Supplemental Grants : Funded Projects

Currently Funded Projects

The World Oral Literature Project is pleased to announce that its first two funded projects have been successfully completed, and that nine other projects have been awarded grants by the Review Board for fieldwork to be conducted in 2010.

Completed projects include:

• A pilot project to make archival recordings of ceremonial chanting in the Vaupés Region, Colombia. Six weeks of fieldwork with Tukanoan-speaking Barasana and their neighbours of the Rio Pirá-Paraná in the Vaupés region of southeastern Colombia, resulting in 17 hours of high-quality recordings of an unusually elaborate tradition of ceremonial chanting. Applicant: Dr Stephen Hugh-Jones (King's College, Cambridge), Grant: £4,000. Status: completed in 2008.
  
  
• A project to archive the vocal repertoire of Tashi Tsering, the royal singer of Lo Monthang, Mustang, Nepal. Four weeks of fieldwork with Tashi Tsering and Karma Wangyal Gurung in Mustang, Nepal, during which 51 songs from the orally transmitted Kha Lu repertoire were recorded, transcribed and translated. Applicants: Katey Blumenthal (University of Virginia) and Dr Andrea Clearfield, Grant: $10,000. Status: completed in 2009.

Granted projects include:

• Documenting Ifugao oral literature genres. Six weeks of fieldwork to describe the main oral literature genres of the Ifugao, an Austronesian-speaking people of the Northern Philippines, in collaboration with the Ifugao community. Representative examples of each genre will be recorded in audio and video and transcribed, with both the text and music and presented on a DVD. Full written outputs will be posted on the web. Applicants: Dr Roger Blench (Kay Williamson Educational Foundation), Iza Campos (Center for Ethnomusicology, University of the Philippines) and Jennifer Guman (Department of Social Sciences, Academic Group, Philippine Academy), Grant: £6,038. Status: fieldwork planned for 2009.
  
  
• Oral literature of the northeast Sino-Tibetan frontier. A year-long project to train five local researchers to digitally document oral literature from five locations in the northeast Sino-Tibetan frontier, a region of undocumented, endangered cultural and linguistic diversity. Each of the researchers will write an article introducing the local culture and provide comprehensive examples of oral literature. Digital materials will be repatriated to the concerned communities. Applicants: Dr Kevin Stuart, Gerald Roche and Dr Tshe dbang rdo rje, Grant: $9,960. Status: fieldwork planned for 2009-2010.
  
  
• Altaian heroic epics: ritual practices and beliefs. An eight-week project in Mountain Altai to make digital audio-visual recordings of epics and heroic songs by different spiritual practitioners, as well as documenting surrounding beliefs and translating materials. Applicants: Dr Carole Pegg (University of Cambridge, Inner Asian Music & 7-Star Records), Chagat Almashev (Foundation for Sustainable Development of Altai), Professor E.E. Yamaeva (Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Gorno-Altaisk State University) and Irina A. Tozyyakova (FSDA). Grant: £6,201. Status: fieldwork planned for spring 2010.
  
  
• Preservation of Mongghul oral history: The Ha clan. A digital documentation project on the oral history of the Ha clan combined with interviews relating to Mongghul religious beliefs and narratives of clan migration. Applicants: Sangjie Zhaxi and Ha Mingzhu, Grant: $1,860. Status: fieldwork planned for 2009-2010.
  
  
• Collection of Horchin Mongolian folk songs. Four weeks of fieldwork to collect traditional folk songs of the Horchin Mongols in Inner Mongolia, China. Applicant: Dr Uranchimeg B. Ujeed (SOAS and MIASU), Grant: $7,810. Status: fieldwork planned for 2009.
  
  
• Oral history of Nubri’s Ngadag lineage. A project to record, transcribe and translate the oral literature of the Ngadag Lamas of Nubri, Nepal. Applicants: Geoff Childs (Washington University in St. Louis) and Lama Jigme Tsewang Namgyal (Ngedön Öseling Monastery, Kathmandu, Nepal), Grant: $7,750. Status: fieldwork planned for 2010.
  
  
• Oral Literature of the Mudugar and Kurumbar of Attappady. Ethnographic documentation of the literature and culture of the indigenous Mudugar and Kurumbar communities, Palakkad District, Kerala, using digital video, audio and photography. Applicant: Rayson K. Alex (Secretary, Organisation for Studies in Literature and Environment-India) , Grant: $7,018. Status: fieldwork scheduled for 2010.
  
  

• Documentation of archaic Akha, the register of the Akha shaman. A project to build a corpus of the religious register of the Akha shaman and to train four native-speaking Akha in language documentation and ethnographic fieldwork methods. Applicant: Jake Terrell (Department of Linguistics, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa): $9,520. Status: fieldwork planned for 2010.
  

• Documenting Torwali oral literature. A year-long project to collect, record, transcribe and translate Torwali oral literature with the full participation of the community, building on the ongoing Torwali dictionary project supported by National Geographic. The genres include poetry, folk stories, life histories, local historical lore, riddles, proverbs and idioms. Applicant: Inam Ullah (Research Officer, Foundation for Advancement of Science and Technology, National University, Lahore, Pakistan). Grant: $7,010. Status: fieldwork planned for 2010.