5.2 Learning the Object’s Story and Relationships

An instrument or object has a history of relationships. The person who made it may not own it. The owner may not be the person who keeps it. The custodian may not play or wear it. The person who can explain its history may be different again. The General Instrument Record separates the owner, custodian, maker, practitioner or demonstrator, and information provider for this reason. A through object desciption keeps these roles distinct rather than treating one knowledgeable person as the source of everything.

Separate the people connected to the object

Ask who made this particular object, who owns it now, who normally keeps or safeguards it, who uses it, who repairs it, and who has authority to decide whether it may be handled, recorded or displayed. Use the relationship terms preferred by the people involved. Some objects may belong to a family, troupe, temple, community body or institution rather than to one individual. Others may be personally owned but ritually governed by someone else. Record the arrangement that people themselves recognise.

Do not assume that possession equals cultural authority. Someone may physically hold an object but not have the right to alter, tune, dismantle, sell or publicly display it. Conversely, a maker may retain important knowledge even after the object has passed to another household. These distinctions affect both the object’s history and the permissions required for documentation.

Ask how this particular object came here

Trace the history that can reasonably be known. Was the object commissioned, bought, inherited, gifted, made by the present user, transferred from another troupe, or recovered after a period of disuse? Where was it made, and for whom? If an approximate age or year is known, record it as approximate rather than inventing precision. Ask whether the object has moved between homes, villages, performers or institutions, and whether those movements changed how it was used or understood.

Important performances or ceremonies may be part of the object’s story. A drum may be remembered for a major festival; a costume may be associated with a performer or role. Record such connections when participants consider them significant and link to related Performance or Artist records where available.

Follow repair, replacement and change

Objects continue through care and alteration. Ask which parts are original, which have been repaired or replaced, who carried out the work and why. A changed membrane, string, reed, strap, paint layer, decorative element, or structural component may tell a story about wear, the availability of materials, changing techniques, or changing conditions of use. The General Instrument Record explicitly records visible condition and repairs or replacements, while the interview schedule asks how materials and practices have changed over time.

Do not treat repair automatically as damage to authenticity. For a living instrument or performance object, repair may be what keeps it usable. At the same time, distinguish an original component from a later replacement when that difference is known. If participants disagree about an object’s age, maker or earlier form, preserve the disagreement rather than choosing the version that sounds most complete.

Distinguish witnessed history from inherited accounts

Many object histories are held through family memory, elders’ accounts, ritual explanation or stories passed from one generation to another. Ask how the speaker knows what they are telling you. Did they witness the event? Did a parent or teacher tell them? Is this a widely shared account or a personal memory? Attribute important explanations: ‘According to…’, ‘X remembers…’, or ‘Y learned from…’. This keeps oral knowledge visible without presenting every account as a dated documentary fact.

Record what is not known

Unknown makers, uncertain dates, missing parts and unresolved histories are valid documentation results. The proposed forms use UNK for unknown, alongside NM for not measurable, NA for not applicable and NP for permission not provided. These are not empty failures to be filled by guesswork. They record the limits of what could be responsibly established at the time of documentation.