Indigenous content held within Archives of Traditional Music collections requires appropriate community permission for access. Permissions are determined by the represented community; usually this means the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO), Cultural Resources Division, President/Chief/Executive Council, or similar. Different Tribes, Nations, and communities have their own criteria for determining whether to grant permission. Therefore, if you are not given permission by the authorized representative, we will be unable to facilitate access for you.
Please note that if the materials you wish to access were deposited by the AMNH, you must also obtain their written permission. We can assist you with the steps required to secure permission from the AMNH.
At this time, the relatively small staff of the ATM is trying to process and fulfill a very large volume of Indigenous materials requests from various tribes and communities. In the ten hours a week we are able to devote to processing requests to Indigenous materials, we can sometimes fulfill a request quickly (3-5 weeks). However, some requests will take substantially more time to fulfill. We are often unable to predict how long a request will take to process, but we will be transparent with you about where your request is in our queue, and the progress we have made on your request.