The Storyscape Project of The Cultural Conservancy

Phil was the director of The Storyscape Project of The Cultural Conservancy, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of endangered Native American stories, songs, languages and ancestral lands. The project promoted the connection between environmental protection and cultural revitalization. The project conducted original recordings of language keepers, traditional singers and storytellers and provide workshops for tribes and indigenous communities on how to conduct their own audio and video ethnographic recordings. The project also consulted with tribes on the protection of their ancestral lands and sacred sites

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• The Storyscape Project assisted with the restoration of the Mojave Creation Songs and recorded a translation of the cultural treasure by Llewellyn Barrackman (Mojave) archived at the University of California at Berkeley Bancroft Library. Copyright for the songs recordings is retained by the Barrackman estate

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• With our partners, Salt Song Trail Project co-founders Vivienne Jake (Kaibab Paiute) and Matthew Leivas, Sr. (Chemehuevi), the project recorded the historic Salt Songs of the Nuwuvi People and interviews with the singers.  Copyright for the recordings is retained by the Salt Song Trail Project

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• Phil engaged in cultural exchanges and supports the efforts of the Xavante Indians in central Brazil in the protection of their reservation and ancestral lands from proposals for a hidrovia, industrial waterway that would destroy hundreds of thousands of acres of river systems to clearcut forests, extract minerals and plan monocrops of soybean for export.

Other Storyscape/Cultural Conservancy projects and collaborations include:

• Archive and repatriation of the Guy Tyler Collection of Native American languages, stories and songs as part of the Indigenous Languages Restoration Project – the collection is archived at the UC Berkeley Language Center.

• The Salt Song Trail Project including the production of “The Salt Song Trail” documentary film – winner of the 2005 American Indian Film Festival “Best Documentary Short”;  “The Salt Song Trail: Living Documentary”; and the Salt Song Trail Cultural Map. 

• “The Salt Song Trail: Living Documentary,” a continuation of the documentation of The Salt Song Trail edited by Chemehuevi filmmakers.

• “Songscapes of Native America” compilation of original recordings of traditional and contemporary Native American songs. 

• “Circle of Stories” – a Public Broadcasting System web site featuring the stories of four Native American Storytellers, gallery of photographs and curriculum.

Read:

“Storyscape: the power of song in the protection of Native lands” from Orion Afield Magazine.

“Song of the Land: weaving cultural preservation and environmental protection” from News from Native California.

“Unbroken Circle” from the Earth Island Journal.

Listen:

• The Kitchen Sisters podcast episode “House of Night” features their early National Public Radio “Lost and Found Sound” segment on the Storyscape Project and Phil’s work to preserve the Mojave Creation Songs.

• The National Radio Project “Making Contact” Program “Preserving Songs: Oral Histories and Land Protection.