Afc 1933/001 LOMAX, ALAN--CORRESPONDENCE--1937, MARCH 119 Plaisance ce 1 Mars 1937. Monsieur Lomax E.V. Monsieur En vertu de votre instruction, l'examen demandé est fait comme vous m'expliquez La femme ainsi que l'enfant ce portent bien;el- les n'ont aucune defectiosité. L'interrogatoire prelève qu'elles souffrent du diagnostic suivant: Gastrite aigue. l'opinion du soussigné vous fait remarquer que le diagnostic qu'elles portent n'a aucune infection qui pour- rait nuire votre santé et celle de votre famille. Recevez cher monsieur mes salutations toujours res- pectieuses. Lys Pean Cpl. (SS) G. d'Haiti. HMB March 2, 1937 Dear Mr. Lomax: I received yesterday your two-page letter* from Port-au-Prince, undated, but written just as you were departing for the north. Although you give your address there for the next ten days, it seems better to address this to Port-au-Prince. It is particularly to say that we approve your continuance into April, as you propose, leaving the exact date in April to your own judgment. As to the camera, we are instituting an inquiry as to cost and the possibility of purchase of one that might be attached to the Library, but shipped to you for temporary use. Within a couple of days, Mr. Strunk or I will let you know the result. With best wishes for the new estate, Very sincerely yours, *Libn has Mr. Alan Lomax, Box A 32, Port-au Prince, Haiti [By air mail] March 3, 1937 Mr. Alan Lomax Box A-32 Port-au-Prince, Haiti Dear Alan: The Librarian has just shown me your latest report, and the package of records which you spoke of sending to us arrive this morning. Dr. Putnam and I are agreed that your stay in Haiti ought to be continued a little longer, and I believe the Librarian has already written to you to this effect. In the meantime, we are making inquiries into the possibility of securing a camera for you. Since I am leaving for Baltimore this afternoon and shall be leaving again tomorrow evening for Boston, I am afraid that I shall have to defer a full reply until early next week. For the present, then, this acknowledgment only--and my heartiest congratulations to you and to Mrs. Alan. Faithfully yours, OS:ep LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON DIVISION OF MUSIC March 5, 1937 Dear Alan: The moving-picture camera which you asked for was shipped to you this morning. The films will be shipped to you direct from the Eastman firm in Rochester, because there were none available in this city which were properly packed for tropical use. You will receive 600 feet of film, colored, super-sensitive, and regular. If you think this quantity insufficient, please estimate the number of additional feet of film you will require, decide on the type or types of film suitable for your purpose and send in a request as soon as possible. Please remember that, included in the purchase price of the film is the cost of developing, so do not attempt to develop or have others develop the film in Haiti. Send us the rolls as soon as they are exposed and we will have them developed here. If there is anything else which you will need, such as records or photo-accessories, please request them as far in advance as possible. The material you have sent so far is most interesting. Don't forget to photograph all the instruments and get as much information as possible regarding their tuning. Are the drums tuned with each other in any special way? With kindest regards, Sincerely, Harold Spivacke. Mr. Alan Lomax General Delivery Port-au-Prince Haiti Port-au-Prince, Haiti March 5, 1937 Mr. Alan Lomax Plaisance, Haiti Sir: I have your letter of March 4, 1937, which arrived this morning, in which you request the Consulate to let you have $20.00 to tide you over until you receive some money from the Library of Congress. I am sorry to advise you that the Consulate nor the Legation have funds available for such a purpose, and personally I have certain obligations to meet this month that will not permit me to help you at this time. I suggest that you try and get a bit of credit there until your money arrives which should not be long. In case you are unable to do this let me know again and I perhaps will be able to scrap up a few dollars. Sorry that I can not furnish you with brighter news at this time but I am certain that you will be able to find a way out. You make friends so easily with the natives. Please give my best regards to your wife. Sincerely, Joseph H. White LIBRARY OF CONGRESS LAW LIBRARY WASHINGTON OFFICE OF THE LAW LIBRARIAN March 22, 1937 M. Alan Lomax, Box A-32, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Dear Alan: First, let me congratulate you on your marriage, as I take it the Napoleonic Code and your father have long since given their consent. My wife joins me in wishing you and your femme an eternal honeyman, as your neighbors over in Santo Domingo would say. I must apologize for not writing sooner in answer to yours which arrived the latter part of February, but in the meantime we were told to get ready for hearings to be held before the Appropriations Committee, and we were kept in suspense about ten days before the event took place. Thereafter, I had to go to New York on a matter, and then these hearings on the President's bill to unpack the Supreme Court have kept the entire Law Library unusually busy. Immediately on receipt of your letter I got in touch with Mr. Spivacke and the Chief Clerk's Office, and learned that everything was up to date as far as expediting your stipends was concerned. Unfortunately, I have not had time to listen to the records you have sent up as yet on account of these various matters, meetings, conferences, etc., but I hope to hear them within a few days. Your impressions of Haiti did not surprise me. It is a wonderfully interesting country, and I wish I had had the energy and forethought to write down my experiences there on several trips on horse-back and by broken- down Ford cars through the interior. The Haitians are a strange mixture of the savage and French veneer, and while they did not attract me as much as their Dominican neighbors across the frontier, I found them more interesting from various viewpoints. I hope they will let you stay down there long enough to gather a good cross section of folklore. If I get a good chance to put in a word for you, I shall be glad to do it. The dinner in December was a great success. Everybody said your father's contribution was the most entertaining of all. I am sending you some memorabilia under separate cover. With renewed felicitations to you and Mme. Lomax, believe me Very sincerely yours, John T. Vance ad LIBRARY OF CONGRESS RECEIVED APR1 1937 SECRETARY'S OFFICE Monday, March 29th, Box A-32, Port-au-Prince. THE LIBRARIAN Dr. Herbert Putnam, Library of Congress, Washington, D/C.. Dear Dr. Putnam, The American Minister has just advised me as follows in regard to the importation of the camera and film the Library has sent me: 1) That it was a mistake on my part not to have brought the camera with me when I came and not to have arranged the whole matter in advance through the state department. 2) That, as the case stands, a letter must go to the state depart- ment stating: why a series of movies is an essential supplement to the scientific study of Haitian folk-music that I have already record- ed: what the camera will be used for : that the Library will guarantee that none of the photographed material will be published (if the Hait- ian foreign office so desires) or that any part of it be not published. 3) That the state department be requested to advise the American Minister at once and ask the Haitian foreign office to admit the camera and film duty free and to make all necessary arrangements with the Haitian department of Interior for the use of the camera in Haiti. Everyone is very discouraging, but this is a country where people like to multiply difficulties to keep from moving from their chairs. As I said in my Saturday's letter, Dr. Leon had let me understand that there would be no difficulty in regard to the camera here, but that in the interval between our two conversations he seems to have changed his mind completely. The camera will be used: 1) To photograph musical instruments and how they are played, 2) to photograph singers in the act of singing, 3) to photograph dances. All the recent material in regard to the scientific study of music of whatever kind, but most particularity of folk and primitive music, stresses the necessity of moving pictures as supplementary to phonographic recordings. In the first place, unless, the collector learns to play every instrument that he records it is impossible to understand the origin or the reason for certain rhythmic and melodic peculiarities of exotic musical instruments, unless one can watch in detail the techniques of their performers. For example unless one has a film of how the hands are used on the drums here it will be impossible to understand how the different tones are 2. produced on the drums and the origin (Often purely physiological) of certain rhythmic patterns. The same thing is true of the close-ups of the faces of singers in the act of singing, since a study of the use of the lips, teeth, body, in singing often throws light on the characteristics of the songs themselves. But the most important thing, of course, is to have movies of the dances. As I have written you before, dancing and singing in Haiti are simply two sides of one integrated phenomenon. The types of melodies and rhythms grow out of the dances and at the same time influence the dances in a complicated fashion that I imagine a student better trained than myself could only understand if he had both recordings and moving pictures. I think if the matter is explained to the state department in this fashion and the point is made that in the library such material is strictly reserved for the use of technical experts, [that] the whole thing can be very easily arranged. Dr. Melville Herskovitz and others have arranged to use cameras here and have taken pictures of dances and I see no reason why the same privilege should not be allowed the Library of Congress. So far as I know these gentlemen were not required to promise to restrict the material in any fashion and perhaps that part of the matter can be best arranged at this end. I leave that to the judgement of yourself and the state department. I want to apologize again for all the trouble this may cause you and for the fact that I misinformed you about the camera, but the person whose attitude I had previously had no reason to question-- I mean Dr. Leon---suddenly changed his mind about the camera. I hope, too, that you will not regard this letter as an impudent instuction about or anything of the kind. I do not intend it as anything but a set of suggestions that will save your time and will prevent delay. I think in view of the fact that Dr. Leon has at all other times made my road easy here that he deserves a letter of appreciation from the Library. He is the kind of man who appreciates being appreciated in a rather extravagant fashion. Yours sincerely, Alan Lomax Alan Lomax P.S. Dr. Spivacke asked me to write at once if I needed any additional photographic supplies, etc. I should guess that Eastman has sent me a good apparatus equipped for use here. What I shall need, however, in case the camera is admitted, is money to pay the [singers] performers. To make decent movies requires [funds] material. Haitians are money-mad and they don't like to be photographed. I imagine that for the best results at least $100 will be necessary. Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.