James “Jim” Anthony Baenen (July 2, 1938-Oct. 5, 2017) received a B.A. from the University of Idaho before getting an M.A. in Anthropology at Washington State University in 1965. His WSU thesis dealt with hunting and fishing rights of the Nez Perce Indians. Baenen became a professor of Anthropology at Seattle Central Community College.
Albert Moore (d. 1965), also as Peace Pipe or Tuk-tar-mal-way-une, had been a member of the Chief Looking Glass of Nez Perce, but had remained behind to take care of his frail mother during the Nez Perce War of 1877. He lived to be 103, passing away at Lapwai, ID in 1965.
Sam Slickpoo (1890-1969) was a leader within the Nez Perce tribe, serving on the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Council.
Elizabeth Wilson (1882-1973) was noted as an activist within the Nez Perce tribe who was one of those responsible for creating a published tribal language, and for the preservation of tribal craftsmanship.
The collection consists of songs, stories, and interviews originating with the Nez Perce tribe in the Spalding, ID area ca. 1963. These were recorded (or collected) by anthropologist James “Jim” Baenen during the course of a WSU-originated field study taking plane in and around Spalding, ID. Interviewees include Nez Perce tribal members Elizabeth Wilson, Albert Moore, and Sam Slickpoo.
Descriptive information for each tape comes primarily from notations on the box.
The collection consists of seven individually boxed one-hour reel-to-reel audio tape recordings, six of which were numbered one to six by their creator. That numbering has been used as the collection order, with the sole unnumbered tape as the seventh.
All recordings in this collection were digitized in June, 2019, and the audio files are retained both as unedited wav files and as speed-corrected mp3 files in MASC’s archival digital storage. Each digital file contains both sides of a tape.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions apply.
[Item description]
Jim Baenen Nez Perce Recordings, 1963 (Cage 938)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
Justin Haney donated this collection to the Washington State University Libraries’ Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections on June 24, 2019, where they were retained as MS.2019.25. Mr. Haney had purchased these recordings at Jim Baenen’s estate sale in Lynnwood, WA on June 13th, 2019.
The materials were offered to the Nez Perce Tribe shortly after WSU received them, but they wished the original tapes to remain with the MASC for preservation purposes.
This collection was processed by Mark O’English in March, 2020.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.