Spring–Summer 2006 Volume 32: 1–2

The Journal of New York Folklore

A Community’s Quilt

Monastery on the Hudson

Looking for Legends

Family Folklore

E-Resources

Immigrant Arts Contents Spring–Summer 2006

Features 3 Piecing Together a Community: A Late Nineteenth-Century Friendship Quilt from Peterboro, New York by Shirley Morgan 12 Folklore E-Resources for All? Why Public Access Matters by Kathleen Condon 3 19 In the Midst of a Monastery: Filming the Making of a Buddhist Sand Mandala by Puja Sahney 18 24 A Grandmother’s Legacy by Virginia M. Scida 28 Immigrant Arts in Collaboration: Current Community Cultural Initiatives by Emily Socolov and Gabrielle M. Hamilton Introduction by Tom van Buren 34 Legend Quests by Libby Tucker 39 The Family Pond by John G. Hait Departments and Columns 2 Announcements 10 Upstate by Varick A. Chittenden 11 Downstate by Steve Zeitlin 17 Foodways by Lynn Case Ekfelt 28 18 Bookshelf Essentials by Tom van Buren 27 Good Spirits by Libby Tucker 33 Obituary 39 38 New York Folklore Society News 42 Play by John Thorn 43 Eye of the Camera by Martha Cooper Cover: Lama Chopal finishing 45 Book Reviews the outer ring of a Buddhist sand mandala. Photo: Puja 47 Creative Nonfiction Sahney

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 1 Exploring Beauty Meet Your Neighbors The Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in The Children’s Museum in Utica, New Auburn, New York, is hosting a summer York, presents “Meet Your Neighbors: Fam- folk arts program, “Exploring Beauty: Folk ily Folk Arts Festival.” Arts in Central New York.” Friday, July 14 (noon–3:30 p.m.), and Saturday, May 20: Chinese, Latino, and Saturday, July 15 (10:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.): Na- Liberian dance and folk arts demonstrations, tive American arts will be demonstrated by 2:00–4:00 p.m. Oneida Nation members, and traditional Sunday, August 20: African and Native dance with zither music will be performed American dance and folk arts demonstra- by the German American community, Uti- tions, 2:00–4:00 p.m. ca’s oldest immigrant group. New immigrant Programs are funded by the New York artists from Burma and Bosnia will also par- State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and are ticipate. free to the public. For information call (315) For information about this NYSCA- 255-1553 or visit www.schweinfurth- funded program, call (315) 724-6129. artcenter.org/events/folk.html. La Fiesta Spring–Summer 2006 · Volume 32: 1–2 Fair Fotos Tuesday, August 22: The National Mu- Acquisitions Editor Felicia Faye McMahon

ANNOUNCEMENTS Managing Editor Sheryl A. Englund The Folklife Center at Crandall Public Li- seum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Sarato- Photography Editor Martha Cooper brary in Glens Falls, New York, presents “Fair ga Springs will host La Fiesta, a festival cele- Design Mary Beth Malmsheimer Printer Eastwood Litho Fotos: Agricultural Portraits by Clifford Oliv- brating the cultural traditions of the Sarato- er,” a new exhibition in the Folklife Gallery. ga racetrack. Admission is free. The event is Editorial Board Varick Chittenden, Lydia Fish, Nancy Groce, Lee Haring, Libby Tucker, The exhibit will be on display from June 5 supported by the New York State Council Kay Turner, Dan Ward, Steve Zeitlin to September 6. Gallery hours are Monday on the Arts folk arts program. For informa- Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore through Thursday, 9:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m.; Fri- tion call (518) 584-0400. is published twice a year by the day, 9:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.; and Saturday, 9:00 New York Folklore Society, Inc. 133 Jay Street a.m.–5:00 p.m. Summer Internships at Mind- P.O. Box 764 For information and a schedule of pro- Builders Schenectady, NY 12301

grams visit www.crandalllibrary.org. The Dr. Beverly Robinson Community New York Folklore Society, Inc. Folk Culture Program educates youth by ex- Executive Director Ellen McHale Web Administrator Patti Mason Fandango de Tortugas ploring cultural traditions in the Bronx com- Voice (518) 346-7008 Join Mano a Mano as we celebrate the na- munity. As paid interns at Mind-Builders Fax (518) 346-6617 Web Site www.nyfolklore.org ture and culture of Veracruz State with son Creative Arts Center, young people ages 12– jarocho music, the danced rhythms of the za- 18 discover and interview Bronx communi- Board of Directors President Mary Zwolinski pateado, and the tasty foods of the region. ty folk artists, musicians, storytellers, danc- Vice President Hanna Griff The sweet water turtles of Mexico and their ers, storeowners, and craftspeople from Af- Secretary-Treasurer Ladan Alomar Karen Canning, Susan Chodorow, Pamela Cooley, James U.S. cousins will be our mascots as we learn rica and the Caribbean; research cultural tra- Corsaro, Eniko Farkas, Nancy Johnson, Elena Martínez, more about conservation and wildlife. ditions in their families; create multimedia Marline Martin, Stan Ransom, Bart Roselli, Greer Smith, When: Afternoon of Sunday, June 25 projects to document folklife; and participate Kevin White, Lynne Williamson Where: Belvedere Castle and Turtle Pond, in community folk culture presentations. Advertisers: to inquire, please call the NYFS Central Park, New York July through August 2006; hours to be (518) 346-7008 or fax (518) 346-6617. For information or to volunteer at the announced. Please inquire for information. event, call (212) 571-1555 ext. 35, Call Deirdre Hollman, Folk Culture Program Voices is available in Braille and recorded e-mail [email protected], or visit Director, (718) 652-6256 ext. 15; or e-mail versions. Call the NYFS at (518) 346-7008. www.manoamano.us. [email protected]. The New York Folklore Society is committed to providing services with integrity, in a manner that conveys respect for the dignity of the individuals and communities the NYFS serves, as well as for their cultures, including ethnic, religious, occupational, and regional traditions. The programs and activities of the New York Folklore Society, and the publication of Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, are made possible in part by funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is indexed in Arts & Humanities Citation Index and Music Index and abstracted in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. Reprints of articles and items from Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore are available from the NYFS. Call (518) 346-7008 or fax (518) 346-6617. ISSN 0361-204X © 2006 by The New York Folklore Society, Inc. All rights reserved.

2 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Piecing Together a Community: A Late Nineteenth-Century Friendship Quilt from Peterboro, New York BY SHIRLEY MORGAN

Women’s history is often sparsely documented, but investigation of specific udy Kratts, an accomplished quilter, examples of material culture produced by women—such as quilts—can con- Jpurchased an old signature quilt top— tribute significantly to local history and provide compelling stories about ordi- not a finished quilt—in 1995 at an antique nary women. I researched an undocumented signature (or friendship) quilt show in her hometown of Saranac Lake, New top. Through genealogical research on the names inscribed on the quilt top, I York. Like other signature quilts, this one was able to trace its origins to the rural community of Peterboro, New York, bears forty handwritten names. After Kratts in the late nineteenth century. Further research into local history, combined showed me the quilt, I was able to deduce with an examination of the quilt’s design, construction, and materials, led me that it was made in Peterboro in Madison to a theory about the identities of the quilter and the intended recipient. Both County, New York, between August 11, individuals were members of the Martindale family who resided in Peterboro. 1890, and October 20, 1891. In researching Using this friendship quilt as a focus revealed details about community life the names on the quilt, many stories have that typify the period, as well as numerous stories of both success and suf- unfolded. fering experienced by women and their families. The quilt serves as an endur- Antique quilts are women’s folk art. They ing record of women who might otherwise have remained invisible. are wonderful records of the creativity of

The antique quilt (left) beside Kratt’s reproduction (right) at a 2004 quilt show in Saranac Lake. Photo: Scott Morgan

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 3 Peterboro was also notable in religious re- form and women’s rights. As it turns out, the Martindales—the family most promi- nent among the names on the quilt top— had ties to Gerrit Smith and his abolitionist activities. William Martindale was among a group of neighbors who worked closely with Gerrit Smith earlier in the nineteenth century (Friedman 1982, 97). Smith was a member of the Secret Six, a group that funded John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry (Oates 1970, 238). According to Donna Burdick, after John Brown’s arrest, members of the Martindale family hid weapons in the Martindale black- smith shop in Peterboro, in case they needed to defend Gerrit Smith against arrest for his role in the raid. Gerrit Smith had been dead for about fifteen years by the time the quilt was made, but his imprint on the commu- nity of Peterboro has been enduring. The quilt top provides a record of associ- Quilt block signed Aunt Libbie Taylor, the quilt’s possible maker. Photo: Shirley Morgan ations that documents Peterboro’s cultural history. The primary association appears to women who, in many cases, worked with a a collage of fabric that represents, with its be family, spanning three generations. The palette of mere scraps put aside through thrift. names, an active record of the history of names of Ruth Taylor Martindale, William’s Teasing out the story written in the Peterboro Peterboro. Most of the names are wom- wife, and other members of the extended quilt top began with researching the tradition en’s, which is significant because women Taylor–Martindale family occupy thirteen out of signature or friendship quilts, as this one are often invisible in the historical record. of a total of forty name-blocks on the quilt. should be called. Friendship quilts honored The quilt top was entirely undocumented, Six individuals share the Martindale surname, community by celebrating and preserving in but using an online genealogy site, and and there are also four Taylors, two of them cloth a record of some close-knit group of with the help of Saranac Lake genealogist dubbed “Aunt,” who were part of the ex- people. This quilting tradition emerged in the Carolyn Bulgey, I was able to establish the tended family. Three of the grandchildren 1840s, coinciding with a fad for autograph al- quilt’s provenance in Peterboro with rela- of Ruth and William Martindale appear on bums. Reading a friendship quilt is somewhat tive ease, enhancing its historical value. And the quilt with other surnames. A second, like reading a diary, because it reveals traces of with the capable and generous help of Pe- smaller family constellation of four mem- close and often complex relationships that go terboro area historian Donna Dorrance Bur- bers is also represented among the quilt unnoted in other types of quilts. dick, I estimated the date of construction names. Except for a few who remain uni- Although the popularity of friendship quilts as between August 11, 1890, and October dentified, the rest were all neighbors in Pe- waned as the nineteenth century wore on, there 20, 1891, based on the maiden or married terboro. That neighbors and friends should was a revival in the 1880s just prior to the names of two of the women listed on the be included on a quilt having such a sub- estimated date of the Peterboro quilt top. quilt top. The date span is consistent with stantial family association is characteristic of These pieced quilts, which were produced in the age of the most recent fabrics, and all nineteenth-century rural New York commu- large numbers during the middle part of the of the individuals I have identified to date nity life, where kinship networks encom- nineteenth century, bear inscriptions of names were alive at the estimated time of the quilt’s passed neighbors, as well as family (Osterud and often poems or a few words from the construction. 1991, 55–69). inscribers memorializing the connections be- The village of Peterboro occupies a prom- Aside from a few small tears, the quilt top is tween friends and family. Women made friend- inent page in the history of the New York in pristine condition and unfinished, with no ship quilts for sentimental reasons—express- abolition movement, since it was the home backing or batting. Given its nearly perfect con- ly for the sake of remembrance—but these of reformer Gerrit Smith and a stage for dition, this quilt top was never washed or used antique quilts also serve as historical records. abolition activism led by him, as well as an as a bed covering. We do not known why the The quilt top that Kratts presented to me is active stop on the Underground Railroad. quilt was never finished. There are many possi-

4 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore pieced with a background of a popular print of the era called shirting. This particular shirt- ing has tiny red figures on an off-white ground. Although the contrasting color fab- ric is different in each block, the background fabric is the same throughout. The Peterboro quilt top’s forty-two blocks (two carry no names) are hand-pieced, al- though the sewing machine had been intro- duced to American homes at mid-century. It was traditional with many, but certainly not all, friendship quilts for each individual to piece her own block, but this quilt top prob- ably had only one sewer. Distinctive uneven stitching runs through all of the blocks. The stitching on the Peterboro quilt top is not the particularly fine handwork that is often found on antique quilts. The piecing togeth- er of the blocks is also inexact because of a lack of seam allowances, causing the corners of the design to be blunted. The quilt top might not have been intended to be an ex- ample of expert sewing skills, which were particularly important in an earlier era. Alter- nately, perhaps the sewing flaws point to an elderly maker whose eyesight was failing— or one who was unskilled, or young and in- experienced, or hurried. The ink inscriptions on the quilt top are all in one hand. It was a common practice to ask a person with fine handwriting to do the inscriptions on a friendship quilt. Many sig- nature quilts were designed as fundraisers, but fundraising quilts tended to include a much greater number of names than the mere forty on the Peterboro quilt top. Although the quilt top was probably craft- Peterboro physician Dr. Louisa Downer, 1858–1929. Photo courtesy of Donna ed by one individual, each person represent- Dorrance Burdick, Smithfield town historian. ed on the quilt top may have contributed scraps from personal clothing, as was tradi- ble reasons a quilt might go unfinished: death The quilt top, measuring seventy-two by tional with friendship quilts. Gathering small or illness of the maker or death of the intend- eight-four inches, standard size for the three- scraps, such as these from clothing construc- ed recipient, sudden dislocation, change of cir- quarter bed that was common during the tion, typifies a tradition of thrift, but cloth- cumstance. Quilt historian Jane Bentley Kolter period, is subtly colorful and pleasing in de- ing remnants also triggered memories that argues that many friendship quilts were backed sign. The pattern, a common one that orig- were often quite emotional. During the nine- and quilted long after they were pieced, and inated in the 1840s and underwent a revival teenth century, the need to preserve the mem- many others became keepsakes that were never in the 1880s, was popularly called Chimney ory of close relationships was particularly quilted (1985, 59). The preservation of the Pe- Sweep or one of several other names. The important, since personal bonds were often terboro quilt top for over a century may serve fabric and thread used in the quilt top are suddenly shattered by death or migration. as evidence that its primary intended function cotton. The varied assortment of printed Fabric characteristics, such as color, approx- was as an heirloom. calicoes and a few stripes and plaids were imate date, and design provide a number of

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 5 clues about personal characteristics of fabric donors, such as age, wealth, and other cir- cumstances. A block of bright red calico typ- ical of children’s dress of the period (Lipsett 1985, 51; Fox 1995, 123) bears the name Willie Rich. Willie was indeed a small child at the time of the quilt top’s construction, a grand- son of William Martindale. The colors in the quilt top are generally subdued, with no other reds, and half of the blocks contain shades of brown. The quilt block inscribed Mrs. Nettie Scully (a neighbor of the Martin- dales) contains scraps of a black fabric called a “mourning print.” Mrs. Scully’s husband died in 1889, a year or two before the quilt was made. Four men’s names appear on the Peter- boro quilt top, and the unadorned fabrics could very well have come from men’s cloth- ing. Some older fabrics used in the quilt top, such as early hand-dyed and overprinted flo- ral prints, reflect a habit of saving scraps over a long period, perhaps decades. The older fabrics might represent older individuals. In one case, an early yellow floral on indigo print is inscribed with the name of Aunt Libbie Taylor. Libbie Taylor was born in 1821 and was a sister-in-law of William Martindale. Clues to different stations in life are re- vealed by comparing physician Louisa Down- er’s fabric, a fine multicolored paisley print, to Mary Martindale’s plain navy and white yarn-dyed stripe that was patched together from tiny scraps too small for a whole piece of the design. Mary was the wife of Quincy H. Martindale, who had enlisted with his father William in the local Civil War regiment at the age of eighteen. Quincy died insane at The oldest standing house in Peterboro, where some of the Martindales lived. Photo: Shirley Morgan the Utica Asylum not long after the quilt top was constructed. Mary’s life must have been terboro, near the noted abolitionist. There the mid-1880s to the turn of the century, hard. Louisa Downer, on the other hand, are no blacks represented on the friendship Peterboro, although very small in popula- graduated from Buffalo Medical College— quilt top, but there is one woman who had tion, was a village alive with community ac- probably the first woman to do so—and been adopted as a child from the Home for tivity. Voluntary organizations, such as the enjoyed a successful career in Peterboro. Destitute Children, located in the heart of Children’s Aid Society and the Ladies’ Aid The Peterboro residents whose names ap- the small village. Nellie Bliss, born Nellie Society, sponsored a continuing series of fairs pear on the quilt top represent the merchant Coon, was adopted at the age of four by and festivals, dances, literary readings and and professional class that lived at the center bereaved parents who had lost two babies, recitations, and musical performances to sup- of the village, along with Gerrit Smith. Smith but her six-year-old brother was left at the port the Children’s Home and the church. had fostered an inclusive community in the orphanage. Nellie later married a village doc- Fund-raising events called “donations” were village; at the village cemetery there are nu- tor, George W. Davis. hosted for Mrs. Nettie Scully when her hus- merous graves of blacks who settled in Pe- According to newspaper accounts from band was terminally ill. Reunions of the Civil

6 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Block signed Mrs. Kate Martindale. Photo: Shirley Morgan

Block signed Mrs. Lessie Hawkins. Photo: Shirley Morgan

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 7 Block signed Willie Rich. Willie was a child when the quilt was made. Photo: Shirley Morgan

War Army’s 157th Regiment were held regu- low activities beyond the domestic sphere, the University of Buffalo, while teaching larly. There was a chapter of the Good Tem- such as voluntary and reform work, attend- school part-time in Peterboro. She practiced plars, a temperance and philosophical soci- ing college, and working outside the home. medicine in Peterboro and later Buffalo, ety that encouraged female membership and Many of the individuals included on the quilt where she established the sanitarium at Or- took part in the suffrage movement. top were representatives of this trend. Some chard Park under her married name of Ben- During 1887, a group of young adults or- others were older women employed in some zing. Not all of the young women enjoyed ganized the Young People’s Society of Peter- of the most common professions for such fortunate circumstances, however. The ites for the purposes of promoting “literary nineteenth-century women, such as Jane young Mrs. Lessie Hawkins was the victim culture among our young people” and do- Cameron who ran a bakery and catering busi- of a shooting by her husband in November nated the proceeds to “charitable objects.” The ness. Mrs. Sarah Bush was a milliner. Mrs. of 1895. A bullet was removed from her brain group published a journal called the Y.P.S.O.P., Jenerva McPherson was a dressmaker, and after husband William committed suicide. but only one issue, apparently, was ever print- Mrs. [Betsey] Radford a tailoress. He had undergone the “gold cure” for alco- ed. (Donna Burdick provided a copy.) Louisa It was the daughters of this generation holism. Contemporary sources do not state Downer, M.D., served as editor, and Marion who followed the trend of the New Wom- whether Lessie survived the surgery (“Hawk- Martindale as assistant editor. This forward- an, with some of them attending college and ins First Shot,” 1895). looking journal printed a business directory entering professions that had previously The Young People’s Society of Peterites that included several working women and a been reserved for men. Gertrude Marsh, also promoted needlework in a planned ex- poem on women’s suffrage. daughter of Ellen Martindale Marsh, attend- hibit in 1887 of “silk patchwork, fancy work, The Peterboro quilt top was made during ed the University of Rochester and New York curiosities, relics, etc., [along with] a fine pro- the 1890s era of the New Woman, when University, and practiced optometry in Utica. gram of vocal and instrumental music and women’s culture broadened somewhat to al- Louisa Downer attended medical school at tableaux” (“County and Vicinity,” 1887). It

8 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore is interesting to note that the silk crazy quilts 1910 United States census, young Quincy, an County and Vicinity News: Peterboro. March that were a fad at the end of the century were orphan at age sixteen, took work in Peter- 18, 1887. Oneida Dispatch: [8]. apparently being produced and exhibited by boro as a farm laborer. He died in Texas in Fox, Sandi. 1995. For Purpose and Pleasure. young women in Peterboro at the same time 1931, at the age of thirty-eight, leaving a wife Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill. that this traditional friendship quilt was and a young son. Frank Jr. moved out west, Friedman, Lawrence J. 1982. Gregarious Saints: made. Perhaps this fact provides further ev- married and fathered three children, and then Self and Community in American Abolition- idence that the quilt maker who chose to prac- divorced. He also worked as a farm hand in ism, 1830–1870. New York: Cambridge tice an earlier tradition was an older person. Illinois, according to the 1930 census. After University Press. An article in the Oneida Dispatch, not far the turn of the century, migration and death Hawkins First Shot His Wife, Then Sent a from the piece on the needlework exhibit, remained ever-present threats to the circle of Bullet Crashing into His Own Brain. No- offers a clue to the possible identity of both attachments in the Peterboro community. vember 10, 1895. Brooklyn Eagle. the quilter and the intended recipient of the The quilt top has acquired some signifi- Kolter, Jane Bentley. 1985. Forget Me Not: A Peterboro quilt top. The article announces cant recent history. The quilter who purchased Gallery of Friendship and Album Quilts. the marriage of Marion Martindale to Chas. the quilt top in Saranac Lake, Judy Kratts, Pittstown, NJ: Main Street Press. A. Rich at the Peterboro home of her par- closely duplicated the original using both Lipsett, Linda Otto. 1985. Remember Me: Wom- ents, Mr. and Mrs. William Martindale, on antique and reproduction fabrics. Kratts was en and Their Friendship Quilts. San Francisco: March 10, 1887. Each wedding gift is listed, inspired to continue the friendship quilt tra- Quilt Digest Press. along with the name or names of the giver. dition by asking family members and friends Oates, Stephen B. 1970. To Purge This Land One item on the list is a “scrap album bed to inscribe their names on her quilt blocks. with Blood: A Biography of John Brown. New quilt,” as a friendship quilt might have been In July of 2004, I presented my research in York: Harper and Row. described, given to the couple by Mrs. E. D. Peterboro, exhibiting both the antique quilt Osterud, Nancy Grey. 1991. Bonds of Commu- Taylor (“County and Vicinity,” 1887). Mrs. top and Judy Kratts’s reproduction. The talk nity: Lives of Farm Women in Nineteenth- E. D. Taylor is the woman identified as Aunt was attended by a number of interested de- Century New York. Ithaca: Cornell Univer- Libbie Taylor on the quilt top. It seems pos- scendants of the “quilt people” located by sity Press. sible that Aunt Libbie made another similar Donna Burdick, but unfortunately, no Mar- Y.P.S.O.P. 1887. quilt for the next family wedding, that of tindales. Marion’s brother Frank Martindale to Kate Kratts donated the antique quilt top to Warham, on August 11, 1890. Taylor (1821– the Peterboro Area Historical Society—and 1905) was Frank’s aunt, married to his moth- so it has come “home.” Whoever its maker er’s brother. and recipient, the Peterboro friendship quilt Mrs. Kate Martindale’s name is the first top has survived to bring this particular sto- on the top row of the quilt top, which could ry of family and community to light. The have been a significant placement. If indeed quilt is no longer a family heirloom, but hap- the Peterboro quilt top, which may have been pily, it is now a community heirloom, which presented to Kate and Frank Martindale, was is perhaps even better. The quilt top occu- intended to become a family heirloom, it was pies its rightful place in Peterboro as a tangi- Shirley Morgan and her husband have lived in Saranac Lake since 1972. ultimately sold out of the family. All that is ble reminder of a way of life in which com- Once a studio artist, her interests known about its ensuing travels is that it munity and family mattered, and communi- turned to local history after she moved to the Adirondacks. She worked for a came to Saranac Lake in 1995 from an auc- ty bonds were worth a great deal of effort to number of years as both a volunteer tion house in Vermont. preserve, in valiant—if fleeting—defiance of and a staff member at the Saranac Lake Free Library, where she helped Research into subsequent family history the inevitable pains of separation. to manage the Adirondack collection of reveals that Kate gave birth to two children, historical materials. She was for a son Frank in 1892 and another son Quincy several years a board member of References Historic Saranac Lake, in keeping with in 1894. Then, in 1898, Kate died. Frank lat- Brevities: Peterboro. February 9, 1904. Onei- her interest in local historic preserva- er remarried; his unfortunate second wife da Dispatch: [5]. tion. In 2000, she enrolled in a graduate program at Skidmore College, turns up in a 1904 newspaper report as “dan- Clark, Ricky. 1988. Quilt Documentation: A Case where she previously earned a B.A. in gerously ill, at the home of her brother, T. Study. In Making the American Home: Middle American studies. Now an independent researcher, her research topics in local Ginney[,] caused by an overdose of Class Women and Domestic Material Culture, 1840- history have included women working laudanum” (“Brevities”). Frank, who died 1940, 158–92. Ed. Marilyn Ferris Motz and in the textile mills of northern New York, the role of sewing circles in in 1909, is buried with his first wife, Kate, in Pat Browne. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling reform movements, and women in the Peterboro Village Cemetery. According to the Green State University Popular Press. labor movement.

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 9 The Chapel Bells BY VARICK A. CHITTENDEN

When clear skies prevail over late afternoons From ten to eleven every night, we were to not exactly like Animal House, but there were during the academic year, from my front yard be in our rooms. L Club men would come to many drinking games and songs that ema- I can often hear the muted sounds of the roust us out, down to the Commons Room nated from the several houses on campus. bells of Gunnison Memorial Chapel at St. or the outdoor Quad, where as a group, we There were rush and pledging, Hell Week, pin-

UPSTATE Lawrence University. Up in the tower, the car- would sing St. Lawrence songs, recite silly verse, ning ceremonies, and Purple Jesus parties illoneur—always a student trained in the an- do pushups or duck walks in large circles, or (vodka and grape juice in milk cans!). Athletes cient art of ringing these bells—plays a few find our shoes in the pile we had created when had their legendary coaches, “dumb jock” rep- tunes each day, including some college songs we started out. This went on indefinitely, we utations, and superstitious rituals like eating and ending with the alma mater. It’s a St. thought, or until the football team won the the same meals or wearing the same un- Lawrence tradition, as old as almost anyone homecoming game. washed game underwear while on a winning in Canton can remember. If any one failed to do what was asked, or streak. St. Lawrence is celebrating its sesquicenten- showed any resistance, he was ordered to ap- A sociologist or psychologist would have a nial in 2006: 150 years as one of the nation’s pear the next morning at the Snack Bar Wall— heyday studying such behavior. There were oldest coeducational small liberal arts colleges. the favorite outdoor gathering place on cam- issues of status, control, authority, survival, That observance means a lot to me, since not pus for upper class men and women—and resourcefulness, and especially group identi- too many years after the college’s centenary, I perform the alma mater solo for all to hear or ty—to name a few. I still say that my once- entered the school as a green, impressionable some other equally humiliating task. After detested period of freshman hazing was an freshman, unschooled in the ways of college several weeks of such shenanigans, a few ad- amazing exercise in community building, since life. That would change immediately. On reg- venturous freshmen mutinied, ending in the (for one) most of my classmates knew the istration day, I was directed to a small room in search for a particularly obnoxious tormentor names and hometowns—remember the plac- my single-sex dorm, where I was given a pile who had won his varsity letter as the manager ards?—of every one of our 450-plus fellow of goods that I was told to value with my life: of the tennis team. He was ultimately cap- travelers when Homecoming Weekend came a scarlet and brown beanie about three sizes tured, and the letter “L” was shaved into his . . . and I still recall them and lots more at class too small for my head, a bright red bow tie, brush cut for all to see. And no one ever knew reunions. and a large white placard with a loop of string who did it! Many of these traditions ended two or more attached, on which was written in large letters For the rest of my undergraduate days, there decades ago, when diversity and individuality with Magic Marker my name and hometown. were dozens of traditions, almost too nu- became the norm on campuses, and the con- Like every other freshman, from that minute merous to remember today. There were de- formity and group loyalty of our day was out. forward I was to wear all of the assigned items lightful stories about absentminded profes- I don’t disagree with that trend, since it’s most in public until notified otherwise. No ques- sors, ghosts in dormitories, “mystery meat” likely a far more healthy learning environment tions asked. in the cafeteria, gut courses one could easily for today’s students. But when I hear the chap- That was the first of many traditions I en- pass, and cheating on blue book exams if one el bells, I can’t help but think fondly about countered in my college life, most of which I couldn’t. There was Dean of Women Doris those times in my life when silly behavior was still remember rather fondly to this day. Fresh- Stout—widely reputed to require “girls” to serious and becoming part of something man hazing—now called “first year student avoid wearing red since it provoked passion- much bigger than each of us for life was very orientation” and unrecognizable to me!—was ate behavior, and patent leather shoes since important. not much fun at the time. The L Club—all they could act as mirrors—“Rock Doc” Alma Mater, Old St. Lawrence, varsity sports letter winners and all male— Bloomer, a widely respected geologist who We are singing now of thee, were the enforcers of “the rules,” none of we were told drank milk before his bourbon May thy fair name dwell forever which was written in the college’s student to placate his ulcers, and a host of other such In our fondest memory. handbook. Freshman men were to walk only colorful characters. There were “boonie par-

on sidewalks, not on the grass; tip our bean- ties,” with blankets and beer in spots remote Varick A. Chittenden ies to upper class women; wear sport jackets from campus like the Flat Rocks in the Grasse is professor emeritus River, and favorite hangouts in town like Con- of English, SUNY to dinner; and carry all our books to all our Canton College of classes! Women had strict night curfews, with nie Barr’s, Moose’s, and the Tick Tock. Technology, and “minutes” for late arrival tabulated by the Even though St. Lawrence was and is a small executive director of Traditional Arts in equally strict deans—all intended to keep the college, there were different groups with their Upstate New York men under control, as well. own traditions to maintain. Greek life was (TAUNY). Photo: Martha Cooper

10 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Riding in Cars with Cab Drivers BY STEVE ZEITLIN

From the window of a yellow cab, New from Kingston, Jamaica, presented his own tired of the Coke. One day you will thank York City is a blur of headlights and traffic theory of economics. “There everyone is God for the water. . . . You [will] say, Thank lights and double-parked cars and mam- poor—here there’s a lot of poor too. The you God, it is raining! It is pouring so damn moth trucks in the middle of intersections difference is that here, the poor have more hard, I am drenched from head to toe, and blocked by Con Ed construction projects, stuff. They have two TVs in every room, I adore you for it” (36–7). with the meter ticking and the digital clock every member of their family has a cell These conversations leave me thinking on the dashboard telling the rider he’s late phone, they have a car. They have more about how the new arrivals to New York and would probably have been better off stuff—and the thing is, the stuff creates replenish the city’s cultural life—a cleansing taking the subway. The driver in the front jobs, so poor people work for the cell phone rain, as Sushil might put it. Recently, my seat, behind the bulletproof window, is company.” ongoing conversations with cab drivers have most likely an immigrant New Yorker. The As the cab turned corners, found alter- been threatened by new technologies; by ear- driver’s seat represents a first job for many nate routes, Balev from Punjab, with a full ly 2006, many drivers had cell phones and immigrants arriving thanks to the Immi- white beard and turban, who also owns headsets, and they carry on their own chat- gration and Nationality Amendments of valued taxi medallions, took a different ter in their own languages, oblivious to the 1965, which repealed immigration quotas viewpoint. “In cities,” he said, “you forget riders, perhaps devising grand schemes favoring northern and western Europeans who you are, and just chase after money. I about how to make it in New York. I may and placed all countries on an equal footing. am selling everything and moving back. I’m have to go back to daydreaming in cabs. Eighty percent of yellow cab drivers are re- going to move to the village where I was But not before George, an Asante from cent arrivals. born, Sher Pur Kalan. My family moved to Ghana, reminded me of one of the most For me, taking a cab is a chance to chill, the city years ago, but I’m going to buy back remarkable immigrant traditions—the As- and it must have been in one of those cab- the house where I was born. There I will anteman’s Association’s custom of electing induced daydreams that I began to wonder live simply and pray and try to figure out a king here in the United States, out of def- what these new immigrants driving wildly what I am doing here on the planet. How erence to democracy. He had just returned through the streets of New York thought do I know they will sell? I will offer them from Chicago, where they elected a king for of our madcap city and how they would good money.” the U.S. In fact, he said the real king of Gha- compare it to the towns and cities and vil- A driver from Accra, the capital of Gha- na came to the U.S. for medical reasons and lages around the world that they come from. na, talked about the complexities of mov- ended up attending the ceremony. Appar- My first conversation was with a young ing back. “I would move back, but I don’t ently, the real king thought it was quite fun- Moroccan driver, who told me, “No place have the money. . . . My family and my class- ny they elect a king. I then asked him who in the whole world is anything like New mates—some of them walk ten miles to was the king for New York, and he told me York. Everything here is so much—so big, knock on my door to ask for money. Some the man’s name. Then I asked about his so fast, so crazy.” An Egyptian driver de- knock on my door at five in the morning to occupation. scribed his home city of Cairo as another ask for money. They clean me out. All be- “Guess?” he said. “24/7 city—but still New York is much fast- cause I’m American. I can’t afford to go “I give up,” I answered. er.” He remembered being in Egypt and back!” “Taxi driver. He’s a king during the day, DOWNSTATE needing to walk up five flights of stairs with In Crossing the Boulevard, an extraordinary a taxi driver at night. That’s why I don’t some friends. His friends were dumbfound- new book of photographs and oral histo- run for king. I’d have to drive the cab at ed when he started running up the steps. ries of new immigrants in Queens, Judith night.” I asked Arkady, a Russian immigrant from Sloan and Warren Lehrer introduce Sushil, Kiev, how he compared his home town to a Hindu monk born in Bombay turned New the Apple. “Different planet,” he said. “That York City cab driver, poet, and small press is communist country, this is capitalist coun- publisher. “A young couple comes into my Steve Zeitlin is the try. There it’s one chicken and one hen. Here cab on a rainy day. They say, ‘Oh man, it’s Director of City Lore in New York City. you can buy one hundred chickens if you miserable out there.’ I say, ‘That is the water want to. There is 350 square feet for five of our life.’ They ask me what I mean. I tell people, here is 5,000 square feet for two them, ‘You can live without food for days people. I own the medallion. I bought for at a time. But water you need almost every $150,000, now it’s worth $300,000.” Michael four hours. . . . Believe me, you will get

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 11 FolkloreFolklore E-ResourcesE-Resources forfor All?All? WhyWhy PublicPublic AccessAccess MattersMatters

BY KATHLEEN CONDON

Why should we care about the digital revolution in scholarly publishing? the Library of Congress today, he could start Because some of the changes in how journals are distributed are inadvertently his search over the Internet at home, using limiting public access to folklore scholarship, just when the Internet is enabling the archive’s online finding aids to begin us to broaden it. In this article I explain why public access to folklore identifying the specific material. Even those scholarship is especially critical, and I provide information to help those who don’t have computers or who don’t without university affiliations access the growing number of folklore articles know how to use the Internet can get help available in digital formats. I will follow this introductory essay with others with their research at most public libraries. exploring a variety of folklore e-resources. Wayne was looking for a recording and not a journal article, and I know the public everal years ago I set out to make public The family story went that this recording, is often more interested in recordings of Sfolklorists more aware of the many made by one of the Lomaxes at Walter’s music than scholarship about it. Still, I’ve relevant folklore resources available through home in Rugby, Virginia, featured E. C. and always held on to the belief that most an entirely new medium: electronic journal Orna Ball, who were performing on the people who really want to should be able, databases. The technical details on access to porch. The recording had also incidentally in theory, to walk into a university library these databases may be dry, but the real story captured Wayne’s father, Walter Henderson, and read what folklorists have written about here is about people and about access to who was at the same time playing in an old- them. I therefore find it a little chilling to our cultural heritage. To get this point time string band session inside the house. consider that university libraries (where the across, I’m taking a personal approach, Because I was working as an intern at the lion’s share of publicly accessible print copies relating a couple of stories along the way, archive the day Wayne visited, I was able to of scholarly journals have historically and even asking readers for a little help with watch Joe Hickerson and Gerry Parsons, resided) are increasingly restricting the ongoing research. then archive head and the archive’s reference public’s digital access to resources such as librarian, search diligently for this recording the Journal of American Folklore (JAF), just Wayne Henderson Visits the and make arrangements to send Wayne a at the point when some are canceling their Library of Congress copy. subscriptions to print versions of journals I first met Wayne Henderson when I was This incident—seeing Wayne show up at that their students and faculties can access volunteering at the 1977 Smithsonian the archive and, far from his home in online. JAF annual print subscriptions (not Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. He was Grayson County, Virginia, find an including individual memberships) are demonstrating guitar making, a skill for important piece of his family history— down about one-quarter from historic which this gifted Virginia craftsman and made a big impression on me. I think at highs; this decline is due in part to the musician would receive a National Heritage least in part because of this early experience, growing number of academic libraries Award from the National Endowment for I have always held our discipline to a higher opting to subscribe only to the digital the Arts almost twenty years later. The day standard for public access to our materials— version of the journal. JAF print after the festival, Wayne showed up at the and, actually, I haven’t often been subscriptions are faring better so far than Library of Congress’s Archive of Folk disappointed. The Internet has made it those of many other academic journals in Culture, looking for a recording made about much easier for people like Wayne to find this regard, so perhaps this decline may level forty years before. Wayne had always heard materials and for folklorists to provide off. that his dad’s fiddling was included on a more opportunities for things to be found. Like many of the problems spawned by recording held by the Library of Congress. If Wayne were looking for the recording at the Internet revolution, this unsettling

12 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore trend—which is governed in large part by Journal of American Folklore Full-Text Articles Available in digital formats through the following database providers: market forces—admits no quick fix. The annual fee a university library pays for most JSTOR Full Text, (at eleven U.S. public libraries and many university online subscription databases is set by the Earlier libraries) estimated number of “full-time– Articles x Arts and Sciences II 1888–2001 (excludes last five years) JAF is available online through JSTOR for a $15 surcharge equivalent” (FTE) faculty and students (1888–2001) to members of the American Folklore Society. Probably directly and currently affiliated with the not Questia university. Thus, university libraries that (primarily by individual subscription) available x Journal Collection 1980–98 only in your allow the public to use these databases public Project Muse usually pay higher annual fees, and with so Full Text, (at two U.S. public libraries and many library many databases now obligatory, many Recent university libraries) (see universities can’t afford the privilege. Articles x Full Collection 2001–present (last five years only) yellow (1998– x Basic Research Collection 2001–present (last five years sidebar) Without the income from these present) only) subscription fees, many database providers x Basic Undergraduate Collection 2001–present (last five in turn do not have the money to pay the years only) x Arts and Humanities Collection 2001–present (last five royalties (often based on numbers of years only) articles viewed or downloaded) that support JAF is available online through Project Muse to members of the American Folklore Society. the university presses and other institutions that publish academic journals. ProQuest

Today, if you can walk into a university x ProQuest Research Library 1998–present library, you can often still use the computer ProQuest/Chadwyck-Healey terminals to access research databases, x Literature Online 1999–present Available including ones containing full-text articles x Literature Online Reference Edition 1999–present in your of JAF, even though some of these libraries x International Index to Music Periodicals Full Text 1999– public may have signed agreements restricting use present library? x International Index to the Performing Arts Full Text of these databases to current students and 2003–present faculty. Increasingly, however, database providers are using more sophisticated H.W. Wilson 1998–present Humanities Index/Abstracts/Full Text access management technologies to x x OmniFile Full Text Mega password-protect these databases, even x OmniFile Full Text Select within subscribing libraries. This is currently x OmniFile V Full Text the situation at the University of OCLC First Search Pennsylvania. While this private university x Electronic Collections Online (ECO) 2001–present generously allows the public to use the x Wilson Select Plus 1998–present library on weekdays and weeknights, only x Periodical Abstracts (offers direct access to full-text JAF those with current university IDs are allowed from ECO and Wilson Select Plus at libraries subscribing to these databases) access to the databases. Even some publicly funded state and local academic institutions, which attempt to provide public access as a folklorists, as well as the American Folklore perspective—directly to our computer matter of policy, can only afford to provide Society, should remain engaged. These desktops. These rapidly proliferating online faculty and student access to subscription subjects have been addressed in several folklore resources have helped me, as well databases, if indeed they can afford even excellent sessions at American Folklore as many others outside academia, fill the that. Society annual meetings, and folklorists are gap left by limited access to scholarly Public access to research databases is just involved in these discussions elsewhere, as resources. The growing public availability one small piece of many larger discussions, well. of online information on folklore and on subjects such as access to electronic culture is certainly reason for celebration. In resources, on copyright protection and Public Access to Academic all the hoopla, however, it is easy to overlook expansion, on the privatization of Folklore Scholarship the critical resources—for example, academic knowledge and of culture, on intellectual The Internet has brought an journal articles—that aren’t available. property rights, and on privacy. These are unprecedented wealth of detailed cultural I’ve had difficulty explaining this gap in discussions with which individual material—from almost every conceivable Internet information to my public sector

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 13 colleagues, for to fully grasp what you’re not seeing, you have to actually see it. At a special Public Access to JSTOR and Project Muse session on electronic folklore resources given University Libraries Online Access several years ago by David Azzolina, a Some academic libraries subscribing to American Folklore Society Members folklorist and librarian at the University of these databases admit researchers from the American Folklore Society members receive Pennsylvania, I first learned about JSTOR, public and allow unrestricted access to direct access to recent issues of JAF through Project Muse, and many of the other these databases. All libraries that have Project Muse as a benefit of membership, subscription databases (searchable digital agreed to hold U.S. Federal Depository and may also receive access to past issues collections) of journal articles that many of collections are technically required to allow of JAF through JSTOR by paying a fifteen- my academic colleagues can access, even from public access to the collections. Access in dollar annual membership surcharge. home. I was astonished by the these libraries, however, is sometimes opportunities these databases offer restricted to the Federal Depository Friends of the New York State Library interdisciplinary scholars such as folklorists collections. (A list of these sites in the New New York state residents can get home to search by keyword across disciplinary York City region is available at http:// access to Project Muse, JSTOR Arts and boundaries—and frustrated, of course, that metro.org/godig/index.html.) Sciences II, and dozens of other databases these resources aren’t easily available to me by joining the Friends of the New York as a folklorist without a university State Library for fifty dollars a year. These affiliation. In subsequent conversations Public Libraries JSTOR Arts and Sciences II resources are available for free to those with colleagues, I discovered that many The following eleven public libraries working in New York State in positions public sector folklorists aren’t aware of these subscribe to JSTOR Arts and Sciences II: granted special access, such as state resources, and moreover, that many Atlanta-Fulton Public Library, Carnegie employees, doctors, lawyers, and county folklorists working at universities don’t Library of Pittsburgh, Cleveland Public historians. realize that those outside the academy don’t Library, Ferguson Library (Stamford, CT), have the same access. Free Library of Philadelphia, Houston Residents of California; Minnesota; Web-based subscription databases have Public Library, Louisville Free Public Ohio; Texas; Stamford, Connecticut; provided something of a golden age of Library, Minneapolis Public Library, New and Louisville, Kentucky access to folklore periodicals within York Public Library (four research While fewer than two percent of U.S. academia. According to a recent report, branches), Princeton Public Library, and residents currently have online access to Journal of American Folklore articles have been San Francisco Public Library. JSTOR Arts JSTOR Arts and Sciences II through their viewed over 300,000 times on JSTOR since and Sciences II is also available at the local public libraries, roughly twenty-five the database’s launch in the mid-nineties. following nonacademic research libraries, percent (about seventy-five million people) These numbers are even more impressive some of which limit public access to are entitled to online access through special when considered in relation to JAF’s annual scholars using their specialized collections: public library usage arrangements. The San print subscriptions, which at most have American Museum of Natural History Francisco, Minneapolis, Cleveland, and totaled 1,200, a respectable figure for an Library (NY), Boston Athenaeum Library, Houston public libraries offer online access academic journal. Imagine the Brooklyn Museum Library, Connecticut to all residents of their home states, opportunities—if you don’t already have State Library, Getty Institute Library (CA), although they require that this access be set home access—that being able to look up Library Company of Philadelphia, Library up in person at branch libraries. (San journal articles from your home computer of Congress, New York State Library, Francisco, Cleveland and Houston establish would allow. Consider, as well, that JSTOR Newberry Library (IL), and Pierpont access by granting free library cards to all is bringing JAF to many academic libraries Morgan Library (NY). within the state, while Minneapolis enters that had not previously subscribed to the Minnesota residents’ local public library print version. Project Muse card numbers into the Minneapolis Jon Lohman and Google New York Public Library and Cleveland system.) Residents of Stamford and Scholar Public Library subscribe to Project Muse. Louisville are also entitled to online access In addition, four nonacademic research using their public library cards. Some colleagues have suggested that I libraries—Getty Institute Library, Library simply find backdoor or ad hoc access to of Congress, Newberry Library, and New the databases; few realize that this is easier York State Library—are subscribers. said than done. Jon Lohman, the director of the folk arts program at the Virginia

14 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Humanities Council, told me he thought Like Jon, many of us don’t think about not the primary audience. For years, folklore folklorists working outside academia could databases until we want access to something as a discipline has done better than many find a variety of ways to get remote access specific. My own work in New York City others when it comes to getting our to these resources and noted that he was occasionally involves public folklore projects scholarship out to the public and also to sure he could get access through his related to cultural groups or art forms I getting public recognition for the artists and employer’s close affiliation with the haven’t previously studied. Many assume the art forms we study. The American University of Virginia. As it turns out, the that everyone in New York City has access Folklore Society recently began offering its University of Virginia library, like many to amazing scholarly resources, but most members digital access to JAF. This academic libraries, does not extend remote university libraries in the city—even most development will undoubtedly improve access privileges to Jon’s organization or to public university libraries—are closed to the access—to this key journal, at least—for other affiliated centers, but only to current public. Luckily for us, New York Public many public sector folklorists, as well as for university staff, faculty, and students. This Library is one of only two public libraries community scholars and members of the really hit home for Jon several months later, nationwide that subscribes to both JSTOR interested public who can afford the annual when he first checked out Google Scholar, and Project Muse, two searchable databases fees. an online academic search engine. Searching that between them include access to most his own name just to see what would come JAF articles, as well as articles in hundreds Calling All Voices Readers: Is up, he found a link to an article that quoted of other scholarly journals. JSTOR is the JAF Available at Your Roger Abrahams, a prominent folklore available on-site at four Manhattan New Public Library? scholar and Jon’s graduate advisor, saying York Public Library research branches , the You may have access to recent JAF articles something about Jon. He was dying to see closest of which is a forty-minute trip from through your public library! It’s possible what Roger had said, but he couldn’t access my home. Of course, many of my public that your public library subscribes to one it! sector colleagues elsewhere face more difficult of the lesser-known digital sources for Articles from many folklore journals, access problems. Those who live and work recent JAF articles: databases produced by including JAF, are not available at any price in rural areas may have to travel hours to an ProQuest, H. W. Wilson, and OCLC. A through Google Scholar, because the academic library that is open to the public lucky few of you may even be able to access databases including these journals don’t and has access to journals such as JAF. In recent JAF articles from your home offer per-article pricing. Even when a journal addition, many colleagues working at computer. Residents of Westchester article by a folklorist is available for smaller academic institutions, as well as County, New York, can access recent JAF downloading on Google Scholar, the fee is many retired academic colleagues not living articles, via the ProQuest Research Library often rather high. For example, one article near their former academic libraries, lack access database, from home using their local public found on Google Scholar, “Authenticity: to such digitized resources. In many parts library cards. Most public libraries, however, The Validation of Identity in Self-Taught of the developing world our colleagues face don’t subscribe to JSTOR and Project Muse, Art,” published by folklorist Gary Alan Fine information access problems of an even the two best-known digital sources for JAF. in the journal Theory and Society in 2003, greater magnitude. In this introductory JSTOR Arts and Sciences II, a searchable can be downloaded at kluweronline.com article, I’ve limited my focus to public access database that includes the entire contents (the publisher’s web site) for $25. This price in the United States. of the Journal of American Folklore before is comparable to articles cited on Google These access problems are hardly new, but 1998, along with hundreds of other Scholar. then, the relative lack of public access to scholarly journals, is available at only eleven Individuals cannot subscribe to JSTOR folklorists’ scholarly work has always public libraries nationwide, just one of or Project Muse. Other databases including saddened me—and not only because I think which is in New York State. Only two public JAF offer annual fees aimed at institutional lack of access to scholarly resources can serve libraries and four non-academic research customers, which few individuals can to sharpen the divide between the public libraries nationwide subscribe to Project afford; an individual subscription to and academic segments of our field, can Muse, which includes recent JAF issues. ProQuest Research Library, for instance, make it harder for folklorists to remain Of course, a few public libraries subscribe would cost more than ten thousand dollars closely engaged in academic discourse while to the print edition of JAF. The Brooklyn per year. One exception is the Questia working outside academia, and can Public Library subscribes to JAF, but because journals database, which unfortunately only potentially limit the quality of research done of space limitations discards issues after includes full-text JAF between 1980 and in the public sector. It is also because the two years. While the Brooklyn Public 1998. Individual subscriptions to this publics we folklorists study and write about Library doesn’t offer JAF issues in digital database are $99.95 a year, $19.95 a day, or surely deserve to have reasonable access to format, a number of public libraries that $5.95 an hour. the scholarship we produce, even if they are have never subscribed to JAF in print are

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 15 now offering digital access to JAF, because find them. Most library web sites list for your help with one collaborative research they subscribe to particular ProQuest, databases under terms such as “databases,” experiment. I’ll be following this in Wilson, or OCLC databases. I had hoped “journals,” or “electronic resources.” I subsequent issues with a series of shorter to create a list of public libraries in New would welcome reports from readers with columns on particular features of folklore York State that subscribe to these databases, access to academic libraries, as well. In e-resources. I promise to include the results but it has proven to be a difficult task. These addition, if you happen to find full-text of your research in a future article. In for-profit database providers maintain articles of JAF in any databases not listed in addition to reports on local library confidential lists of subscribing libraries, the table, please let me know! databases, I would very much appreciate and there is no “master list” of New York You see, this particular aspect of my hearing which aspects of the vast topic of public libraries subscribing to these research on folklife e-resources can’t be done folklore e-resources you would like to read resources. What’s worse, many public library by one person living in just one place—I more about. web sites require local library bar codes to really do need your help! If you participate, view even the names of the databases to you can even say that you participated in a which they subscribe. “smart mob.” Howard Rheingold, who Kathleen Condon is a folklorist and Here’s where I’m hoping Voices readers coined this term, notes on his web site that museum consultant living in Brooklyn. Her recent research in the area of e- can help. Do you have a public library card? “smart mobs emerge when communication resources is a continuation of her long- Does it have a bar code number on the back? and computer technology amplify human standing interest in public access to culture of all kinds. Voices will welcome Please check your local public library’s web talents for cooperation.” Kathleen Condon as a regular columnist site for the electronic databases listed in this I hope to write more about this and other in the Fall–Winter 2006 issue. Copyright article’s table, and e-mail me at emerging grassroots Internet activities in the © Kathleen Condon. [email protected] to let me know if you future. For now, though, I’m just asking

Members: Order your copies of New York Folklore Society books at a members-only discount. To join the New York Folklore Society, see page 44. ADD THESE ESSENTIAL RESOURCES AND FASCINATING BOOKS TO YOUR LIBRARY! Working with Folk Materials in Self-Management for Folk Artists: Folk Arts Programming in New York State: A Manual for A Guide for Traditional Artists and New York State: A Handbook and Resource Guide Folklorists and Archivists Performers in New York State By Karen Lux Edited by John W. Suter By Patricia Atkinson Wells Written for anyone considering starting a folk With contributions by leading New York State This handbook is a must for traditional artists in arts program at their institution. Shows the archivists and folklorists, this manual introduces New York State interested in managing and potential of a broad range of different types folklore to the archivist and archives to marketing their own businesses. Topics include of folk arts presentations and provides folklorists. It is required reading for those promotion, booking, contracts, keeping records, information on how to carry them out. working with collections of folklore materials taxes, and copyright. 108 pages, paperback in any part of the country. 148 pages, loose-leaf notebook $10 $______168 pages, loose-leaf notebook $30 $40 nonmembers $______$25 $35 nonmembers $______TO ORDER Island Sounds in the Books subtotal $______Folklore in Archives: Global City: Caribbean A Guide to Describing Folklore Shipping and handling Popular Music and Identity Add $4 for the first book, and Folklife Materials in New York $1 for each additional item. $______Edited by Ray Allen and Lois Wilcken By James Corsaro and Karen Taussig-Lux Total $______Written primarily for archivists and others who A collection of articles focusing on the care for collections of folk cultural documenta- relationship of Caribbean popular music and Enclose check payable to New York Folklore tion, this manual describes the theory and cultural identity in New York City, this books Society and mail to New York Folklore Society, P.O. practice of folklore and provides essential examines a broad spectrum of New York– Box 763, 133 Jay St., Schenectady, NY 12301. based musical styles from Puerto Rico, the West information on how to accession, arrange, and ______describe folklore materials. Indies, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Name Trinidad. 128 pages, loose-leaf notebook ______$25 $35 nonmembers $______185 pages, paperback Shipping Address $15 $17.95 nonmembers $______City, State, Zip

16 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore FOODWAYS Michigan: No Longer Just a State BY LYNN CASE EKFELT

As we pulled to a stop in Clare and Carl’s Terry explained that fifteen or twenty years shorter and shallower New England–style parking lot, a pleasant young man hustled out ago there were just four Michigan stands in rolls from other companies—sadly more the door and asked if he could take our order. the city—Clare and Carl’s, Nitzi’s, Ronnie’s, prone to overflow when filled with dog, sauce, He wasn’t wearing roller skates, but everything and Gus’s—but now they’ve spread and buried onions. The buns are steamed not else about the diner was straight out of everywhere around the northeastern part of only to warm them, we learned, but also to American Graffiti. The threatening skies made the North Country. I can vouch for that. A make it easier to stuff all those essentials into the idea of eating from a tray attached to our little fifties-style diner two hours away in them. car window rather unappealing, so we thanked Potsdam not only sells Michigans, but also I never did get to the bottom of the him and headed inside past a row of picnic offers a bowl of Michigan—the meat sauce Michigan versus Texas Red Hot question. I tables, another dining option at this historic without the hot dog and bun. guess it doesn’t really matter, though. Anyone hot dog stand. We’d actually eaten lunch So what exactly is this Michigan? It starts from Plattsburgh or thereabouts knows that already at Clare and Carl’s Other Place, where with a hot dog. Clare and Carl’s and a rose by any other name smells just as sweetly the tables were full, and where—in defiance McSweeney’s both use Tobin’s First Prize, but of onions. of the blandishments of an extensive other cooks swear by Glazier’s from Potsdam. sandwich menu—most of the clientele were Then there’s the secret sauce, and I do mean Michigan tucking into Michigans, or Texas Red Hots, as secret. Michigan makers reply with a sneer and 1 pound ground round or chuck they are also called. We wanted to talk to Terry a scornful laugh if you have the temerity to 1 8-ounce can tomato paste Spiegel, present owner of both branches of request a recipe. We ate in two restaurants for 1 cup water Clare and Carl’s, to get the full story on comparison and found the sauces very 1 tablespoon prepared mustard Plattsburgh’s most famous food. Terry was different: one bland, the other deliciously spicy. 1 teaspoon dried oregano busy at the original stand, stirring sauce, Who knows what other variations we might 1 teaspoon dried basil steaming buns, and cooking hot dogs, so we have found, had we larger stomachs! Most 1 teaspoon curry powder came right over after paying our bill at the people request onions on their Michigan, but 1 teaspoon chili powder Other Place. some like them sprinkled on top, while others Garlic salt to taste Although there are several origin stories order “a Michigan—buried,” meaning one 1 pound hot dogs (Glazier’s are a local about the Michigan, it’s pretty definite that a with the onions buried in the bun under the favorite) Mrs. Otis, who came to Plattsburgh from sauce. We ordered our first one that way, New England–style hot dog buns, with Michigan, had the idea first. Gordie Little of thinking we were very clever to have figured the slit in the top the Press-Republican did extensive research on out that we were less likely to lose our onions Mustard these hot dogs and found an ad in the May that way. Ha! We had not yet read the dreadful Chopped onions 27, 1927, edition of the Plattsburgh Daily warning on McSweeney’s menu: “Onions Brown the ground beef, and drain off the Republican, inviting readers to the “opening buried may cause sauce to fall off hot dog due fat. The resulting pieces of meat must be of the Michigan Hot-Dog Stand located to bun crisis of 2002.” crumbled very fine. Add the tomato paste between the two dance halls on Lake Shore That statement forced us to consider the and water, mixing them into the meat. Add Road—Management of Otis and Quigley.” final element in the Michigan: the bun. the mustard; combine the other spices, and blend them in thoroughly. Steam or grill Terry filled me in on the Clare and Carl Originally Michigans were served on steamed the hot dogs. Steam the bun. Place the hot connection. They were Plattsburgh natives, rolls from the local bakery, Bouyea-Fassett. dog in the bun and cover it with mustard who had been selling kraut dogs in These rolls were longer and heavier than the and a generous helping of sauce. The Westchester County, then moved back home hot dog rolls sold today. You could buy them onions can be buried under the sauce or in June of 1942 and set up a stand on the uncut, age them a day to keep them from sprinkled on top. farm owned by his parents. They met Mrs. falling apart in the steamer, then slash them Lynn Case Ekfelt is retired from her Otis, who introduced them to the Michigan. open on the top and proceed with building position as a special collections librarian Clare thought these dogs would be more your Michigan. In 2002, however, Bouyea- and university archivist at St. Lawrence popular in the North Country than kraut dogs, Fassett was bought out, and the new University. She is the author of Good Food Served Right: Traditional Recipes so she came up with her own version of the company, ignoring the desperate pleas of and Food Customs from New York’s sauce. The stand has been open continuously Plattsburghers, discontinued the buns. Now North Country (Canton, New York: Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, and in family hands ever since. stand owners must make do with much 2000).

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 17 Reflections on Writing Culture BY TOM VAN BUREN

The last issue of Voices included a transcript away from study among the Inuit, she presented: in short, to tell their stories. of a panel from the New York Folklore commented on the tendency of writers and Storyteller Roz Perry responded in her own Society’s 2005 Writing Folklore conference. teachers of folklore to favor certain cultures succinct way by asking if any writer, like any Titled “Thinking Culturally: An Insider’s that typify paradigms or symbols of scholarly storyteller, really has to overcome her own Perspective,” the panel featured Joanne interest. Finding significant lessons in folklore insider/outsider dichotomies: “You are Mulcahy (Lewis and Clark College) discussing nearer to home she noted that something as always telling stories to other people.” She lessons from her fieldwork in rural Wisconsin personal as a mourning ritual for children in a continued, “Why are you in this business? If and among the Inuit of Alaska; Kirin Narayan Wisconsin family can speak volumes about you are completely objective, no one is going (University of Wisconsin at Madison) the place of tradition in culture, offering more to want to read what you write. You have to presenting from her work in India and the depth than an extended analysis of an exotic shape [the story] in a way that makes it Himalayas; and Kevin White (State University (often staged) public event. interesting to audiences.” of New York at Oswego) describing how he Kirin Narayan spoke of the ethical question Most conference participants, as Roz Perry navigates between his Haudenosaunee that arises in fieldwork when an ethnographer said, presented well the perspective of writers Iroquois heritage and the experience of urban relies heavily on a particular informant or as subjective insiders who are informed by a life, military service, and academia. I served as subject. A relationship can develop through larger world view that enables them to reach the moderator to the panel, in the role of the interviews in which information shared crosses out across the page. Coming from the other outsider mediator. As I reflect on the session, the line between public and private, so that side of the insider/outsider dichotomy, I it seems to me that ethnographic writing writing can pose a risk to the relationship. could not help but take to heart many of the opens us all to the dichotomies of insider Conversely, members of the community may lessons of these sessions. Entering fields like

BOOKSHELF ESSENTIALS and outsider identities. ask why the ethnographer privileges a particular folklore and ethnomusicology by the academic What the speakers all have in common is person over others. Kirin spoke of the need route, we may read widely from a varied the writing life. They have all written on issues to check back often with one’s sources or literature, but the intellectual aesthetic is one from inside their particular cultural identities, informants to see if they are amenable to how of detached objectivity: just the kind of but also from the vantage point of a cross- they are presented in writing. boring, unengaged narrative that Roz doesn’t cultural framework and an academic sense of Kevin White focused on the many versions want to hear. Not all of us are born storytellers. detachment. The transcript included only the of a key text, the Iroquois creation story. Each You don’t have to be one, though, to be a panelists’ opening statements, so I want to retelling is a testament to the reality, setting, good listener. As I told the audience at the share the discussion that followed with readers and cultural life of the particular teller. He session, I try to be a good listener and to come who may not have been there. In this column, emphasized that there is no one correct story. to terms with being an insider to so-called I will reflect on this dialogue about writing The subjectivity of each telling and the reality mainstream society, with deep roots in both folklore, rather than reviewing or of the story of each teller is the focus of urban and suburban America, whose role is recommending a particular text. White’s work. During later discussion, he to envision an inclusive society by helping The audience for our writing has great added, “It’s a myth to be objective. . . . An people of different backgrounds and bearing on the insider/outsider identity of outsider’s study of another group is not persuasions understand one another a little the writing. The reader is either brought inside objective, because you are carrying your own better. Sometimes it is hard to mitigate the or left excluded by the writing. Often that baggage.” Each retelling of a story is an end contradictory forces in today’s society that tend process is informed by the reader’s own in itself and informs about the reality of each to drive people apart and to drown out local intention. I am interested in how both writing generation that passes traditions along. voices. But folklorists are a tenacious lot, and reading texts removes us from the Speaking from the audience, Judd who—against the odds—will keep on trying immediacy of a topic and delivers us to a Newborne, a Holocaust scholar and curator, to get their story across. voyeuristic perspective from which we collect talked about how insider accounts are packaged information and impressions. This experience and objectified, citing what some have called can depend on how much the reader relates “Shoah business.” Robert Baron responded Tom van Buren personally to the writer or to his or her subjects. that the commodification of culture is an ([email protected]) is archivist for the Each speaker addressed aspects of this inherent part of the writing process, but that Center for problem. Joanne Mulcahy stressed that all ethnographers of necessity engage in a Traditional Music and Dance and cultures are equally compelling to their insiders. collaboration motivated by mutual self- folklorist for the Referring to a professor who tried to steer her interest to present themselves or to be Westchester Arts Council.

18 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore In the Midst of a Monastery: Filming the Making of a Buddhist Sand Mandala

BY PUJA SAHNEY

n June of 2005, I was selected by the New had been in the United States for one year at Located right on the riverbank in Wappingers I York Folklore Society to serve as a sum- the time. As a Hindu from India, Buddhism Falls, New York, the Kagyu Thubten Choling mer graduate intern at the Dutchess County is not altogether foreign to me. As Eileen de- monastery seems hidden among trees. The Arts Council in Poughkeepsie. My first project scribed the monastery’s stupa on the bank of monastery was founded in 1978 as a one-story was to assist folklorist Eileen Condon and a the Hudson River, I pictured Hindu temples building on seven acres of land. The monas- crew of fieldworkers in filming and photo- along several rivers I know in India. When she tery is now a retreat center for serious students graphing the Buddhist cultural festivities cele- spoke of documenting their fire puja, I pic- of the Kagyu branch of Tibetan Buddhism. brated at the Kagyu Thubten Choling (KTC) tured the havans (fire rituals) that my family On the day after my arrival in Wappingers Falls, monastery in Wappingers Falls, New York. I held in our house. I accompanied Eileen to the monastery to meet

The mandala team uses traditional tools to fill in the sacred design. Photo: Eileen Condon

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 19 Lama Chopal pours sand meditatively on the outer rings of the mandala. Photo: Eileen Condon

the crew that had volunteered to assist in mak- dhists believe that building a stupa helps to stupa. Tsa tsa literally means “representation”; ing the documentary. The first thing that caught protect the environment and the country and they are little stupas made of clay, each with a my eye on arriving at the monastery was the pacify aggression, terrorism, and negativity (Pal- small mantra roll inside with thousands of stupa by the river. It is a white building, with mo 2005). mantras written on it. The tsa tsas are put in- beautiful golden ornamentation on the roof As I got out of the car at the monastery, still side the stupa. According to Ani Yeshe Palmo, and walls. Stupas were the first form of Tibet- gazing at the stupa, I saw monks and nuns the tsa tsas are so filled with blessings that they an architecture—originally “simple mound- walking from it to the main monastery build- help the stupa to magnetize and radiate energy shaped” structures of brick and mud to cover ing. They had finished chanting. Many of the (2005). When we headed to the dining hall of the ashes and relics of the Buddha—but over monks were also busy getting tents ready for the main building, I saw monks and nuns busy the centuries they have become more elaborate the KTC Olympics, which were to be held in with dinner preparations. In spite of all the buildings (Wangu 86). Ani Yeshe Palmo, a nun ten days. The KTC Olympics—an annual activity, there was a sense of quietness all around. at the KTC monastery, explained that a stupa event—allow members of different branches Everyone was moving around in a peaceful way is also a “representation of the Buddha’s mind of the monastery to get together for discus- that made me almost self-conscious of my and is one of the things that an authentic mon- sion and training. The 2005 KTC Olympics steps. Friendly smiles greeted us everywhere. astery is supposed to have” (Palmo 2005). Ani would include a Wang, in which a learned prac- Karen Michel and Brian Farmer, who would Yeshe is a former folklorist. She had met with titioner gives students empowerment or per- assist us in filming and photographing the fes- Eileen earlier in the year, introducing the mon- mission to undertake certain meditation prac- tivities, had already arrived at the main build- astery’s cultural activities and engaging the tices. The sand mandala that we planned to ing. Ani Yeshe arrived after a few minutes. As Dutchess County Arts Council’s interest in cap- photograph and film would be part of the we got down to dividing up the work, Eileen turing its cultural art. Ani Yeshe told me that empowerment ceremony. In a tent close by, voiced her preference to film the making of the the KTC stupa was built for America. Bud- several monks were getting tsa tsas ready for the mandala for the Dutchess County Arts Coun-

20 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore cil’s folklore archive, while Brian and Karen de- jor preparations, but when we reached the stu- long we sat there or when the man who was cided to document the festive activities of Olym- pa, we were met with only a blank blue board, meditating left. I opened my eyes with a start pics weekend. five feet square, on an easel at the entrance. The when I heard someone walk into the room. monks and students who were to make the The crew that was to make the mandala had The Significance of the Mandala mandala were still at breakfast. finally arrived. The sand mandala’s creation was the most The heat of the day had already begun, so When I first noticed Lama Chopal, he was elaborate Buddhist ritual that that our group we decided to enter the stupa. It had not yet already bending over the blue board and put- recorded. The mandala’s religious and symbol- been fitted with a lock, but once the door was ting it on a stand. He is a gifted craftsman, ic significance is more complex than film can bolted, it could only be opened through the trained in traditional Tibetan art. I quickly glanced capture, but its patterns and colors are a folk- delicate intricacies of a metal rod waiting at the at Eileen to see if we were to begin filming. She lorist’s delight. When I first heard of the sand entrance. At our previous meeting Ani Yeshe was already getting out the digital camera. Lama mandala I couldn’t quite imagine how the fin- had demonstrated the whole process to us. Chopal didn’t bring the board inside the stu- ished object would look. Although similar to One had to insert the rod carefully between the pa. He left it at the entrance. He was measuring the Indian art of rangoli, Tibetan sand man- two doors and give it a slight push. After a few the board with his fingers and a piece of paper. dalas have more intricate patterns with secret tries each we finally were able to push it open. He then took a long string from a roll and meanings. They can also be made from paint The stupa is extremely small and closed inside, placed it horizontally on the blue board. A stu- or can be three dimensional buildings—but but peaceful, with the sounds from outside dent standing next to him, as though instruct- they cannot be made up. All mandala designs shut out. A man was meditating on the carpet ed, then pulled at the thread, and it left a chalk come from the deity itself and have to look in front of the stupa’s huge bronze statue of line across the blue board. He repeated the same exactly as the written teaching says they should the Buddha. The lights were rather dim, add- process vertically. Someone leaned over and (Palmo 2005). The mandala we witnessed was ing to the majesty of the statue. After we whispered that the point where the lines cross made of colorful sand. It was the mandala of brought in all our equipment and loaded the is the exact center of the board and that there Korlo Demchok, who is an extremely com- cameras with new tapes, we sat down in front cannot be any mistake. plex deity, encompassing qualities of wisdom, of the Buddha, and I gazed at it. The Buddha The two lines are called the Brahman lines. compassion, and all things of merit. is sitting in the pose of Enlightenment, with Barry Bryant explains, “The radius of the man- The word mandal comes from the Sanskrit legs folded in the lotus position and hands dala is then divided along the Brahman lines word for circle. Sand mandalas are symbolic of loosely on his lap (Wangu 1993, 85–6). The into thirteen equal parts. The divisions are not the circle of life and death. Although they are peaceful smile, erect back, and hands in the lap done mathematically but by trail and error, fold- made painstakingly, they are destroyed after the looked so relaxed that before I knew it, I held ing a strip of paper until it has thirteen equal ceremony, reflecting the Buddhist doctrine that the same posture. I looked over and saw Ei- parts totaling the length of the radius” (1992, nothing is ever permanent. Most often, the leen sitting the same way. I have no idea how 183). For about four hours Lama Chopal con- completed sand mandala is thrown into a riv- er, where its sand is believed to bless all the land the water touches. Mandalas are made when a need is felt to heal the environment and other living creatures. There are other mo- tivations, as well: Making . . . the mandala is also a Tibetan meditative practice; sound, sight, and mo- tion are not treated as distraction but as means to channel physical energies into currents that carry the spirit forward in- stead of derailing it. Mandalas are treated as the current of sight and with their colors and holy patterns they treat the eyes to icons whose holy beauty draws the beholder in their direction (Smith and Novak 2003, 108–9) Making the Mandala On the day that work on the sand mandala was scheduled to begin, Eileen and I headed to the stupa an hour early to set up our cameras. We figured that a mandala would require ma- Metal cones traditionally tapped to release sand, alongside Buddhist prayer beads. Photo: Puja Sahney

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 21 The nearly complete mandala. Photo: Eileen Condon

tinued to draw lines in the same fashion across worked on making the outline of the mandala the outlines, Ani Karma let the assembled stu- the board; only once in while would he use a at the entrance, Ani Karma Chotso—a nun dents begin practicing laying the colors on old compass to draw a circle or a ruler to take mea- visiting from Florida, who was in charge of the newspapers. Sand mandalas are made on thick surements. Mostly he used paper, folding or sand mandala project—began to open small wooden boards with objects called chak-purs. A cutting it to different sizes as he measured. packets of color and set them out in bowls. chak-pur is a cone-shaped funnel that is perfo- As he did so there were students or other These would be the colors used in the manda- rated on the narrow end. You scrape a flat, metal monks pulling at the string, and by noon the la, she said. The color would be laid between rod against the cone, and the vibration allows entire board was covered by zigzagging lines. the outlines, which would make the mandala the sand to flow like colored water from the The chalked string is a traditional and ancient like a colorful painting of sand. Mandalas are chak-pur’s end. The rubbing of the two rods is way of laying out the mandala, developed be- made from the colors black, white, red, blue, believed to be symbolic of the union between fore rulers and other instruments of measure. yellow, and green. There are three shades each compassion and wisdom (Bryant 1992, 195). The geometric figure of a mandala is usually a of red, blue, yellow, and green, making a total While the sand trickling out of the chak-pur is “circle inside a square and is regarded as the of fourteen colors. While in ancient times the indeed a beautiful sight, the vibration between dwelling place of the gods,” according to sand of colored stone would be grated, “these the chak-pur and the rod creates a feeling of Madhu B. Wangu. While creating the two- days white stones are ground and dyed with spirituality in itself. It is a sound of manual dimensional sand mandala the monks are vi- opaque water colors to produce the bright tones labor, but more meditative and soothing. Bar- sualizing the palace of the deity: a form of found in the sand paintings” (Bryant 1992, ry Bryant explains, “The monks interpret the meditation. In the center of the mandala is a 177–8). Ani Karma had ordered the best sand sound of the hollow metal chak-purs being “figure of the Buddha or some other divinity, on the Internet. The sight of the small colored rubbed together as an expression of the Bud- while surrounding it are fantastically intricate packets drew almost all those around the stupa dhist concept of emptiness or the interdepen- symbols and depictions of other gods and re- inside, making the small space quite stifling for dence of the phenomenon” (1992, 195). ligious scenes” (Wangu 1993, 94). a moment. While the sound of the chak-purs filled the While Lama Chopal and two students While Lama Chopal was still busy making stupa, Lama Chopal continued to work dili-

22 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore gently on completing the outline. He had now to anyone. So later on, while he was working aquatic life in the water. For them it is a great begun the inner patterns of the mandala, us- alone on the mandala, I asked him if I could sharing, instead of destruction. ing a black pen to draw the intricate designs. It give it a try. I was glad that he was delighted by The sand mandala was taken with due rever- took Lama Chopal, assisted by a few students, my request. ence to the water in a blue truck, in which all the a day and half to complete making the entire The feeling of holding the chak-purs in my crew who had made the mandala also rode. I outline of the mandala. The following day, hands was overwhelming because they held so was surprised that everyone sat quite merrily in Lama Chopal and the rest of the crew got down much history and tradition. I didn’t dare to the open truck with the mandala. I had as- to work laying the color carefully on the man- start on an intricate design; I instead chose to sumed that they would be nostalgic to see their dala. He would begin on the outline and then color a broad quadrant. I moved my hands labor swept away, but once again I was misin- carefully fill the remaining area. Sometimes he and the color just fell like magic from the other terpreting the Buddhist doctrine of imperma- would painstakingly shade the areas using the end. As I knew from observation, “The flow nence. “The dismantling of the sand mandala different light, medium, and dark tones. of the sand is controlled by the speed and pres- may be interpreted as a lesson in nonattach- After two days filming the making of the sure used in rasping. Slow, soft rasping causes ment, a letting go of the self-mind,” Bryant mandala, Eileen felt confident to leave me alone the sand to trickle out, even just a few grains at notes (1992, 230). Several monks and nuns tilt- with the camera. Each day as the lunch hour a time, while harder, faster rasping causes it to ed the board, allowing the sand to slip into the approached, Lama Chopal asked the crew to pour out in a steady stream” (Bryant 1992, 195). river. While most of the sand went into the take a break and have some lunch, and each day I bent a bit closer to the board in order not to water, some of it was saved for future bless- he invited me to join them. Many monks and spill anything outside the line. By then the rest ings. I asked Ani Yeshe Palmo what became nuns recognized me and would greet me in of the crew trickled in and smiled to see me at of the blue board on which the mandala had the dining hall or on the campus. By the third work. At first my hands moved quickly. But been made. She said that it was carefully placed day of work on the sand mandala, I had be- after twenty minutes of sitting on the ground, in the woodshed until the next time they make gun to feel at home in the monastery. After my bent back and crossed legs began to tire. My a mandala. lunch the crew would head back to the stupa, hands, too, started to ache. I looked around I was surprised how happy I was on the way and the post-lunch session would get under and saw the others working diligently and felt home that last day. The Buddhist doctrine that way. Lamas, other monks, and nuns constant- ashamed of feeling tired so soon. It was only everything is impermanent had become a real- ly dropped in to admire the mandala and en- after I had been at it myself that I began to ity for me, too. I was simply glad that I had courage the crew making it. Oftentimes a Bud- admire the stamina and dedication of the peo- been part of the mandala’s journey this once. dhist would chant mantras in a corner while ple around me. Coloring the mandala was an Buddhists believe that even looking at a man- the crew worked, adding to the meditative at- exhausting task that required immense con- dala is a blessing, and after a week at the mon- mosphere inside the stupa. The biggest treat centration, physical stamina, and a steady hand. astery, I did feel truly blessed. for everyone would be when someone from After I got back to filming the process, I would the monastery kitchen would bring in a big sympathize with people when they would turn Works Cited steel vessel of Indian chai. around, stretch their legs, massage them a bit, Bryant, Barry. 1992. The Wheel of Time Sand By the fourth day, the mandala was nearing and get back to work. Mandala: Visual Scripture of Tibetan Buddhism. completion. I had seen all the stages of its At the end of the fifth day, work on the New York: Harper-Collins. making and had by now become familiar with mandala was finally ending. People from the Palmo, Ani Yeshe. July 25, 2005. Interview by the sounds of the chak-purs and the way that monastery came down to watch. Many of the Puja Sahney. Tape recording. the workers’ hands moved. During the post- monks and the nuns began chanting mantras, Smith, Huston, and Philip Novak. 2003. Bud- lunch session, Ani Karma came up to me while while Lama Chopal gave the mandala a few dhism: A Concise Introduction. New York: I was filming and suggested that I try my hand final touches. It was finished. In the corner of Harper-Collins. at the chak-pur. I was a bit surprised, but also the stupa, the mandala held within itself the Wangu, Madhu B. 1993. Buddhism. New York: flattered that she had asked me. Usually only positive force that all the strength and good- Brown Publishing. monks make a sand mandala. The KTC crew will of the crew had given it. Puja Sahney served as graduate intern at the was mostly Buddhist, but most of the work- Dutchess County Arts Council in Pough- ers were not monks or nuns. The Kagyu Dismantling the Mandala keepsie, New York, during the summer of 2005, thanks to a grant provided by the Thubten monastery wants to encourage the After five days of labor on the mandala, its New York State Council on the Arts and the mandala tradition in America and does not see ultimate fate was to be thrown into the river at New York Folklore Society. Sahney is currently a second-year master’s student the benefit of limiting participation. I had been the end of the KTC Olympics. Although I and instructor in the folklore program at hesitant to ask Lama Chopal if I could color a was inclined to use the word “destroy,” Bud- Utah State University in Logan, Utah. This essay is written in honor of the people she section, but by then I should have known bet- dhists see it as a form of blessing on all the met and the love she received at the Kagyu ter than to fear a monk would refuse anything land where the water flows and also on any Thubten Choling monastery.

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 23 A Grandmother’s Legacy

BY VIRGINIA M. SCIDA

ore than forty years ago, on a cold The land and the unfinished house were sold, when it was time to dry dishes—at least that M February day, I rode along the and Grandma went to work. She was hired as was my perception of the situation. And, Susquehanna River for the first time. It was a a housekeeper by a Mr. William Harrison, to because she was Grandma’s favorite, she bright, sunny morning, and the banks of the care for his small home in the northeast section always got away with it. river were draped in a blanket of sparkling snow. of Kansas City, Missouri. My mother and aunts Grandma’s life was hard, no two ways about I remember thinking as we traveled through tell me that Mr. Harrison wanted to marry it. She rode the trolley downtown at night, hat the area, leaving the river behind, how Gram, but she didn’t feel it was proper. Finally, pin in hand for self-defense if necessary, to scrub breathtakingly beautiful upstate New York was. after scandalized neighbors left a mattress on the floors of the office buildings. As a widow We passed through little villages, including Mr. Harrison’s front lawn, Grandma consented, with six daughters, she taught these young Sydney and Gilbertsville, with chimney smoke and they were married in 1923. For all of the ladies the true meaning of “being on the rag.” rising above the steep-roofed houses and pine couple’s married life, his stepdaughters, who In later years, my Aunt Betty often told of trees with spatulated branches holding the newly loved him dearly, called him Mr. Harrison. By washing, bleaching, and drying their monthly fallen snow. Someday, I said to myself, I’ll come the time he died in the late 1930s, leaving rags, since there was no money for store-bought back here. In a kind of reverse family migration, Grandma a widow again, another daughter had items. Each girl owned one set of long I did. been born, and one of the others had sickened underwear, which had to be washed on a scrub My grandmother was a little Irish woman, and died. board, then hung up and dried for use again whose family left the home country to escape When I knew Gram, she stood four foot the next day. the Irish potato famine. None of our family is ten and weighed eighty-five pounds. Once my Through the years, Grandma retained some sure just where my great-grandparents landed mother showed me a picture of Grandma as a of her old thrifty habits, even when they were in the United States. I was told once that they young woman. In those days, she was almost no longer necessary. Vinegar was my hair rinse came through New Orleans. My mother, who as round as she was tall, and it was hard for me as a child. Not only did it give a shine to my is ninety-two, knows that my grandmother was to believe that she had looked so different. hair, it also cut any leftover soap residue. There born in Illinois—I’d thought she was born in My parents divorced when I was an infant, were no dish soap products in our house. Ireland—but that doesn’t rule out New so sometime before I was a year old, my Grandma had a little cage-like device that held Orleans. Neither my oldest aunt, Kathleen, mother, brother, and I went to live with remnants of bar soap. The cage had handles, who recently celebrated her hundredth birthday, Grandma. There are things a person and to get suds to wash dishes, you shook the nor my aunt, Elizabeth, who is ninety-four, remembers, and there are things we are told thing back and forth in a sink full of water until can recall things with certainty. What we do know so often that they become part of our you worked up a frothy lather. Sometimes, if is that, after landing in this country, Grandma’s memories. Grandma used to tell about caring the dishes or pans were particularly greasy, you’d parents headed west, stopping in places where for me while my mother went off to work. have to empty the dishwater and start over. there was work and then moving on, usually My bassinet was lined with newspaper, and Prior to World War II, this water came ice-cold after the birth of another child. By the time when I woke and moved around, she could from a hand pump built into the counter next they reached the Midwest, they had twelve hear the paper crinkling long before I cried to the kitchen sink. We washed our hair on children. Grandma, who was the second oldest out for attention. Of course, I don’t Saturday nights, so that we were sparkling for daughter, had little education and married remember any of those very early years. I do church the next morning. I vaguely remember early—one less mouth to feed. remember feeling jealous of my cousin, having to use the bath water after Grandma— Her first husband, Edward, died in 1920 Sharon, who was eighteen months younger no hardship for me, since she never seemed to while building a home for her and their than I. Her family didn’t live with Grandma, get dirty anyway. daughters. On a hot summer day, he drank and I was certain that Grandma loved her best, Grandma made slips for Sharon (yes, her water from a nearby stream, contracted typhoid because she saw her less. As we got older, again!) and me from flour sacks, which my fever, and died before the house was completed. Sharon always had to go to the bathroom Aunt Alice, Sharon’s mother, bought from a

24 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore local mill. Sometimes we had plain white slips, there were a number of boxes up in the darkest but other times the sacks would be patterned, recesses. Doris’s Applesauce Cake and we would get slips with beautiful sprigs The basement was another fascinating 1 cup raisins of flowers. All of them were made by hand, place. Reached by a set of twisting stairs, it 1/4 cup rum because we had no sewing machine. Grandma was the nether world of the home. It was 1 1/2 cups sugar taught me to cross-stitch, embroider, turn there, through the coal chute window, that 1/2 cup margarine or butter collars on men’s shirts, and darn both socks tons of coal rumbled down a metal slide and 2 cups all-purpose flour and stockings. Her stockings were the heavy into one corner that was specially walled off 1 tsp. cinnamon cotton variety, held up with cloth-covered to prevent the coal from cascading all over the 1 dash nutmeg garters, torturous things that were little more basement floor. The wringer washer was 2 cups applesauce (or one 16 oz. can or than disguised rubber bands. Those garters down there, as well. Set on four delicate legs, jar) left great indentations on her upper calves, the washer had a large tub with an agitator 2 tsp. baking soda marks that remained long after she’d removed and a lid. The tub was filled from a hose near 1 cup chopped black walnuts her stockings for the evening. the two rinse sinks. The clothes had to be Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put raisins Grandma and I shared a bed for as long as pulled out of the washer’s tub and put through in cup, pour rum over them, and set aside. we lived in her house. She had a high bed that the wringer. Once squeezed of excess water Cream sugar and butter. Sift flour, was a delight for a small child. It was a bed you and soap, they fell into the first rinse tub, where cinnamon, and nutmeg and set aside. Mix truly climbed into, with a headboard as tall as I the washing process continued until baking soda into applesauce then add to was and a dark veneer that matched the rest of everything had passed through the final rinse sugar and butter mixture. Gradually add her bedroom furniture. The lady’s dresser had tub. Then they went through the wringer and flour mixture and beat until mixed well, a long mirror, flanked on each side by small, dropped into a laundry basket. My brother scraping bottom and sides of bowl. Add delicate drawers with fancy pulls. Each night, and I always wanted to put the clothes through raisins, rum, and nuts a little at a time, after she knelt to say her prayers—“Ginger, did the wringer, but it was, in truth, a dangerous mixing well after each addition. Pour into you say your prayers?” “Yes, Grandma.”—she activity for children, so we were never allowed greased and floured bundt pan and bake placed her false teeth in a special container on to wring the laundry unless an adult was for about 50 minutes, until a toothpick top of the drawers. Whether or not her teeth around. Over the years many buttons were comes out clean. This cake is very moist! should be blamed, it is no exaggeration to say crushed or broken, and anything left in a that her snoring gave me many a night of pocket came through flat and misshapen. In broken sleep. She always told me to shake her later years I caught my hair in just such a Food was, of course, of paramount and ask her to turn over, which I soon learned washing machine because I remembered too importance to Grandma. Having done without to do, but it didn’t help. Once she turned, her late the admonition to put my hair up before for so long, little was wasted or squandered. snores just shifted to a different key, until I using the wringer. The black walnut tree took up most of the sun finally slipped off to sleep myself. It always In summer, the wet laundry was hauled up- and prevented many things from growing, but amazed me that such a little person could make stairs to the outside clothes lines. In winter, during the hot summer months, she always such a big noise! our clothes hung on rope lines that crisscrossed planted tomatoes along the back fence. I learned Grandma’s house boasted a number of the basement, drying into stiff, board-like to love them at a very early age. Grandma, as special features. Built between her bedroom things with pinch marks where the clothes pins was typical for older women of that time, wore and my brother’s were a bathroom and a had held them. Once dry, they were sorted. Since an apron over her housedress. Her aprons closet. The bathroom, no doubt a luxury for socks and underwear were about the only things usually had quite large pockets, and she always her, was for me somewhat scary with its claw- that were not ironed, every other item was then carried a handkerchief in one pocket and foot tub and echoing acoustics. But the sprinkled with water, rolled, and lined up with sometimes a rosary in the other, even if she closet—it was a gem! It ran all the way through similar items to wait for the ironing board. was just stepping out to the backyard. Going from one bedroom to the other. It was long The basement also held whole walnuts, out to pick tomatoes also meant picking greens. and dark, but not at all scary. It was a place to their outer skins still green. Once the skins She showed us a particular dandelion leaf that, hide, or to play, or to use for spying on my had withered, the nuts could be shelled—a picked early, is as tasty and tender as any organic brother and his friends. All of our hanging messy job under the best of circumstances. spinach. There was also the occasional clothes were in there, so if you were hiding, The shelled walnuts were a real treat and were mushroom to find. Morels grew in our area, you had to be very careful. The shelf, far out used in all sorts of dishes, especially through and Grandma knew how to find and select of my reach, held ladies’ hats tucked away in the holiday season. The recipe that follows is both greens and mushrooms: skills learned great round boxes. Of course no one, not one my mother adapted and still uses every through hardship, not education. As fall even me, went to church without a hat, so Christmas season. approached, green tomatoes were the order of

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 25 the day. Yummy soft slices, coated in seasoned rest of the family. Gram’s transformation from use a handheld tape recorder to record their flour and fried in bacon grease, graced our plates roly-poly to teeny-tiny was the result of diabetes, version of “The Today Show with Julie and and satisfied our yearning for comfort food. which eventually took her life after I left home. Jake, coming to you from Grandma Gin’s Eventually my mother married again. We Today, I try to share with all seven of my house.” continued to live with Grandma for a while grandchildren times that have nothing to do Both my oldest and youngest children live under these new circumstances, finally moving with things, but everything to do with feelings. far away, one in Washington State and one in to another house when I was twelve. Our new When Sarah and Casey, who live in Weedsport, Oklahoma, so I don’t get to see their children house was about two miles away from New York, were babies, I started by singing as much as I’d like, but I still try to keep in Grandma’s, in another parish and a different some of my old camp songs: contact. I recently returned from a cross-country community. With the self-absorption of the “HaggaLenaMaggaLena,” the states song, trip, after visiting both of them. My son who young, I often wondered if she was lonely after “Five Little Ducks,” “Take Me Out to the Ball is in Washington lives across the street from a we left. While madness and mayhem are going Game,” and on and on. They loved them, and lake. While I was with his family, we did some on, solitude seems like a fine thing; sometimes, it helped pass the time en route from their good old-fashioned rock skipping. It’s an activity though, silence is very loud. In 1954 I was house to mine. Sometimes now, we play hide I remember so well from my own childhood, caught up in my first year of high school, a the genuine, imitation hidden treasure (a bag so I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Joe freshman at an all-girls school to which I’d won of “pirate” coins I picked up on vacation in has taught his children, Joseph and Alexis, the a scholarship. Of course we saw Grandma on Charleston, South Carolina). We share stories fine art of selecting and then skipping a flat Sunday when we picked her up for church, and about their fathers as small children. That’s a rock across the water’s surface. Once I arrived there were often Sunday dinners at her house great fun time, because they imagine their dad back home, I sent Joe a box of rocks: flat stones when various relatives, including Sharon and getting into trouble, and they have a good laugh I’d accumulated as I made my way from her family, dropped by to say hello. And there at his expense. They often ask me to tell those Washington to New York. The idea was to was the odd Saturday, when the weather was stories as we ride along in the car. Since I can’t share with him and his family a little piece of good, and I walked the two miles to share teach Anna, my granddaughter in Oklahoma, my trip and home, which would become part breakfast with her while we listened to the my camp songs in person, I’ve made a tape of of their landscape. Hillbilly Hit Parade, ate buckwheat pancakes, them for her. My daughter Theresa plays them While some of my children and and drank café au lait—always, of course, in their car. I included some family stories in grandchildren have moved away, I have chosen without Sharon around to steal the attention! between songs, so Anna can hear from me just to remain here in upstate New York. Most of A few years later, Grandma moved into a how smart her mother was as a small child. my working life has been spent here and now, tiny apartment close to my mother’s house. In When Sarah, my oldest granddaughter, was in retirement, I find a great deal of pleasure in 1960, she and I took a Greyhound bus from small, I purchased a little red-and-green apron owning a very small bookstore in a very small Kansas City, Missouri, to Santa Monica, for her to wear while she sat on a stool at my community, with a view of the hills and snow California, to attend my favorite cousin’s kitchen table and painted her masterpieces. I scenes that so entranced me many years ago. I wedding. It was in Santa Monica that I met the saved large pieces of cardboard or plain paper hope to pass this love of place and family on man I would marry the following year. As a for their canvases. Now I share horseback riding to all of my grandchildren. My own Navy family we moved around the country, and cross-country skiing with Casey. Julie and grandmother used her talents to teach without always far away from my grandmother and the Jake, who live in Liverpool, New York, love to even being aware that she was doing so. Her songs were Irish ballads, and her “hidden treasures” were mushrooms and tomatoes. She loved her home, she loved her children, and I have no doubt that she loved her grandchildren. My hope is that my grandchildren will carry in their hearts the same kind of wonderful memories of our times together.

Ginny Scida, a member of the Greater Tully Writer’s Group, retired as college accountant from the State University of New York at Cortland in 1995. She owns and operates a used bookstore, Bookhounds, in Fabius, New York. She is a 1976 graduate of Syracuse University.

26 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore GOOD SPIRITS

Put Your Car in Neutral BY LIBBY TUCKER

For some of us, there is nothing so cheering male friend about a young Dutch woman who the daughter of Chief Eagle Eye waited for as a good ghost story. Simultaneously thrill- habitually met her Indian lover at Spook Rock the current to take her life, but her father ing and spine-chilling, ghost stories remind in Rockland County. Outraged by this mixed- jumped in at the last moment to save her. us of the dimension of enchantment that race courtship, Dutch settlers climbed up to Both died and were transformed into “spirits makes life exciting. When I was a third grader the rock by moonlight and murdered the of pure strength and goodness.” at summer camp, I enjoyed hearing the older young lovers. The legend says that moon- Skinner’s rendition of the Niagara Falls leg- kids tell hair-raising ghost stories. Now, as a light still casts the shadows of the murdered end juxtaposes Indians’ savagery with the teacher of folklore at Binghamton University, lovers, and people can hear their screams in more enlightened viewpoint of a white ex- I enjoy hearing students tell me about their the woods along Spook Rock Road. plorer and culminates in the “ghosting” of own supernatural experiences. My interest in Like other legends about Europeans’ set- the repentant chief and his daughter. Spook ghost stories has led me to write two books: tlement of the land that would later be called Rock legends about human sacrifice have a one finished, the other still growing. New York State, the legend that Regina col- similar orientation. We might think that such In choosing ghost stories as a research sub- lected recalls tensions between settlers and legends would no longer appeal to contem- ject, I was inspired by the work of Louis C. Indians. Its main focus is white settlers’ out- porary New Yorkers, but the web site “Dis- Jones, author of Things That Go Bump in the rage at one of their own children becoming covering Rockland: History and Legend” Night (1959). I met Jones just once, when he close to an Indian. The settlers’ punishment (www2.lhric.org/virmus2/BYKIDS/ gave me a ride to a New York Folklore Society for mixed-race courtship is death. Shadows intro.html), assembled by elementary school meeting in the late 1970s, but I will never for- of the murdered young lovers, along with children and their teachers, includes a variant get his interest in all things supernatural. As we echoing screams, show how cruel and unjust of the Spook Rock legend about Indians sac- drove north from Cooperstown to Saranac this retribution was. rificing a Dutch farmer’s daughter. If children Lake, he told me ghost stories from some of In another legend about Rockland Coun- are being encouraged to tell stories like this, the counties through which we were passing. ty’s Spook Rock, collected by Binghamton then the old stereotypes about Indians are Ghostly hitchhikers, haunted houses, and In- University student Jeff Glantz from his moth- too close for comfort. dian ghosts were a few of the subjects of the er, Susan Glantz, in the fall of 2004, the Indi- A different interpretation of Spook Rock’s stories he told that day. These stories and oth- ans are the aggressors. According to this text, meaning comes from Evan T. Pritchard, the ers can be found now in the Jones Folklore when a Dutch farmer cheated some Indians author of Native New Yorkers (2002). Pritchard Archive, maintained by the New York State while trading with them, the Indians kid- says that Spook Rock is the most significant Historical Association in Cooperstown. napped his daughter. They put her on their Indian landmark in the New York City area: a Some of the local legends in the Jones Folk- sacrificial rock and killed her. The girl’s spirit great council rock that used to serve as a meet- lore Archive tell of Indians who died at a place immediately rose up and shocked the tribe. ing place for Indians from all around the East- called Lover’s Leap or Spook Rock. Both place- I was surprised to find Indians practicing ern seaboard. names show the influence of what Jones called human sacrifice in this legend, as human sac- These days, small groups of young people the “Hiawathaization of the Five Nations,” rifice was not part of the belief system of gather late at night near Spook Rock. Teenag- which sentimentalized and romanticized In- Indians in the region now called Rockland ers say that if you put your car in neutral at the dian characters. Typically, Lover’s Leap stories County. How can we explain this falsehood? bottom of the hill on Spook Rock Road, it involve an Indian “princess” who jumps from Since legends circulate freely, it is difficult to will go backwards up the hill. There are “grav- a cliff or another high place, crazed with grief know how the focus on human sacrifice de- ity hills” like this one all over the United States. at the loss of her lover. Stories about places veloped. One early scholar, Charles M. Skin- If you ever take a drive on Spook Rock Road, called Spook Rock—of which there are sever- ner, however, actively promoted the idea that you may want to put your car in neutral and al in New York State—seem more complex New York State Indians practiced human sac- see what happens next. and interesting. They usually tell of an Indi- rifice. In “Niagara,” in Myths and Legends of an’s or a settler’s murder, with parental disap- Our Own Land (1896), Skinner explained that Libby Tucker teaches folklore at Binghamton proval, greed, and human sacrifice as moti- Indians used to sacrifice a maiden of their University. She is the vating factors. tribe to Niagara Falls each year. The final sacri- author of Campus Legends: A Handbook I first heard a Spook Rock story from one fice, he said, took place in 1679, in the pres- (Westport, CT: Green- of my students at Binghamton University in ence of the Christian explorer La Salle, who wood Press, 2005). Her next book, Haunted the spring of 1978. As part of her term project, tried to put a stop to the sacrifice. Sitting in a Halls, will investigate Regina Hoefner collected a legend from a fe- white canoe decorated with fruit and flowers, college ghost stories.

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 27 Immigrant Arts in Collaboration: Current Community Cultural Initiatives

BY EMILY SOCOLOV AND GABRIELLE M. HAMILTON INTRODUCTION BY TOM VAN BUREN

The Community Cultural Initiative program has been a central focus for the Cen- Currently, the Mexican and Peruvian projects ter for Traditional Music and Dance since 1990. The program is a collaborative are going strong, each following its own agen- effort with local artists and community-based advocates for traditional perform- da, based on the community partners’ inter- ing arts to develop cultural programs and build presentation capacity among the ests and strengths. Project directors Emily So- many immigrant, ethnic, and refugee communities of New York City. Each project colov and Gabrielle Hamilton present updates involves a multiyear effort of field research, planning, program production, docu- from their respective projects, Mano a Mano: mentation, and often organization building. Community scholars, students, and Cultura Mexicana sin Fronteras/ Mano a Mano: interns participate in the research. Collaborative productions also enlist the help Mexican Culture without Borders and the Pa- of ethnic media producers, teachers, and community leaders. Many of the projects chamama Peruvian Arts educational program have resulted in ongoing community cultural events. This three-part article pre- of the Peruvian CCI. sents the history and methods of the Community Cultural Initiative program, and While the early CCIs almost all focused on then delves more deeply into current projects in the Mexican and Peruvian com- the creation and development of annual com- munities. munity-based festival programs to showcase traditional arts, not far in the background lay a he Center for Traditional Music and rial programs at Lincoln Center and the Muse- deep commitment to the education of young- T Dance has been engaged since 1990 in um of Natural History. Following the Albanian er generations and others in the root perfor- collaborative projects, known as Community and Arab American projects, the staff has worked mance traditions and genres of each culture. Cultural Initiatives (CCIs), that document, in seven other communities—Dominican, Simon Shaheen’s Arabic Music Retreat held celebrate, present, and—more recently—teach South Asian Indian and Indo-Caribbean, West each August at Mount Holyoke College was traditional performing arts to youngsters rep- African, former Soviet Jewish, Filipino, Mexi- an outgrowth of the Mahrajan al-Fan program. resenting a range of urban cultural commu- can, and Peruvian—and has just begun work on The educational efforts of our Dominican nities. Over the fifteen-year history of these a Chinese CCI. community partners in Washington projects, many different program models have All the projects share a basic set of goals: (1) to Heights—such as the Conjunto Folklórico of been developed and lessons learned. This is support the practice and perpetuation of tradi- Alianza Dominicana, under the direction of the first update in Voices since 1996, when I tional, root, and evolved performing arts in spe- folklorist Ivan Dominguez—have played a wrote about the Arab American CCI, which cific ethnic communities of the New York metro- central role in the development of the annual produced three Arabic arts festivals, or Mahr- politan area through performance projects, pub- Quisqueya en el Hudson festival of Dominican ajan al-Fan, during the 1990s (Voices 17.1–2). licity, fundraising, and technical assistance; (2) to music and dance traditions. Later CCIs devel- Since that time, our organization has changed work in collaboration with community artists, oped significant educational components, as its name and moved twice, but it has stayed institutions, educators, community organizers, well. The Asian Indian CCI evolved into a the course with its CCIs. The Center for Tra- local businesses, and media to achieve the general training program for students of the Rajku- ditional Music and Dance has completed ear- mission; (3) to encourage access to the program mari Cultural Center in 1999. The former So- lier projects with as many as five years of col- for an audience primarily drawn from the same viet Jewish CCI presented classes on doira laboration, including the production of nu- community; and (4) to see that the various projects frame drumming and the lesginka Jewish folk merous festivals and other performance become viable, ongoing presences in the cultural dance in 1999 and 2000. While some of these events, several related music CDs, and curato- lives of their respective communities. programs were more successful than others,

28 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Procession during Pastorelas y Posadas, New York City, December 2003. Teens from the dance troupe Los Niños de East Harlem dressed as Joseph, Mary, and the three kings, with dancers from the Concheros Citlaltonac de la Mesa del Santo Niño de Atocha, led by Antonia Guerrero, guide a procession through the streets of Lower Manhattan. The procession simulates Mary and Joseph’s search for lodging (posada), a highlight of this celebration. Photo: Itzik Gottesman

it became clear that teaching traditional arts is low-cost instruction on traditional instru- sentations. At the same time, resources for a good thing, both for engaging students in ments, like the er-hu two-string fiddle and the education and cultural preservation projects learning the performance forms, and for get- zheng zither, with master musicians. Instruc- are limited, and there are still very few major ting master artists excited about sharing their tion is available to children and youth, who institutions that actively court immigrant com- traditions. might otherwise have little chance of study- munity artists and audiences. The Center for Under the initial direction of ethnomusi- ing a traditional Chinese instrument or learn- Traditional Music and Dance has adjusted its cologist Cathy Ragland, the Mexican CCI led ing about Chinese orchestra or opera music. focus to address these two needs, providing to the creation of the Mariachi Academy of We are poised to expand this program to oth- long-term support for educational programs New York in 2002, which offers instruction er partners and to initiate a performance series and working in an advisory, and sometimes to children at the Union Settlement Associa- in 2006–7. curatorial, capacity with institutions that in- tion in el Barrio (East Harlem). In 2002, the When the Community Cultural Initiative clude the American Museum of Natural His- Peruvian CCI adopted an educational format, program was launched fifteen years ago, many tory, the New York City Department of Parks, offering classes in music and dance traditions recent immigrant communities lacked the cul- and the Museum of the City of New York. from all regions of Peru to children, primarily tural infrastructure and resources to stage large- The heart of the Community Cultural Initia- from the Peruvian community in Jackson scale cultural programs. Following the exam- tives nevertheless remains in working to open Heights. Keeping in this vein, the Center for ples set by the Irish, Puerto Rican, and Italian doors of opportunity, wherever they may be Traditional Music and Dance has been part- communities, such events represented a fo- found, to the traditional arts of diverse im- nering since July of 2005 with the renowned cus of community pride and a benchmark of migrant communities and to the tireless art- Chinese music ensemble, Music From China, cultural establishment in America. Most of ists and community advocates who work with to support the group’s music education pro- the larger immigrant communities today are them. gram in Chinatown. The Chinese CCI offers more organized and savvy about cultural pre- —Tom van Buren

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 29 This growing program is now well on its way to independence. Ragland also presented her research on Mexican DJ culture in her 2002 ar- ticle “Mediating between Two Worlds: The Sonideros of Mexican Youth Dances” (Voices 26.3–4). In my three years with Mano a Mano, the initiative has experienced growth and transi- tion, has produced and collaborated in a range of events, and with the assistance of pro bono counsel is now incorporated and awaiting not- for-profit status. The dreams are big and the players (aside from myself) are volunteers with busy lives and all the challenges of the migrant experience, but the learning process goes for- ward through practice and mutual exchange. While I have an academic background, I have learned an incalculable amount in the active pro- duction of cultural events with my committee partners. The organizing committee is composed of a range of individuals: Mexicans and Mexican Americans, long-established migrants with cit- izenship and recent arrivals without documents, people from central Mexico and from the bor- der, professionals with degrees and blue-collar workers. All have a lifelong commitment to perpetuating Mexican culture, all have a sophis- ticated understanding of the importance of cultural conservation, and all are deeply com- mitted to a range of cultural projects in addi- tion to their work with Mano a Mano. Mem- bers include Margarita Larios and Aurelia Fernández Marure, recent winners of City Lore’s People’s Hall of Fame award, who have been Mexican cultural activists for decades, with spe- cialties in dance, crafts, cooking, and traditional drama. Enrique González Ibarra is a photog- rapher and journalist, and Lucía Rojas is a high Music workshop at Monarcas: Butterflies without Borders, Central Park, June 2004. A school guidance counselor. Alda Reuter directs young festival attendee learns the rudiments of violin style from presenter Humberto López and Bola Suriana musicians from Morelia, Michoacán. Photo: Cristian Peña the presenting group Mexico Beyond Mariachi, drums with Retumba, and is a dancer with Mano a Mano: Cultura several major events: the flagship “Mano a Ballet Fiesta Mexicana, and Gabriel Guzmán is Mexicana sin Fronteras Mano: Cultura Mexicana sin Fronteras” at the a musician and director of the son jarocho/son I joined the Mano a Mano project in time Haft Auditorium; Heritage Sunday at Lincoln huasteco group Semilla. Other members include for a set of programs at the American Muse- Center Out of Doors; and for three weekends Adriana Caballero from the Mexico Tourism um of Natural History in January of 2003. at the American Museum of Natural History, Board; Antonia Guerrero, a visual artist and The initiative had been founded in 2000 under “Living in America: The Mexican Cultural Ex- Conchero dancer; Estela Arias, a Mexican Amer- the direction of Cathy Ragland. She conducted perience.” The Mariachi Academy of New York, ican paralegal; Estela López, an accountant; foundational fieldwork, established the a project of Mano a Mano, was inaugurated Verónica Hernández-Shusman, a historian and community-based committee, and produced under her direction in the summer of 2002. educator; and Leonardo Anzures, a restaurant

30 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Student Kristy City shows off her Pachamama Peruvian Arts diploma in the Andean dance, huayno. Photo: Lisa Linhardt

worker who is interested in drama. sented in collaboration with major cultural in- as a procession, open-air altar, or photo studio The mission and objectives of Mano a stitutions in New York City, including the with painted backdrop and costumes. A staple Mano are as follows: Museum of the City of New York, the Central of Mano a Mano events—and a real coalition Park Conservancy, Thirteen WNET, the Amer- builder in the Mexican community—is the com- Mano a Mano: Mexican Culture without Borders is dedicated to presenting and ican Museum of Natural History, and Saint munity service component of our events: an preserving Mexican culture and promot- Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. Many have been informational area with materials on health, ing the active participation of Mexican held at neighborhood venues, like the Ameri- educational opportunities, civil rights, and hous- immigrant families in cultural, education- al, and civic life. Mano a Mano’s objectives can Indian Community House in the Village ing. We count on the collaboration of the Mex- are to produce, promote, and present cul- and the Taller Boricua in el Barrio, and several ican consulate, the Mexican Cultural Institute, tural events, including festivals, concerts, performances, processions, installations, have become annual affairs. It is the eventual the Mexico Tourism Board, and the U.S.– and seminars; to design and implement goal of the committee to sponsor three annual Mexico Chamber of Commerce, as well as many educational workshops and curriculum events: summer festival of Mexican regional smaller grassroots organizations and service for schools and community groups; to serve as a clearinghouse for information culture (late June), Día de los Muertos (October agencies, such as Mexicano Unidos, Mixteca on Mexican culture and community re- 31 through November 2), and Posadas y Pas- Organization, and Clínica del Barrio. sources for educators, artists, immigrant families, and the general population torelas (mid-December), as well as four collab- As the CCI has moved to become an inde- through direct services and on our web orative events: Immigrant History Week (mid- pendent entity, the committee has designed a site; to collaborate with other communi- April), Cinco de Mayo (May 5), Mexican Inde- logo, printed business cards, and created a web ty, educational, and cultural institutions and initiatives through presentations, re- pendence Day (September 16), and the feast site. The group is also aggressively addressing ferrals, and an online community calen- day of the Virgin of Guadalupe (December long-term community priorities, like the drop- dar; and to provide technical and profes- sional assistance to traditional artists. 12). out rate of Mexican youth and the working The events typically feature as many as six lives of New York’s migrant Mexican popula- The mission has primarily been enacted in workshops, one or two presentations of live tion. In May of 2005, our first three board large-scale, multifocal presentations, often pre- music and dance, and a cultural happening, such members were elected, all young Mexican pro-

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 31 fessionals from the worlds of finance and so- years later, we are thrilled that more than 175 cial service. The transition to a more corporate students have attended weekly classes on the structure with diversified roles, a set division rhythms and techniques, history, and social and of tasks and responsibilities, and the necessity cultural importance of Peruvian art forms. This of securing funding promises an intense and program’s popularity is seen at student presen- exciting learning process for all concerned. tations and graduations, when proud parents For more information and a complete list pack the auditorium beyond capacity. All classes of Mano a Mano events, please visit are currently filled, and a waiting list is being www.manoamano.us. maintained. Classes take place at P.S. 212 in Jack- —Emily Socolov son Heights, where the poverty rate is seventy- six percent, and ninety-two percent of the stu- Pachamama Peruvian Arts dents are members of minority groups. Most The Center for Traditional Music and Dance of Pachamama’s students are Peruvian, but Ec- launched Pachamama Peruvian Arts in July uadorian, Bolivian, and Colombian children also 2003, in response to concerns that Peruvian participate. Most students live in Queens, but Americans born in the United States are losing some travel from Westchester, Connecticut, and the connection to their cultural heritage by even Pennsylvania. adopting popular Latin American sounds, such The Pachamama organizing committee plays as salsa and merengue, to the detriment of tradi- an integral part in making decisions regarding tional Peruvian music and dance. the artistic forms taught. A cross section of My early research in the Peruvian communi- Peruvian forms, including Andean, mestizo, cri- ty indicated that, despite a rich artistic environ- ollo, and Afro-Peruvian genres, are all offered, ment and numerous festivals and parades, no exemplifying respectively the antara, charango, Pachamama student Wendy Martel on charango, program existed in this country to teach Peru’s marinera norteña (Spanish-influenced couples’ an Andean guitar. Photo: Leah Lowthorp traditional art forms to children. In addition, dance), and festejo (lively Afro-Peruvian cou- many children born to Peruvian immigrant ples’ dance). The organizing committee also structure to support the project and give tech- parents do not speak Spanish or Quechua, the helps to program events, conducts outreach to nical assistance in fundraising, programming, official languages of Peru. It appears that the the community, assists with publicity and pro- field research, publicity, and promotion. In ad- community’s financial and cultural attention has motion of the project, and generally sets the dition, the Center provides the organizing com- been largely focused on the homeland, with project’s mission and goals. The committee is mittee with an archive of materials, including Peruvians in the U.S. sending more than $1.5 composed of dedicated Peruvian musicians, an artist roster, DVDs of performances, CDs billion annually to Peru, while local leaders ap- dancers, artists, and activists, including Peter of digital images, funding contacts, press con- ply their energies to bringing artists directly from Apaza, Juan de la Cruz, Héctor Morales, Mar- tacts, and a project report, and helps them to Peru. To bridge gaps between generations, cul- cos Napa, Luz A. Pereira, and Nelida Silva, rep- establish their own web site. While this infra- tures, and countries, the Pachamama organiz- resenting all areas of Peru. We consider this structure will support the project’s indepen- ing committee and I decided early on to create balancing of traditions vital to the project’s dence, the greatest difficulty is finding enough an educational project that offers high-quality success, particularly considering Peru’s long his- funding to support the entire annual project instruction in the traditional performing arts tory of racism against indigenous and African of fourteen classes, three workshops, and three of Peru. peoples. annual concert presentations—all of which are Pachamama Peruvian Arts offers instruction At present some of our greatest challenges free and open to the public. At this juncture, free of charge to children ages seven to fourteen involve finding long-term funding for the the organizing committee has resolved to keep in dance forms such as the marinera limeña and project and focusing the attention of the Peru- all programs—especially the children’s classes— norteña, festejo, and huayno, as well as musical in- vian community leaders on the cultural educa- free. Considering the committee’s recent suc- struction on the cajón (box drum), antara (An- tion of Peruvian immigrant children. These cesses at fundraising, I am hopeful they will be dean panpipe), and charango (Andean guitar). two issues hinge on one another. As Tom able to sustain many aspects of this outstand- After assembling a roster of teachers from the noted in his introduction, one of the goals of ing program. area’s most talented Peruvian traditional artists, the CCIs is to have an ongoing presence in the —Gabrielle M. Hamilton classes began in January 2004 with forty stu- community, independent of the Center for dents. That June, Pachamama Peruvian Arts stu- Traditional Music and Dance. Pachamama Pe- Emily Socolov, Gabrielle M. Hamilton, and Tom van Buren have all directed dents performed at the eighth annual Peruvian ruvian Arts is in the second year of collabora- CCIs for the Center for Traditional Festival in Flushing Meadow Park, Queens. Two tion with the Center, when we construct infra- Music and Dance.

32 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore OBITUARY Folk Legend: Helen Schneyer, 1921 to 2005 BY JOSHUA LARKIN

Helen Bonchek Schneyer could belt out telephone interview. “Every holiday party we taken out of tradition, both black and white work songs, African American spirituals, and ever had degenerated into us throwing green tradition,” said Joan Sprung, a close friend and hymns like few others. With an unmistakable beans and mashed potatoes or anything we fellow musician. “It was mostly focused on contralto voice and the ability to pour her had on hand.” work songs, mining, fishing, labor songs.” entire being into each song, she is one of folk But for every joke, prank, or flung gob of But her humor also came through in some music’s most remarkable and beloved food, Schneyer also had strong convictions of the songs she chose to perform. “And [there characters. Known internationally for her about right and wrong and many of the was] a genre of songs that she referred to as emotionally charged renditions of traditional politically hot topics of the twentieth century. ‘hideobilia,’ as in memorabilia, except that these folk, labor, and spiritual music, Helen Erika Schneyer, who remembered picketing were the over-the-top songs like ‘Pity the Old Bonchek Schneyer died July 16, 2005, of cancer at age eight for civil rights with her mother in Working Girl,’” Sprung said. “They were at the age of eighty-four. She lived in Plainfield, 1961, said Helen cared immensely about smaltz. They were the kind of thing that you Vermont. “some very profound things.” would laugh your head off, except that she Schneyer had a long music career, during Born Helen Bonchek on January 10, 1921, sang them straight.” And by straight, Sprung which she performed for Eleanor Roosevelt in New York, she was trained as a classical means filled with pure emotion and heart. at the White House, shared the stage with pianist and discovered the wonders of African Traditional singer Norman Kennedy of folk legends such as Woody Guthrie and Pete American Baptist hymns while attending Marshfield described Schneyer’s voice as “one Seeger, and served as a founding member of church services with her nanny at a young of kind,” recalling the feeling and power that the Folklore Society of Greater Washington, age. She graduated from the University of she infused into every song she performed. but friends and relatives remember her sense Buffalo, and after earning a master’s degree in “I’ve seen her reduce an audience to tears,” of humor, her strength of character, and her social work from Columbia University, Kennedy said. “She’d be singing . . . and she ability to throw a really good party. “Helen moved to the Washington, D.C., area, where felt the songs so strongly, sometimes even she’d had a way of putting together a party that I she lived off and on from the 1940s to 1986. have to stop and ask for a Kleenex.” think was unequaled in my experience,” said While there, she practiced psychotherapy in Schneyer recorded three solo albums, Ballads, longtime friend, Hilari Farrington. “She had a Kensington, Maryland, and performed folk Broadsides, and Hymns (1974), On The Hallelujah knack for bringing the right people together and work songs in the group the Priority Line (1981), and Somber, Silly, and Sacred (1992). with just the right amount of food and drink. Ramblers with folklorist Alan Lomax. A fourth live performance album, What a And there was always a lot of silliness and Folk musician and producer Martin Singing There Will Be (2005), was recorded by great music.” Grosswendt said he met Schneyer years ago Grosswendt at a Maple Corner show when According to Farrington, after Schneyer when he stayed with her for a year in her Schneyer was eighty-two years old. According moved to her Hollister Hill cabin in 1986, she Kensington home. According to to Leda Schubert, a friend and folk musician, began throwing parties for birthdays and Grosswendt, Schneyer took in a lot of “strays” Schneyer continued to sing and play into her holidays throughout the year. At the parties, while living in Maryland, many of whom are final days. “In fact, the day before she decided twenty or more friends and fellow musicians some of folk, traditional, and blues music’s to cash it in, she said, ‘Maybe I should have would gather in Schneyer’s warmly decorated most famous names. Grosswendt said someone bring a keyboard into the nursing home to laugh, joke, and listen to the singer’s Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, and Joe home,’” Schubert said. stories of her travels and adventures, Heaney were just a few who came to mind. Along with daughter Erika Schneyer of Farrington said. And at each of the shindigs, “The list of musicians who stayed overnight Takoma Park, Maryland, she is survived by her Schneyer was always a hoot and more than in her house or came for holidays or for parties son-in-law Milan Pavich and granddaughter willing to laugh at herself. is amazing,” Grosswendt said. “If you were Renata Ament, also of Takoma Park; her son, Daughter Erika Schneyer said her mother to make a list, it would be like a who’s who Joshua Schneyer of Santa Barbara, California; loved anything absurd, from dirty jokes to of American roots music.” her sister, Mona Wasow of Madison, slapstick comedy, and that side of her was The parties, the strays, and the time Wisconsin; her brother, Donald Cantor of present at every party the elder Schneyer ever connecting with people from all walks of life Boston; and several nieces, nephews, and threw, right up to her final minutes of life. allowed Schneyer to build a vast repertoire of beloved friends. “She was just the funniest damn woman that songs that she would tap for performances. Reprinted courtesy of the Times Argus. I’ve ever known,” Erika Schneyer said in a “Her music was eclectic, but it was mostly

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 33 ration at the beginning of a later visit to the same place (1971, 204–5). The main advocate of legend trips’ im- portance for adolescents has been Bill Ellis, Legend whose books and articles have delineated the legend trip’s meaning. Ellis has urged Quests folklorists to accept the importance of leg- end trips themselves, not just the legends that get them going. Like Thigpen, Ellis BY LIBBY TUCKER sees the legend trip as a tripartite process: storytelling, rituals to invoke a supernatu- ral presence, and finally discussion of what For almost four decades, folklorists have been writing about adolescents’ happened (2004, 114–5). His analyses of trips to spooky locations associated with legends about supernatural events. legend trips have yielded intriguing and My research suggests that the common term “legend trip” does not ade- thought-provoking conclusions. After read- quately describe college students’ investigations of such sites. Rather than ing 218 accounts of legend trips in Ohio, expressing rebellion and disrespect, college students seek the opportunity Ellis concluded that such trips, like recre- to play a role in an eerie drama that reflects a particular legend’s plot. Are ational drug use, were “escapes into altered supernatural forces real? Can machines perceive ghosts more accurately states of being where conventional laws do than humans can? Legend questers attempt to answer such questions by not operate” (2003, 189). He also notes that participating in an open-ended, apparently dangerous adventure. Three texts outrageous pranks and sexual experiments narrated by New York State college students provide examples of the mean- are important parts of the American ing of legend quests for older adolescents. legend-trip tradition, with antecedents in folklore of the British Isles. For example, uring the past six years I have collect- Linda Dégh wrote the first articles on ad- written records of visits to British holy wells D ed ghost stories from college students olescents’ nocturnal journeys to haunted lo- and graves of saints in the seventeenth and across the United States, finding especially cations, including two bridges in southern eighteenth centuries show that young peo- good material in New York State. Some of Indiana, in 1969 and 1971. In Legend and ple enjoyed drinking and carousing late at the most dramatic texts describe visits to plac- Belief, she argues that most adolescents’ leg- night at such locations (2004, 116–7). es associated with supernatural characters and ends are quest stories: young storytellers Defining the legend trip as a “ritual of events. These stories follow a fairly consis- travel to haunted places, telling stories as rebellion,” Ellis says that this ritual “serves tent pattern: identification of a site where they “prepare for the anticipated legend in mainly as an excuse to escape adult supervi- something unusual took place, an explana- action” (2001, 253). Kenneth A. Thigpen, sion, commit antisocial acts, and experi- tion for the students’ visit, and then a de- author of “Adolescent Legends in Brown ment illicitly with drugs and sex. Both leg- tailed description of what happened during County: A Survey” (1971), suggests that end and trip are ways of saying ‘screw you’ the visit. Since Bill Ellis’s publication of “Leg- putting oneself under the power of the to adult law and order” (2003, 188). Curs- end-Tripping in Ohio” in the early 1980s, supernatural is central to the success of such ing and stamping on a grave, drinking, many folklorists have called such visits “leg- visits. Certain ritual actions, such as blink- smoking marijuana, and stealing tomb- end trips” (1982–3). While this term accu- ing car lights, sitting on accursed seats, and stones all defy adults’ moral standards while rately indicates a journey, it makes no refer- approaching forbidden tombstones, can proving how brave and rebellious the trip’s ence to the journey’s purpose. I would like result in extraordinary occurrences. Thigpen participants are. Feeling frightened by a site’s to suggest that another term, “legend quest,” identifies a three-part structure. Part one is spooky atmosphere, young couples may does more justice to older adolescents’ rea- an “introduction to the plausibility of the snuggle up to each other, enjoying some sons for visiting legend sites. Among these phenomenon” by someone who has already forbidden sex (2004, 116). reasons are desires to understand death, visited the site. Part two happens at the site Ellis speaks from experience, having sur- probe the horror of domestic violence, and itself, when people “act out the specified veyed more than two hundred descriptions express the uneasy relationship between hu- requirements to cause the fulfillment of the of journeys to legend sites. I agree that re- mans and technology. There is also a strong legend.” Here the supernatural collides with bellious behavior is one notable ingredient emotional component: an attempt to feel reality, shocking and frightening participants. of such journeys, but I do not find it to be both thrilled and afraid under relatively safe In part three, people discuss what hap- the main motivator among older adoles- circumstances. pened, composing a story suitable for nar- cents. What seems to intrigue college stu-

34 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore dents most is the opportunity to play a role ular culture have portrayed a certain kind of enough to make them get “the hell out” of in a strange—perhaps supernatural—dra- house as a source of danger and supernatu- the Massapequa Hell House’s vicinity. Be- ma linked to past tragedies. By visiting leg- ral events. The haunted house, “the ugly cause danger seems imminent but avoid- end sites, students try to discover whether stepsister of the enchanted castle” (193), able, the quest succeeds. supernatural forces are real and to answer usually has more than one story and con- Sometimes, however, mere proximity to other important questions. They also build tains such features as a “gambrel roof, tur- the house is enough to scare young questers up intense feelings that range from excite- rets or towers, and broken or boarded-up away. Alison’s story shows how strongly the ment to horror and fear. Like the central windows with ‘spooky’ inhabitants peek- Massapequa House evokes images of death: character of “The Youth Who Wanted to ing out” (181). It often stands on a hilltop with “drapes the color of blood” and “a Learn What Fear Is,” they go on a quest to or in another isolated location. hearse in the driveway,” the place “appears discover what stimuli will make them feel One notorious haunted house is the like a cemetery.” Clearly, confrontation with “scared to death” (Aarne and Thompson Massapequa House on Long Island. Vari- death motivates this visit. In contemporary 1961, Type 326). ously known as the Massapequa Hell House American culture, we tend to separate death In college, where education occurs both and the Massapequa Satan House, this from everyday life. Jessica Mitford’s The inside and outside the classroom, legend building draws carloads of college and high American Way of Death Revisited notes that quests offer a significant kind of experien- school students, especially around Hallow- ever since the late nineteenth century, fami- tial learning. Since many freshmen have gone een. Heather, a junior at Binghamton Uni- lies have tended to let specialists care for on such journeys as high school students, versity, collected the following story from their deceased loved ones (1998, 148–9). they know how to organize new ones. The her friend Alison, a senior at the University Young people who have not learned much complexity of the college campus and its of Buffalo, on March 29, 2004: about death may seek it out within the folklore encourages exploration, as does the If you live in Long Island, you’ve framework of a haunted house. The Mass- transitional life stage of freshman year. As definitely heard of the Massapequa apequa House, like the spooky edifice on a Simon J. Bronner observes, “The college House . . . it’s right off the Southern hilltop in the movie Edward Scissorhands State Parkway. The best part is that this campus resounds with talk of the strange eerie home stands right in the middle (1990), is an architectural monstrosity that and wondrous” (1995, 143). Sometimes of a residential neighborhood. Sup- represents death in the midst of everyday posedly the place is haunted, and it students discover supernatural dimensions definitely looks that way. The house is life. of familiar campus buildings or landscape extremely old and appears like a ceme- Why do candles in a window work so features. Often they go off campus in cars tery due to the towering metal fence well as symbols of death and danger? At that surrounds the entire house. There to investigate sites associated with local leg- are drapes the color of blood in every funerals, candles often illuminate the rooms ends. Simultaneously offering safety and window and a hearse in the driveway. I where solemn burial services take place. Folk don’t know the story of what went danger, the car becomes a crucial part of the on inside the house, but I do know tradition tells us that a burning candle discovery process. All three of the stories in that when you park your car outside, shows whether we are safe or in danger: this essay, narrated and collected by college candles are placed in the windows. “Life bound up with candle” and “Burned AND the number of candles lit in the students attending public institutions of windows corresponds to the number candle causes death,” for example (Thomp- higher learning in New York State, describe of people in your car. son 1964, E765.1.1 and D2061.2.2.6). The A few summers ago, my friends and amazing things that happened to college I took a ride out to the house one night. Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina students after a drive to a haunted place. When we got out of the car to take a Folklore also connects candles with mortali- The connection between legend and loca- closer look, we saw a small flickering ty: “To see a coffin in the candle betokens light appear in one of the windows. tion transforms simple storytelling into a At this point, we all jumped back in death” (Hand 1964, 44). Matching the num- performance that builds upon past events the car as fast as we could, and got the ber of candles to the number of people in hell out of there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and extends into the future. a car brings a dead metaphor to life: seeing What happens in Alison’s story might be such a sight, students know that their num- Massapequa House described as a drive-by legend quest. Leav- ber is up. If they don’t drive away quickly, As legend scholars have shown, one of ing the comfort and safety of their car for their own deaths may follow. the most frequent inspirations of a “good only a moment, these college students wait scare” is a house associated with death. Sylvia to see how many candles will appear in a Mary’s Grave Grider’s essay “The Haunted House in Lit- certain window. They are prepared to drive While haunted houses give students the erature, Popular Culture, and Tradition” away quickly, since they know that they may chance to confront images of death, grave- (1999) persuasively demonstrates how con- be in danger if they see a number of can- yards offer opportunities to tell legends sistently the Gothic novel, the oral ghost dles that matches the number of people in about the deaths of individuals who have story, and various forms of American pop- their car. A glimpse of one flickering light is died tragically. Some legends describe wom-

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 35 en who, having died after suffering terrible away within a day or two. She was an walking across the lake and just only child, and her father raised her on stopped in the middle of the lake, then abuse and injustice, have become horror fig- the farm. came up off the lake about four or five ures that haunt the living. Many of these Mary didn’t exactly have a good child- feet and just stopped there in midair. women are named Mary. Since Christianity hood, because her father always blamed My friend said he heard someone cry- her for the death of his wife. So grow- ing. I was like, WHOA, we’re leavin’. emphasizes the suffering of both Mary, the ing up, her father basically used to rape And this story is true, too . . . if you mother of Christ, and Mary Magdalene, the and beat Mary on a daily basis, and don’t believe me you can go to one of puberty rolled around and Mary even- the web sites and check it out for your- choice of this name has strong religious tually got pregnant from the raping. But self. connotations. Linda Dégh suggests that her father, being a devout Christian and Mary legends, which often take the form of believing abortion is murder, her fa- Steve, this story’s narrator, expresses shock ther forced her to have the child. séance magic and ritual divination, present A couple months later, through the about what happened to Mary. The story “an ambiguous image of the phantom her- fact that she now had the child to raise of her life and death is painful and difficult and her father still constantly beat her, oine as victim, witch, mother, avenger, child one night Mary snapped. In the mid- to tell. Showing how much Mary’s story has abuser, and protector” (2001, 144). This dle of the night, around one to two in upset him, Steve says that seeing her ghost statement applies very well to the practice the morning, she took her baby to the is “the most fucked up thing that ever hap- barn-house and in a satanic ritual, she of summoning horrifying women named slaughtered all the animals in the barn- pened” to him. Mary’s ghost not only Mary in mirrors (see Dundes 2002, Langlois house. She then proceeded to take her proves the existence of supernatural forces baby and herself; she climbed up to the 1978, and Tucker 2005), as well as to leg- storage area on top of the barn, hung but also drives home the point that such ends of Mary’s grave sites in many parts of her baby from the rafters, and then suffering has really happened. Her story may the United States. Linda McCoy Ray’s essay, hung herself. seem fictional, because she belongs to the Eventually her father, not knowing “The Legend of Bloody Mary’s Grave” where she was, went out to the barn- tradition of la llorona, the weeping woman (1976), presents a collection of such legends yard and found the gruesome scene, and who killed her child; her misty form after to save his family and his family’s name in one part of Indiana. “Long Island Folk- the embarrassment of what happened, death resembles ghosts of the Victorian era. lore: Mary’s Grave” and other web sites have he buried Mary and her baby in an area In legend quests, however, what has seemed documented Mary’s grave locations in New that is now basically eroding. fictional can suddenly become real. The area that he buried her in is now York State, offering good leads to folklor- Long Beach, Long Island. There, if you Mary, a domestic violence victim who kills ists with an interest in legend research. go down to a certain area and you start herself and her child, inspires both pity and calling Mary’s name, you’re supposed The following legend was collected by to start hearing a girl crying and hear a horror. A doomed sufferer, Mary represents Binghamton University student Dianne baby crying, and people have actually millions of women who have undergone Harris from Steve, a student at the same claimed to see Mary walking along the similar torment. As Elaine J. Lawless ex- road carrying her child. university, on March 26, 2004: Personally the most fucked up thing plains in her book Women Escaping Violence that ever happened to me—there is this (2001), evidence about domestic violence This girl Mary, back when Long Is- pond that is right near this general area land was all farmland, it was very rural- where she was supposed to live called suggests that “the figures are probably not ly developed and a lot of it was just Rhododendron Drive, and this area is reflective of even one-tenth of the number land. This girl Mary was born into this Creepy as HELL. I went down there of women who are actually beaten, abused, family; she was born into a farming one day with a couple of friends, and family in Nessaquogue. When she was just to test it, we started calling to Mary, and violated, but who never report it” (42). born, there were complications with her and literally before our eyes, this trail Because women hesitate to speak about such birth that caused her mother to pass of fog around this foggy figure started devastating, life-threatening situations, nar- rative can serve as an important “herstory” (13). Lawless includes the life stories of four women—Sherry, Margaret, Teresa, and Howes Cave, NY Cathy—in her book. Legends about Mary’s grave express the horror felt by all women

CELEBRATING IROQUOIS CREATIVITY who have been trapped by domestic vio- lence and sexual abuse. Less personal than the stories in Lawless’s book, yet eerily re- Annual Festivals: flective of them all, Mary’s story demands Memorial Day & Labor Day Weekends attention. Because the legend of Mary’s grave is so disturbing, it interrupts and redefines peo- 324 Caverns Rd, Howes Cave, NY 12092 518-296-8949 ple’s concentration on their everyday life. Jef- [email protected] www.iroquoismuseum.org frey Andrew Weinstock, editor of Spectral

36 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore America: Phantoms and the National Imagination, building we heard strange noises that ploits, proving their courage in tough situ- faded, grew louder, and then faded argues that the ghost “interrupts the present- again. As the four of us walked into ations. As John and his friends enter the ness of the present, and its haunting indi- the main building we heard the foot- main building, they watch their camera care- cates that, beneath the surface of received his- steps of about twenty people walking. fully to make sure that it will produce a good Things were clattering down the halls tory, there lurks another narrative, an untold and strange noises were heard from the record of their adventure. story that calls into question the veracity of high windows of the buildings. We The video camera, however, has a mind took the time to zoom up to each win- the authorized version of events” (2004, 5). dow to look inside with our flashlights. of its own. Although it is in perfect condi- Young visitors to Mary’s grave discover that We didn’t realize this at the time, but tion, it mysteriously turns itself off, giving there is more to women’s history than official by inspecting the video, we realized that “no indication that it stopped recording.” in one of the windows where noises records generally reveal. were coming from you can distinctly John says there is “no reason” why the vid- see a face lean into the window and eo camera would do such a thing: the solu- Briarcliff then lean out again. It is a clear image of a human face. However, we didn’t tion to this conundrum must be supernat- In contrast to gravesites in secluded plac- see this image at the time, so we con- ural, not rational. After the legend quest has es, famous local landmarks are easy to find. tinued to explore the building. ended, the students see that their video cam- Upon entering the stairwell to go up, One such place that has fascinated both high the footsteps came back, as well as faint era has recorded a face leaning in and out of school and college students is Briarcliff sounds of people whispering and the window through which they heard nois- Lodge in the Hudson Valley. Built in 1902, murmurs. The video camera had full battery and was in perfectly good con- es. Although they thought they were aware Briarcliff was known as King’s College from dition, yet it mysteriously turned off of what was happening, their recording ma- 1955 to 1994. John, a Binghamton Univer- during this time. The camera gave no chine saw more than they did. This contrast indication that it stopped recording, and sity freshman, told this story to his fellow my friends and I thought that it was in between human perception and mechanical student Alexandra on October 30, 2004. The fact still recording. Only when review- capabilities unnerves the students. None- fact that it was the day before Halloween ing the tape did we realize that it had shut off by itself for no reason. theless, their quest is successful. They have may have enhanced the story’s spooky at- We wandered the house for fifteen escaped from Briarcliff unharmed, carrying mosphere. more minutes that the camera did not a video that offers proof of supernatural record. Everything on the camera said it Years and years ago a lodge was built was still recording, yet the film was blank. activity. in Briarcliff. The lodge did great busi- The noises kept coming closer and then Whether or not they use advanced technol- going far away again, but we were never ness when it first opened. Many peo- ogy, college students learn important lessons ple stayed there, as its location was in able to discover what was making the the middle of a high traffic area. How- noise. We left the college confused and from legend quests. They learn about super- ever, after a couple years strange occur- scared. natural presences that seem real and past in- rences started to happen there. It be- came a very popular place for suicides, One interesting feature of this story is its justices that seem almost unbearably painful, murders, and vanishings. Death generalization of the events that made Bri- as well as deaths that are inextricably related to loomed over the lodge, and it was soon everyday life. As they talk about what hap- closed and abandoned for having this arcliff a spooky place. Although John men- bad reputation. tions a number of deaths, including sui- pened to them, students remember the in- Some years later, King’s College was cides, murders, and disappearances, none tensity of their emotions during confronta- built over the old foundation of this lodge. Just like the lodge the college of these seem vivid or verifiable. “Death tions with the supernatural. Like the hero of was successful in its early years. Many loomed over the lodge” sounds like a vague “The Youth Who Wanted to Learn What Fear students attended the school and en- Is,” they come to terms with their fears and joyed their experiences there. Yet, after threat from a piece of pulp fiction. There some time, strange occurrences started are two good reasons why John gives no move on. to happen at the school, as well. Nu- specific details. Like the Massapequa House, merous amounts of students began to commit suicide. People actually trav- Briarcliff is a haunted mansion, so we ex- References eled there specifically to commit sui- pect that deaths have occurred there. More Aarne, Antti, and Stith Thompson. 1961. cide from other colleges. Murders be- The Types of the Folktale: A Classification came more frequent, as did kidnappings significantly, this is a story about an elabo- and vanishings. Soon, due to this rep- rate legend quest, so what happened in the and Bibliography. Helsinki: Suomalainen utation, the college was forced to close. past is less meaningful than what happens Tiedeakatemia. This happened many years ago, and the college is now a ghost town. to the brave visitors. Bronner, Simon J. 1995. Piled Higher and My friends and I decided it would be Why do John and his three friends want Deeper: The Folklore of Student Life. Little a fun time to go to the abandoned col- Rock: August House. lege and make a video of the trip. Three to enter the “old, crumpled main building” friends and I drove to the college at of Briarcliff? Their main goal is to make a Dégh, Linda. 1969. The Haunted Bridges night and entered the old, crumpled video that they can share with others. TV near Avon and Danville and Their Role main building. The building was in fact decaying, as it consisted of rubble, shows like “Fear Factor” have encouraged in Legend Formation. Indiana Folklore rocks, and debris. Upon entering the young people to videotape their own ex- 2:54–89.

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 37 NYFS NEWS

———. 1971. The “Belief Legend” in Mod- Langlois, Janet L. 1978. “Mary Whales, I Be- ern Society. In American Folk Legend: A Sym- lieve in You”: Myth and Ritual Subdued. New York Folklore posium, 55–68. Ed. Wayland D. Hand. Ber- Indiana Folklore 11.1:5–33. Society News keley: University of California Press. Lawless, Elaine J. 2001. Women Escaping Vio- ———. 2001. Legend and Belief. Blooming- lence: Empowerment through Narrative. Colum- ton: Indiana University Press. bia: University of Missouri Press. The New York Folklore Society provides a wide Dundes, Alan. 2002. Bloody Mary in the Mir- Long Island Folklore: Mary’s Grave. http:// range of services for those pursuing community ror: Essays in Psychoanalytic Folkloristics. Jack- www.lioddities.com/Folklore/mg.html. cultural documentation and folklore studies son: University Press of Mississippi. Mitford, Jessica. 1998. The American Way of within New York State. Please visit us on the Edward Scissorhands. 1990. Dir. Tim Burton. Death Revisited. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. World Wide Web at www.nyfolklore.org for Twentieth Century Fox. Ray, Linda McCoy. 1976. The Legend of Bloody upcoming forums, meetings, and conferences. Ellis, Bill. 1982–3. Legend-Tripping in Ohio: Mary’s Grave. Indiana Folklore 9.2:175–87. A Behavioral Study. In Papers in Compara- Thigpen, Kenneth A., Jr. 1971. Adolescent Mentoring Assistance tive Studies 2, 61–73. Ed. Daniel Barnes, Legends in Brown County: A Survey. Indi- With support from and in collaboration with Rosemary O. Joyce, and Steven Swann ana Folklore 4:141–215. the Folk Arts Program of the New York State Jones. Columbus, OH: Center for Com- Thompson, Stith. 1966. Motif-Index of Folk- Council on the Arts, the New York Folklore parative Studies in the Humanities. Literature. 6 vols. Bloomington: Indiana Society offers technical assistance to folklorists, ———. 2003. Aliens, Ghosts, and Cults: Leg- University Press. community scholars, and traditional artists who ends We Live. Jackson: University Press of Tucker, Elizabeth. 2005. Ghosts in Mirrors: need folk arts mentoring, assistance in Kentucky. Reflections of the Self. Journal of American professional development, or help with issues ———. 2004. Lucifer Ascending. Lexington: Folklore 118 (Spring):186–203. relating to fieldwork documentation or University Press of Kentucky. Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew. 2004. Spectral Amer- presentation. For program details, please visit Grider, Sylvia. 1999. The Haunted House in ica: Phantoms and the National Imagination. our web site or call us at (518) 346-7008. Literature, Popular Culture, and Tradition: Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. A Consistent Image. Contemporary Legend n.s. 2:174–204. Libby Tucker teaches folklore at Binghamton University. She is the author Hand, Wayland D., ed. 1964. The Frank C. of Campus Legends: A Handbook Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005). Her next book, Haunted Halls, will Durham: Duke University Press. investigate college ghost stories.

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38 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore TheThe FamilyFamily PondPond

BY JOHN G. HAIT

have traveled to many places within The land the pond sits on was once Every year in July, my family would travel I America’s borders and beyond the Atlantic nothing more than an old swamp. Long ago, to the town of Hobart and beyond, to a small Ocean to Europe. I have touched the rough in 1964, my Uncle Herbert and Aunt Mary mountain called Narrow Notch. Rose’s Brook walls of the Alamo, envisioning days gone by bought the land and started a dairy farm. They Road—a mixture of dirt and tar— leads over when men stood and fought for freedom. I bulldozed the swamp to drain the marshy this steep little mountain. There is a point on lived for a while in the Rocky Mountains, water, but a miraculous thing happened. The the road where you can gaze down upon the relishing the beautiful scenery I woke to every hole filled with beautiful clear water, as if a small pond far below on the valley floor. morning. I have stood before the Eiffel Tower, pond were meant to be. Although the pond Riding down the road, I would wait anxiously dwarfed by its immense size. None of the was meant as fire protection for a neighboring for the moment when the pond would fill places I have been in my life have matched the farm, my aunt and uncle envisioned another my vision. Branching off Rose’s Brook Road beauty of a small pond nestled in the Catskill use for it. They designed the pond in a circular just beyond my relatives’ farmhouse, there is Mountains of New York. It is a place I shape with a small island in the middle. They a small dirt road, originally named Morse journeyed to every summer of my childhood, stocked it with trout, so that the children could Road. The road was renamed Relay Road in and I truly believe that, if there were such a all learn the family tradition of fishing. A slide honor of my aunt and uncle’s Relay Farm. place as heaven on earth, our family’s small was put in on one side and a diving board on Down this small dirt road, my salvation lay. pond would be it. the other, each with a small dock nearby. My heart would leap and my spirit would soar;

Scott Hait diving into the water while John G. Hait looks on, July 1981. Photo: Sylvia Ackerson

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 39 almost unable to contain myself, I would want I wanted to run, to shout for joy, the way I Eventually I took my swimming test, so to bolt from the car before it had even come had as a child. Looking back on that day, I that I would no longer have to wear a bubble to a stop. wish I had. I wanted to relive the memories on my back. All children at the pond have to Small rolling hills surround the pond, that linger in my mind. I have wished that I wear a small Styrofoam “bubble” until they adding to its beauty. The lush green grass could, if only for a brief moment, return to have passed the test. The test is to swim around the pond was always freshly cut when the days when my biggest worries were trying around the small island without a bubble, we arrived, and there was usually someone to taunt a fish into taking my line or learning while accompanied by an adult. The day I already there, ready to begin a camping to swim. There were many things I learned passed my test, the summer I was eight years adventure with us. Over the years, the pond while on the pond. I was taught about canoes old, was one of the proudest of my life. With has seen many family and friends gather on and rowboats, and even how to dive. The my father and older brother swimming on weekends. It has been the host of many greatest lesson I learned on that pond is that either side of me, I swam slowly but steadily picnics, family reunions, and even two family is the most important thing in one’s around that little island: a small feat to an weddings. One was my cousin Laurie’s, with life. Money and possessions mean nothing. adult, but to me as a child, I had climbed a square dance band and food everywhere. As It is those memories that you hold dearest in Mount Everest. a joke, the couple’s gifts were placed in the your heart that matter most. My fondest memory is of a fishing trip rowboat and launched out across the water. As children we had what we called “water with my brother up the small stream that runs The pond is fed by a small stream, where wars” on the pond. Siblings and cousins along the pond. We walked along its bank, many of our fishing expeditions led. Across would man the boats like old-time sailors, talking and enjoying our surroundings, when Relay Road, we explored and fished along get into combat positions, and hurl buckets all of a sudden, a fawn jumped out from a another stream. Beyond that stream, there is a of water at each other. I admit that now it thicket not three feet from where we stood. small mountain dotted with trees and sounds a bit odd, but back then it was a ball. The fawn jumped several feet and looked back hayfields. I sometimes used to watch while We’d spend hours trying to soak one another. at us. We both stood shocked at being so my uncle plowed those fields—a tiny man There was one time I was in the pond all by close to such a beautiful animal. It stood there and tractor from that distance—and I even myself, with all of my family up on the grass. for a moment, seemingly as curious about us watched falling rain slowly pass over, making I was floating around in the water on an inner as we were about it. We watched as it took its way to the little pond. Standing on the tube from a tractor tire. This, of course, was graceful leaps away from us, and that’s when edge of the pond today, I experience before I’d seen the movie Jaws, which forever we saw its mother standing along the tree line. something I never recognized until I returned ruined my kinship with water. I remember The memory has always remained fresh and much later in life. It is something we all seek sitting there, watching my family while they new. at one time or another in our lives. There is talked and laughed. I do not recall how it Talking to my father recently, I came to peace and serenity—a quiet in the world of happened, but I slipped through the tube and realize that he too had fished those little noise. My grandmother, Flossie, described the into the water. I didn’t yet know how to swim, streams that I traveled up and down so many pond best: and I remember going downward, feeling real times as a child. For him, though, it was long panic for the first time in my life. before the pond was created. After much It was truly living in God’s world, learning I hit the muddy bottom and pushed back wrangling with my computer to record his about the wildlife about us and appreciating nature as a whole. Living upward, frantically splashing when I hit the voice, I was finally able to complete my task. uninhibited, you might say, with not surface. I must have caused quite a This is what he told me: many time clocks to punch. Yes, truly commotion, because everyone turned to look God’s world! at me. I saw my older brother—he never Yeah, well, Dad being what he was, and traveling to all the farmers, used to take I had not visited the Hait family pond, as paused a second—dash forward to the pond Larry and I out and drop us off at a it is referred to by many of us, in several years, and dive straight in. He saved me and brought stream and pick us up after he got done but I journeyed back with my wife and child me to where I could stand. We laugh about it breeding cows. And this one particular day, we were fishing around the pond while visiting my father. Standing along the now, but I am forever grateful to my brother area, the little streams, and I wasn’t bank of the pond, I was filled with the flood for his quick steps. I think it was then that he catching anything. Larry kept catching them over and over again. Dad came back, of memories I hold so dear. I saw myself became one of my life’s heroes. My brother’s and he joined us for a little while, and sitting at the end of the old diving board, memory of this event is far different than he’s catching them, Larry’s catching them, tossing my fishing line out so that I might mine: but I’m not catching them. I remember I was crying about it, because I just catch an old crafty trout for Uncle Herb’s couldn’t catch anything. Dad took me to breakfast. I saw aunts, uncles, and cousins I jumped in and saved you from about that little culvert on the stream that goes two feet of water . . . mighty heroic at the by the pond there, just about dusk, told laughing with joy at being with family. I saw time, as I was the only one to come to me to sneak up on my belly across that things I had not seen in far too many years. the rescue. dirt road, and drop my line in over the

40 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore edge of the culvert—little pond there. I aunt and uncle before making our long journey did that, and wham! I pulled out a fourteen-inch brown trout, the biggest home. My aunt would make the most Are you... trout I’d ever seen in my life. Had to have wonderful blueberry pancakes. We would new to the New York my picture taken with it. I don’t know leave that little pond after saying our good- how old I was then, maybe twelve. byes, and a small part of me would be left Folklore Society? We never did see that photo of the fish, but behind, faithfully awaiting our return the Dad’s story is part of our family’s folklore. following year. missing back copies My grandfather was an artificial cow breeder Many of my family members today talk of the journal? and spent his days traveling from farm to of the memories we have and smile about farm. I’d traveled with him from time to time our fondness for the little pond. The farm is as a child, and it was one of those experiences gone now, and only my aunt and uncle’s house, You can order the complete set or that I did not understand until I got older. where my cousin now lives, remains. My aunt fill in the gaps in your collection. My uncle Larry went on spending a lot of his and uncle built a beautiful little house on the Members: Order at the members-only free time fishing, and I have had the pleasure pond that has meant so much to my family, discount. To join the New York of joining him with my father a time or two. where they live today. My life has gone on, Folklore Society, see page 44. On some days, my siblings and I would and I have children of my own now. I go walk up to our aunt and uncle’s farm to see about my life, always remembering those days Single Issues the cows and horses or to try to snag a cousin of my youth, when life was beautiful and every Date or volume: ______to join us for swimming. I saw cows being day was an adventure. I do not know what $8 $10 nonmembers $______milked, and even calves being born. They were will happen to that little pond in the future, experiences that changed me. I saw the world but I do know that it will forever stay in our New York Folklore Quarterly of the dairy farmer for what it really was, and hearts and minds as a place of love and 1946 – 1974 not just the milk carton in the grocery store. I warmth. 58 issues watched my cousins working with their father, When I began to write this story, I knew $110 $125 nonmembers $______and at the time, I was glad not to be them. very little about folklore. My mother has been They worked from sunup to sundown, and recording our voices on audiocassettes for New York Folklore they worked hard. Sometimes my cousins years, but I had never really thought much 1975 – 1998 would come down to the pond and take a about it. When I recorded my father’s voice 32 issues quick dip to cool off, but then they were off on my computer, I had planned to delete the $85 $95 nonmembers $______again, doing the needed chores that kept the file after I had transcribed his words to print, farm going. As an adult, I look back and realize but now I think I’ll keep it. The recording New York Folklore Quarterly that I was wrong to pity them. Hard work is isn’t very good, but I want to have his voice and New York Folklore what made America the country it is. saved for when I can no longer talk to him. I 1946 – 1998 While my days were filled with sunshine also mean to buy a small recorder, so I guess 90 issues adventures, my nights were spent sitting you could say I have learned some things. $150 $175 nonmembers $______around a campfire, roasting marshmallows, To my Aunt Mary and Uncle Herbert Hait: and listening to the grown-ups talk. My I thank you for all that you have given me, TO ORDER grandfather would take a small copper pipe, realized or not, and it is my earnest hope that stuff it with cut up pieces of garden hose, you know how much you are loved by us all. Publications subtotal $______and toss it into the fire. The flames would This story was written for my grandfather, Shipping and handling turn many colors of the rainbow, and we Kenneth W. Hait, whose importance in my Add $4 for 1 to 5 issues, $20 for complete sets. $______children were all mesmerized by their beauty— life was realized much too late. His memory Total $______a simple trick, but it had the desired effect on and love shall never fade from my mind. us all. High above, the night sky was lit by Enclose check payable to New York Folklore millions of stars. The sky was free of earthly Society and mail to New York Folklore Society, P.O. Box 763, 133 Jay St., Schenectady, NY 12301. lights, so the stars shone in all their glory. I have looked to the stars over the years and ______John G. Hait lives in North Carolina Name still do today, but have never seen them so with his wife and children. He grew ______beautiful as during those nights of my youth. up in Maine, graduating from Wells Shipping Address High School. This is his first At the end of our vacation on the pond, ______published essay. Copyright © John G. City, State, Zip we were usually treated to breakfast with my Hait.

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 41 The Fan with a Thousand Faces BY JOHN THORN PLAY Death came to Frank B. Wood, retired sacrificed saviors and fisher kings: that of to mimic fertility and thus promote it. These electrician, on December 9, 1914, at age sixty- the common man who spurs his civic games were often staged between two halves nine. In an obituary in the New York Tribune representatives on to glory. Today fans are of a community, or wedded versus virgin, in two days later—the first to my knowledge players, too, for just as sport is a jumble of the form of bloody combat with sticks and ever penned to memorialize a man notable sublimated warfare and worship, fandom is stones. As kings began to question the honor for nothing but his allegiance to a ball club— sublimated play. Whether one views their odd of being slain for the good of their peoples, Heywood Broun wrote: actions as vicariously reenacted youth or the communal contest evolved into a fight echoes of archaic fertility rites or highly self- for possession of an effigy of the king Wood was a Giant rooter at a time when the fortunes of the team were at their conscious role play, fans are always (today’s ball or puck). A further innovation lowest. Nothing could dampen his underpinned by hope, which one may of the medieval period, one that spared the optimism. Often he would seek to root characterize as unreasoned expectation . . . or general populace and its ruler considerable his team home against leads of anywhere from 8 to 10 runs. . . . With blind faith . . . or black magic, to be bloodshed, was to delegate the competition the coming of better teams came finicky summoned forth by a skilled practitioner. of one town against another to their fans. To them the loyal rooting of Wood seemed just so much tireless Game day at the ballpark or arena creates respective “champions,” predecessor to reiteration. His catchwords remained something of the atmosphere of Mardi today’s Yankees or Mets player who dons unchanged and the sudden and ear Gras or Carnivale, feeble vestiges of the colors of his tribe and goes to battle. piercing shout of “Well, Well, Well!” did not always please strangers who sat Bacchanalian or Saturnalian rites which Like the processional leader or carnival king, close at hand. In fact, complaints were themselves are pale shades of bloody mystery the ardent fan is no mere spectator, but made and Wood was barred from the park for many years. rites in the sacred wood. In Rome, slaves somehow a participant in the drama: he would become masters for a week, and believes that the fervor of his rooting, the The New York Giants had just come off a peasants were in command of the city. The efficacy of his fetishes, will have a direct bearing World Series victory in 1905 when “Old Well- temporary inversion of social rank provided on the outcome. If luck is the residue of Well,” as he was universally known, was a safety valve to relieve the tensions in a rigidly design, as modern-day oracle Branch Rickey given the bum’s rush. In the year before his hierarchical society. As Robert Henderson posited, hope has been thought to be fueled death, however, thanks to a sympathetic wrote of those pagan holidays in Ball, Bat, by the special incantations or gyrations of security officer, Old Well-Well would regain and Bishop, “All forms of sexual license, gross Hilda Chester of Ebbets Field with her admittance to New York’s Polo Grounds and in the extreme, were freely practiced by all clanging cowbell and grating voice; Bill Hagy, emit one last rallying cry. “For the rest of the and sundry, while wine flowed freely. human alphabet of the Baltimore Orioles; game Wood was silent,” Broun wrote. “Not Processionals through the streets gave fresh Nuf Ced McGreevey of Boston’s giftedly only his voice had weakened, but his impetus to the wild orgies. At the end of abrasive Royal Rooters; or the screeching optimism, too. He left in the seventh inning the period, however, the person who acted “Well, Well, Well” of Giants rooter Frank B. because the Giants were four runs behind. as king forfeited his life—a stiff price to pay Wood. He did not come back all season, and no one for a brief period of merriment—after which As leaders of their packs, these archetypal heard his call again.” the usual routines of life returned.” kings and queens of fandom played dramatic Four years earlier, in the July 1910 issue of At the ballpark, common people with dim parts for which they had been fitted since Success magazine, Zane Grey had anticipated knowledge of the demands upon time began. There is, I suggest, more to play the denouement of the tale with eerie professional athletes exert a holiday mastery than good clean fun. prescience. In a short story entitled “Old Well- in an afternoon’s suspension of the social Well,” Grey returned his protagonist to the order. “By taking militant sides on matters Polo Grounds after a long absence to utter of which we have no firsthand knowledge,” one last, near-fatal whoop. The drama John A. Kouwenhoven wrote in Half a Truth John Thorn is the author and editor of concludes with the old clan leader, worn out Is Better Than None, “we satisfy a deep need many books, mostly and useless, being packed into an ambulance. to feel like responsible citizens without really about sports, as well as occasional pieces This is the way it ends for the hero with a having to be responsible.” for the New York thousand faces—in ignominy or death. Over Sport and religion rose together into the Times, Los Angeles Times, and Boston the past century America has added a Christian era, with Easter serving as Opening Globe. He lives in distinctive voice to the legendary roster of Day. People played ball games in the spring Saugerties, New York.

42 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore EYE OF THE CAMERA

Farewell to Film BY MARTHA COOPER

For the past couple of years, I have been urg- up in the New York Times and began to look images. I still use CDs and DVDs as backup, ing folklorists to take the plunge into digital online for more details from Nikon and for but the drives are more convenient for quickly photography. If you are one of the laggards, reviews by knowledgeable sources, like PC accessing images. perhaps Nikon’s announcement that it is dis- Magazine and epinions.com. The reviews were How did you learn to use your new equip- continuing nearly all of its film cameras in unanimous—this is the right camera for the ment and software? 2006 will persuade you to go digital. Folklor- serious amateur who wants flexibility and the When I purchased the D50, I also bought ist Varick Chittenden, director of Traditional feel and quality of a traditional single lens re- an instructional DVD that covers just about Arts in Upstate New York (TAUNY), recently flex camera. I decided on the D50 and on two anything. I wish I could find a one-day work- researched and bought his first serious digital Nikkor lenses—one is 18–55 mm zoom, the shop for amateurs taught by a good teacher camera. other is 55–200 mm zoom—because of the to help me to learn more. However, Nikon recommendations of reviews and conversa- How did you first dip your toe into digital has made so much accessible, and digital tech- tions with photographers. I found dozens photography? nology is so advanced, I feel very comfortable of stores online, some with remarkable dis- It has taken me a relatively long time. I was with the camera already. counts. Some of those stores were advertis- that way about computers and word process- ing two lenses and the Nikon body at a great What pros and cons are there for you per- ing twenty years ago, finding it hard to give up savings, but the lenses were not made by Ni- sonally and as a folklorist? the yellow pad and pencil to draft everything kon. I decided to buy from one of the stores As a folklorist, I’ve become a convert to before I labored over my electric typewriter. that the pros use, like Adorama or B & H, for digital photography. I never thought I would About four years ago I did buy a basic Kodak the combination. say that, but this camera choice and the little point-and-shoot digital for TAUNY, but only bit I’ve already learned about editing and stor- used it occasionally to document some activ- What software did you first use, and how ing images have made a big difference. The ity in the gallery or for our newsletter. I didn’t did you learn to use it? camera’s many auto features help me over like the small size and tiny controls. They just The first software I used was Microsoft Of- obstacles that I have always had difficulty with, don’t feel right in my average-sized male fice Picture Manager, part of the office suite yet I have the option of manual controls when hands! Every time I needed to take photos, I that came loaded on my Dell PC, which I pur- I feel I need them; the display provides in- found myself grabbing my trusted Minolta chased about four years ago. It does the ba- stant knowledge of what I have and what I 35 mm SLR film camera because it was famil- sics—cropping and other simple adjust- don’t in situations when I still might be able iar, and I knew I could get adequate results. ments—adequately for my ordinary photog- to shoot it over again. As for cons, storage raphy. Frankly, I learned to use it mostly by What finally made you decide to buy a se- and preservation have always been a problem trial and error. I find I’m not very adventur- rious digital camera? for me, and I expect it will continue. I do ous in making adjustments, mostly out of With film, I never felt that I was very good think CDs and DVDs are easy to lose track of, fear or frustration, but I’ve gotten better about at controlling light situations and often end- and who knows how long they will last. that over time. Later I installed Photoshop, ed up with disappointing results. The idea which I was able to do free, courtesy of the Are you still shooting any film at all, ever? that I could adjust the images back on the college where I taught. I found that software I still keep my Minolta 35 mm around and computer was appealing. Also I really could way over the top for my abilities or needs, so may occasionally shoot with film. But some- see that the handwriting was on the wall for I have since purchased Photoshop Elements one suggested to me not long ago a good use film when I saw almost everyone at family or 3.0, a simpler version of Photoshop that I for our old cameras may be as bookends— public events using digital and then going to am gradually learning to use. that may be sooner, rather than later! the drugstore to make their own prints. I just knew I had to get with the program! How do you store your digital photos? Martha Cooper is At first, I stored all my images on CDs. the director of How did you decide which camera and After I acquired Photoshop, I stored them in photography at City Lore. Her images lenses to buy and where to get them? folders on my hard drive for easy access, backed have appeared in I decided to buy a serious digital camera museum exhibi- up with CDs and DVDs. When I was having tions, books, and when Nikon introduced its D50 in the fall of my PC rebuilt last year, I installed a second magazines. If you 2005. For the first time, the price for a good have a question internal hard drive, which I now devote exclu- that you’d like her camera with good lenses was under my one sively to images. My next step will likely be an to address, send it thousand dollar limit. I saw the D50 written to the acquisitions external drive to store and carry larger and more editor of Voices.

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 43 Join the New York Folklore Society today and become a subscriber to Voices

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44 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore BOOK REVIEWS Proverbs and Play

Child’s Play: Dorothy Howard and entertainments of their parents and Modern day fieldworkers can find a hero and the Folklore of Australian grandparents. in Dorothy Howard, in the great accomplish- Children, edited by Kate Darian-Smith Showing clearly through the essays is Dor- ments of her time in Australia, and in the and June Factor. Melbourne: Museum Vic- othy Howard’s love for children’s play, which breadth of work that she developed from toria, 2005. 231 pages, introduction, photo- she describes in one of her essays as an “in- her study. In our present day, when children’s graphs, notes, works cited, appendices, in- satiable curiosity” (169). As one reads about folklore scholarship is entangled with hu- dex, $24.95 (AUD) paper. fieldwork documenting the varied games of man subject review boards and access to Anyone who has ever scoured through Australian children, including knucklebones, schoolchildren is limited, Dorothy Howard’s back copies of journals in the periodicals hopscotch, ball bouncing, autograph albums, “courage on the playground” reminds us of stacks of the library looking for articles by a counting out, marble games, and string the importance of gathering lore directly from particular author or on a particular subject games, one cannot help getting caught up in the folk. can appreciate the importance of an anthol- Howard’s enthusiasm for these games and —Claire E. Aubrey, Niagara County ogy of reprinted material. Child’s Play: Dor- wonder, as she did, where these traditions othy Howard and the Folklore of Australian would lead. Children gathers for the first time several of Some readers may wish that the final arti- Hans Christian Andersen: The Dorothy Howard’s articles on Australian chil- cle in the anthology addressed developments Misunderstood Storyteller, by Jack dren’s games, so that readers may realize the in folklore scholarship of Australian chil- Zipes. New York: Routledge, 2005. 171 pag- important role Howard played in children’s dren’s games and answered the many intrigu- es, index, $19.95 paper. folklore scholarship, both as a collector in ing questions posed by Dorothy Howard in I must start with a confession: I asked to Australia and as a scholar in the international her articles. Brian Sutton-Smith instead fo- do this review because of Danny Kaye’s por- folklore community. cuses on Howard’s definition of play, while trayal of Hans Christian Andersen. As a child Editors Kate Darian-Smith and June Fac- departing in his own writing from her field- I loved the movie, and my family had the tor do an excellent job of introducing Dor- work-reporting style. Sutton-Smith’s tribute sound track on a thick black seventy-eight. othy Howard and the Australia she encoun- to Howard’s “Courage in the Playground” Maybe that is where my love of folklore orig- tered on a Fulbright research scholarship in nevertheless clearly illustrates the impact of inated. I have, of course, discovered that the 1954–5. The breadth of the fieldwork that her fieldwork approach on modern folklore movie was a misrepresentation of the man, Howard accomplished during her ten scholarship of play. At a time when most but a part of me still holds it dear. months in Australia is staggering; it is dem- children’s folklore was collected from the Jack Zipes’ Hans Christian Andersen: The onstrated by both her published articles and memories of adults Dorothy Howard en- Misunderstood Storyteller considers Andersen’s the collections she left behind, which are held tered the playground to collect folklore di- work as closer to the traditional styles of folk- by the Museum Victoria. Darian-Smith’s rectly from the source. Sutton-Smith’s de- tales familiar to folklorists, which don’t al- chapter, “Children, Families, and the Nation scription of the work of some of his stu- ways include happy endings like the Disney- in 1950s Australia,” effectively incorporates dents at the University of Pennsylvania fied versions many people grow up with. He Dorothy Howard’s own impressions of shows the reader the impact that studying draws neat parallels between Andersen’s life Australia while establishing the historical children’s folklore from children has made and the manifestations of his beliefs and context of the period. on the field. experiences through his writing. The editors’ choice and arrangement of This anthology is a fitting tribute to a Zipes opens the book with these lines: essays contribute to the flow of the work. woman whose scholarship affected not “Hans Christian Andersen spent his life pur- The easy writing style of Dorothy Howard only the field of folklore, but the field of suing fame. In this respect the famous fairy- makes this work entertaining to read. education, as well. At a time when few ed- tale writer was a crazed lover, obsessed by Howard’s comments on the variation of ucators thought beyond standardized fame.” He goes on to provide evidence that, children’s games she found throughout means of educating children, Dorothy throughout his life, Andersen unsuccessful- Australia echo in the reader’s own experienc- Howard searched for a way to touch chil- ly sought acceptance from the upper classes es. Contemporary American readers are in- dren who were not being reached in the in his native Denmark, even as he gained vited to explore a world different than their classroom. Her search led her to the school fame throughout Europe. own through both space and time, yet sim- yards and public parks, where informal Andersen is mostly known for his fairy ilar in the shared games of childhood, while means of learning were succeeding in a way tales, but he was prolific writer. His oeuvre Australian readers can gain access to the games formal education could not. includes more than thirty plays, six novels,

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 45 travel books, volumes of poetry, essays, tales, Zipes highlights the gender roles depicted Two of the essays focus on the interaction and stories, and he was also a gifted orator by Andersen: women were rarely shown in a of traditional oral proverbs with literature. and performer. He was one of the most wide- good light and more often were subject to Charles Doyle’s “In Aqua Scribere: The Evo- ly traveled men of letters in Europe of his death and sacrifice, as in “The Little Mer- lution of a Current Proverb” is a historical time. Despite all of his triumphs, one diffi- maid.” The final chapter focuses on movie survey of the use of the proverbial phrase culty in writing a biography of Andersen is adaptations of Andersen’s work, including “writ in water,” found on the tomb stone the fact that he wrote three autobiographies, the Disney versions. of the poet John Keats. The chapter is a vast which were perhaps more fiction (or his de- This work, in whole or in part, is informa- collection that begins with early Greek and sire to immortalize the life he wanted, rather tive and useful for the classroom. It is an Latin texts and extends up to current times, than the life he had) than fact. His stories effective way to discuss how personal experi- with corresponding changes in meaning. Jan and other work also reflect his need to re- ence and culture affect stories and tales. Harold Brunvand’s essay, “‘The Early Bird write his life to show how a man from hum- A further confession: I’d like to watch the is Worth Two in the Bush’: Captain Jack ble and lowly beginnings can rise and suc- Danny Kaye version of Andersen’s life again, Aubrey’s Fractured Proverbs,” shows a dif- ceed. This story line crops up in several fairy but it will certainly be with a new understand- ferent interaction between oral proverbs and tales, in which a poor man through a series ing. literature by looking at how one author, of adventures outwits even the king to rule —Elinor Levy, Patrick O’Brian, played with proverbs and the kingdom. Northwest Jersey Folklife Project proverbial expressions across twenty books Andersen was writing at a time when fairy in one nautical novel series. These essays are tales were rising in estimation among the balanced by another with a survey approach: middle and upper classes, having earlier been What Goes Around Comes “Baseball as (Pan)America: A Sampling of viewed as the realm of the lower classes, and Around: The Circulation of Prov- Baseball-related Metaphors in Spanish,” by therefore as lesser literature. Zipes provides erbs in Contemporary Life, edited Shirley L. Arora. Arora’s baseball proverbs a context for Andersen’s work separate from by Kimberly J. Lau, Peter Tokofsky, and are pulled from existing collections of oral its usual historical place within children’s lit- Stephen D. Winick. Logan, Utah: Utah State traditions of Cuba and other Spanish-speak- erature—children were not Andersen’s only University Press, 2004. 190 pages, $22.95 ing countries of South America and the Car- intended audience—but within Andersen’s paper. ibbean region. The list is organized by sub- own life and pursuit of fame and the chang- What Goes Around Comes Around: The Cir- ject, and the proverbs are provided in both ing times in Denmark and the rest of Eu- culation of Proverbs in Contemporary Life is a Spanish and English. rope. superb collection of essays in honor of the In contrast to the essays based on literary Zipes tells a story of Hans Christian Ander- master paremiologist, Wolfgang Mieder. It research, there are two studies based on par- sen through an analysis of several of his sto- provides an excellent introduction to con- ticipant-observation of specific communi- ries, including “The Little Mermaid” and temporary proverb scholarship. All of the ties. Isaac Jack Lévy and Rosemary Lévy “The Traveling Companion,” comparing the essays are well-written and provide a range Zumwalt write about proverb use by story arcs to Andersen’s own life and philos- of research approaches; the book could be Sephardic Jewish storytellers, working from ophy, giving them layers of meaning beyond effectively used as an introductory text for recorded examples of stories told by a small a superficial reading or viewing of a movie college students. Individual essays will be number of performers over many years. In adaptation. For example, in the chapter “The noteworthy to those studying medical folk- this community of storytellers, proverbs are Discourse of the Dominated,” we read how lore, traditional narrative, children’s folklore, used to counteract any ambiguity about the Andersen sought to reify the Protestant eth- and popular and mediated culture of North storytellers’ desired reason for telling a par- ic and essentialist ideology of natural bio- and South America. Indeed, the proverbial ticular tale. Stories are used to make a specific logical order through his stories to gain ac- phrase “something for everyone” comes to moral statement; proverbs are told as intro- ceptance from the dominant class. The sto- mind when examining this collection. ductions, transitional devices, or conclusions ries have a Horatio Alger “rags to riches” The introduction has an excellent over- to make those moral statements unambigu- theme that appealed to the bourgeoisie. view of the problem of defining proverbs, ous. The other fieldwork-based study is Steve In the chapter “The Discourse of Rage and but manages to offer a working definition Winick’s contribution, “‘You Can’t Kill Shit’: Revenge: Controlling Children,” Zipes dis- that pulls the essays together. It provides Occupational Proverb and Metaphorical Sys- cusses how Andersen used children’s litera- examples of how proverbs in popular me- tem among Young Medical Professionals,” ture to sublimate his rage and feelings of dia, especially television, can enter into the which examines the use of a small set of misrecognition. He used his children’s tales oral tradition, giving us new proverbs and proverbial phrases in hospital communities. to speak against the abuse he felt both as a proverbial phrases, such as “if you build it, He concludes that these expressions are used child and an adult. Throughout the book, they will come.” to signal the discomfort experienced by

46 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore young medical professionals when confront- Study of Lineal Worldview in American Folk ican values, proverbs are used to teach values ed with patients who can’t be readily diag- Speech,” Dundes asserts that North Ameri- and morality to children. Drawing on many nosed. cans have a worldview that is primarily orga- years of research with children in summer Falling somewhere between the business nized in lines and lineal thinking—a broad camps, Mechling points out that children of compiling examples and studying specif- statement that might not take into account rarely use proverbs except to satirize them. ic communities’ use of proverbs, there are all classes, races, ethnicities, and gender roles. He suggests that participants in the culture three essays that use proverbs or the use of The very title of the book, What Goes Around wars instead look to the culture that children proverbs to analyze North American culture. Comes Around, stands as an example of the themselves maintain, in which morality and In “The Proverb and Fetishism in American diversity of American culture, which is only values have their own form of expression. Advertisement,” Anand Prahlad looks at partially acknowledged in Dundes’s essay. To If I could express one regret about this advertisements featuring images of white merely compile proverbs without closely ex- book, it is that it has no index of proverbs— women. Through those ads, he examines amining actual use and user becomes a sus- but that is just a quibble. The book makes the intersection of advertising, sexism, colo- pect project. Fortunately, the book is a di- folklore scholarship relevant without either nialism, and racism and finds that advertise- verse collection, and for that reason, Dundes’s oversimplifying or rendering the issues com- ments have become altars in the religion of essay remains interesting and at least plex to the point of uselessness. What Goes capitalism; women are fetishes that define a thought-provoking. Around Comes Around includes diverse ap- man by what he consumes. Proverbs pro- Jay Mechling’s “‘Cheaters Never Prosper’ proaches to paremiology, applications to the vide a sheen of tradition to mediate between and Other Lies Adults Tell Kids: Proverbs study of culture, and a focus on relevance conflicting Christian values and capitalism. and the Culture Wars over Character” looks that will engage students, trained folklorists, Closer to a literary compilation approach critically at the idea of using proverbs to pro- and anyone with an interest in contempo- is Alan Dundes’ study of a slew of proverbs mote character education and restore moral- rary culture. and proverbial phrases pertaining to lines. ity. In the “culture wars” of neoconserva- —Lee-Ellen Marvin, Ithaca College In “As the Crow Flies: A Straightforward tives who battle threats to traditional Amer- Creative Nonfiction

In his column in this issue, Tom van Buren refers to the New York Folklore Society's 2005 Writing Folklore conference, which was held in September in Tarrytown, New York. The poems presented here are the contributions of two of the conference attendees. The poems were produced as part of a writing exercise led by Steve Zeitlin, executive director of City Lore, in which participants were given the beginning prompt "I am." We are grateful to Yesha Naik and Marline A. Martin for their willingness to share their poetry with Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore. I am from the fog rushing over Twin Peaks and daughter that he lost to death but found again in and from the parched Sabarmati Nadi me a river that sometimes is I am from Aunti and Uncle at Saturday School and from the icy blue of snow-fed Tahoe and wearing the wrong color blue pants and I am from the sandy alley in Unava where getting in trouble our house doesn’t have a number I am from my little sister and brother age two and four not even a street name— weaving stories for their big-eyed wonder just “near Lakshminarayan Temple” when one was over and they begged for another I am from Ba with no teeth I told them they’d have to wait, because and an infectious laugh the stories, like naughty children, were running races and from Lakshman Dada around and around inside my head, and I’d have to of no near relation but full of stories stop, go inside and . . . of lotus roots he dived to eat CATCH one, before I could drag it out to tell them. And they believed me. continued on page 48

Spring–Summer 2006, Volume 32: 1–2 47 I am from too much responsibility Submission Guidelines for but also from duties shirked Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore I am from the pink-flecked cool tile porch seat wrapped around the front and back of my Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is a Style mother’s membership magazine of the New York The journal follows The Chicago Manual of Style. Consult Webster’s Third International Dictionary for ques- father’s house in Ahmedabad Folklore Society (www.nyfolklore.org). The New York Folklore Society is a nonprofit, tions of spelling, meaning, and usage, and avoid and from my dead black fingernail that fell off statewide organization dedicated to furthering cul- gender-specific terminology. my tural equity and cross-cultural understanding Footnotes. Endnotes and footnotes should be through programs that nurture folk cultural expres- avoided; incorporate such information into the text. finger after sions within communities where they originate, share Ancillary information may be submitted as a sidebar. I slammed it in a chair these traditions across cultural boundaries, and en- Bibliographic citations. For citations of text which I buried in my great-grandmother’s hance the understanding and appreciation of folk from outside sources, use the author-date style de- culture. Through Voices the society communicates scribed in The Chicago Manual of Style. garden, with professional folklorists and members of re- Language. All material must be submitted in where she grew meetho limdo—curry leaves. lated fields, traditional artists, and a general public English. Foreign-language terms (transliterated, —Yesha Naik interested in folklore. where appropriate, into the Roman alphabet) should Voices is dedicated to publishing the content of be italicized and followed by a concise parenthetical folklore in the words and images of its creators and English gloss; the author bears responsibility for the practitioners. The journal publishes research-based correct spelling and orthographics of non-English
articles, written in an accessible style, on topics re- words. British spellings should be Americanized. lated to traditional art and life. It also features stories, I am the distant sound of an African drum interviews, reminiscences, essays, folk poetry and Publication Process music, photographs, and artwork drawn from people Unless indicated, The New York Folklore Society I am the sugarcane from the overproof rum in all parts of New York State. Columns on sub- holds copyright to all material published in Voices: I am the echo heard in a cave jects such as photography, sound and video The Journal of New York Folklore. With the submission recording, legal and ethical issues, and the nature I am the descendant of a slave of material to the editor, the author acknowledges of traditional art and life appear in each issue. that he or she gives Voices sole rights to its publica- I am the river Niger and the Nile tion, and that permission to publish it elsewhere Editorial Policy I am Mother Earth’s golden child. must be secured in writing from the editor. Feature articles. Articles published in Voices rep- For the initial submission, send three paper cop- At birth I was ripped from my mother’s resent original contributions to folklore studies. ies and a PC-formatted disk (preferably prepared in bosom Although Voices emphasizes the folklore of New Microsoft Word and saved as Rich Text Format). York State, the editor welcomes articles based on Copy must be typed double spaced, on one side And was raised by a baboon and a possum. the folklore of any area of the world. Articles on of a sheet only, with all pages numbered consecu- I am the mountains and the trees the theory, methodology, and geography of folk- tively. To facilitate anonymous review of feature lore are also welcome, as are purely descriptive articles, the author’s name and biography should I planted the vegetation and hived the bees articles in the ethnography of folklore. In addition, appear only on a separate title page. I am Yemaya, Oya, and Oshun Voices provides a home for “orphan” tales, narra- Tables, charts, maps, illustrations, photographs, cap- tives, and songs, whose contributors are urged to tions, and credits should follow the main text and be Goddess of the sea, the wind, and the sun. provide contextual information. numbered consecutively. All illustrations should be —Marline A. Martin Authors are encouraged to include short personal clean, sharp, and camera-ready. Photographs should reminiscences, anecdotes, isolated tales, narratives, be prints or duplicate slides (not originals) or scanned songs, and other material that relates to and en- at high resolution (300+ dpi) and e-mailed to the hances their main article. editor as jpg or tiff files. Captions and credits must Typically feature articles range from 1,000 to be included. Written permission to publish each 4,000 words and up to 6,000 words at the editor’s image must be obtained by authors from the copy- discretion. right holders prior to submission of manuscripts, Reviews and review essays. Books, recordings, and the written permissions must accompany the films, videos, exhibitions, concerts, and the like are manuscript (authors should keep copies). selected for review in Voices for their relevance to Materials are acknowledged upon receipt. The folklore studies or the folklore of New York State editor and two anonymous readers review manu- and their potential interest to a wide audience. Per- scripts submitted as articles. The review process sons wishing to review recently published material takes several weeks. should contact the editor. Unsolicited reviews and Authors receive two complimentary copies of proposals for reviews will be evaluated by the edi- the issue in which their contribution appears and tor and by outside referees where appropriate. may purchase additional copies at a discount. Au- Follow the bibliographic style in a current issue of thors of feature articles may purchase offprints; Voices. price information is available upon publication. Reviews should not exceed 750 words. Correspondence and commentary. Short but Submission Deadlines substantive reactions to or elaborations upon ma- Spring–Summer issue November 1 terial appearing in Voices within the previous year Fall–Winter issue May 1 are welcomed. The editor may invite the author of the materials being addressed to respond; both Send submissions as Word files to Felicia Faye pieces may be published together. Any subject may McMahon, Voices Editor, at the following address: be addressed or rebutted once by any correspon- [email protected] (preferred) or 374 dent. The principal criteria for publication are Strong Road, Tully, NY 13159. whether, in the opinion of the editor or the edito- rial board, the comment constitutes a substantive contribution to folklore studies, and whether it will interest our general readers. Letters should not exceed 500 words.

48 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore