After initial studies in medicine at Oxford and St. Mary's Hospital, London, Nick Allen re-trained in social anthropology, conducting fieldwork in Nepal in 1969-71. His thesis title was Studies in the myths and oral traditions of the Thulung Rai of East Nepal.

Between 1976 and 2001 he was Lecturer and then Reader in the Social Anthropology of South Asia at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford.

The Nicholas J. Allen audio collection is curated by the Pitt Rivers Museum and consists of 9 reel to reel tapes recorded in the Himalayas in 1970-1971. The recordings include examples of rituals, epic chants and myths, and instrumentation. The Museum also curates over 1300 of Allen's fieldwork images and 12 objects.

The collection has been edited into separate tracks in the complete playlist made available here. In 2017 Dr Allen donated further extensive documentation relating to the Thulung recordings and their content to facilitate future scholarly use of the collection. This documentation in the Related Documents File for the Allen Collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum and consists of:

PART 1. Abbreviations 
PART 2a. Location on mp3s of myths told in Miyapma 
PART 2b. Other genres represented on these mp3s 
PART 3. Contents of each mp3 
PART 4. Transcription of Thulung texts used in Miyapma 
PART 5. Ritual vocabulary

It is hoped in due course to be able to make the documentation also available online, but further information can be obtained via ms-photo.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk

Himalayan field recordings collected by Nicholas J. Allen (1970-71)

Nicholas Allen's audio collection consists of 9 reel to reel tapes, some of which were recorded between 1970 and 1971 (Thulung Rai) and some in 1981 (Kinnaur). The collection has been edited into separate tracks in the complete playlist made available here and includes extended recordings of several different festivals and ceremonies, epic and myth recitals, and examples of several different instruments. In 2017 Dr Allen donated further extensive documentation relating to the Thulung recordings and their content to facilitate future scholarly use of the collection. This documentation in the Related Documents File for the Allen Collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum and consists of: 

PART 1. Abbreviations 
PART 2a. Location on mp3s of myths told in Miyapma 
PART 2b. Other genres represented on these mp3s 
PART 3. Contents of each mp3 
PART 4. Transcription of Thulung texts used in Miyapma 
PART 5. Ritual vocabulary

It is hoped in due course to be able to make the documentation also available online, but further information can be obtained via ms-photo.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk

2012 69 2 2

Man singing, recorded by Nicholas J. Allen in the Himalayas, 1970-71.

The Nicholas J. Allen audio collection is curated by the Pitt Rivers Museum and consists of 9 reel to reel tapes recorded in the Himalayas in 1970-1971. The recordings include examples of rituals, epic chants and myths, and instrumentation. The Museum also curates over 1300 of Allen's fieldwork images and 12 objects.

Man singing (Himalayas, 1970-71) [2012 69 2 2]

Ceremonial music from Nepal, including wind instruments and percussion. Recorded by Nicholas J. Allen in the Himalayas in 1970.

The Nicholas J. Allen audio collection is curated by the Pitt Rivers Museum and consists of 9 reel to reel tapes recorded in the Himalayas in 1970-1971. The recordings include examples of rituals, epic chants and myths, and instrumentation. The Museum also curates over 1300 of Allen's fieldwork images and 12 objects.

Ceremonial music from Nepal (1970) [2012 69 3 A 2]

Ceremonial music from Nepal (1970) 
Man singing or reciting, recorded by Nicholas J. Allen in the Himalayas in 1970.

The Nicholas J. Allen audio collection is curated by the Pitt Rivers Museum and consists of 9 reel to reel tapes recorded in the Himalayas in 1970-1971. The recordings include examples of rituals, epic chants and myths, and instrumentation. The Museum also curates over 1300 of Allen's fieldwork images and 12 objects.


Man singing or reciting (Himalayas, 1970) [2012 69 3 B 3]

Two men singing, recorded by Nicholas J. Allen in the Himalayas in 1970.

The Nicholas J. Allen audio collection is curated by the Pitt Rivers Museum and consists of 9 reel to reel tapes recorded in the Himalayas in 1970-1971. The recordings include examples of rituals, epic chants and myths, and instrumentation. The Museum also curates over 1300 of Allen's fieldwork images and 12 o

Two men singing (Himalayas, 1970) [2012 69 4 4]

Man singing, recorded by Nicholas J. Allen in the Himalayas in 1970.

The Nicholas J. Allen audio collection is curated by the Pitt Rivers Museum and consists of 9 reel to reel tapes recorded in the Himalayas in 1970-1971. The recordings include examples of rituals, epic chants and myths, and instrumentation. The Museum also curates over 1300 of Allen's fieldwork images and 12 objects.



Man singing (Himalayas, 1970) [2012 69 7 5]

PittRiversound is the audio stream for the Pitt Rivers Museum's sound collections, the core of which consists of a unique sound archive of ethnographic recordings. 

All tracks are copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, and made available for online streaming only. Please contact us for further details about licensing. We uphold the World Intellectual Property Organisation's guidelines for protecting the traditional cultural expressions of the communities whose music we hold. Please see http://www.wipo.int/tk/en/folklore/ for further details.

We currently curate more than 1000 hours of Bayaka music from the rainforests of the Central African Republic recorded by Louis Sarno and a unique collection of recordings from Vanuatu by Raymond Clausen, among many other collections. Our archive also includes music from Colombia, India, Uganda and China, and we are in the process of digitising, cataloguing and making them available. Also included in this stream are recordings of ethnomusicological, anthropological and ethnographic talks, sound art, and other audio gems from the collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum.