inventory and Description

SERIES I: MANUSCRIPT MATERIALS
SERIES II: SOUND RECORDINGS

Appendices

Appendix A: Complete Listing of Ceremonies, Events, and Rituals
Appendix B: Access Database Search Term Index
Appendix C: Reference CD Concordance

COLLECTION SUMMARY

Collection Summary by Format

ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION

Provenance: 

From 1961 to 1995, Harold C. Conklin made approximately ten field trips to northern Luzon to record the audio material in this collection.  These recordings, plus twenty-four recordings made by friends and acquaintances, comprise his third and last set of field recordings made in the Philippines [1] .   In September 1999, Conklin loaned this third set of Philippine recordings to the Archive of Folk Culture (AFC) at the Library of Congress so that duplicate copies could be made for their collections.  The Cutting Corporation recording laboratory (Bethesda, MD) was contracted by the Library to produce two reference CD copies and one 10-inch preservation reel-to-reel tape copy, and completed the duplication of the Conklin recordings in the fall of 2001.  The preservation reel-to-reel tapes and one copy of the reference CDs were retained by the AFC, while all original field recordings and the second copy of reference CDs were returned to the collector in accordance with the terms of the AFC's agreement with him.

Processing History:

After the audio duplication of materials was completed, the collection was organized and rehoused by Judy Ng in 2001. 

Location of Materials:

Access:

Listening access to the collection is unrestricted. Listening copies of the recordings are available in the Folklife Reading Room.

Restrictions:

Restrictions may apply concerning the use, duplication, or publication of items in this collection.  Consult a reference librarian in the Folklife Reading Room for specific information regarding this collection. See http://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/folkrec.html for information about ordering audio reproductions.  See http://www.loc.gov/preserv/pds/photo.html for information about ordering photographic reproductions.

Related Collections:

In addition to this collection, the Archive of Folk Culture has retained duplicate copies of Conklin's earlier Hanunóo and Buhíd audio field recordings.  The first set [2] , accessioned in 1949, is cataloged under Harold C. Conklin Duplicating Project, Pacific Islands Folk (AFS 9584 — 9589).  The second [3] and larger of these two sets was accessioned in 1988 and is cataloged under Harold C. Conklin Philippine Recordings (AFS 26,750 — 26,767).  Additional points of access to Conklin materials can be found in the administrative files of this collection, as well as in the Corporate Subject, Collection, and Correspondence files in the Archive of Folk Culture Reading Room.  The Library of Congress also owns six works [4] authored by the collector, which provide further information on the culture and environment of northern Luzon.

Other materials related to Conklin's ethnographic fieldwork are located at Yale University and the National Museum in Manila.  Conklin's map manuscripts, personal papers, and fieldnotes are held at Sterling Memorial Library (Yale), and his collection of artifacts, including stone mortars, blankets, weavings, and musical instruments, are held at the Peabody Museum of Natural History (Yale, Division of Anthropology).  A representative collection of Conklin's ethnobotanical cuttings and samples from the Philippines is located at the Herbarium (Yale, Division of Anthropology), while Conklin's larger and more complete ethnobotanical collection is held at the National Museum in Manila.

Preferred Citation:

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should do so in the following manner: The Harold C. Conklin Philippine Collection (AFC 2001/007), Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

THE COLLECTOR

Harold C. Conklin (professor emeritus, Yale University) is a renowned anthropologist, linguist, ethnobiologist, and preeminent authority on the Ifugao and Hanunóo people of the Philippines.  Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1926, Conklin developed an early interest in anthropology and the history and culture of Native Americans that was supported and encouraged by his family.  By the end of his high school career, Conklin had formed a number of influential friendships with American Indians, worked as the only non-Indian National Youth Association Indian Counselor, and served as a part-time volunteer at the American Museum of Natural History, where he worked under the supervision of curator and department chairperson, Clark Wissler. 

By 1943, Conklin's interests in high school, particularly in American Indian studies and linguistics, had prepared him for undergraduate study at the University of California, Berkeley.  In his first year there, he was introduced to Austronesian languages through a hasher (cook's assistant) job at the Gamma Phi Beta sorority house, where he first began speaking, reading, and writing in Malay.  In his second semester, Conklin built upon this introduction to Malay by enrolling in an advanced linguistics course where students were assigned the task of transcribing Australian and American broadcasts for Indonesians living throughout the archipelago, then occupied by the Japanese during World War II.

In July of 1944, Conklin was inducted into the U.S. Army and served two years with the 158^th Regimental Combat Team in the Philippine Islands, northern Luzon.  After arranging to be discharged in the Philippines in 1946, Conklin spent a year and a half conducting serious anthropological research and fieldwork in Manila, Mindoro, and Palawan.  During this period, he made his first set of Philippine recordings, and was given locally crafted artifacts, plant leaves, and cuttings in exchange for his freely given store of seed beads, post-war relief clothing, and medicines.  The resulting collection of artifacts was later donated to the Philippine National Museum.  During his stay in Manila, Conklin was also given a serendipitous crash course, by botanist H.H. Bartlett, on the proper way to prepare, press, and store the botanical specimens he had accumulated during his stay in the Philippines.  Upon his return to the United States in 1948, Conklin finished his undergraduate work at Berkeley, but not before cataloging his collection of  bamboo manuscripts written by natives from Mindoro and Palawan, publishing two articles on the Mindoro, and typing up a 600-page Hanunóo-English dictionary. 

During his first two years as a Yale graduate student (1950-51), Conklin continued to engage in scholarly dialogue with numerous faculty members, visiting scholars, and fellow students who shared his interest in anthropology and linguistics.  From 1952 to 1954, he returned to the Philippines to complete fieldwork on the Hanunóo people for his dissertation.  At this time, he began making his second set of Philippine recordings with equipment lent to him by Moses Asch of Folkways Records.  Although he officially completed his graduate research in 1955, Conklin's analysis of the Hanunóo, based on his four field trips to Mindoro between 1947 and 1958, was not completed until 1961.  Almost immediately thereafter, he began studying the Ifugao of northern Luzon in order to provide cultural contrasts to his work with the Hanunóo.  From 1961 to 1973, Conklin continued his fieldwork in northern Luzon, making six field trips during this twelve-year span.  The audio material he recorded during these visits comprises his third and most comprehensive set of Philippine recordings. 

In 1954, Conklin accepted a position at Columbia University, where, for the next eight years, he taught and explored his research interests in cognition, kinship, language use, and folk classification.  From 1962 to the present, Conklin has taught at Yale University, where he has continued to pursue research on shifting cultivations, ethnology, and ecologies of tropical forested areas of the Pacific Basin.  A prolific writer, Conklin has authored over thirty scholarly essays and seven books.  In addition, he has contributed to, co-authored or edited over forty other publications and provided the source material for the Folkways recording, Hanunóo Music From the Philippines (1955).  Conklin has also served as the Chair of the Anthropology Department, Director of Graduate Studies, and Curator and Head of the Division of Anthropology at the Peabody Museum, Yale University.  He holds professional affiliations with the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Anthropological Association, and continues to remain an active scholar and mentor in the anthropology department at Yale.  He currently resides in New Haven, Connecticut.

References:

Anthropology at Yale: Emeritus Anthropology Faculty.  Yale University.  18 December 2001.  http://www.yale.edu/seas/Conklin.htm

Conklin, Harold C.  “Language, Culture, and Environment: My Early Years.”  Annual Review of Anthropology  27 (1998): xiii-xxx.

(*Note: Key Subjects marked by an asterisk (*) do not conform to LOC Subject and Authority Headings)

Subject Headings

Ifugao (Philippine people) Ifugao
(Philippine people)—Rites and ceremonies
Ifugao (Philippine people)—Music
Ifugao (Philippine people)—Social life and customs
Ifugao language—Dialects
Ifugao language—Vocabulary
Philippines—Religious life and customs

Languages

Bontoc language
Buhíd language
English language
Hanunóo language
Ifugao language—Dialects
Ilocano language
Ilongot language
Isinay language
Kalinga language
Kallāhan language—Dialects*

Musical Instruments

(*Note: Information in parenthesis provided by Harold C. Conklin in his Philippine Collection Catalog)

baŋībaŋ* (ritual wooden percussion bars)
biqquŋ* (twanged jew's harp)
gaŋha* (flat gongs)
hāŋal * (ritual bamboo clapper)
huppēep* (single-reed pipe)
kendomman* (triangular bronze chimes)
lebbet* (single-headed harvest drum)
luhuŋ and lalu* (mortar and pestle)
pādaŋ* (coiled brass leg bands)
pattuŋ* (ritual wooden rhythm sticks)
tappaŋ di budeŋ* (reed bird whistle)
teddeŋ* (zither)
tunīliyu* (iron bolts)
tuŋŋāli* (notched flute)

Key Ceremonies, Events, and Rituals — (See Appendix A for a complete listing)

(*Note: Information in parenthesis provided by Harold C. Conklin in his Philippine Collection Catalog)

baltuŋ* (sub-ritual in which chanter stomps on floor of house)
bāqi* (oral ritual, consisting of chanting, invocations, and blessings, in which there is usually animal sacrifice)
būqad* (myth recitation)
dinupdup* (an important ritual which includes the sub-rituals danniq, qālim, bāltuŋ, and others)
hāpet* (language: forms, utterances, word lists, words); of punhapītan
hogop* (house-warming ritual)

hudhud* (long chanted epic)
lewlewa* (casual antiphonal chant)
linnāwa* (recitation of a genealogy)
mamaqqo* (women's ritual)
punhapītan* (discussions and conversations in Ifugao)
qaggīyo* (children's play-song)
qālim* (ritual chant which includes the sub-rituals wakkāten, qummāŋal, bedbēdan, and keqpālen)
qe-tūdoq* (voice letters)
qiŋlih* (English — interviews and conversations)
qulqulgud* (storytelling)

Recording Locations

(*Note: Recording Locations provided by Harold C. Conklin in his Philippine Collection Catalog)

Philippines—Ifugao (agricultural districts)*
Philippines—Tukukan*
Philippines—Nueva Vizcaya—Dupax del Sur*
Philippines—Nueva Vizcaya—Kakidūgen*
Philippines—Mindoro Oriental*

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

There are approximately 140,000 Ifugao living in scattered districts over some 170 square miles in northern Luzon.  They are agrarian farmers who have perfected a system of sustainable rice terracing uniquely suited to the heavy rainstorms and rugged terrain of northern Luzon, Philippines.  In their tribal society, rice is more than a basic sustenance; it also serves as a medium of exchange and a signifier of status.  Rituals, ceremonies, and events are tightly interwoven into the Ifugao people's daily lives.  The characteristic richness and diversity of the Ifugao agriculture, religion, and music is strongly evident in The Harold C. Conklin Philippine Collection, which includes what arguably is one of the largest, most comprehensive set of audio recordings on the Ifugao in existence.  It documents continuity and change in some of the most important features of Ifugao culture over the course of forty years.

The recordings chronicle a wide range of Ifugao ceremonies, events, rituals, and sub-rituals, with much of the collection divided between strictly oral, strictly instrumental, and combined oral/instrumental field recordings.  Field recordings document, for example, mythical or genealogical recitations, women's rituals, chants, invocations, rice harvesting, storytelling, children's games, language exercises, voice letters, interviews, and discussions.  While a handful of the recordings are in the languages of Buhid, Hanunóo, Ilonget, Kallahan, or English, the majority are recorded in the Ifugao Baynīnan dialect, one of the twenty-three dialects spoken by the Ifugao.  With regard to geographical coverage, the documentation comes from twenty-seven of approximately one hundred and fifty agricultural districts, thereby providing a respectable sampling of the Ifugao.  Therefore, due to its topical, geographical, and temporal scope, the recordings not only capture the exact details of ritualized Ifugao ceremonies, they situate them within the larger cultural context. 

Conklin began making original field recordings of the Ifugao in 1961.  He used a combination of tape recorders (Fi-cord, Nagra, Sony, and Uher), recording formats (discs, reel-to-reel tapes and cassette tapes), and recording speeds (1 ⅞, 3 ¾, 7 ½, and 15 ips) in the course of his field work, adopting new technologies as they became available.  Recordings on 5-inch reel-to-reel tapes and sixty-minute cassettes are the predominant original formats in this collection, which totals 262 first-generation sound recordings. 

All recordings were originally given three distinct numbers by Conklin.  In this system, the first number denotes the year, the second denotes the reel or cassette number, and the third denotes the side of the reel or cassette as noted [5] .  With the exception of twenty-four recordings made in 1955, 1960, 1965, 1966, 1970, and 1977, Conklin is the primary recordist or interviewer for all of the original Ifugao recordings. 

A copy of Conklin's own Philippine Collection Catalog and Expanded Contents, which provides item-level descriptive data on original field recordings, is included in this collection.  The prefatory material in Conklin's Catalog lists recording locations, languages, and individuals (interviewees, interviewers, and recording operators), provides a key to his abbreviations and symbols, and indexes specific field recordings by instrument, ceremony, event, and ritual.  This is a useful resource that can be used in conjunction with the AFC 2001/007 Reference Concordance [6] to facilitate use of the audio materials. 

Appendix A — Complete Listing of Ceremonies, Events and Rituals

(*Note: Information in parenthesis provided by Harold C. Conklin in his Philippine Collection Catalog)

baltuŋ (sub-ritual in which chanter stomps on floor of house)
bāqi (oral ritual, consisting of chanting, invocations, and blessings, in which there is usually animal sacrifice)
bāqin di quqqūŋa/balbāle (children's version of bāqi)
bāyu (pounding of rice using a mortar and pestle)
bedbēdan (sub-ritual of qālim)
bināqid (prestige feast, in which 3-5 pigs are sacrificed)
bumayah (a major prestige feast with eight days of rituals)
būqad (myth recitation)
dalluŋ (mock head-taking ritual)
danniw (sub-ritual)
dinupdup (an important ritual which includes the sub-rituals danniq, qālim, bāltuŋ, and others)
dulhig (ceremonial thrusting or brushing a spear at a pig to be sacrificed)
gonob (completion rite; the last invocation of spirits performed before eating)
gopah (brief ritual oration)
gūway (shouted exclamation)
hagōho (bless-curse defense ritual)
halūpe (ritual involving enemy-defeating spirits)
hāpet (language: forms, utterances, word lists, words); of punhapītan
himuŋ (burial ceremony for a murder victim)
hogop (house-warming ritual)
hudhud (long chanted epic)
kali; qāyag (animal call imitations; calls to attract animals)
keqpālen (qālim sub-ritual)
lāmuh di būlul (ritual of smearing pig fat on rice granary idols)
lewlewa (casual antiphonal chant)
linnāwa (recitation of a genealogy)
liyah (ordination of priests)
mamaqqo (women's ritual)
maŋadol (end-of-harvest ritual placement of district-boundary markers)
manūlug (sub-ritual involving special sugarcane)
maqāyiw (sub-ritual)
mumbotoq (rice harvesting)
mumbawwot (spinning wooden tops)
munkandidāta (political speech)
munkēew (children calling as they go down to river)
munqātal (sale of pond field)
munqībal (wailing dirge)
munqopal (sugar cane pressing)
pakkuk (exuberant, rhythmic banging of pestles on mortar at funeral)
punhapītan (discussions and conversations in Ifugao)
qaggīyo (children's play-song)
qālim (ritual chant which includes the sub-rituals wakkāten, qummāŋal, bedbēdan, and keqpālen)
qe-tūdoq (voice letters)
qiŋlih (English — interviews and conversations)
qulqulgud (storytelling)
qummāŋa; (qālim sub-ritual)
quyap (trick rounds, counting games)
quyyāya (lullaby)
tūŋul (common minor-blessing ritual)
wakkāten (qālim sub-ritual)

[1] Please refer to Administrative Information—Related Collections for further information on this topic.

[2] Included with Conklin's first set of Hanunóo recordings, originally made in 1946-1947, is a sampling of Ifugao, Bontoc, Kankanay, and Ibanag recordings from the Cordillera of northwestern Luzon.

[3] This second set of Hanunóo recordings, dating from 1952-1958, includes a sampling of Buhíd recordings from regions north and west of interior parts of southern Mindoro, where Hanunóo is spoken.

[4] Refer to the Library of Congress's Online Public Access Catalog (http://catalog.loc.gov/) for further information on the following publications: El Estudio Del Cultivo De Roza [The Study of Shifting Cultivation]; Ethnographic Atlas of Ifugao: A Study of Environment, Culture, and Society in Northern Luzon; Folk Classification: A Topically Arranged Bibliography of Contemporary and Background References Through 1971; Hanunóo-English Vocabulary; Ifugao Bibliography; and Land Use in North Central Ifugao.

[5] For example, original field recording 61.5b is the B-side of the fifth recording made in 1961.

[6] The Reference CD Concordance lists the original field recording number, the corresponding CD, track duration, date of original recording, original format, and track content description.  In addition, the database for this collection allows for term and phrase searching using Ifugao terms found under the Key Subject headings.