The songs were produced by Elizabeth Mando (1903-1989) and Youell Mando (1898-1958) in America, but come from the City of Mazri in the province of Tkhuma in the eastern Kurdistan Mountains located in northern Iraq (city and province are no longer there). The Assyrian dialect is of the mountain tribes of this area. The collection was created and deposited in the Ethnomusicology Archive by Henry Yonan of Burton, Michigan. The recording artists Elizabeth Mando and Youell Mando were the aunt and uncle of Henry Yonan. These records document the dialect and language spoken by the Assyrian tribes in what is now Eastern Turkey (at the time of World War I, about 1915). The songs were recorded in Flint, Michigan -- the artists, who came from the mountain regions of Eastern Turkey, were displaced during WWI. After the war the Assyrian community never returned to the area. Some of the songs are about WWI and the Russian advance into Turkey, such as "Welcome Russians" (example: record 080-side 1-song 125). "War Ballad" (example: record 009-sides 1 & 2-song 015) is a song about this era of WWI and the Assyrian calamity at that time. Some songs repeat themselves because they were recorded at different times and on different records. The songs are of 3 different types: old Assyrian, unique Assyrian, and translation of hymns. Some of the records are not songs at all but are included to document the dialect and language (examples: record 103-side 2-song 187, record 145-side 2-song 262, and records 152-156/songs 275-279). The index used is a 3 part number -- to the left is the first number which is a 3 digit record number, then there is a 1 digit number (1 or 2) that says the side of the disc that the song is on, then there is the last number which is a 3 digit song number (each song on each side of the discs was given a number, regardless of what the song was or if it was a song repeated from another record -- songs that are split on both sides the disc are give one song number). Example of index number: 118-2-216 (Record Number-Side of Record-Song Number). The songs were restored by Diamond Cut Productions, Inc. in Hibernia, NJ using software DC6 in 2008.
