Folklife Center News, Winter-Spring 1997, Volume XIX, Numbers 1 and 2
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
CENTERNEWS WINTER-SPRING 1997· VOLUME XIX, NUMBERS 1 AND 2 American Folklife Center • The Library of Congress Board of Trustees TELEPHONE AND ONLINE INFORMATION RESOURCES Congressional Appointees Judith McCulloh, Chair, Illinois American Folklife Center publica Carolyn Hecker, Vice-chair, Maine tions (including Folklife Center News), Nina Archabal, Minnesota a calendar of events, collection guides, James F. Hoy, Kansas general information, and connections William CKinney Jr., South to a selection of other Internet services Carolina related to folklife are available on the Charles E. Trimble, Nebraska Internet via the LC MARVEL Gopher Juris Ubans, Maine Server and the LC Web World Wide Web Server. LC MARVEL is available Presidential Appointees through your local Gopher server. Or The American Folklife Center Ada E. Deer, Assistant Secretary use your Gopher Client Software to was created in 1976 by the U.s. Con for Indian Affairs, Department of connect to marvel.loc.gov. From the gress to "preserve and present Interior main menu, choose "Research and American folklife" through pro Joseph D. Duffey, Director of the Reference," then "Reading Rooms," grams of research, documentation, United States Information Agency then "American Folklife Center." LC archival preservation, reference ser Shirley S. Sagawa, Managing Web is available through your local vice, live performance, exhibition, Director of the Corporation for World Wide Web service. The publication, and training. The Cen National and Community Service Center's home page can be accessed ter incorporates the Archive of Folk from the Library's main menu. The Culture, which was established in Ex Officio Members direct URL for the Center's home the Music Division of the Library of James H. Billington, Librarian of page is: http://lcweb.loc.gov/ Congress in 1928 and is now one of Congress folklife/ the largest collections of ethno I. Michael Heyman, Secretary of graphic material from the United the Smithsonian Institution Folkline, an information service States and around the world. Jane Alexander, Chairman, providing timely information on the National Endowment for the Arts field of folklore and folklife, includ Sheldon Hackney, Chairman, ing training and professional oppor National Endowment for the tunities and news items of national Humanities interest, is available through the Alan Jabbour, Director, American above Internet servers. For telephone Administration Folklife Center service call the Folklife Reading Room Alan Jabbour, Director during normal business hours (Mon Doris Craig, Administrative Assistant day through Friday, 8:30 A.M. to 5:00 Mary Gainey, Clerk P.M., E.s.T.): 202 707-5510. '" Camila Bryce-Laporte, Program Coordina tor Acquisitions FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS £... Joseph c. Hickerson, Head James Hardin, Editor Processing EDITOR'S NOTES jhar @ loc.gov Stephanie A. Hall, Archivist David A. Taylor, Editorial Advisor Coordinator Many Thanks! John Biggs, Library of Congress Catherine Hiebert Kerst, Archivist Graphics Unit, Designer Nora Yeh, Archivist Heartfelt thanks to all the mem Programs Folklife Center News publishes ar ...... Peter T. Bartis, Folklife Specialist bers of the folklife community ticles on the programs and activi Mary Hufford, Folklife Specialist who have provided support and ties of the American Folklife Cen David A. Taylor, Folklife Specialist encouragement to the American ter, as well as other articles on tra Publications ditional expressive culture. It is Folklife Center during the past James Hardin, Editor available free of charge from the several years and taken time to Public Events Library of Congress, American Theadocia Austen, Coordinator write to their members of Con Folklife Center, Washington, D.C. Reference gress on our behalf. Through the 20540-4610. Folklife Center News Judith A. Gray, Folklife Specialist leadership of Mark Hatfield and does not publish announcements Jennifer A. Cutting, Folklife from other institutions or reviews continued on page 23 Specialist of books from publishers other than Administrative Office the Library of Congress. Readers Tel: 202 707-6590 who would like to comment on Fax: 202 707-2076 Cover: Three generations of women who Center activities or newsletter ar Reference Service ginseng together, Horse Creek, West ticles may address their remarks to Tel: 202 707-5510 Virginia: Carla Pettry with her daughter the editor. folklife @ loc.gov Natalie and her mother, Shelby Estep, holding their seng hoes. Photo by Lyntha Eiler 2 Folklife Center News Atnerican Ginseng and the Idea of the COInInons Randy Sprouse, of Sundial, holding up a three-prong plant while ginsenging in Tom's Hollow. Photo by Lyntha Eiler By Mary Hufford prietors for nearly thirty years. ing of friends from neighboring The bar's modest facade belies the hollows and coal camps. The Sundial Tavern, known up often uproarious vitality of its eve Like many taverns, the Sundial and down Coal River as "Kenny nings. On weekend nights the Tavern is a dynamic museum of and Martha's," is a mom-and-pop music of Hank Williams, Bill Mon local history, its walls covered style beer joint on Route 3, in Sun roe, and Dolly Parton flows from with photographs, artifacts, and dial, West Virginia, just north of the jukebox to mingle with the trophies that register local per Naoma. Retired coal miner Kenny haze of cigarettes, the clangor of spectives on national events, the Pettry and his wife, Martha, now pinball, the crack and clatter of triumphs of patrons, and the pass in their sixties, have been the pro- pool, and the jocular talk and teas- ing of eras. Among the items dis- Winter-Spring 1997 3 played are photos of Dolly Parton (who is Martha's second cousin), an ingenious trigger-and-funnel There's an art to ginsenging now, but once you learn it, you never mechanism for planting corn, and forget it. a souvenir cap that registers the present struggle of the United Ed Cantley, Mine Workers for survival on Coal Rock Creek, West Virginia River. On another wall hangs a photograph of John Flynn, a be loved science writer and forest advocate, deemed one of the three from Sundial in his family cem Above the large specimen is a best pool players on Coal River. etery on Rock Creek, the hollow he lesser but still remarkable five He spent many nights here talk was born in fifty-seven years ago. prong. The display speaks to the ing, sympathizing, arguing, jok Tucked into the display on the high status accorded to ginseng in ing, and shooting pool. He died in wall behind the bar is a set of life and thought on Coal River. March of 1996 and is buried not far framed and laminated leaves. Diggers call it "seng," and on Most people Coal River the passion for seng would be hard runs deep. In 1994, the most recent put to identify year for which figures are avail this specimen, able, the state of West Virginia ex but for many ported 18,698 dry pounds of wild of the tavern's ginseng root from its fifty-five regular pa counties. l Though ginseng grows trons it repre wild throughout the mountain sents an ex state, more than half of the wild traordinary harvest came from eight contigu trophy and ob ous counties in the state's south ject of desire: western corner (Kanawha, Boone, the stalk from Fayette, Raleigh, McDowell, Wyo a rare six ming, Mingo, and Logan). "It's al prong ginseng ways been like that," said Bob plant, Panax Whipkey, who monitors the export quinquefolia. of ginseng for the state's Division Science writer and forest activist John Flynn, in the Julie Holler above his homeplace on Rock Creek, a year before John Flynn's 1966 Pontiac was a familiar sight on Coal an aneurysm claimed his life. He became well known in the River. Wesley Scarbro, a citizen science volunteer from seventies and eighties for his investigative reporting on en Rock Creek, inherited the vehicle, which now goes by the vironmental issues, especially acid rain. Flynn's collabora name "Mr. Flynn." Photo by Lyntha Eiler tion with Mary Hufford, which began in 1992, resulted in the Center's Appalachian Forest Folklife Project. This documen tary project on culture, community, and the mixed meso phytic forest received partial funding from the Lila Wallace/ Reader's Digest Community Folklife Program, administered by the Fund for Folk Culture. Photo by Terry Eiler 4 Folklife Center News the long-term value of a diverse forest system and topography. Be cause the social and cultural sig nificance of the geographical com mons is unrecognized in national discourse, it is particularly at risk. As Beverly Brown points out in writing about the rural working class in the Pacific northwest, the Widespread loss of access to the geographical commons occurs in tandem with a shrinking "civic commons." 3 This loss of access is one effect of the privatization and enclosure of land that for generations has been used as commons. Rural populations with uncertain em ployment have typically relied on gardening, hunting, and gathering for getting through hard times. Over the past decade, processes of gentrification, preservation, and intensified extraction of timber and minerals have e'liminated the commons in which communities have for generations exercised fructuary rights. However, this exercise is motivated by some thing that goes beyond the pros Leaves from five- and six-pronged ginseng plants displayed pect of economic gain. as trophies at the Sundial Tavern. Randy Sprouse found the Ginseng provides a case in five-prong and William Pyle found the six-prong. Photo by Lyntha Eiler point. Dollar for pound, ginseng is probably the most valuable renew able resource on the central Appa lachian plateaus. 4 A linchpin in of Forestry. "There are more dig The Commons the seasonal round of foraging, gers there because of the culture. ginsenging is also essential to a People there grow up gathering There is a story in these figures way of life.