'i/izz'ii'/yi

clearinghouse

JAN 12 2010 STATE LIBRARY OF •0RTH carouna Tar Heel \ j Junior \ Tar Heel Junior Historian Historian) North Carolina History for Students \ssociation

On the cover: In North Carolina, making pottery has always been a family affair. Nell Cole Graves (1908-1997), one of the state's first female potters, learned her skills from her father, J. B. Cole, starting at age thirteen. Her family has been making pot¬ tery in central North Carolina since the late 1700s. Introduction: What If At right: Fourth-generation potter Ben Owen Sr. turned pots at Jugtown Pottery, where he made this by Dr. Sally Peterson large jar, for over three decades before opening his own shop in 1959. Today, his grandson, Ben Owen Looking at North Carolina III, is a successful potter—part of another extended through a Lens of Words family with a creative Tar Heel tradition. Images Sid Luck: A Traditional courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. Seagrove Potter .by Dr. Sally Buckner by Dr. (Sharks G. Zug III State of North Carolina Beverly Eaves Perdue, Governor Walter Dalton, Lieutenant Governor Creating a Cultural Doc Watson—North Connection Department of Cultural Resources by Dr. Altha J. Cravey Linda A. Carlisle, Secretary Carolina Legend Debra L. Derr, Chief Deputy Secretary by Marf$Freed i

Office of Archives and History Dr. Jeffrey J. Crow, Deputy Secretary Get Out of Your Seat Talking Feet: The History and Up on That Stage Division of State History Museums of Clogging North Carolina Museum of History by.Nancy Penningtoit Kenneth B. Howard, Director by Michelk L. Carr Heyward H. McKinney Jr., Chief Operations Officer R. Jackson Marshall ID, Associate Director William J. McCrea, Associate Director Homegrown Malls: On My Way: One Actor s Education Section Creating a Way of Life Creative Journey B. J. Davis, Section Chief at the Coast by Mike Wiley Charlotte Sullivan, Curator of Outreach Programs by Karen Willis Amspacher Michelle L. Carr, Curator of Internal Programs

Tar Heel Junior Historian Association Activities THJH Essay Contest Jessica Pratt, Program Coordinator Winner: Siloam Bridge Courtney Armstrong, Subscription Coordinator Collapse Tar Heel Junior Historian by Sophie Hennings Doris McLean Bates, Editor in Chief Lisa Coston Hall, Editor/Designer Wayne Martin and Sally Peterson, Conceptual Editors Senora Lynch, 3 Lee Jacobs, 12 Tar Heel Junior Historian Dancing through History Frank Barrow, 4 Association Advisory Board Dock Rmah, 12 with the Warriors of Annette Ayers, B. J. Davis, Michelle Carr, Elaine George SerVance, 4 Algia Mae Hinton, 14 Forman, Fay Gore, Vince Greene, Lisa Coston AniKituhwa Cole Sisters, 7 Hall, Jessica Pratt, Jackson Marshall, Jessica Faircloth Barnes, 23 by Dr. Barbara Reijnensnyder Ruhle, and Charlotte Sullivan Mary Jane Queen, 8 Bea Hensley, 26 Duncan 1 ■ Orville Hicks, 12 Neal Thomas, 32 Do you need to contact the THJH editor? Send an e-mail to [email protected].

**■■■■■■■^

THE PURPOSE of Tar Heel junior Historian magazine (ISSN 0496-8913) is to present the history of North Carolina to the students of this state through a well- balanced selection of scholarly articles, photographs, and illustrations. It is published two times per year for the Tar Heel Junior Historian Association by the North Carolina Museum of History, Raleigh, North Carolina 27601-1011. Copies are provided free to association advisers. Members receive other benefits, as well. Indiv idual and library subscriptions may be purchased at the rate of $8.00 per year. © 2009, North Carolina Museum of History. PHOTOGRAPHS: North Carolina Museum of History photography is by Eric N. Blevins and D. Kent Thompson. EDITORIAL POLICY: Tar Heel Junior Historian solicits manuscripts from expert scholars for each issue. Articles are selected for publication by the editor in consultation with the conceptual editor and other experts. The editor reserves the right to make changes in articles accepted for publication but will consult the author should substantive questions arise. Published articles do not necessarily rep¬ resent the views of the North Carolina Museum of History, the Department of Cultural Resources, or any other state agency. The text of this journal is available on magnetic recording tape from the State Library, Services to the Blind and Physically Handicapped Branch. For information, call 1-888-388-2460. Nine thousand cop¬ ies of this public document were printed at an approximate cost of $5,550, or $0.62 a copy.

6 3 Smithsonian Institution Affiliations Program Introduction: CycAtivc NoytA Cr>v(o\ti

iat If t t • by Dr. Sally Peterson’

ave you ever asked yourself a ques¬ ; familiar with the basic rules of the game. tion that began with "What if. . . ?" Creative ideas often depend, too, on the tools A question like, What if I color the available to us. You can only color the sky sky green, instead of blue? Or, What ; with the colors you have in your paint box. If if I pass the ball to the teammate : you don't have green, you can be creative and farthest from the goal because the other team combine blue and yellow. But if you want to isn't guarding her? Or even, What if I make : color the sky red, and that color is not in your up a story about space aliens invading my paint box, you are out of luck. school? If you have ever asked "what if" Creativity is part of our daily lives. We have questions like these, chances are you've had a creative thoughts all the time. Creativity in creative thought. everyday life relies on a foundation of knowl¬ Creativity is the experience of thinking, edge and experience. What we know and reacting, and working in an imaginative way. what we do are learned from who we know— Creativity helps us find new ways to solve our family and community—and from where problems. It helps us figure out new ways to l we are—our environment and its history. We do familiar activities. It helps us to express know the rules, and we know our tools. ourselves. Sometimes creative ideas come in a We often associate creativity with the arts. flash; sometimes it can take a long time for a The arts in North Carolina thrive on creativity. creative idea to grow. A hip-hop dancer might Music, dance, sculpture, painting, drawing, practice new moves for months before he feels and writing are some of the most familiar art he has got them just right. On the other hand, forms we know, but there are many others. All a good rapper can create new rap verses on of the arts have a firm foundation in commu¬ the spot. nity and in the environment. This issue of Tar If you look closely at creative ideas, you Heel Junior Historian will explore creativity often find that they are connected to familiar rooted in North Carolina's communities, his¬ ideas and ways of doing things. A story about tory, and resources. space aliens will probably have a beginning, Many communities in the state are well middle, and end, like other stories we know. known for their creative, artistic traditions. In A creative soccer play only works if you are this issue, for example, you will meet Sid

(Left to right) Musician Doc Watson, musician George Higgs, and pot¬ ter Sid Luck are among the countless creative North Carolinians whose artistry is closely tied to their community and their environment. Images courtesy of Jim Gavenus; Mike "Lightnin"' Wells; and the North Carolina Museum of History.

*Dr. Sally Peterson is thefolklife specialist at the North Carolina Arts Council. She was the curator offolklife THJH, Fall 2009 at the North Carolina Museum of History for nine years and has taught courses in folklore and ethnography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies. Along with Wayne Martin, the North Carolina Arts Council's senior program director for community arts development, Peterson served as a conceptual editor for this issue of Tar Heel Junior Historian. Luck. His family has been creating pottery in the Piedmont's Seagrove area for more than 150 years—using the tools of clay and wheel, and following the rules of vessel size and shape. Like other area families, the earlier generations of Lucks used their creativity to help farmers cook and store their food in clay pots and jars. Nowadays, the Lucks create pottery that helps people decorate their homes and serve their food. Mountain communities in western North Carolina are enthusiastic supporters of musical knowledge that creatively combines BqjflaxsS song, dance, and instrument traditions of

C Jhis issue of Tar Heel Junior Historian introduces England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, a few of the state’s creative residents, past and Africa, and Native America. present.There are many more people, groups, Bluegrass and old-time musicians events, and even places to learn about! Research some of those on this list, then look around like Doc Watson and his family your community for others. As have taken the music of you explore, think about how creativity can relate to geogra¬ i traditional Mountain life and phy and place; community includ¬ made it world famous. Their ing family and culture; history; tools include instruments like technology; and the economy. banjos, guitars, and fiddles. Their John C. Campbell Folk School rules follow the traditions of tunes and lyrics Shirley Caesar Pre-Easter Gospel Festival handed down for centuries. Penland School of Crafts Hundreds of miles away in eastern North John Coltrane evaiugelist The Highland Games Carolina, George Higgs "blows his harp," or Bertha Cook SZshirlev (MR plays his harmonica, and picks guitar in a N.C. School of the Arts & THE CAESAR SINGERS musical style called the blues. This tradition— The Branchettes Of DURHAM, ft C _ — ALONG WITH- created in African American communities of Dorothy and Walter Auman the southern United States beginning in the James Allen Rose 1 IfZJf FELLOWSHIP CM N.C. Symphony late 1800s—draws upon a rich musical Union Grove Music Festival Sam Dennis & SAM DENNIS SINGERS heritage of song, dance, and story from Louise Bigmeet Maney Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Higgs's Minnie Evans KING STREET! SUN. tools are his heritage, his harmonica, and his Carole Boston Weatherford PALACE ; APR 1000 KING ST. - CHARLESTON, S. C. || " ” p M guitar; his rules follow the unique finger¬ Julian Hamilton Jr. ».12 M. y V 510.00 - DAY Of SHOW 512.00 picking style of other Piedmont blues artists. Sheila Kay Adams ★ Menhaden Chanteymen SPONSORED BV (WZJV) RADIO * Fishers along the North Carolina coast have N.C. State University Pipe Band long used creative genius to adapt their boats Thalian Hall PineCone to changing conditions in the sea and the African American Quilt Circle N. C. Museum of Art sounds. They also adapt the designs of their Qualla Craft Cooperative Steep Canyon Rangers Joe Thompson Flat Rock Playhouse hand-built boats to catch different kinds of Carolina Chocolate Drops David and Mary Farrell Douglas Wallin Shape-note singing (At left, top to bottom) The African American Quilt Circle is a group of American Dance Festival Earl Scruggs women whose activities include passing on quilting traditions to the next Nick Sapone generation. The group formed in 1998 and is based out of Durham's Sally Parnell Hayti Heritage Center. James Allen Rose figures he has sold nearly three thousand miniature wooden boats inspired by the boats he saw built Maceo Parker while growing up on Harkers Island. Shirley Caesar is one of many Tar Amanda Crowe Heels who have made their mark in gospel music. A solo recording artist Etta Baker for more than forty years, she has won many awards. Hope Brown has A. C. Overton W. created countless wooden animals, including this cat. Brown—along with her husband, Glenn—has been active in the Brasstown Carvers, a Avett Brothers cooperative group begun in the 1930s at John C. Campbell Folk School. (Bottom offacing page) A. C. Overton, who played this particular banjo during the 1950s and 1960s, learned about the country string-band tradition as a child in Chatham County. Images courtesy of tin North Carolina Museum of History. y**>’ r\s... - . i' 2 THIH, Fall 2009 fish. They rely upon Award-winning their creativity every k Creativity day because they / SJEJfOUA / know that respond¬ Many people featured in ing to life's chang¬ ITICB / this issue of TMJf/have received the (MM) ing needs Since 2989, requires an merican Indian potter A Senora Richardson Lynch the award has honored the ability to solve keeps tradition alive while state’s top fo|K artists and recog¬ problems and / nized its deep and diverse cultural bringing a personal vision to make adjust¬ her work, which has been displayed traditions. The FoiKiife Program ments. Like at the White House, the Smith¬ of the North Carolina Arts Council sonian Institution, and the North many inven¬ developed and oversees the award. Carolina Museum of History. A res¬ To learn more about all of the win¬ tors, artists, ident ofWarren County, Lynch is • • • • • ners, access www.ncarts.org, and and teachers, one of about a dozen active potters Senora Lynch. Image by Cedric N. click on Artists and then on N-C- in the Haliwa-Saponi tribe. She con¬ these boat- Chatterley, courtesy of the North Carolina Heritage Award recipients. centrates on her own concepts and Arts Council Folklife Program. builders rely on motifs more than on traditional What Do you Think? i their creativity older designs, making her work rich prayers as well as the determination with personal history and perspec¬ to make a living. that go into creating each piece. Creativity is not only tive. “All of my ideas are my own,’’ “My heart is in my hands, and my about the arts. Can What are their Lynch said. “Sometimes I include hands are on my pots,” Lynch said. you thinK of some Tat tools? What rules traditional designs into my work, She applies geometric principles Heels who have used but most are my own creations.” do you think they to pottery designs, finding the cen¬ their creativity to Lynch builds her pottery with follow? ter, then expanding into quadrants, invent things? the “coiling” method—working echoing the four directions found in Working creatively from bottom to top by piling coils Native practice. Lynch has earned with community tradi¬ of clay on top of each other—used respect from fellow Indian artists by American Indians since 2500 BC. tions can help people for the strength and true form of She uses no glazes, primers, her pots, and for the exquisite understand and appreciate who they are and underglazes, or acrylics. When she designs that etch their surfaces. “My where they come from. The Cherokee dance paints her work, she primarily uses pottery is a combination of tradi¬ red and white slip, a feature highly group called the Warriors of AniKituhwa has tion and modern. I’m telling the characteristic of southeastern studied centuries-old descriptions of forgotten story about our tribe like it would American Indian pottery made a have been done long ago, but in a ceremonies and dances. These American thousand years ago. different way," she explained. Indians have re-created the steps, costumes, Despite being closely tied to her and spirit of those ancient rituals. The heritage, Lynch’s pottery is unique. —North Carolina Arts Council She attributes this to “spirit,” the Warriors of AniKituhwa are making connec¬ tions with older ideas from a different time while adding their own modern sense of what creative thinking to find ways to continue it means to be Cherokee. Their tools include meaningful traditions when we move to dif¬ diaries and the memories of their elders, but ferent places. Can you think of examples of they are creating their own rules. such creativity in your family or community? Some communities use traditions and ideas Not only do we use creativity in our daily from a different place to create meaning in lives, but we use our daily lives to help us be their new lives in North Carolina. Like many creative. Writers from North Carolina are waves of immigrants before them, new resi¬ known for their creative ability to capture the dents from different Mexican states re-create feel of the state's places and people, as well as community-wide religious celebrations from the everyday experiences that form our home. Durham's Virgen de Guadalupe feast day identities and personalities. This THJH issue is based on a combination of ideas from early Spanish settlers of Mexico and Mexico's indigenous peoples, or original inhabitants. The celebration includes street processions, Aztec-style dancers, and songs, accompanied softly on guitars. Costumes and truck-bed floats use materials and designs from both Latin America and North Carolina. It takes on creativity ends with a short scene from a than just routine. It is about hope, tragedy, play based on a true incident, written by a and the struggle to find meaning. student like you. Like the other creative Our lives and our communities are filled people in this issue, through her creativity, with such stories. It just takes a little crea¬ she shows us that daily life consists of more tivity to find them.

IRAIK BARROW

rank Barrow has whittled on and off since he was creates human and animal figures. Some of his F favorite pieces are historical figures, such as a twelve-year-old boy living in Shelby, in Cleveland County. He remembers his grandfather making Satchel Paige, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin many things out of wood, including baskets and Luther King. He carves walking sticks, often carved pieces. “My grandfather used to make sticks. Get decorating them with snakes and amphibians. an old piece of a dogwood and bend it over—he would He makes canes using saplings of many differ¬ actually carve, just make a walking stick out of it,” ent woods, from dogwood to hickory. \y Barrow said. Charles Sanders, a South Carolina carver of People from West Africa and their African human figures and tools who visited Barrow's junior high American descendants share a deep respect school, also inspired him. for wood. Many African cultures have granted Barrow began carving again in 1958 while stationed in the carver’s art a special place in worship Japan with the U.S.Air Force. He took every chance to and daily life. In African American communi¬ study local carving traditions. He had a place to carve— ties, carving often decorates everyday the base had a workshop—but no stain with which to objects. Many carvers sculpt human forms f (Above) Frank Barrow. (Right) Barrow often finish pieces. Kiwi shoe polish, which was standard issue from wood. Other popular designs include carves walking sticks featuring reptiles, in the air force, became, and has remained, Barrow’s animals, particularly snakes, lizards, and birds. birds, and other animals. Images courtesy of wood finish. Barrow’s carvings bear witness to these tradi¬ the North Carolina Museum of History. Barrow carves a wide variety of objects. He has whit¬ tions, as well as to his own creativity. tled flowers, from chrysanthemums to lilies, creating —North Carolina Museum of History detailed displays of carved blossoms and greenery. He GIORfiXSXRVAVCX

eorge SerVance Jr. easily remembered. With a discarded apple crate, strong calling to e ranked as one of North handsaw, coat hanger, big-headed matches, and make biblical Carolina’s most accom¬ butcher knife, he got to work. Within twenty- carvings. plished wood-carvers. four hours, he had made his own doll. Six Like most Working from a small basement decades later, SerVance would still make dolls wood-carvers, in his Thomasville home, he from scrap wood. However, the wood was SerVance did carved a stunning collection maple and mahogany—throwaway fragments not fit into a of dancing dolls, walking from Thomasville’s furniture industry. And the neatly defined sticks, biblical figures, and dolls were small masterpieces. tradition. He other pieces. His workbench Like many African American families in the developed a sat amid carefully organized South during the 1930s and 1940s, the personal style stacks of arms, legs, and tor¬ SerVance family moved north looking for jobs that emerged sos. A back room might hold and better living conditions. Eventually, George from—and still work in progress: a crucifix for returned to North Carolina. He worked with clearly reflects— a local church, a cane capturing Thomasville Furniture Industries until he African Ameri¬ the struggle between carved became ill and had to have a lung removed. can ideals of snake and lizard, a sculpted cat During his recovery, a recreational therapist beauty and art. ascending a staircase.“It’s a gift," who discovered that he could carve gave him a “People come SerVance said, “something that rough-cut figure and an illustration. “I saw that up to me and comes like second nature. Nobody picture," SerVance said, “and knew I could do tell me how (Above) George SerVance. (Left) For ever showed me how to carve.The better than that.” He did. much they enjoyed more than forty years, SerVance that doll when they Lord just gave it to me.” SerVance became best known for his danc¬ carved and sold dancing dolls that As a child, he made his own ing dolls, but they were not the only products was a boy," he said. ranged from this Uncle Sam figure toys. "I was always tinkering with of his creativity. He got repeat orders for a “And they buy from to athletes, lumberjacks, and charac¬ something," he said. During the full-size cat carving.The same was true for his me now for their ters from the Bible. Images courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. depths of the Great Depression, he carving of a bound slave, a figure loosely mod¬ kids. So, it’s just saw a dancing doll in a local dime eled on chain-gang workers he had seen as a given me a lot of store and wanted it. His father told child in Henderson. He continued to draw happiness to know that somebody's enjoying it him that he could make one him¬ images from the world around him and trans¬ as much as I did.” SerVance died in 2008. self, and "I believed him,” SerVance late them into wood. In later years, he felt a —North Carolina Arts Council

TH]H, Fall 2009 4 Sid Luck: A Traditional Seagrove Potter by Dr. Charles G. Zug III* estled in the rolling farmland of southern Randolph County, Seagrove looks like any small, rural village. Along its two main streets sit two banks, a furniture factory, a Dollar General store, a couple of doctor's offices, a gas station and convenience store, a produce market, and a hardware store. But far outnumbering these common businesses are potters' shops and studios. Drive out of Seagrove in any direction—north or south, east or west—and more potters' shops come into view, most of them modest, family-run operations. The Seagrove area, including nearby sections of Randolph, Moore, and Mont¬ gomery counties, boasts more than one hundred potteries. And Route 705, the main road that extends from Seagrove southwest into Moore County, has been officially named the “Pottery Highway" by the state. One can easily call Seagrove the pottery capital of

North Carolina, or even of the nation. (Above) Sid Luck is a fifth-generation potter who carries on many traditions. During the second half of the 1700s, potters Learn more about his work by accessing www.lucksware.com. Image courte¬ sy of the Luck family. (Top of page) Luck creates a range of pieces, including born in Great Britain and Germany traveled jugs and chums. Images courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. south through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and settled in this region of North dead. Potters learned simply by observing Carolina. Unlike in the Coastal Plain, clay was and imitating family members and neighbors. plentiful in the Piedmont, and so potters Numerous “clay clans" became well known— began producing a variety of pots for use in the Cole, Craven, Owen, Chrisco, Auman, and households and on farms. They dug up the Teague families, to name a few. local clay, shaped it on their wheels, and fired In general, the early pots were plain, it with wood in homemade groundhog kilns. useful, and inexpensive. However, some Most of the pottery forms were for food potters took the extra time to create bold, storage—like jugs, jars, churns, and milk neatly trimmed forms to delight the hand and crocks. But potters also made serving pieces the eye. Their work proved remarkable in a such as pitchers, bowls, and baking dishes, as world where artistic touches were very rare well as candlesticks, the chamber pots used in and unappreciated. Over time, more potters the days before indoor bathrooms, and even began to trade or sell what they had made. gravemarkers. Few stores existed, and people And then, starting in the 1920s, a different had little cash to spend anyway, so these kind of pottery emerged. As factory-made tin sturdy, salt-glazed wares became essential cans and glass containers began to replace the tools for daily life. Pottery provided old jugs, jars, and churns, potters needed to everything from lighting to memorials to the find something new to make and sell. So they

*Dr. Charles G. Zug III is the author of Turners and Burners: The Folk Potters of North Carolina, pub¬ THJH, FaU 2009 lished in 1986 by UNC Press. He is emeritus professor of English and folklore at the University of North 5 Carolina at Chapel Hill and the former director of the North Carolina Pottery Center in Seagrove. turned to forms for modern homes, like plates, teapots, vases, urns, ashtrays, and birdhouses. With this explosion of new forms came brightly colored glazes—a whole rainbow of possibilities for decorating pots beyond the traditional browns and grays. Artistry became important, offering new options for the potters' creativity. One well-known family that has been in the pottery business in the Seagrove area for over a century and a half is the Lucks. Today, sixty- four-year-old Sid Luck—himself a fifth-gener¬ ation potter—operates Luck's Ware with the help of his two sons, Jason and Matthew. Sid's great-great-grandfather, William, got the fam¬ ily into the clay business in the mid-1800s by working with his son-in-law, Evan Cole, who ran one of the largest shops in the state. William's son, Henry, worked in that shop, as well as for J. D. Craven, one of the most famous potters in Moore County. Sid's grand¬ father, Bud, and father, James, continued the family tradition of producing salt-glazed stoneware, setting the stage for Sid's career. As with children growing up in many Sid Luck and his sons enjoy creating their own versions of old-fashioned Seagrove families, Sid Luck's earliest face jugs. A face jug is an ordinary jug with a face modeled on it, often memories of pottery making came very early, intended to be scary or funny. Image courtesy of the Luck family. from "my father, when I was six or so years old, he recalled, "That's when I got interested old." James Luck had little interest in the in it, watching him. Plus, he pretty much said, more recent art pottery. He preferred making 'You need to learn how to do this.' So he sort the classic utilitarian forms, like churns. "He of, I guess, forced me into it, and I liked it." loved doing the large pieces. He didn't care His father's informal teaching soon paid for turning a piece of clay that was under six off. Just two years later, in 1957, well-known pounds," Sid said. When Sid was ten years brother and sister potters Waymon Cole and Nell Cole Graves offered Sid Luck a job. He recalled, "I was good enough that they said, 'Here, make these little ashtrays and hot butter dispensers and that sort of thing.' So I started at the age of twelve; I was turning for them. And they paid me a little, probably paid me two dollars a day, or three or four. By the time I was twelve, thirteen years old, I could turn one hundred to two hundred ashtrays in one day." In addition to his father and the Coles, Seagrove offered other legendary teachers, such as "Philmore Graves and Ben Owen and Melvin Owens, and all the older ones that were around here. We all sort of hung out together." With all this local training. Luck wanted to .oik* a* > l.»r “ ""““SS.’SnoC ** become a full-time potter. But pottery sales were very slow during the 1950s and 1960s,

6 TH/H, Fall 2009 and Sid recognized that he "had to go Neolia Cole Womack, left, another direction." So and Celia Cole Perkinson. he spent time in the Image by Roger Haile, cour¬ tesy of the North Carolina Marine Corps, went to Arts Council Folklife Program. college, and then taught chemistry and science in school for eighteen years. But all COLE that time, he kept making pots for the

Coles. "Even after I ottery made by Neolia Cole twice, most recently in 1992 after P the pottery burned to the ground. got out of college and Womack and Celia Cole The sisters are known for their cre¬ was teaching, they'd Perkinson shows a flair that characterizes their branch of ativity and their deep roots in tradi¬ ask me if I'd come and the Coles, one of North Carolina’s tion. Many things about Cole’s turn pitchers for them. oldest pottery-making families. Both Pottery are the same as in the 1930s. So I'd sometimes sisters started turning clay when they The clay comes from a vein near were very young, literally growing up Smithfield used since the move to come down on the in their father’s shop. After more Sanford.They offer a startling array weekends and turn," than six decades, their work still of glazes and the creative variety of he said. shows their creative edge. forms that have come to be part of the family tradition. By the mid-1970s, Celia and Neolia were two of seven children born to Arthur R. and While many of their pieces have Americans were plan¬ Pauline Cole. “He brought out his precedents in earlier Cole creations, ning to celebrate the first kiln of pottery on the first day Neolia and Celia innovate. As Neolia said, “If you keep doing the same nation's bicentennial of December 1927, and that’s the morning I was born,” Neolia said. thing, your customers will get bored. (or two hundredth Seven years later, A. R. moved the And—more importantly—you’ll get anniversary), and reflecting on its history. family pottery from Randolph bored.” In 1983 their wares began to This, in turn, made people more interested in County to Sanford and opened a include short messages, handwritten by Neolia.These may mark a special antiques, folk art and all things "country," shop on Route I, then the eastern seaboard’s main north-south highway. occasion, report the weather, com¬ and the handmade object. Interest in face jugs As children, Celia and Neolia car¬ ment on a current event, or simply and other traditional forms of pottery ex¬ ried bisque ware (a form of unglazed remind you to “Have a nice day!” Celia has been noted for minia¬ ploded, and eager buyers began flocking to china), helped unload the kilns, and dipped pots in their father’s increas¬ ture reproductions of full-sized Cole Seagrove. Luck saw many newcomers "mov¬ ingly colorful vats of glaze. “If there pots, pitchers, and jars.Turned on the ing into the Seagrove area doing pottery, was anything you were big enough to wheel like larger pots, these may which is what I had really loved doing." And do, you did it,” Neolia said. Each Cole stand no more than a centimeter child began to learn by turning small high, yet they retain the Cole so he built his own shop. In 1990 he gave up pieces. As they graduated to the elegance and proportion. teaching to become a full-time potter. wheel, they moved on to larger Fifth-generation potters them¬ On the Web site for Luck's Ware, Sid wares. By the late 1930s, Celia and selves, the sisters have had the plea¬ sure of seeing their work continue. declares that "it has been my goal, all my life, Neolia were accomplished turners contributing to the shop’s output. Neolia’s grandson, Kenneth George, to carry on as much of the old traditional When their father died in 1974, who said he learned “by watching work as I can." And herein lies the focus for the pair took over the operation. and imitating,” works alongside them. his creativity. He does make brightly colored They have kept it going—rebuilding —North Carolina Arts Council tablewares and vases like other Seagrove potters, but his real love lies in the past. He said that he prefers to turn forms "like my buy Sid's antique-style pieces. His graceful family had made, just functional pieces. I like forms and rich, flowing salt glazes reflect the to make jugs; jugs still intrigue me. They're a best work of his ancestors. And he and his little more complicated." Six years ago. Luck sons have reenergized the old face jug— and his sons built an old-time groundhog kiln creating a variety of toothy, mustachioed, so they could fire their jars, milk crocks, grinning characters. churns, and pitchers in the traditional salt As a traditional potter, Luck feels a glaze. Few Seagrove potters make this "old" responsibility to ensure that the next pottery anymore, perhaps viewing it as out of generation will carry on the family business. date. But buyers flock to the Luck pottery to Like his father trained him, he has trained

THJH, Fall 2009 7 v Jt)dt Was That U/ord?

Widely used across the

S°" 9I°“

mokes the pet watertight.

Stoneware: a high-ft^• ^£

and breakable.

The Lucks built a groundhog kiln a few years ago so they can fire pottery in traditional salt glaze. Sid Luck continues many traditions and still uses a pottery wheel from his father's shop. Image courtesy of the Luck family.

both of his sons. Jason is a patent lawyer in Charleston, South Carolina, but continues to throw pots, bringing them home to fire in the groundhog kiln. Matt operates a chicken farm and works in the pottery shop alongside his father. "He's carrying on the family tradition before me." Times and tastes in its purest form," Luck explained, "because change, but the Lucks prior to me, all of my ancestors were potters continue to build on their and farmers. No lawyers and no teachers Seagrove heritage.

MARY JAKE SUEEH

foods, flowers, and medical practices. ists, film¬ ary Jane Queen (1914—2008) lived in Music was always a part of her family life. makers, and M the Caney Fork section of Jackson Both grandmothers were good singers, and her musicians— County, near where she was born. She older brother was “the first person to buy a anyone who was descended from the earliest Irish guitar in the Caney Fork section," she said. Her wanted to learn settlers in the valley, who for generations had father, by all accounts, was a farmer, a black¬ about what she scratched a living in the rocky soil. In a variety Mary Jane Queen. Image by smith, and the best banjo picker around. Before called “good old of practical ways—her traditional knowledge, Cedric N. Chatterley, courtesy the turn of the twentieth century, he was play¬ music” and other gardens, songs, and stories—she communicated of the North Carolina Arts ing at dances in the big red barn about a mile up traditions. Her the values and traditions of her upbringing to Council Folklife Program. the road from where Queen lived. “I watched observations on modern audiences. him play—and I’ve helped him sing—all of these many facets of traditional life benefited projects Queen grew up with eight brothers and old songs many times. And that’s how I learned ranging from an exhibit on blacksmithing at the sisters in a family that lived almost totally out¬ them, and where I learned them," she said. Mountain Heritage Center in Cullowhee, to a side the cash economy. When she was a child, musical produced at New York City’s Town Hall. everyone in her family gathered herbs and tan Queen sang for her own pleasure and happily shared her music with others. She sang songs Her marriage to Claude Queen, a banjo and bark from the forest of the Richland Balsam guitar player, brought together the traditions of Mountains. She remembered trading herbs, brought by pioneering settlers, old ballads two neighboring families. Not surprisingly, all of homemade chairs, vegetables, and logs, for cof¬ formed in an earlier America, hymns and spiritu¬ the couple’s eight children became musicians fee and sugar, shoes, and even gasoline. Like oth¬ als from Baptist and Methodist traditions, and who learned “by ear.” As their mother said, “We ers in that time and place, she said,“We made comic songs handed down from both the make music, but we don’t read music. But then, most of the things we wore; we grew most of European and African American traditions. Most there are plenty of people who can read music, the things we ate.” The flower, vegetable, and importantly, she took care to pass on her but can’t really make music.” herb gardens surrounding Queen’s house knowledge. She welcomed into her home a reflected her lifelong interest in traditional parade of students, teachers, folklorists, journal- —North Carolina Arts Council

8 THJH, Fall 2009 111 mi iiiiiiniii mi ill iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin iiiiiiiii!i mi i ill ill mi Miiiiii mi mm! mi mi 1111 iiiiiiiiiiiiiii mi MiiMiiniiiiiMi.

Doc Watson— North Carolina Legend by Mark Freed*

ave you ever made your own music with household items like pots and pans? Do you like to sing songs that you learned at home, in a place of worship, or on the radio? When famous North Carolina guitarist Doc Watson was a boy, he paid close atten¬ tion to sounds and loved to make music. He would bang on cowbells for hours, listen to rocks whizzing through the air, and get a new harmonica in his Christmas stocking every year. His good ears, love of music, and creativ¬ ity eventually helped Watson make his living as a musician and become known around the world for his amazing guitar playing. In 1923 Arthel “Doc" Watson was born in the Mountain region of northwest North Carolina in a Watauga County community called Deep Gap. An eye infection caused him to lose all of his vision before he turned a Doc Watson, of Watauga County, has been amazing audiences for year old. Despite being blind, he remained an decades with his guitar playing. Watson is one of North Carolina's most noted and award-winning musicians. He merges old traditions with his active child—climbing cherry trees, playing own style. Image by Jim Gavenus, courtesy of Folklore Productions. games with his eight brothers and sisters, and helping with household chores. When Watson When Watson was eleven years old, his was fourteen years old, his father put him to father made him a fretless, mountain-style work on one end of a cross-cut saw, cutting banjo—a banjo without the metal bars or timber. "It taught me that I didn't have to sit in ridges found on the fingerboard of many the corner as a handicap person, that I could stringed instruments—and taught him a work," he later said. few traditional folk songs well known in the Watson's loss of vision made listening region. One of those songs, "Ruben's Train," especially important, and there were lots of imitates the sounds of a train on the banjo. exciting sounds around his house and com¬ Doc Watson kept playing the banjo, but anoth¬ munity. Doc's father, General Watson, played er instrument fascinated him: the guitar. harmonica and banjo and led singing in the One morning, Watson was playing around family's church. General gave his son his first with a guitar that his brother had borrowed harmonica when he was five. Around that from a relative. His father told him that he time, the Watsons got a Victrola phonograph, would help him buy a guitar, if Doc could play (or record player), and a box of records. (Do a song by the time he got home from work. a little research to find out more about records General didn't know that Doc already knew and different ways of listening to music!) Doc a few chords. When his father returned from was very excited and spent hours listening to work. Doc played "When the Roses Bloom in blues guitar players, old-time fiddlers, and Dixieland." He got his first guitar—and he has yodeling cowboy singers. been picking one ever since.

*Mark Freed works as a folklorist and with traditional arts programs in Watauga County, THJH, Fall 2009 where he lives with his wife, daughter, and a dozen banjos. Watson attended a school for the blind creativity and invented his own way to in Raleigh for a few years, but his play them. He spent hours prac¬ favorite place to be was back ticing, learning to play the home in Watauga County. At melodies by using a flat home he could play with pick going up and down his brother David, listen on the guitar strings. He to records and to relatives got very good and could playing music, and work for play lots of notes, fast money. He cut timber to pay and clean. for a new Watson sometimes guitar, and he performed with a group of i spent many hours musicians from nearby Mountain ' practicing on it. City, Tennessee, including a banjo As he got older, Watson player named Tom "Clarence" Ashley. used his good ears and In the 1960s many college students musical ability to make became very interested in folk music. money. He worked for a They would travel to rural areas while as a piano tuner. across the country to find traditional And sometimes he would musicians to listen to and learn from. walk or catch a ride sev¬ One student of music, Ralph Rinzler, eral miles into Boone to came to find Ashley and ended up meeting play on the streets there Watson, whose amazing guitar and banjo for spare change. People playing impressed him. Rinzler knew heard Watson playing on that young people in college towns and the streets and invited cities would love the traditional mountain xtZgecZSTo^Holland copyright him to play on local ra¬ songs and tunes that Watson and the other Watson. dio stations. During one musicians knew. Rinzler recorded some songs of those performances, and spread the word. when he was eighteen, the announcer asked Soon, Watson was traveling all over the him for a nickname. It was common for per¬ country performing for enthusiastic audi¬ formers to use a "stage name" on the radio. ences. He would sing touching ballads about A girl in the audience yelled, "Call him Doc" mountain tragedies, finger-pick some soulful (likely a reference to fictional detective Sher¬ blues, then dazzle audiences with his fast flat- lock Holmes's sidekick, Doctor Watson). The pick style. People loved the traditional songs nickname stuck. and heartfelt blues, but there was something Doc's cousin, Willard Watson, played the extra special about Watson's flat-picking. He banjo and sometimes had music parties. Doc could play fiddle tunes on the guitar faster

met fiddler Gaither Carlton at one of these (Right to left) Merle Watson spent many years performing and recording gatherings, and the two began to play mu¬ with his father. Doc Watson, after first learning to play guitar from his mother, Rosa Lee. In this photo, father and son tune their guitars before a sic together. Doc fell in love with Gaither's 1982 performance at Freedom Park in Charlotte, as Rosa Lee looks on. daughter, Rosa Lee. The two got married and Merle died in 1985. Image courtesy of]im Morton. later had two children: a son, Eddy Merle, and a daughter, Nancy Ellen. In order to help make a living, Watson started playing a regular gig (or paid per¬ formance) with a square dance band at the American Legion club in Boone. The square dancers preferred to dance to fiddle tunes, but the band did not always have a fiddler. Wat¬ son had to learn how to play fiddle tunes on his guitar. Because other guitar players were not playing fiddle tune melodies, he used

THjH, Fall 2009 family, for example, the North Carolina Arts Council honored the entire family with its 1994 Heritage Award. Though he is now world famous for his incredible guitar playing, Watson remains a very humble person. He still lives in Deep Gap with Rosa Lee, after more than sixty years of marriage. Of course, he continues to make music, helping carry on the traditional tunes and songs of the mountains and inventing new styles and techniques for the next Watson,z&s&&ssss£ as well as songs. Access wwwdocand o/DSrearnmOK'^«% generations.

Clarence "Frog" Greene and Doc Watson play music on the streets of Boone in the 1950s. Image courtesy of David Holt and copyright Doc Watson. and more precisely than most people had ever heard. All of his practicing paid off. Watson could make a living for his family playing WhatWdS That Word? music full-time, although it required lots of Ballad song that tells a f southern African time out on the road. While Doc was away from home performing in the early 1960s, Rosa Lee taught their son, Merle, how to play the guitar. (Many of Doc's Cross-cut saw: saw with a hanaie ar family members are good musicians, too.) rjTp'i: ga,,a, s*,* >KC a,e, .Infers and -hon* Merle, then a young teenager, had a natural talent and was a quick learner. Within a few *h‘" ° 5ma"' device to strike the strings j months, he was on the road traveling and per¬ Folk song: song with no JJ* tradition forming with his father. For twenty years, Doc from person to ^g-band and Merle traveled across the United States °,d-time: bluegrass (The hey- music styles that p 1930s 1 performing, and they made many albums * together. In 1985 Merle died tragically in a Yodeling: torm ot smy». between the normal voice and falsetto tractor accident. Since 1988, an annual music (high-pitched singing) festival—called MerleFest—has been held in his memory at Wilkesboro Community Col¬ lege. Today, more than fifty thousand people attend this event, which lasts four days in April. It includes Doc as well as hundreds of other performers of many musical styles. Despite his son's death, Doc Watson has continued to perform and record. Fie has won several Grammy Awards, including the Life¬ time Achievement Award. He has received the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the high¬ est national honor for a traditional artist, as well as other awards. In order to acknowledge the traditions of Watson's influential musical _ LEI JL// JACOBI For more than eighty years, Elizabeth “Lee” Graham Jacobs lived in Columbus County's Waccamaw-Siouan American Indian commu¬ nity of Buckhead, within two and a half miles of where she was born. Most of that time, she was a quilter."Honey, I could make a pretty stitch when I was eight years old,” she said. “Miss Lee," as she was known to many in the community, learned to piece quilts from her grandmother—whose mother was a quilter, too. “I reckon it was born in me to love to quilt,” she said.“You can’t show a child too early that’s want¬ ing to learn. My grandma would give me some of Orville Hicks. Image by Hobart ]ones, courtesy of her scraps. I’d sit right there beside her. She’d trim Dock Rmah. Image by Bill Bamberger, courtesy of the North Carolina Arts Council Folklife Program. hers and cut them little ends and pieces, that’s the North Carolina Arts Council Folklife Program. what she gave me to sew." The smaller the scraps, ORVILLE the prettier the quilt, Jacobs thought. She also DOCK loved using lots of colors in her work. HICKS Jacobs guessed that she made almost two hun¬ RMAH dred quilts. She gave many away. “I loved to quilt, his is how Sarah Ann Harmon Hicks ock Rmah begins the story of his life, T and I enjoyed it. I mostly was doing it for a hobby; D gathered her children to the porch music, and resettlement in Greensboro I wasn’t getting anything out of it. But in the long or parlor:“If you young’uns want to simply:“I was born March I, 1942, in run, it paid off because I was able to give every hear a tale, come on in the house!” Plei Thoh, Pleiku Province,Vietnam.” But child I had a couple of quilts apiece.Then I started Her youngest son, storyteller Orville Hicks, the story is complex. Rmah is Jarai, one of back and I would give [quilts to] all my grandchil¬ recalled:“We would do chores while Mama many traditional ethnic groups living in central dren—seven children and nine grandchildren.” told the tales; we’d break beans, shell peas, or Vietnam’s mountain regions since ancient Like other Waccamaw-Siouan women her age bunch galax.We would sit there and do work, times.The French, occupying Vietnam for near¬ and older, Jacobs worked with few resources and and Mama would tell us each a Jack tale. And ly a century, called them all Montagnards, or often made quilts just for keeping warm.Younger that’s how I learned ...” mountaineers.Those who banded together as tribe members now see the quilts as documents of Orville and his ten siblings were raised in resistance fighters after U.S. ground forces left family and community histories.“Miss Lee’s” quilts the Matney community on Beech Mountain, Vietnam in 1973 called themselves Dega, com¬ helped celebrate weddings, graduations, babies, and tracing their roots to Cutliff Harmon, a wag¬ bining the names of mythic heroes they held in new homes.They comforted people who lost their oner for Daniel Boone who settled in Watauga common. Rmah, like other Dega, left Vietnam homes in fires. Many raised money for local causes, County. Harmon's grandson, Council Harmon, in the early 1980s for sanctuary in Thailand, said Brenda Moore, a community developer at the was known in the region for his tale telling, then America. Many came to North Carolina. Waccamaw-Siouan Development Association. “You endless jokes and riddles, and witty conver¬ Growing up, Rmah was part of an oral really feel like you have a million dollars if you get sational style. Council's granddaughter, Sarah culture at least a thousand years old. Memory one of Miss Lee’s quilts,” Moore said. Ann, entertained her children with riddles that played a key role in learning music and in Jacobs, who died in 2000, spent many hours sharpened their verbal skills and logic, and with passing on family and tribal histories. Nearly teaching quilting and inspiring younger quilters. She tales and ballads passed down in the family. everyone took part in singing traditions, and took a modest view of her work, though. “At night, Orville liked hearing about a clever boy he easily absorbed his native music’s style and whenever I get ready to go to bed, I kind of think named Jack. Many children know about Jack's structures. Exchanges of song happened about what did I do today, have I accomplished adventures with a giant beanstalk.This and often—while working in the rice fields, mourn¬ anything or not. And if you’ve just wasted up God’s many more Jack tales were told in Avery and ing at funerals, and even negotiating marriages. good day, you've not accomplished anything. I try Watauga counties well into the 1900s, after Rmah also learned the art of improvising. to do something with it, you know, that’s profit¬ they had died out in most of the southern The Jarai admire those who make each perfor¬ able. And quilting is the thing that’ll do it.” Appalachians. Orville’s neighbor and second mance of a song unique. Songs change to fit cousin, Ray Hicks, was a skilled storyteller —North Carolina Arts Council the occasion. “We try to compose by ourselves who told young Orville all the Jack tales he what we like—the tune, or the voice, or the wanted to hear. For forty years, Orville visited meaning,” he said. Popular are joke songs made Ray, absorbing stories and sometimes offering up on the spot to comment on events or per¬ his own versions. It was Ray who first encour¬ sonalities, giving gentle approval or criticism. aged Orville to perform beyond the local area. Contests erupt at social gatherings, as clever Since his first nervous night telling ghost singers trade couplets and rhymed verses. stories to an enthusiastic festival crowd, Hicks Rmah plays many traditional instruments: has delighted many audiences with tales, ap¬ the bamboo and wood truong, which looks like peared on video, recorded CDs, and worked a xylophone; the gong, a multistringed instru¬ with writers on articles and books. He and ment with a bamboo resonator; the bro, a one- wife Sylvia raised five sons. What does Hicks string “violin” that requires holding the string want to achive now? “I want to do things the taut between the teeth and toes; and the ding- way Jack done.Trading, doing garden work, and nam and dingdek, multireed bamboo recorders. then go out and make some money and find He adapts new texts about life in the United a way to live. As long as I make enough to pay States to old musical structures. "Of course, I my rent and bills, that’s all I’m worried about. I want to keep Montagnard songs together, not wasn’t planning to be no millionaire!” just for me, [but] for my people,” he said. Elizabeth "Lee" Jacobs. Image by Bill Bamberger, cour¬ tesy of the North Carolina Arts Council Folklife Program. —North Carolina Arts Council —North Carolina Arts Council

THJH, Fall 2009 Talking Feet: The History of Clogging by Michelle L. Carr*

Double-toe step, heel, ball. Double-toe step, communities for many years. Some dancers brush kick. formed teams and began to compete against one another. hese words may not make much sense Although generations of people in Appa¬ T to you, but to a dogger they translate lachia had been clogging, it took a handful into the written steps of a clog dance. of North Carolinians to introduce the dance Clogging is a folk dance—a dance that to the entire country. Bascom Lamar began with the "regular people" Lunsford helped clogging become of a country or region—in which more popular when he added a team the performers use their feet as dancing competition to the annual instruments. Clog dancers wear Mountain Dance and Folk Festival shoes with taps. They strike in Asheville. In 1928 a group called the toes, balls, and heels of the Soco Gap Dancers, from their feet to the ground in Haywood County, won this rhythm to the music. prestigious competition. Clogging has a rich When the group heritage that is performed for closely tied to Queen Mary the history of of England, the Tar Heel her majesty State. reportedly Clogging noted is a truly that the American danc¬ dance. It rtese clogging shoes—worn by the author when she was a com¬ ers' began in the petitive dogger during her school years—are similar to the styles foot¬ worn by square dancers, but they have two sets of "jingle taps" Appalachian on the soles to create more sound when the dancer's feet strike work re¬ Mountains more than the floor. Image by Jessica Pratt, courtesy of Michelle Carr. sembled two hundred years the clogging performed in ago. Irish, Scottish, English, and Dutch- her country. At that time, the American dance German immigrants settled in Appalachia style had various regional names—such as flat starting in the mid-1700s. Each group had its footing, buckdancing, and jigging. The queen's own dances and musical traditions. Eventu¬ name stuck, and the step dancing performed ally, the different dances combined into a throughout Appalachia became widely known unique style of step dancing usually per¬ as clog dancing. formed to fiddle music. This style reflected the Modern clogging is more complicated than creativity of the people living in the region. the simple rhythmic dance begun by our an¬ Over time, the new folk dance—which also cestors. Since clogging is a living folk dance, it included elements of traditional Cherokee reflects the time in which the dancers live. As dance and African rhythmic steps—became with other forms of personal expression, each clog dancing as we know it today. generation adds its own creativity to the art Throughout the 1700s and 1800s, clogging form. New inspirations creep into the dance was performed by individuals. Each person because of popular culture. Tap dancing, street created his or her own steps and shared them dancing, and even hip-hop influence the style with other dancers. Then, in the early 1900s, of steps and dances performed by today's many doggers began to add their steps to the doggers. Performing teams wearing brightly square dances that had been enjoyed in their colored costumes, calico, or sequins

*Michelle L. Carr serves as the curator of internal programs within the Education Section THJH, Fall 2009 of the North Carolina Museum of History. She is a former clogger. 13 have sprung up everywhere, entertaining with traditional steps, while groups like the Pride impressive precision (or exact) footwork. of Carolina Cloggers from High Point partici¬ As for the shoes, many old clogging shoes pate in both precision and traditional clogging had no taps. Some shoes were made of leather competitions. They may dance to fiddle tunes and velvet. Their soles were either wooden or or rap music. hard leather. Modern clogging shoes usually Many of the nation's best cloggers flock to have double taps or "jingle Maggie Valley, in Haywood County, to show taps." There are four off their talents. Often called the Clogging taps on each of Capitol of the World, this town in the western Explore! these shoes— part of North Carolina has hosted major dance two on the toe, competitions for many years. Video of many North Carolina and two on Considering clogging's long history in the teams performing both traditional and contemporary clogging dances is the heel. One Tar Heel State, is it any wonder that it is the available on YouTube. tap of each official state dance? . You can also visit team Web sites. pair is Access the WolfpacK Clogging securely Team’s at http://ciubs.ncsu fastened to the .edu/ciogging/. shoe. The other tap is more loosely fastened, hitting both the floor and the fastened tap during dancing. Clogging competitions across the country bring together teams from East and West to vie for trophies, honors, and cash prizes. Some teams, such as the Wolfpack Clogging Team from North Carolina State University, perform

ALGI4 MAX; HIHTOI

he blues—as performed by guitarists, inspired her to become a better and • T better performer. She even learned harmonica players, and singers in rural communities throughout Piedmont and to execute a buckdance while playing eastern North Carolina—is primarily a a guitar behind her head, never miss¬ form of dance music. For Algia Mae Hinton of ing a step or a note! Johnston County, blues music and buckdancing Hinton remembers her parents, and are inseparable. “It takes both to make it sound the music-making and dancing of her right,” she said. childhood, with deep affection. Since Hinton is the youngest daughter in a large then, her life has been a little tougher. family of music-makers. Her mother, Ollie Her husband’s early death left her alone O’Neal, was a talented musician who played gui¬ to raise seven children—dependent on tar, accordion, autoharp, harmonica, and jaw seasonal farmwork in tobacco, cucum¬ harp. She taught her children music, and by the ber, and sweet potato fields to support Algia Mae Hinton buckdancing. Image by Mary Ann time she was nine years old, Algia Mae could them. Music and dancing provided a small, Mcdonald, courtesy of the North Carolina Arts Council Folklife Program. play the guitar. By the time she had reached her but crucial, source of comfort and income mid-teens, she was able to entertain at local throughout many hard times. dances and house parties. Just as her mother did, Hinton has passed the words onstage, she speaks passionately through Hinton’s passion for playing music was arts on to her children and grandchildren. And her dancing and her guitar playing. As she said exceeded only by her love of dancing; indeed, starting with a 1978 appearance at the North after one performance, “I enjoy doing it, though her mother called her “that dancing girl.” She Carolina Folklife Festival, she became more well I liked to work my legs overtime. But, I tell you, closely observed the buckdancing techniques of known as an artist. Hinton has appeared at the I had those folks jumping.” her older siblings, parents, aunts, and uncles. An National Folk Festival, the Chicago University air of friendly competition within the family Folk Festival, and Carnegie Hall. A woman of few —North Carolina Arts Council

THIH, Fall 2009 14 Homegrown Skills: Cteatmg a. Way of Life at the Coast

Articles by Karen Willis Amspacher*

ife at the coast today greatly differs from The Tar Heel coast looked very different as L what it would have been one hundred, late as the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. The region fifty, or even twenty-five years ago. featured great expanses of marshes, creeks, These days, the modern conveniences of rivers, and sounds scarcely touched by communication, transportation, and humans. Roads and bridges had not yet come commerce are readily available to everyone to every area, so everything (including peo¬ who visits or lives along the coast of North ple) was still moved around by boat. Each Carolina. But throughout history, people there neighborhood had its own store, and doctors have depended on the coast's natural came in boats to treat the sick. Communica¬ resources—beautiful and productive waters, tion usually meant one telephone in the local abundant seafood, and wintering grounds for store, with a radio in almost every home. It waterfowl—to survive. took work and effort to get anything. Life In the past, certain skills existed that were centered on family, school, and church. Chil¬ For generations, coastal families used decoys to very important to a coastal family's way of dren grew up in a limited world. attract ducks and life. Income and survival depended on these After World War II, in the mid-1950s, life geese, so they could be hunted for food or for skills and the ability to use the waters nearby. started to change. Coastal communities sport. Image courtesy of Core Sound Wateifozvl A community's food traditions relied on the began to shift from "living off the land and Museum and Heritage area's natural resources. Even a young the local waters" to a more diverse econo¬ Center, Doily Fidcher Collection. person's entertainment and fun would be my. More and more people moved into the based on their knowledge and skills. For area. Vacationers found the unspoiled example, in the early 1900s, a teenager would waters and open beaches. More jobs with need to be able to handle a boat to go on a the government—such as the Coast Guard, date in another community. There were no teaching, civil service, and state agencies— roads or bridges to get from place to place in mixed with the traditional coastal trades of many parts of the coast. A young boy's winter commercial fishing, boatbuilding, hunting, fun might be hunting waterfowl along the and local commerce, such as running small coastal marshes, which required knowing stores and other businesses. Women joined the how to shoot, how to handle a boat, and workforce and helped provide families with maybe even knowing how to make decoys. money to buy food and other needed items. Let's look more closely at life one hundred Even traditional coastal occupations began years ago in North Carolina's coastal to change, becoming more trade oriented and communities. At that time, hunting and specialized. Men became boatbuilders, decoy fishing supplied a family's food and income. makers, net hangers, fishermen, and hunting It was important to have hunting skills; to guides—and most times, a combination of know about waterfowl like ducks and geese those roles. Coastal communities' economies and their habits; to understand the ways of continued to depend on these skills, but men fish and how to catch them; to know where to usually focused on certain trades to make a find oysters and clams; to grasp how to handle living instead of using several skills just to (and even build) a boat; and to know plenty provide for their families. The North Carolina about local waters, feeding grounds, and Museum of History's current exhibition. Work- navigation channels. People needed carpentry boats of Core Sound, highlights this era and skills to build a house for shelter and a boat these skills, as well as the ways that these for transportation. Creativity and ingenuity, coastal traditions continue to provide income along with basic know-how, could make life for many families in the small town of Atlan¬ easier and more enjoyable in many ways. tic, in Carteret County.

*Karen Willis Amspacher serves as the executive director of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island. She has edited several books related to coastal heritage and history, 15 including The Mailboat, Island Bom and Bred, and Morehead City Heritage Cookbook. In the 1980s, coastal economies shifted even men and women who work in these trades— more toward tourism (or travel) and becoming remain important to North Carolina's cultural retirement destinations. Traditional skills are heritage. Today, such heritage skills are most gradually becoming harder to find. Most often featured in museums, tourism programs, people view commercial fishing as a dying and festivals that remind us of how much the industry. Wooden boats used for working the coast has changed in just the last few decades. waters are being replaced by recreational and The value of these skills continues to grow, sportfishing styles of boats. Waterfront homes, because abilities that define Tar Heel coastal condominiums, and businesses suited to traditions provide an important link to the past travelers and new-home buyers are replacing that should be passed on to the working fish houses, boatyards, and harbors. next generation. Still, traditions like commercial fishing, boatbuilding, hunting and fishing, decoy carving, and net hanging—and the creative

creeks and Decoy Making marshes. Hunters watched from a "Decoys are my way of holding duck blind nearby. (A duck onto the past." blind is a small hideout for —Joe Fulcher Jr., third-generation the hunter; adapting the blind Mitchell Fulcher—who lived in the Stacy community— decoy carver is considered the premier decoy maker from Carteret to the hunter's needs offers County. Fulcher worked as a fisherman and hunting another example of Tar Heels' guide. His work is sleek and artistic, and today, among or many years—centuries, the finest and most collectible. This pintail decoy sold F for $19,000 at an auction held at Harkers Island in the perhaps—waterfowl such creativity. A blind is usually a 1990s. It is now on display at the Core Sound Waterfowl as large flocks of redheads, small shack, sometimes resting on Museum and Heritage Center there. Image courtesy of canvasbacks, blackheads, posts over the water and Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center and the North Carolina Arts Council. pintails, and geese spent the sometimes built into the marsh winters along North Carolina's close to hunting grounds.) The waterfowl lover could become an coast, especially in places like goal for using decoys was to get artist rather than a hunter. Carvers Currituck and Core sounds. These live ducks and geese close enough could make money by creating birds became a major food source for hunters to shoot them. decoys for a new audience, and for people living in the region. Again, the mid-1900s brought decoys became even more The tradition of hunting created a change to this tradition. For most detailed and beautiful. need: decoys. Decoys are man¬ people, hunting changed from Like other everyday activities made replicas, or models, of being a way to put food on the that become old-fashioned as ducks and geese that are made to table to being a sport. So the way lifestyles change, the practice of float and look like real birds. that people made decoys changed, turning wood into ducks could Decoys provided an important too. People bought plastic decoys have been taken for granted, tool for from catalogs and stores. These ignored, or forgotten, had it not hunting. These manufactured (instead of been for people who appreciated wooden ducks handmade) decoys were lighter this skill as part of their coastal were placed in and easier to handle. They began heritage. Today, artists who make the water to to replace the old wooden decoys. decoys join in heritage cele¬ lure live birds Making decoys then became brations and events, are featured to land in the more of a folk art than a survival at places like the Core Sound skill. Decoys became collectors' Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Andrew Prioli learns to paint decoys during items rather than tools. This was Center, and share their skills with Waterfowl Weekend at Harkers Island. Image by another way that the coastal young people. They are making Carmine Prioli, courtesy culture changed to meet new sure that coastal traditions will of Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage opportunities. The creative continue to survive. Center.

16 THIH, Fall 2009 working sail skiffs along North Carolina's "If she ain't pretty, she won't central coast— work right." boatbuilding —Calvin Rose, Harkers Island first grew into boatbuilder a business in the late 1800s. orth Carolina has a N That meant long and winding that boats coastline. Along the The North Carolina Museum of History's exhibition became more than a part of coast, the land bor¬ Workboats of Core Sound celebrates the talents of Down subsistence living—in which each East boatbuilders—especially the traditions of the ders creeks, rivers, and sounds, community of Atlantic and its most famous builder, household or family raised or while the Outer Banks meet the Ambrose Fulcher. Like all Down East boatbuilders of caught its own food, needing a the early 1900s, Fulcher used only a saw, hammer, and Atlantic Ocean for hundreds of hatchet to build boats. He followed no plans, using boat to get from place to place in what boatbuilers call "the rack of the eye." As a result, miles. Counties up and down the order to have something to eat. no two handmade Core Sound workboats are exactly coast—ranging from Dare to the alike. Haul Boat is one of Fulcher's boats that still works Boatyards and shipbuilding the waters. Image from Workboats of Core Sound north and Brunswick to the exhibition, courtesy of Lawrence S. Earle]/. operations appeared along the south—have economies that were coast to support the growing historically tied to the waters sur¬ the docks of places like Ocracoke, ocean trades and provide boats rounding them through commer¬ Hatteras, Wanchese, and Sneads for commercial fishing, in which cial fishing and boatbuilding. Ferry. Boats were important to people sold what they caught. For instance, along the central everyone—carrying doctors, gro¬ Boat styles have developed coast, Carteret County includes ceries, preachers, servicemen, and over the generations, beginning more water than it does land: 821 families from community to com¬ with the sharpie, a type of sailing square miles of water compared munity, especially in rural areas skiff. This boat came south from to 520 square miles of land. Even where roads and bridges did not the Chesapeake Bay with oyster- that land is filled with creeks and even begin to appear until the men who arrived to work North rivers. Is it any wonder that boat¬ 1930s and 1940s. Carolina waters in the early building has been so important Today's boatbuilding industry 1900s. Changes were made to the throughout the county's history? has followed changes in the sharpie's design over generations. Boats had been needed for trans¬ coastal landscape, economy, and For example, Tar Heel builders portation in the early years and culture. More builders focus on adjusted for North Carolina's for food (including commercial recreational and sportfishing shallow waters by adapting the fishing for generations). Now boats that cater to tourists instead design of the boat's bottom. They they are needed as part of a of working fishermen. Materials created ways to have larger sails, growing tourism industry. have changed from wood to fiber¬ so the boats could go faster and According to Sonny glass. Most boats are manu¬ work better in the sounds Williamson in Sailing with factured using machinery instead between the mainland and the Grandpa—a local publication of being made by hand. A strong Outer Banks. highlighting the history of love for handmade wooden boats With the coming of gasoline remains, however. Events, engines in the mid-1900s, build¬ classroom programs, and small ers put aside the sharpie sail skiff businesses along the coast of for new, larger, and more efficient North Carolina and other states ways to move people and goods. focus on traditional boatbuilding. Mail boats, freight boats, and The practice was important to the commercial fishing vessels lined past and remains crucial to the William O'Neal displays a model boat he built region's economy, history, and during a program on boatbuilding during Ocracoke Arts Week. Image by Kitty Mitchell, traditional culture. courtesy of Ocracoke School.

THJH, Fall 2009 17 Make a Paint-Stirrer Banjo materials tools 7-inch foam plate scissors 7-inch circle cut from heavy paper pencil small strip of construction paper markers three long rubber bands tape wooden paint stirrer heavy-duty stapler rubber regular stapler bands

Use your pencil to trace a 7-inch circle on heavy paper, using the plate to draw around. Cut it out.This will be the head of the banjo.

2) Decorate the banjo head using markers.

Tape a paint stirrer to the back of the banjo head, making sure that one end of the stirrer lines up with an edge of -1 the banjo head.The paint stirrer will be the banjo’s neck.

4) Make a banjo sandwich: plate on one side, stirrer in the middle, banjo head on the other. Using the heavy-duty stapler, staple the banjo head to the plate through the paint stirrer at the top and the bottom. Use the regular stapler to staple the head to the plate in other areas.

Roll a strip of construction paper into a sturdy tube about 2 inches wide.This will be the banjo’s bridge.

6) String three rubber bands onto the paint stirrer’s neck.These are your strings. Slip the bridge under the strings near the bottom of the banjo head.

TH]H, Fall 2009 18 i fOHP OWR I

1 Qailting Bee 1

n the mid-1800s, women got together to I create “Baltimore album quilts.” Each person would sew one quilt block with a special design. Sometimes the quilters would sign, date, and include their own special message in their block.The colors, pictures, and style of each square could be very different.When all the blocks were stitched together to make a quilt, it might be given to someone as a gift on a special occasion. Keeping an album was another popular hobby at that time. People would collect friends’ autographs, drawings, and poetry in album books like today’s scrapbooks.The squares in an album quilt are like the pages in one of these album books. Have a quilting bee with members of your family, class, club, or another group. Cut same-size squares of paper, and give one to each person. Each person can design, sign, and date their own quilt block. (Try some of the ideas below, which can help preserve and share family or group history!) Put all the blocks together in an album or storybook; glue them together to form a “quilt.”; or scan them into ^//////////////////////////////////////////^^^^ a computer and print blocks onto cloth to be sewn together to form a quilt.You can learn to embroi¬ der or applique simple designs onto your block I Create a Coil Pot or use a computer “paint" program to arrange geometric shapes into a pattern on a block.

What You Need: A Few Ideas for Quilt Blocks day, polymer clay, or Playdough 1. Describe and/or draw your family or yourself. plastic net bag (the kind oranges come in) Where did your family come from? Where do you live now? What is special about your family or you? 1. Roll the clay into long “snakes” about as thick as a pencil. What do you enjoy?

2. Make the bottom of your pot by tightly coiling 2. Have you asked your parents, grandparents, or one snake around itself. Press the layers older family members about growing up? Where together with your fingers. Turn it over and did they live at your age? What games or toys did smooth on the other side. they enjoy? What did they do at school? Share one 3. Build up the sides of your pot by placing of their stories in your block. another snake along the outer edge of the base. Press and smooth it into place on the inside and 3. What are your favorite foods or places to eat? the outside. Does your family have special foods that you eat second on certain days or a favorite recipe? Design a quilt 4. Repeat this process until the pot is as large as jt block about food. you want it to be, or until you have used all of your day. bu.se 4. Do you have a special hobby or talent? Do you 5. Smooth your pot inside and out to make the 4-5. enjoy an artistic activity? Does someone in your coils stick together. family have an unusual job or skill? Create a quilt block that shows or demonstrates it! 6. Add decorations! One way: press a piece of the plastic net bag onto the outside of the pot, 5. Do you have a favorite object passed down from then pull it away carefully. This also helps to a family member, or a special object that just means stick the coils together tightly. a lot to you or represents things that you enjoy 7. Keep your pot to admire or smash it down doing right now? Do you collect anything? Design and start again. If you use polymer clay or clay, a quilt block that includes information about the bake or fire the pot to make it strong. object or collection, how it is used, where it came from, what it reminds you of, and so forth.

THJH, Fall 2009 George Higgs and the Bull City Blues by Mike “Lightnin”’Wells*

or more than sixty years, George the first F Higgs, of Tarboro in Edgecombe true County, has been playing and sing¬ blues ing the blues in his community and record¬ in places as far away as Australia ing. and Switzerland—carrying on a creative musi¬ During cal tradition that he has known since he was a the 1920s boy What, exactly, is "the blues"? and Well, no one can say exactly when the 1930s, blues came into being, but African Americans after started this musical style in the southern these early United States during the late 1800s or early successes, 1900s. Early written reports describe the blues many as songs dealing with life, love, hard luck, and southern blues good times, made up by black workers with musicians became guitar accompaniment. (Influences included recording artists. spirituals, work songs, chants, ballads, and Different parts other musical forms.) This early blues was of the South produced a type of folk music—created for personal slightly different blues styles. enjoyment at home and in the community. For example, "Piedmont blues" By 1912, the blues was becoming better or "East Coast blues"—based in Virginia, the known nationally, onstage and through Carolinas, and Georgia—is more delicate and sheet music. W. C. Handy, a bandleader in sensitive when compared to the "Delta blues" Tennessee, published "The Saint Louis Blues" of the Deep South, although it does have some in 1914, creating one of the first commercial of the same melancholy chords and notes. blues classics. "The Crazy Blues," performed People in the region were less isolated than in by Mamie Smith in 1920, is usually considered areas such as Mississippi, and the blues drew on more outside musical influences—ragtime, marching band, and country music. Piedmont blues also seems to have more of a sense of joy, or "good times," suggesting that it often has been part of celebrations and dancing. During the 1930s, Durham became a center for blues musicians playing in this Piedmont style. Several musicians there became successful recording artists and influences. Higgs, growing up in a rural region less than a hundred miles east, would take this influence and creatively interpret his own version of the blues for future generations to enjoy.

(Center of spread) George Higgs. Image by Cedric N. Cbatterley, courtesy of the North Carolina Arts Council Folklife Program. (Above) Higgs has been playing A Love for Music harmonicas like this one, which was donated to the North Carolina Museum of History in 1993, since he was a young boy in Edgecombe Count)'. Image George Higgs was born in 1930 in the courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. small town of Speed ("a slow town with a

'Mike "Lightnm" Wells is a folk blues musician who has released five CDs and is included in the 20 Touring Artist Roster of the North Carolina Arts Council. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and East Carolina University. His history of the recording industry in North Carolina is included in the Encyclopedia of North Carolina, edited by William Powell and published by UNC Press in 2006. For more on Wells, access his Web site at jvzvw.lightnirmells.com. fast name/7 as he is fond of in a high-pitched, powerful voice that conveys describing it), in Edgecombe sweetness and toughness at the same time. County. Before the days As he became more skilled at his harmonica of television and video and guitar playing, Higgs began to perform games, rural families the blues music he loved in his community found simpler and in neighboring counties during fish fries ways to entertain and house parties. For a while, he sang and themselves or to played guitar with a gospel group called the relax after a hard Friendly Five, in area churches and on radio. day of work. He teamed up with a bluesman from Tarboro George's father, named Elester Anderson, until Anderson's Jessie Higgs, early death in the mid-1970s. At that point, was a farmer Higgs began performing solo for festivals, who played concerts, and schools across the state, to ever¬ the harmonica growing audiences. He has received several for fun. He awards. In 1998 he made his first of many encouraged overseas trips to perform. His first solo CD, his son to learn Tarboro Blues, was released in 2001, and his to play this second, Rainy Day, came out in 2006. instrument. Young Higgs has slowed his touring schedule George listened down some in recent years, staying closer to to professional his home and wife, Bettye. "For as long as I'm harmonica players— alive, I think I'll always have this urge for this including DeFord Bailey, old music," he said. "I'm going to try to carry the first African American it just as long as I'm able, because it's like his¬ member of the Grand Ole tory to me." Opry in Nashville, Tennessee—on records or on the radio. Sometimes he got to see a live performance. Peg Leg Sam, a A Rich History traveling blues harmonica man, made a yearly North Carolina's rich history involving this appearance in nearby Rocky Mount during blues tradition included the thriving musical tobacco harvesting season. culture based around Durham during the As a teenager, Higgs became interested in 1930s, when George Higgs was the guitar. In order to get the money to buy a boy. The Tar Heel State, himself one, he had to sell his favorite hunting until about thirty years dog to a neighbor. Luckily for the teen, who ago, produced the was very sorry about this, the neighbor lived most tobacco for close by. The dog spent a lot of time at his the world market. former home—allowing Higgs to have a new Farmers grew guitar and the company of his dog, too. their crop and Higgs's style of playing is influenced by took the harvest the North Carolina guitar blues of musicians to local markets like Blind Boy Fuller and the harmonica style for ready of Sonny Terry and Peg Leg Sam. He often cash during uses a harmonica rack, so he can play the each year's fall guitar and the harmonica at the same time. months. Durham—a Sometimes he performs a song with only his thriving center of the voice and the harmonica. These pieces are tobacco market—got some of the oldest in his vast repertoire, often the nickname "The Early Piedmont blues musicians like Bull City," for its "Blind" Gary Davis (later known as dating back to his youth or learned from his the Reverend Gary Davis) became father. His guitar style is direct and forceful, production of the recording artists starting in the 1930s then-popular Bull and influenced a second generation of as he picks the guitar using the fingers of his artists including George Higgs. Image right hand. Higgs is soft-spoken, but he sings Durham cigarette courtesy of Mike "Lightnin"' Wells.

THJH, FaU 2009 21 tobacco. As the tobacco industry flourished, so did the local African American community, centered in the Hayti district. Durham Explore! offered economic opportunities not found in other parts of the United States, which CJNC-Asheviiie students have created a Web site was in the grip of an economic depression. about Piedmont blues. Access it at http-.//facstaff .unca.edu/sinciair/piedmontblues/Defauit.htm. The city became a center for blacks looking for a better life through jobs related to the Video of George Higgs and many other blues musicians tobacco business and for blues musicians performing is available on YouTube. who could make money To see the Blind Boy Fuller historical marker, access Web there—especially during site www.highwaymarker.org/ signtext.cfm?sm=27. tobacco harvesting season, when plenty of Some of the markers in the North Carolina Highway people had cash. Among Historical Marker Program recognize creative Tar these aspiring Heels. Access www.ncmarkers.com. Click on “search” and use keywords such as “arts” musicians were and “music” to find some of them. some who made history, shaped the future course of blues 1940 hit “Step It Up and Go," which modem music, and blues and country musicians still play. Terry inspired a played harmonica on some of Fuller's records. younger Songs at that time came out on 78 RPM shellac generation records, with one three-minute performance that included on each side. People listened to the records George Higgs— on record players at home or sometimes in players like Blind jukeboxes. Fuller died in 1941 and was buried Boy Fuller, Gary at the Grove Hill Cemetery in Durham; sadly, Blind Boy Fuller (1907-1941), a native of Wadesboro, became the Davis, Sonny Terry, urban renewal caused the removal of his most popular of the Durham-based and Bull City Red. gravemarker. In 2001 a small group of schol¬ bluesmen during the 1930s. Image courtesy of Mike "Lightnin"' Wells. The most popular ars, community leaders, and people who love of these Durham- the blues dedicated a historical marker nearby. based bluesmen By World War II, the strong musical scene proved to be Fuller, born Fulton Allen on July of Durham's 10,1907, in Wadesboro. After going blind Hayti around 1928, he turned seriously to music as district was a career. Fuller moved with his young wife fading. The to Durham and became a familiar sight in professional the tobacco warehouse district, playing his bluesmen, guitar and singing for coins. He caught the like many attention of a local talent scout, who arranged other African a recording session for Fuller in New York Americans, City during the summer of 1935. Included in began this historic session were Davis (also blind) searching and Bull City Red, whose real name was for greener George Washington. The recordings gave the pastures. American public their first taste of the Bull Harmonica City blues. player Terry, Fuller became a popular-selling artist for example, known for his fast, upbeat finger-picked rags, teamed as well as his slower, melodic, tough blues. He up with would record some 135 songs, including the Brownie

TH/H, Fall 2009 McGhee, a southern bluesman and guitarist who played in a style similar to Fuller's. They moved to Harlem, New York, where they were active in that area's blues community. Along with Davis—by then recognized as a preacher and excellent guitar player—who had also moved to New York, Terry and McGhee became popular during the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s—performing for a whole new audience of mainly young, urban whites. Although from a bygone era, the old style of Piedmont blues is not dead. Its list of older- Faircloth Bames. Image by Roger Haile, courtesy of the North Carolina Arts Council Folklife Program. generation players grows shorter as the years pass. During the 1970s, many older blues players came out of retirement; researchers IAIEC10TH based in Chapel Hill helped present them to the public through recordings and perfor¬ mances. During the 1980s and 1990s, Carolina he commercial success of to be the musician, the preacher, the blues became more respected as an art form, T choir leader, and everything,” he said. Bishop Faircloth C. Barnes’s and such Tar Heel artists as Big Boy Henry, old-time singing makes him “I had to sit at the piano and play for the choir, and lead songs for them, Etta Baker, John Dee Holeman, and Algia unusual in today’s gospel music marketplace. But that doesn't and then go back to the pulpit and Mae Hinton carried it across the country and mean he takes himself entirely seri¬ preach. And then I’d have to leave the around the world. ously. “I tell people, when we’re off pulpit and go to the piano and play!” George Higgs remains one of the last per¬ somewhere singing,‘Well, I sing like I Barnes has more than a hundred look,”’ Barnes joked. “They say,‘How’s songs to his credit, including “Rough formers of this old-time Carolina blues from that?’And I say,‘Old timey.’ That’s Side of the Mountain,” which claimed the original second generation. A handful of how I define my style—more or less the number-one spot on the gospel dedicated younger players keep the style alive the old original gospel, like back when charts for months in 1983.These songs—clearly growing from the and vibrant, adding their own creative ideas. we were singing without music.” Barnes was born in 1929 in hymns and spirituals of an earlier However, the important history that Higgs Dortches, a Nash County community era—continue to inspire modern identifies with so strongly in the music can about four miles west of Rocky listeners while remaining rooted in an old style of African American con¬ only be passed along firsthand, by those who Mount. One of twelve children, he grew up on a cotton farm share- gregational singing. “A lot of times, lived it. cropped by his parents and aunts and people ask if they can sing one of my uncles. His mother and grandmother, songs,” Barnes said. "I say,‘Sing them! he says, were “songsters” who filled I enjoy people singing my music. their houses with song. His grand¬ After all, it’s not just for me.” father was a Missionary Baptist preacher, as were five of his uncles. —North Carolina Arts Council All of these uncles also earned local reputations as singers. “I loved what THE END OF BUCK HISTORY MONTH G0SPE1! they were doing,” Barnes explained, RALEIGH II SUN. ~J “and I tried to do what they done.” MEM. AUD. MAR. ij “We just had a singing family, and RALEIGH. N. C II Dows Open 12:30 P.W.—Progran 2.00 P.M. Actv. Adm. $8.00 - At DoorSIO^-D^B^MelsM for the family is still going in that direc¬ SXATOHING THE SENSATIONAL tion,” he said. “I have four sons, and all of them sing, and their children NIGHTINGALES sing, and all my brothers sing, and their children sing. And I’m the pastor 1 !. BARNES & CO. of all of them.” When he sings at gos¬ REV.Ft pel programs and in the recording ANGELIC GOSPEL SINGERS Many blues musicians who became well studio, Barnes shares vocal duties — * W^] known in Durham in the 1930s achieved with three nieces. He sings to accom¬ *ssi BROOK LYN ALLSTARS " i A national influence during the folk and blues paniment provided by a grandson, a revivals that began in the 1960s. These musi¬ WILLIS PITTMAN At The __ nephew, and three of his four sons. cians included (left) Greensboro native Sonny BURDEN LIFTERS His fourth son, Luther Barnes, is a Terry (1911-1986) and Brownie McGhee THE C OSPEL PEARLETTES (1915-1996), a Tennessee native, as well as nationally known gospel artist himself. Faircloth Bames ranks among North Caro¬ (above) Gary Davis. Davis (1896-1972) was When he founded the Red Budd lina's most successful gospel musicians. bom in South Carolina but made his mark in Holy Church in Rocky Mount, Barnes Durham and later New York City. Images Image courtesy of the North Carolina Museum courtesy of Mike "Lightnm" Wells. immediately organized a choir. “I had of History.

THJH, Fall 2009 23 5 wmmm Dancing through .History with the Warrior by Dr. Barbara Reimensnyder Duncan’

powerful cry echoes from the story of battle, and they all end mountains: "Whoooooo hooo!" A with their weapons raised. group of Cherokee men answers Is the year AD 1000, with the even louder: "Whoooooo hooo!" Cherokee preparing to go to The cry from the mountains echoes war with the Creek or Seneca back. Seven men walk out, covered in red tribe? Is the year AD 1762, when paint from head to toe, wearing only breech- Lieutenant Henry Timberlake clouts fastened around their waists and moc¬ visited the Cherokee capital casins on their feet. They walk quietly but with of Chota and described this a sense of power. They continue to call, while dance in his later writings? the mountains echo—like voices from the past No, it's 2009. The Warriors of and present. Some men have painted black AniKituhwa group is dancing markings on their faces. Others have tattoos for students from Cherokee on their arms Elementary School at their and legs. They field day at the Kituhwa carry war clubs, Mound. The Eastern Band tomahawks, of Cherokee Indians bought knives, and back the Kituhwa Mound in flintlock pistols. 1997 because tribal tradition Some have their holds that this was the place heads shaved of the first Cherokee village, except for a thousands of years ago. A sacred patch of hair fire burned for centuries at on the crown, the grass-covered mound—a toward the back, burial site—along the Tuckasegee River near adorned with modern-day Bryson City. The Cherokee feathers and named themselves Ani-Kituhwa-gi, or the

Members of the group Warriors of deer hair. The people of Kituhwa. AniKituhwa—left to right, Daniel seven men kneel The modern Warriors of AniKituhwa are Tramper, Bo Taylor, and Will Tuska—per¬ form the War Dance/Welcome Dance. in a line, facing performing a traditional Cherokee dance that Image courtesy of Barbara R. Duncan. east. The center was almost lost. Before the group formed, the man calls again. last time anyone had performed the dance "Whoooooo hooo!" The others answer in a was in the 1930s. In 2003 Marie Junaluska, a wall of sound: "Whoooooo!" Tribal Council member of the Eastern Band "Kn! Tinogi!" says the center man. The of Cherokee Indians, wanted to find a dance group's singer, standing to the side, waffles traditionally used to welcome visitors from a drumbeat on his handheld, hide-covered other nations. She and I worked together to drum. He begins to sing with a steady beat. find Timberlake's description of the dance The men dance, crouching low to the ground, that welcomed him as an emissary of peace heads swiveling from side to side like they from the British government to the Cherokee are looking for tracks and other signs of the Nation in 1762.1 discovered recordings of the enemy. The singer pauses and then drums song made in the 1920s on wax cylinders, kept twice as fast, changing the words of the song. at the Library of Congress. He sings, "Yo hani, yo hani!" The dancers Junaluska picked Cherokee men to bring call back, "Whoooooo!" while rising up and this dance back to life: elder Walker Calhoun swinging their war clubs and tomahawks as if as the singer, John Grant Jr., Daniel "Sonny" they are fighting. Each man acts out his own Ledford, John "Bullet" Standingdeer, James

THjH, Fall 2009 'Dr. Barbara Reimensnyder Duncan serves as the education director at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. 24 She is a folklorist who recently received the Brown-Hudson Award from the North Carolina Folklore Society. Her most recent book is Origin of the Milky Way and Other Living Stories of the Cherokee from UNC Press. She also enjoys being a poet and a songivriter. For more information, access www.cherokeemuseurn.org "Bo" Taylor, going to church, and the service Daniel consisting mostly of dancing. Tramper, Suppose the president of Explore! Hoss the United States met with American Indian people from all Tramper, and the president of Mexico tribes gather to dance and social¬ Will Tuska. and the prime minister ize at weeKend powwows across the Because they of Canada, and the first United States. Since the mid-29oos, these colorful events have provided all grew up thing that happened was a time and place for Native people performing dancing. What if on the to gather and share with the traditional weekends, instead of going public. What can you find Cherokee to the movies or playing ball, out about powwows? dances everyone in your community got with their together and danced all night? This families or is how important dance was to the Cherokee people in the and still is to some Native people today. community, For hundreds, even thousands, of years, these men Cherokee people danced. Most of the songs understood were sung by men, who played hand drums how the made of cedar or pine, full of water with skin dance would stretched on top. Women provided rhythmical work. Later, accompaniment using turtle shells filled with other dancers pebbles strapped to their lower legs. These joined the different roles show how the Cherokee looked group. at life: people could be different and still The be respected. A song needed both men and Warriors of women. The oldest turtle shell rattles found AniKituhwa in the Southeast are more than four thousand first danced years old.

Daniel "Sonny" Ledford is a member of the for the Inter¬ Today, the Warriors of AniKituhwa have Warriors of AniKituhwa group that is reviv¬ tribal Timber revived other dances that have not been ing and preserving Cherokee traditions. Image courtesy of the Goss Agency. Council in performed for several generations, such as 2003, wel¬ the Buffalo Dance, Ant Dance, and KneeDeep coming other American Indian nations to Dance. The group performs other traditional Cherokee. In December 2004 the men danced dances that at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, on the are more Palace Green, where the last Cherokee delega¬ well known, tion had danced in 1777. When they returned such as the home, the Tribal Council of the Eastern Band Bear Dance, of Cherokee Indians made the dancers official Beaver Hunt¬ cultural ambassadors representing the tribe, ing Dance, with the Museum of the Cherokee Indian as Horse their sponsor. Since then, they have become a Dance, and symbol of Cherokee tradition and pride. Friendship Why is dance so important to the Cherokee Dance. At and to other American Indian people? One Williams¬ Cherokee legend says that if Cherokee people burg, the ever stop dancing, the whole world will come men have ~ rigkt) ^^Jw*aius4 foffi.ofLtra to an end. Dance has an important place in done histor¬ AiiiKifuWa group, and Walker 'amors of nal singer for the Calhou Cherokee culture. ic reenact¬ group. Image Imagine if the United States Congress began ments of its session, and in addition to singing the na¬ the Cherokee delegations that tional anthem and having speeches, the mem¬ visited the colonial capital. They have danced bers of congress all danced together. Picture in the rotunda at the National Museum of the

THJH, Fall 2009 25 ^VVilllllllllllllllUlllllUlllllllllllllllllllllllllillllillllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllilllllllllltlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllillllllllllllllllllil/^ vUkA Timbe^laUes Words In 1762 Cherokee Indians and British emissaries concluded a 1 peace treaty at the Long Island of the Holston (now Kingsport, 1 Tennessee). The Cherokee asked for one of the British party to go with them to guarantee the peace. Henry Timberlake volunteered and later wrote his memoirs, giving modern | readers a wonderfully detailed first-person description of Cherokee life, including the dance that welcomed him. I set out with Ostenaco and my interpreter in the morning. And marched | towards Settico, till we were met by a messenger, about a half mile from the 1 town, who came to stop us till every thing was prepared for our reception; | from this place I could take a view of the town where I observed two stands | of colours flying, one at the top, and the other at the door of the town-house; | they were as large as a sheet, and white. Lest therefore I should take them for 1 The Warriors of AruKituhwa pose in Colonial Williamsburg French, they took great care to inform me, that their custom was to hoist red 1 in 2006, dressed in ca. 1700s Cherokee clothing. Image courtesy colours as an emblem of war; but white, as a token of peace. . . . of Barbara R. Duncan. About 100 yards from the town-house, we were received by a body of between three and four hundred Indians, ten or twelve of which were entirely | American Indian in Washington, D.C., and naked, except a piece of cloth about their middle, and painted all over in at the National Powwow in that city. In a hideous manner, six of them with eagles tails in their hands, which they Canada, Germany, Washington State, and shook and flourished as they advanced, danced in a very uncommon figure, | in the Seminole Nation, they have shared singing in concert with some drums of their own make, and those of the late § Cherokee dances, history, and culture. unfortunate Capt. Da mere; with several other instruments, uncouth beyond | description. 1 But their favorite place to dance is in Cheulah, the headman of the town, led the procession, painted blood-red, i Cherokee, for Cherokee children and elders. except his face, which was half black, holding an old rusty broad sword in Cherokee continue to preserve the land and his right hand, and an eagle's tail in his left. As they approached, Cheulah, § the culture. The Warriors of AniKituhwa singling himself out from the rest, cut two or three capers, as a signal to the | other eagle tails, who instantly followed his example. This violent exercise, pass on their dances to the next generation, accompanied by the band of musick, and a loud yell from the mob, lasted so that the dances—and perhaps the Chero¬ about a minute, when the headman waving his sword over my head, struck | kee world—will survived it into the ground, about two inches from my left foot; then directing himself | to me, made a short discourse (which my interpreter told me was only to bid | me a hearty welcome) and presented me with a string of beads. We then 1 proceeded to the door where Cheulah, and one of the beloved men, taking | me by each arm, led me in, and seated me in one of the first seats.

>^r/rillll1lllltllfll1llllflf1l1ll1llflltlf1lllll1lllllllllllllll«fll!llflllllllllIlf11l1llfll!l11flllllflllllfllll111I1lf1ltllt11llllllfllltfllfltfltllllfVllltfVlt!l1!llfflVIV1VIIVtflVlllllll!imx^

BEA HMSLEY

reduced the need for the horse and buggy and Boone built a new forge in Spruce Pine in livery stable, some blacksmiths became mechan¬ 1937, when he got the contract for restoration ics or worked in body shops. Some went back to ironwork to be done in colonial Williamsburg, farming. Others migrated to Detroit, Michigan, Virginia. After World War II, Hensley returned to work on assembly lines. A few survived the to the forge to help. He finished the job in the change in technology by shifting from utilitarian early 1950s, bought the shop from Boone, and to ornamental (or decorative) ironwork. went into ornamental ironwork full-time. Hensley entered blacksmithing during this Hensley said that during many of his years of time of change. Born in 1919, the son of a Bap¬ blacksmithing, he has gotten up at 3 or 4 a.m. tist preacher, he had an artistic temperament. In and worked until 9 p.m. His son, Mike, said that Burnsville, where he grew up, the forge of Daniel when he was five years old, his father started Boone VI proved irresistible. His apprenticeship showing him how to hold a hammer: "And he with Boone began informally when he was a would let me create my own scrollwork. I’ve got

Bea Hensley. Image by Cedric N. Chatterley, courtesy young boy.“I just loved the sound of the anvil my first leaf. ” of the North Carolina Arts Council Folklife Program. and to watch him work and make all of the fancy In recent years, the Bea Hensley and Son stuff that he made,” Hensley said. Boone, a direct Hand Forge has remained a productive and In the early 1900s the blacksmith’s ability to descendant of the famous frontiersman, helped creative arena.The men’s skill and artistry— forge and repair such objects as axes, shoes Hensley become familiar with the forge, the anvil, and international orders—demonstrate how for horses, and wheels for carriages still and other tools. He also taught him an ancient successfully they use traditional techniques to played an essential role in North Carolina’s “hammer language,” once common among black¬ create fine ornamental ironwork that will serve Mountain communities.That was a time, said Bea smiths. Relying only on rapidly striking hammers future generations. Hensley, when “every fork in the road had a grist to communicate, the smith and his striker give —North Carolina Arts Counciil mill and a blacksmith.” As the car and tractor and carry out detailed instructions.

26 TH]H, Fall 2009 Looking at North Carolina through a Lens of Words by Dr. Sally Buckner*

~ ne of the great rewards of reading scarred his life and his a story or poem is expanding our deep wish for freedom. horizons and experiences. We can Almost a hundred live only one life, one minute at years later, Thomas Wolfe a time. But a first-rate work of (1900-1938) provided a literature lets us leap the barriers of space and vivid picture of Asheville time. What might it be like to live in another in Look Homeward, Angel: place, or in a different year? Writers can help The Story of a Buried Life. us understand people, communities, and even This long, rambling Thomas Wolfe is among the ourselves—teaching us things about the world 1929 novel was based on many writers who have depicted their North Carolina home in and stretching our imaginations. Wolfe's years growing their work. Image from the Library North Carolina is lucky to have a very rich up there. His energetic, of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten heritage of literature—especially since the poetic writing brings Collection. 1920s, when Paul Green won a Pulitzer Prize to life not only his not- for his play In Abraham's Bosom, and Thomas very-functional family, but also his Wolfe's powerful novels burst onto the scene. then-small Mountain hometown. The novel's So many Tar Heel writers have followed their subtitle. The Story of a Buried Life, refers to trail that it has become common to read about Wolfe's unhappiness with what he considered "North Carolina's Literary Renaissance." We a stifling, or crushing, environment. Unlike have great North Carolina writing to please tourists who loved the lush scenery of the almost any taste and to focus on almost every Blue Ridge Mountains, young Wolfe felt corner of the state, as if through a camera hemmed in and trapped by them; he wanted lens. Let's look at a few examples of writers to leave and explore the bigger world. who use community and history among their In contrast, another Asheville native just creative tools. twenty years younger than Wolfe, Wilma One of the first North Carolina writers to Dykeman (1920-2006), traveled around the make a national mark was an enslaved man world but always focused her writing on the who eventually became the third African Appalachian Mountain region. All sixteen American in the United States—and the first in the South—to publish a book. It was illegal to teach slaves to read and write, but in Chatham County young George Moses Horton (born about 1797) skirted that law. He would hang around where white children were being taught, then pick up books and papers they had left behind. Horton earned money by writing poems for university students in Chapel Hill. Eventually, with the help of white patrons, or supporters who recognized his talent, he published three collections. These writings examined many things about Horton's daily experiences in the North Carolina that he knew. They proclaimed Wilma Dykeman focused her writing on her beloved Mountain region. Image in full honesty both the lack of hope that courtesy of the State Archives, North Carolina Office of Archives and History.

*Dr. Sally Buckner earned degrees from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, North Carolina State Universi- THJH, Fall 2009 fy, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Formerly Distinguished Alumnae Professor of English at Peace College, she has edited two anthologies of North Carolina literature: Our Words, Our Ways: Reading and Writing in North Carolina and Words and Witness: 100 Years of North Carolina Poetry. She has published tzvo collections of poetry, Strawberry Harvest and Collateral Damage, and served in numerous literary and educational associations. of Dykeman's books—both plowed those fields forever. fiction and nonfiction—are In his poetry and novels, he about this region that she captured the work, beliefs, joys, loved. Especially important and hardships of people who is Dykeman's first novel. The lived the life he had known as Tall Woman (1962), which a boy. His best-known work. tells the story of Lydia The Ballad of the Flim-Flam McQueen, a woman living a Man (1965)—which became tough, hardscrabble life on an award-winning movie—is an Appalachian farm during a comic novel based on the and after the Civil War. An hilarious adventures of con interesting character, Lydia men who took advantage of the deals with many struggles that greedy and gullible, or easily western North Carolinians (Above) Growing up on a tobacco farm gave cheated, especially around the Guy Owen material for much of his writing. faced during that hard time: Image courtesy of the State Archives, North time of tobacco auctions. A Carolina Office of Archives and History. (Below) poverty; conflict between Lenard Moore's poetry draws on life in more serious novel. Journey for people who favored the Union Jacksonville. Image courtesy of Sally Buckner. Joedel (1970), follows a boy who and those who supported the excitedly goes with his father to Confederacy; racism (against a tobacco auction. Readers can Melungeons, dark-skinned almost smell the cured yellow people of uncertain multiracial leaves and feel the sweat of origin); and devastation of the farmers hoping for a good sale. environment. Dykeman and A more current Tar Heel State her family were among the first writer who has kept alive the to speak out, in writings and stories of the working people public lectures, against racial she knows is Barbara Presnell injustice and environmental (b. 1954). Presnell grew up in destruction. When she died, the Asheboro, when textile mills Associated Press named her as employed hundreds of people "among the first writers to offer in that area. Her Piece Work a stark portrait of what she (2007)—winner of a major called 'the unique virtues and national poetry prize and tragic flaws' of mountain people. soon to be produced as a play—is a series Across the state, Suzanne Newton (b. of dramatic monologues, or speeches given 1936) has explored the lives of younger by one character or actor, in which textile characters, ages twelve to eighteen, in nine workers tell their stories. In stark and lively award-winning, young adult novels. All of language, they say what their work means the books take place in small, eastern North to them—the good and the bad. Then comes Carolina towns like those in which Newton what has become a familiar story in too many grew up: Bath, "Little" Washington (the one American towns based on manufacturing: on the Pamlico River), and Manteo. People the mills close, moving their work to other have praised Newton's novels for their honest countries. In the final monologues, readers approach to the problems young people hear the anguish and hurt of people who have face growing up, as well as her realistic lost not just their jobs but a community and a descriptions of life in small southern towns. way of finding meaning in their lives. The New York Times named her most honored Another North Carolina poet, Lenard work, I Will Call It Georgies Blues, as one of the Moore (b. 1958), uses many of his poems to ten best young adult novels of 1983. explore daily life in Jacksonville, the town Farther south, near Clarkton, Guy Owen where he was born. This U.S. Army veteran (1925-1981) grew up on a tobacco farm. After and the son of a former marine has been earning three degrees at the University of honored repeatedly—even internationally— North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Owen never for his mastery of the haiku form of poetry. again worked on a farm. But as a writer, he One of Moore's collections. Desert Storm: A

ill 2009 Brief History (1993), is made up entirely of haiku that brings to life the experiences of Ixplore Tar Heel Writing soldiers in the 1991 Gulf War. Moore is also known for his leadership of the Carolina From “The Slave’s moisture (think of spring run-off. African American Writers' Collective, which Complaint” Mama). Into the dryer bays hot¬ since 1989 has brought together aspiring and by George Moses Horton ter than July in full sun. When the professional African American writers from calendar puts the smooth back across the state. Am I sadly cast aside, in the weave, what we’ve done is nothing short of a miracle. Perhaps our most versatile Tar Heel writer On misfortune’s rugged tide? Will the world my pains deride is Fred Chappell (b. 1936), who has proven Forever? —from Piecework (2001) equally talented at writing poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. As a boy, Chappell loved to Must I dwell in Slavery’s night, From Chapter I: Folk singer read science fiction. Although much of his And all pleasure take its flight, Far beyond my feeble sight, CurlyTreadaway meets writing is based on life in Canton—the town Forever? Mordecai Jones, the flim¬ in the Mountains where he grew up—he has flam man by Guy Owen written fantasy tales and sometimes spiced up Worst of all, must Hope grow otherwise realistic stories with bits of fantasy. dim, I don’t reckon I’m every likely to Chappell's 1985 novel I Am One of You Forever, And withhold her cheering beam? forget his face. Nor you neither, which deals with a boy much like himself Rather let me sleep and dream if you’ve ever seen his picture growing up in western North Carolina, has Forever! tacked up in a post office. It was been called “a perfect balance of fantasy, tall long-jawed and lean as a hound’s, like little chunks had been tale, and fact." As a classic growing-up story, Something still my heart surveys, Groping through this dreary scooped out of his cheeks with the book has been compared to Huckleberry maze; a spoon, not regular. Crow’s feet Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird. Chappell has Is it Hope? Then burn and blaze clawed at his pale eyes that was written thirty books, and he served as poet Forever! ... set over a razor-sharp nose. He had a high forehead ... and what laureate of the state from 1997 until 2002. hair he had was thin as cobwebs These represent only a few of the wonderful And when this transient life shall end, and black as coal—though I Tar Heel writers whose works carry us to Oh, may some kind eternal soon found out he touched it other times, other places, other lives—or friend, up. His mouth was wide and perhaps plunge us more deeply into our own Bid me from servitude ascend, thin-lipped and his scrawny neck Forever! was wrinkled crisscrossed, like times, our own communities. Randall Kenan's he’d been branded with a waffle fiction takes us to Tim's Creek, based on —from The Hope of Liberty iron, all except the king-sized Adam’s apple. And his whole lean Chinquapin, where he grew up. Doris Betts's (1845) fiction makes ordinary people—millworkers, face was gray, like the color of cement—sick cement. highway patrolmen—come alive as they face Charlie, First Shift love and conflict. Sarah Dessen writes about —from The Ballad of the how young adults confront the adult world. Foreman (Excerpt) Flim-Flam Man (1965) At your nearest bookstore or public library, by Barbara Presnell you can find the works of your writing I do my daddy’s work here in “Summer Poem” neighbors. Reading them will enrich your life. the plant, for it’s me makes by Lenard Moore It might teach you about North Carolina and sure this cloth has a good hand. its history. That’s what we call it—good My youthful hands hand—when it rolls out soft And, as you read, you may be inspired are a burning sun, as a kitten. Put that on your groping through dust to take moments, places, or people from skin every morning in a t-shirt like a restless soul; your own life, spice them with your own and you’ll know why what I do they sucker sunburnt tobacco imagination, and weave a tale—realistic or means something in this world. while others chop fanciful, in poetry or prose. Whether you It’s like the seasons on the farm, down weeds & small mimosas I tell Mama,That rough muslin, publish it, share it with family and friends, as wild geese veer, moving slow as winter through float through thin white clouds: or simply read it yourself later, you will have the bleach range, seven washes, distant mountains extending discovered the power and pleasure of seeing each a little brighter till the into the lakey sky. life through a lens of words. cloth is pure as Easter snow. Add the softener, squeeze out the —from Forever Home (1992)

TH]H, Fall 2009 ' ' m i: o by Dr. Altha J. Cravey*

n insistent, humming violin pulls me from England, A along through chilly winter air toward Africa, Germany, a crowd of people and colorful lights. and other places, As I get closer, the sound of rhythmic they brought feet stamping on pavement gives the traditions with music a mesmerizing quality. Sequined bodies them. If you have swirl and step. Their capes throw off flashes of visited a Mexican bright color. I find myself fascinated, wanting flea market or to move closer to the source of this creativity. Central American Two lines of dancers make their way back and restaurant, you forth, to and from a tiny altar. Their intensity may have seen an deepens my own concentration. A faint smell image of the dark- of hot chocolate and tamales fuels my appetite skinned Virgen for color, movement, and festivity. de Guadalupe on Stumbling upon this unusual celebration in a T-shirt, truck, North Carolina's Piedmont region, honoring or food product. a woman known to Spanish speakers as the Honoring her in Virgen de Guadalupe, made me wonder: What many creative would it be like to move to another coun¬ ways helps try with new foods, a foreign language, and immigrants stay strange customs? How would you feel if you in touch with the suddenly moved to a different home? Would blend of Indian you explore your new surroundings? Would spiritual and you feel scared? How would you and your Roman Catholic religious traditions that she family keep in touch with traditions and with represents. The Virgen de Guadalupe has her family members far away? One way to create a own special day, December 12. On that day home is to practice familiar, meaningful activi¬ in 1531, believers say that she first appeared ties that help you remember the "other place" on Earth. She spoke to a peasant named Juan while bonding with community members Diego on a hilltop near Mexico City, telling the new him that she was the mother of Jesus Christ. place. She asked Juan to build a church on the spot. Hundreds Miraculously, believers say, the woman's image of thousands appeared on Juan's clothing when he went to of Latin tell other people what he had seen. American For more than ten years, dancers of all ages migrants have gathered each December in a neighbor¬ have settled hood on Durham's east side to perform a cer¬ in North emony of their devotion to the Virgen de Gua¬ Carolina dalupe and the ideals that she stands for: love, in the last beauty, and community. Dancers practice com¬ twenty plicated footwork for months to prepare for years. Like the celebration's centuries-old greeting. On the many evening of December 11, they get together in earlier the parking lot of a crowded apartment com¬ waves of plex to prepare for a long night of dancing. SSCi people Ivan, a fifteen-year-old dancer, said, "I don't arriving get tired when I am dancing for her; I keep her

THJH, Fall 2009 *Dr. Altlm /. Cravey is an associate professor in the Geography Department at the University of North Caro¬ 30 lina at Chapel Hill. Her research explores the connections among work, globalization, and gender. She is finish¬ ing a book about Mexican transnational lives in the southern United States and wrote Women and Work in Mexico s Maquiladoras (1998). Crai'ey also coproduced two documentary videos: Tire Virgin Appears in "La Maldita Vecindad" (2009) and People's Guelaguetza: Oaxacans fake It to the Streets (2008). close to my heart." After dancing all evening, takes about one hundred hours of sewing, Ivan and his friends will go across town for according to Maria, the mother of a teenage a special early-morning Mass, or Catholic dancer and two other children. "This year, church service. Some dance in the church cel¬ we decided to make a larger pattern with an ebration, as well as in the neighborhood event. image of the Virgin that fills up the center of In Mex¬ the cape," she said. "We sewed gold fringe ico, danc¬ along the edges." Maria and her husband ers who organized the first celebrations in their neigh¬ honor the borhood because they were "so grateful to all Virgen de be safe—and all together—in Durham" after Guadalupe moving from Mexico. on her In addition to creating costumes, special people collect and put together feathered day are headdresses, percussion instruments, warrior almost shields, conch-shell trumpets, and other always items for the dancers. Octaviano, a leader boys and of the Durham dance group, explained men. The that members made maracas (percussion tradition instruments) from four-inch toilet bowl floats has been by drilling a hole in each float and inserting adapted ball bearings. A handle is attached to the float in North and decorated with long fringe and colorful Carolina markings. The maracas make a satisfying so that noise when shaken. As with the costumes, girls and migrants creatively substitute materials and boys (as adapt the expressive traditions they brought well as from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. Dancers clad in colorful capes honor the Virgen de men and A few weeks before December 12, a different Guadalupe in the parking lot of a crowded apartment complex on the east edge of Durham. The December women) kind of celebration begins near Mexico City at celebration offers creative ways for Latino immi¬ learn the the Basilica, a church built at the site where the grants to maintain ties to their culture and a sense of community. Image courtesy ofElva E. Bishop. footwork. Virgen de Guadalupe first appeared. This event They is a long-distance relay run called the Antorcha use this community celebration as a way to Guadalupana. It symbolizes the connections create a new "sense of place" in an environ¬ among communities in the United States and ment that can be unfriendly to immigrants. Mexico. Teams along the 3,800-mile route A devil figure, or an old-man character, plays from Mexico City to New York City run with a an important role in these matachine dances, or celebratory dances that draw upon native Mexican as well as colonial-era Spanish traditions. The devil dancer keeps time with the music and makes sure the other dancers stay in an exact formation of two lines. The devil dancer does silly, unexpected things but also creates fear with a scary appearance and a quick scolding when someone misses a step. Making costumes for the matachine dancers requires many supplies, such as colorful sequins, cloth, (Left) Images of the Virgen de Guadalupe adorn buildings like this one in Durham. Image courtesy ofElva E. Bishop. (Right) This portrait was used in Warsaw. Image ribbons, and glue. Each costume courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History.

THJH, Fall 2009 31 Neal Thomas and (bottom) one of his bas¬ kets. Images courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History.

(Left) Antorcha Guadalupana relay runners arrive in Durham on the way from Mexico City to New York City. Adapting the ancient Aztec tradition of delivering messages on foot, these runners carry a burning torch and a large painting of the Virgen de Guadalupe. Image courtesy ofElva E. Bishop. (Right) A THOMAS masked devil dancer maintains a precise rhythm and keeps the other danc¬ ers focused during the celebration. Image courtesy of Altha J. Cravey. eal Thomas, of Wendell, makes strong N baskets. "You can put anything in them— blazing torch and a large painting of the Virgen clothes, firewood, rocks!” Thomas said. de Guadalupe, passing these along to the next Still, there are people who buy his team. Like matachine dancers, runners display baskets just to set on a table or shelf.They’re good for that, too. intense devotion and deep concentration. When he was about twenty years old, Celebrations of the Virgen de Guadalupe in Thomas learned his craft from an old man in North Carolina have powerful effects for im¬ Johnston County who made and sold baskets. He learned by watching the man, then trying the migrants and their children. They create a sense weaving himself. What with working all week at of place, as well as links to the past. For some other jobs and helping his teacher on weekends, young people with family members in North it took Thomas about a year to make his first Carolina and in Mexico or Central America, basket from scratch.The basket still didn’t look right. “It didn’t set up,” he said. “It rolled around these events provide a connection between like a ball.” But Thomas kept trying. He has been faraway communities. The yearly neighborhood making baskets for more than forty years. celebration in Durham represents a creative Making a basket starts in the forest.Thomas doesn’t buy materials—he searches the woods effort involving music, dance, food, and for a white oak tree. A tree eight inches wide costume-making. People who no longer has about six baskets' worth of wood in it. “It's live in the crowded apartment complex better to harvest wood in the summer be cause Explore! the wood isn’t frozen," Thomas said. He uses where the event takes place return white oak because it bends when he weaves For more information there for it, because of the feeling of with it; wood from red or black oak trees is too about North Carolina brittle and breaks. celebrations of the Virgen being part of a family, community, de Guadalupe, access Web site and network of caring friends. The Thomas uses an ax to cut down a tree and a maul and wedge to split its trunk into quarters http://virgin appears.unc.edu. Durham group has inspired other The site includes several lengthwise. He carefully splits the wood into related media clips. traditional dance groups to form long, flat “splints" using a butcher knife and a in Raleigh and other places in drawknife.These splints are what he uses to weave baskets. He likes to use them right away, Music used in these celebrations central North Carolina. Perhaps sounds a bit like old-time string- when they are green, full of moisture, and bend band music from North Carolina. one of the groups could visit your more easily. If the splints dry out, he soaks them And matachine dancing resembles school and perform. Or perhaps in water. traditional line dancing popular in the you and your friends will want to Making baskets this way can be hard work. United States, such as the Virginia Thomas’s four children grew up watching him, "Reel. Can you research the origins visit a neighborhood performance. but none has learned the art. Once, a group of of this fo|K music and dance and Can you think of examples women asked Thomas to teach them his V\ find possible connections? Does methods. “They messed around for eight your group want to learn a where you live of ways that cre¬ V hours, then they quit,” he said. "They said simple folk dance or invite a ativity provides links to the past (t they'd rather buy their traditional dance group to your school? and a sense of community, baskets than make place, or heritage? them the way I do. was too hard!"

—North Carolina Museum of History Get Out of Your Seat and Up os That Stage A by Nancy Pennington*

ave you ever been in a H play? Could you write your own play? Starting in the 1920s, many people in North Carolina did just that. A burst of play¬ writing and acting creativity began in Chapel Hill and spread across the state. Professor Frederick Koch came to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1918 for a special purpose: to get students there to write plays and act them out, not just to sit and watch. He'd been doing this at the University of North Da¬ kota when Edwin Greenlaw and E. K. Graham came calling. One was head of the English Department, and the other served as the president of the university, and they Members of the Carolina Playmakers roll through western North believed that the school should help the Carolina in May 1927. Image courtesy of the North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. state grow. Koch, they thought, would make a good partner in that effort. part of folk drama the Carolina way: Write Koch called his student actors the about things you know. Open your eyes. Playmakers and their plays "folk plays." Professor Koch would say. Right there in your What did he mean by folk? Well, "folk" equals home is a play. All you need to do is see it and "people," but Koch didn't have just any kind write it down. of people in mind. He meant farmers and Here's an example. In 1921 Wilbur Stout others who didn't live in big cities. He called came to class with a story he had just heard them the "big family of country folk" who at home in Burlington. A boy liked a girl, and "took pleasure in simple things." Like other she liked him back. The problem? The girl's professors and writers of the time, Koch saw father didn't like the boy at all. So, how could places like North Carolina (with lots of farms the two see each other? I don't have space to but not many towns) as gold mines of stories. tell you the rest of the plot, but it involves lots He believed that people there lived as their of jumping around and falling out of windows. parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents How did Wilbur write his play? By working had lived, sharing a common way of life with other students. He told the story to his that the rest of the world was forgetting. By classmates and Professor Koch, and they writing about "the folk," Koch thought, his made many suggestions. Wilbur wrote and students could show what was being lost. rewrote, and he came up with a play he called Most Carolina folk plays tended to be pretty In Dixon's Kitchen. short—about thirty to forty-five minutes—and What came next? Voting. A group of could be called either a comedy (really funny) students read In Dixon's Kitchen, along with or a tragedy (very sad). But whether the stories other plays written in the class, and voted made audience members laugh or cry, the for three that they wanted to produce. They Playmakers promised that people could "Come had just three weeks to design and build sets, see yourselves!" make costumes, and practice their lines. And this was Rule No. 1, the most im¬ Then came showtime! And guess what? portant, absolutely, positively gotta-have-it People in the audience got to say what they

*Nancy Pennington works as an associate curator of programming in the Education THJH, Fall 2009 Section of the North Carolina Museum of History. 33 117

liked and didn't like about Koch and the Playmakers the plays they saw. Do didn't keep all the fun to you think that made some themselves, either. They authors squirm? Professor helped people in schools Koch called this discussion and clubs across the state "a friendly autopsy." (An produce their own plays. autopsy is the taking apart They even loaned out of something, usually a costumes and makeup. dead body, to figure out The Playmakers, with the the cause of death or what university's support, also happened.) started a statewide theater At least once, the comedy club with a yearly festival kept going offstage. In 1920 that drew college and high Hubert Heffner wrote Dod school drama clubs to Gast Ye Both! A Comedy of Chapel Hill for four days Mountain Moonshiners. He (Left to right) Professor Frederick Henry Koch and of play performances and Paul Green of the Playmakers. Image courtesy of the based the play on people North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina workshops. This program he knew near Grandfather at Chapel Hill. lasted for many years. In Mountain. The Playmakers time, people who had gone to used a real prop, or stage object, during the the first festivals saw their children and their show: an eighty-gallon copper still that the grandchildren take their turns onstage. Orange County sheriff had taken from some Some of the clubs performed their own local moonshiners. (Moonshiners made works. Others used "store-bought" plays like alcoholic beverages illegally.) Where's the those from the numerous folk drama books funny part? The "prop" got stolen by folks Koch edited. While in Chapel Hill, students wanting to put it back into service! eagerly signed up for workshops in costume Could the same situation become a com¬ making, acting, writing, lighting, and other edy or a tragedy? Sure, depending on how drama topics. The festivals proved popular— the author wrote it. Two characters from two in 1939 a group of kids from Asheville were Playmakers plays. Magnolia and Peggy, want¬ so eager to attend the festival that they sold ed the same thing: to get married. Magnolia's handkerchiefs on the street to pay for the trip. adventures in love were funny, and she ended People came from other parts of the country, up with two men to choose from (she chose the and then other countries, to learn to write folk boy next door). But things didn't turn out well dramas and produce them in the Playmakers for Peggy. The daughter of a poor man, she had way. "Proff" Koch never stopped preaching her heart set on the landowner's son but ended the joy of writing what you knew—in lectures, up marrying a fellow farmworker to keep a articles, and books. Some said his nickname roof over her family's head. (These are the was short for prophet, as well as professor. (A plots from Magnolia's Man, 1929, by Gertrude prophet is a person, often a religious leader, Wilson Coffin, and Peggy, Tragedy of the Tenant who tells what will happen in the future.) Farmer, 1919, by Harold Williamson.) After Koch's death in 1947, the Theater The Playmakers didn't just stay on campus. Department at UNC-Chapel Hill shifted away They took their plays all over North Carolina, from folk dramas, but "folk" still live onstage traveling by train or driving a bus over dirt and off the coast of North Carolina. Every summer, gravel roads and camping out. They even went crowds come to see The Lost Colony, the to twelve other eastern states, from Georgia to longest-running outdoor drama in the United New York—stuffing scenery, costumes, props, States—and a play written by one of the most and lighting for three plays, plus the actors and famous Playmakers, Paul Green. their luggage, into one bus. Sometimes Koch The Playmakers wrote about what they rode on top of the bus, where it was cooler. On knew, built their own sets, and acted it all out. at least one tour, so did an actor carrying a big If you were asked to write a play, could you do prop rifle. That brought the Playmakers plenty the same thing? What would you write about? of attention when they rolled into town! 34 TH/H, Fall 2009 n My Way: One Actor's Creative journey by Mike Wiley*

I was on my way; Nailed inside my wooden box with three tiny breathing holes and a sign on the side with the scribbling,"THIS END UP!" With a tug and a chug, the train lurched forward splintering my hands as I grasped the insides of the crate. My head swam with the smell of burning coal from the train's engine and pine from the box, but just before the cramping in my legs subsided . . . the train groaned to a halt. —Henry "Box" Brown

he runaway slave narrative of Henry T "Box" Brown represents a fantastic tale of suspense and adventure— of love, loss, and great danger. Brown's true story was published in the early 1850s but has only recently been dusted off and given its due attention. This crafty enslaved man shocked the city of Richmond, Virginia, and perhaps the entire country, by mailing himself from the hub of the soon-to-be Confederacy to a new life of freedom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Brown's story could easily have gone unheard in the

pre-Civil War age of horse-drawn \ ersities from coast to coast. Images courtesy of Mike Wiley. I buggies and riverboat steamers. | But this would-be showman was New York dancing in my head. Sadly, those -* bound and determined to share it. dreams were wrestled awake by the realities Soon after his improbable escape, of show business. I found myself making my Brown began traveling the free roads way down a tough road that wasn't inspiring of the North with his box in tow, recounting the creativity I knew swirled inside me. I began the journey that earned him his freedom and to focus on my first love: documentary theater. his nickname. Most theater professionals describe documen¬ tary theater as "theater that wholly or in part My ears strained to hear the fate that lay in my path as uses preexisting documentary material [such as my wooden crate took flight. My bubbling stomach soon newspapers, government reports, interviews, told me that some workers had placed me on a boat and to make the matter worse, my box which was to remain right and the like] as source material for the script, side up, was now upside down! ideally without altering its wording." —Henry "Box" Brown My hope was to find an individual or event in African American history that historians had Over one hundred years later, I adapted Henry overlooked. For years, African American his¬ Brown's story for the stage. I have performed it tory—as well as the historic contributions of for thousands of students around North Caro¬ many other ethnic cultures—had mostly been lina. How does this fit into my creative journey? left out of United States classrooms. In fact, In 1995 I graduated from Catawba College until recently, few recognized the contribu¬ in Salisbury with dreams of Hollywood and tions of African Americans such as craftsman

*An M.F.A. graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Mike Wiley strives to expand cultural aware- THJH, Fall 2009 ness for audiences of all ages, through dynamic portrayals based on pivotal moments in African American history. In 35 doing so, he hopes to help unveil a richer picture of the total American experience. Wiley is Lehman Brady Visiting Professor at Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies. For the first time, his work was featured with multiple performances in North Carolina's 2009 National Black Theatre Festival. Access www.mikervileyproductions.com. Thomas Day Because this documentary writing pro¬ and Wimble¬ cess worked for me, I kept using the style. don cham¬ Early on, I chose stories about people seeking pion Althea change within or for themselves, as in Brown's Gibson, desire to find freedom. In more recent years, both North I have chosen stories about people seeking to Carolinians. change the world around them, such as Jackie I wanted to Robinson or Martin Luther King Jr. I could change that, have easily let the fear of the responsibility of for the sake portraying such important Americans over¬ of kids who take and enslave me, but I persevered. I let didn't see my love of storytelling and performance take themselves over—a love I'd found at an early age. reflected in When I was a sixth-grade student, a teacher their text¬ asked if I didn't mind performing the role of books. Abraham Lincoln in the spring play. Hav¬

In his plays—like Brown vs Board of Education, based Even ing never said much of anything in front of on the 1952 Supreme Court school desegregation though I am a crowd, I dug into my history books and case—Mike Wiley portrays characters of all ages, races, and genders. Image courtesy of Mike Wiley. an ardent fan pulled out my best four-foot-tall honest Abe. of history, I That memory helped push me to keep sharing only stum¬ stories from our American past. As One Noble bled upon Henry Brown's tale by accident. I Journey was becoming more popular, I began received, by coincidence, a postcard with an looking for a brand-new "old" tale to tell. I illustration depicting his marvelous escape— needed a story that put inner character first. an escape I knew nothing about. Turning to I found it in the Negro Baseball League and a number of history books and articles, I was the rise of Jackie Robinson, another ambitious dismayed to find very little information about self-starter and humble hero. Robinson was Brown's journey. Like a good detective, I took the first black major-league baseball player in the basic facts I had in hand to the source of the modern age. He inspired a generation of the material: the Virginia State Library. There I Americans to dust off their failures, shake off found, among other primary sources, Brown's their rejections, and get back into the game. autobiography. I was able to use this and other My play, Jackie Robinson: A Game Apart, asks information on the lives of enslaved people in the question, "What would I do if faced with Virginia as subject matter. I interviewed his¬ prejudice or bigotry?" tory professors and slavery scholars to gain a Writing dramas based on actual his¬ more complete picture of the life and times of tory gives me the chance to work within the my play's main character. boundaries of documented events, while Once all of the research was done, I created playing with and imagining those unknown an outline of Brown's life and then a more spe¬ moments and people who existed beyond the cific outline of his escape and the days leading pen or lens of an eyewitness. Jackie, Henry, up to it. All the while, I asked myself, "What and the countless other characters I portray price would I pay for my freedom?" I began could easily get lost in the dust and the clutter telling Brown's story by answering that ques¬ that is American history. Thanks to the detec¬ tion through his eyes. Improvising (inventing tive work of lots of authors, historians, and or creating) some conversations and mono¬ even actors like me, we are forever bound bv logues based on my primary source docu¬ the patchwork that makes up our stories here ments as a starting point, I was able to find in North Carolina and around the world. Brown's speaking voice, as well as the "voice" of his inner desires. Returning to that ques¬ And I emerged from my wooden box victorious; victori¬ tion of freedom often, I eventually completed ous over my journey; victorious over my master and vic¬ the play One Noble Journey, which I have torious over the great sivord of slavery. I was a free man. performed as a one-man drama and comedy, Equal and able to stand erect in the company of all men! casting myself as all eighteen characters. —Henry "Box" Brown

TH/H, Fall 2009 THJH Essay Contest Winner Siloam Bridge Collapse

by Sophie Hennings*

Props: fog machine (or dry ice), desk, pen, paper, bridge. He contacted state agencies repeat¬ stools edly to see if the bridge could be replaced. He Setting: nighttime at Siloam wrote another letter discussing these issues. Stage directions: Shine stage light on each charac¬ ter as he or she speaks. Hugh, sitting at desk, reading aloud. Governor, I am writing to you about the bridge. It is in [Background. On an extremely foggy Sunday such bad shape that I am urging state officials night, February 23,1975, seven cars fell off to tear it down. It has many problems and traf¬ a collapsed bridge into the Yadkin River at fic that one lane is not capable of supporting. Siloam, in Surry As a worried resident, I am asking if it can be County northwest replaced to improve safety. of Winston-Salem. James Venable's Narrator. It is now 9:25 p.m., on February 23, vehicle struck the 1975. James Venable is crossing the Siloam side of the Siloam Bridge, from Yadkin County to Surry County. Bridge first. The It is very foggy. Suddenly, his car is falling bridge then began thirty feet! Another car follows. to tumble into the river. Over Venable. The night was too foggy to see. I the next fifteen wasn't sure where I was on the bridge. I don't minutes, six more remember hitting the bridge, just falling. If I cars ran off the did hit the bridge, then it was in bad shape if bridge, their driv¬ one car could bring it down! Sophie Hennings. Image courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. ers unaware that it had collapsed. Narrator. That night, in their home near the Four people—Hugh and Ola Atkinson, and bridge, the Atkinson family heard screams for Judy and Andrea Lee Needham—died. Sixteen help. It was the haunting voices creeping up others were injured.] through a murky haze that first drew Hugh and his family to "Read the National Trans¬ Narrator. In the 1930s Hugh Atkinson, of the deadly site. So they drove portation Safety Board’s Siloam, thought that the existing ferry needed to investigate. Sadly, Hugh and report on the accident at replacing with a bridge across the Yadkin Ola never found out why people wujuj.ntsb.gov/publictn/i97G/ River. So he petitioned the state government. were screaming. The fog was so HAR76o3.htm. / thick that they couldn't see that Hugh, sitting at desk with pen and paper, reading two hundred feet of the bridge had aloud. Governor, I think that we need a bridge, collapsed. They fell to their deaths. instead of a ferry, over the Yadkin River in Siloam. The ferry is too slow to go across the In Hugh's coat pocket was a response letter Yadkin River so many times a day in shallow from the government about the bridge. The water. letter said that the bridge was dangerous, but there was no money to repair it. This incident Narrator. In 1938, in response, the state shows the importance of having bridges installed a 374-foot, one-lane bridge made of repaired or replaced as they age. timber with an overhead steel trestle. Over the years, Hugh worried about the safety of the End scene.

*Sophie Hennings, of Winston-Salem, won first place in the elementary division of the Tar Heel Junior Histo¬ THJH, Fall 2009 rian Essay Contest 2009. She was a fifth grader at Summit School and a member of the Summit Middle School 37 Historians, Millicent Foreman, adviser. The contest asked students to think about North Carolina's many outdoor dramas, choose another Tar Heel event that could have its own outdoor drama, and write one scene for that drama. NORTH CAROLINA Museum of History

History Happens Here

Tar Heel Junior Historian Association Library Rate North Carolina Museum of History 5 East Edenton Street Raleigh, NC 27601-1011

Address Sendee Requested

North Carolina has a strong tradition of creativity, influenced by factors that include community, environment, and even history Pottery offers one example of a strong traditional art form practiced by many Tar Heels.

Charlie Teague, who made this jug in the 1920s, was the first potter hired to work at the well-known Jugtown Pottery Senora Lynch's red-and- white clay "Woodland People" vase, made in 2003, features symbolic images, including corn, a flowering dogwood, a turtle, and medicine plants. The Warrenton artist combines the influences of her Haliwa-Saponi heritage with her own creative ideas. This tail-handled form, known as a Rebecca pitcher, is a popular shape with North Carolina potters. Thurston Cole made this one in the mid-1900s at C. C. Cole Pottery.

ncmuseurnofhistory.org