Greetings. Pardon the intrusion from a newbie. I'm Jonathan, the person behind the Excavated Shellac site, and the owner of the record in question. There's been many people visiting my site from Mudcat Café, so I thought I'd pop by to view the discussion. I am glad to see that the post has generated such a variety of responses from very knowledgeable people.

To touch on a few questions that have popped up during the thread:

Regarding tuning - the Pedi do indeed remove the chord bars of the autoharp and tune the strings to their own scale. Whether or not the instrument is still an autoharp if the chord bars are removed, I cannot answer, and it certainly wouldn't be my place to do so. However, 95% all the writing on the Pedi's music by various writers and ethnomusicologists that I consulted refer to the instrument as an autoharp, regardless of the methods the Pedi use to play the instrument. Maybe further scholarship and discussion with Pedi musicians should warrant a change in the name of the instrument to "zither," - it could be a good subject of study. I naturally hadn't considered this and I appreciated the comments. Thanks to Jack Campin for posing the question and having an interest in the piece.

For MtheGM - the label to this piece is probably precisely what it was meant to be. In other words, it is safe to trust. Hugh Tracey, the ethnomusicologist who recorded this track, will probably always be in high regard. He was scrupulous in his notes about African music, wrote numerous books, and made thousands of recordings. This piece is catalogued by both the ILAM (International Library of African Music - founded by Tracey) and the South African Music Archive. (Both use the term "autoharp" for what it's worth.)

That said - I would hesitate to say that this is a "field recording." Field recordings tend to be marketed to adventurous listeners of another culture than the one recorded. This track was recorded in 1945/1948. If it wasn't recorded in a South African city studio (labels would pay for travel for musicians and this happened all the time), it was probably recorded on portable electric equipment in a structure that could double as a studio, with good miking capabilities. These records were marketed somewhat to curious westerners and the then relatively nascent study of international folk musics, but primarily the records were marketed toward the culture recorded. Tracey did release field recordings on both Gallotone and Trek – he also recorded and released lots of popular music he recorded in studios.

For those that find the piece interesting, I thank you again for visiting my site. I hope you poke around some more.