Doris Duke Native American Oral History Project

The Doris Duke Native American Oral History Project (formerly Doris Duke American Indian Oral History Project) was initiated in 1967 across seven different universities. At the University of Arizona, the project was conducted through the Arizona State Museum and coordinated by Bernard “Bunny” Fontana, an anthropologist who was the museum’s Director of Ethnology at the time. Anthropology graduate students, professors, and tribal members conducted interviews and other recordings with 417 individuals from 55 different cultural designations on approximately 615 reel-to-reel tapes and transcribed 282 of the interviews. The bulk of the collection is from Tohono O'odham, Apache, Navajo, Pima, and Yaqui interviewees. The recordings and interviews discuss personal and family histories, along with topics such as social culture, education, storytelling, health and health care, history, language, and religion. Sound recordings are mostly conducted in English, but many languages including Apache, Spanish, O'odham, and Chemehuevi are also present.

In 2020 the Doris Duke Foundation funded the digitization and revitalization of this collection. The Arizona State Museum is undergoing the process of contacting tribes for consultation regarding the accessibility of the tapes. The majority of the recordings and transcripts are restricted to the original participants and family members of participants unless authorized by the originating community. To request access please contact larc@arizona.edu.

To access the full collection guide on Arizona Archives Online, click here.