,j iVJ I t n 3 o ri i a r \j ;J ^_ j. r\ r\ r \ 1 r r -1 L_ U > \J j_ Members of the Ethiopian Christian community participate in an annual candlelight ceremony called Maskal (cross finding) at Malcolm X Park in the District of Columbia. Photo by Harold Dorwin, © Smithsonian Institution 6 Smithsonian Institution Festival of American Folklife On the National Mall WASHINGTON, D.C. June25— 29&July2— Cosponsored by the National Park Service 1997 Festival of American Folklife Hazel Dailey from Columbia, Louisiana, works with the insert to the pressure cooker she uses in canning produce. Photo by Sylvia Frantom Tradition-based social occasions like this coffee ceremony at the Washing- On the Cover ton, D.C., home ofHermela Kebede reinforce ties between generations of At this baptism at Lake Providence, Louisiana, in the Delta region, the minister Ethiopian women living in the United repeats a prayer as each candidate, dressed in traditional robe and headgear, States. Photo by Harold Dorwin, is immersed. The baptized are then received by members of the church and ©Smithsonian Institution taken away to change. Photo © Susan Roach At a gathering of the lion Christian Church in South Africa's northern province ofMoria, the men of Site Map on the Back Cover Mokhukhu dance as an expression of faith. Photo © T. J. Lemon The Carolina Tar Heels (left to right, Clarence [Torn! Ashley, Doc Walsh, Owen Foster), ca. 1930. Photo courtesy CFPCS Archive Crop dusting cotton fields in the Mississippi Delta. L Photo © Maida Owens 27 1997 Festival of American Folklife General African Sacred Sounds Information 84 Immigrant Folklife James Early Services & Hours Diana Baird N'Diaye Sacred Sounds: Belief & Society 60 Participants African Immigrant Culture in 36 Marcus Ramogale & Sello Galane Daily Schedules Metropolitan Washington, D.C.: Faith in Action: Mokhuhku 63 Contributors & Sponsors Building & Bridging Communities oftheZion Christian Church Staff Celebrations in African Teachers Seminars Angela Impey Immigrant Communities Friends of the Festival Songs of the Night: Isicothamiya 67 Sulayman S. Nyang Smithsonian Folkways Recordings Choral Music from KwaZulu Natal Islamic Celebrations in the African 40 Immigrant Communities in Washington, D.C. Jeff Todd Titon Contents Kwaku Ofori Ansa & Peter Pipim Old Regular Baptists of Southeastern 71 I. Michael Heyman NatureS Significance of Durbar 41 Kentucky: A Community of Sacred Song The Festival: More Than a Song 6 in Ghanaian Societies Molly EgonduUzoS Bruce Babbitt Friends of the Festival Tonye Victor Erekosima On the Banks of the River Together 7 Ralph Rinzler Ikeji Masquerade in New York City & 4z Richard Kurin Memorial Concert: Ofirima Masquerade in Washington, D.C: Celebrating the Revival of Old-Time The Festival of American Folklife: 8 Research Reports on Two Cultural Adaptations Southern Music & Dance 75 Culture, Dead or Alive? Diana Baird N'Diaye with Gilbert Introduction — Kate Rinzler Ogunfiditimi Frederick Ogunfiditimi Diana Parker & Introduction —Mike Seeger Yoruba Naming Ceremony in 44 The Festival of American 8 Washington, DC. Bess Folklife & You Lomax Hawes When We Were Joyful 77 Remi Aluko & Diana Sherblom The Mississippi Delta Passing Culture on to the 45 Mike Seeger Tom Rankin Next Generation: African Immigrant Crusaders for Old-Time Music 78 Cane Brakes, High Water, 1 Language & Culture Schools in Brad Leftwich Drought: The Mississippi Delta Washington, D.C. Coming of Age 79 Deborah Boykin From a Research Report by Kofi Kissi At Home in the Delta 1 Dompere & Cece Modupe Fadope ©1997 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION African Immigrant Music & Dance 48 ISSN 1056-6805 Susan Roach in Washington, D.C. editor: Carla M. Borden "Willing to Take a Risk": 21 associate editor: Peter Seitel Working in the Delta Nomvula Mashoai Cook & art director: KennShrader Betty J. Belarus Mike Luster designer: Karin Hayes A Taste of Home: African 51 At Play in the Delta 26 production manager: Eric Conn Immigrant Foodways Joyce Marie Jackson Ann NosiriOlumba "Like a River 31 African Immigrant 54 Flowing with Living Water": Community Broadcast Media Worshiping in the Mississippi Delta Kinuthia Macharia 57 African Immigrant Enterprise in Metropolitan Washington, D.C: A Photo Essay Smithsonian Institution Festival of American Folklife . 1997 Festival of American Folklife The entertainment industry today dominates popular The Festival: views of culture. Cultural enterprises including movies, television, theme parks, recordings, and video stores constitute one of the world's largest industries. More Than There is another world of culture created and sustained in homes, communities, places of work and worship. Our lullabies and hymns, liturgical chants and celebratory a Song songs, songs of work, struggle, and mourning, are rarely heard in music stores or on radio stations. It is the culture highlighted at our annual Festival of American Folklife. /. Michael Heyman We have three programs at this year's Festival. Sacred Secretary, Smithsonian Institution Sounds brings together people from a variety of religious communities, from around the nation, Jerusalem, and from South Africa. Their songs express spiritual feelings and There is another world convictions connecting their lives to tradition. A second program, African Immigrant Folklife, illus- of culture created and trates the many traditions of recent immigrants to the United States from Africa. These immigrants participate in sustained in homes, a changing culture, as people, families, and communities find their place in American society. communities, places of The Mississippi Delta, the subject of a third Festival program, is a culturally rich region of the United States work and worship. that has given us blues, jazz, rockabilly and rock 'n' roll, honky tonk, distinctive forms of gospel, oratory, marvel- It is the culture ous stories, folk and visionary art, and an encyclopedia of river lore — not to mention barbecue and fish fries. These highlighted at our cultural expressions have been continually shaped by the daily experience — the work, worship, home life, and annual Festival of recreation — of the people who live there. The Festival is a good example of how the Smithsonian American Folklife. can reach large audiences in an educational and enter- taining way. As its organizers are fond of saying, though, the Festival is also much more than occurs on the National Mall. Over the past decade the Festival has generated more than a dozen television documentaries, a score of Smithsonian Folkways recordings, learning guides for schools in several countries and various regions of the United States. And now we have the Virtual Festival on our World Wide Web pages (at www.si.edu/folklife/vfest). Our course is clear. We must use modern mass media to communicate the value of cultural traditions while maintaining our values as scholars and educators. Our "ratings" are measured by how successfully we can reach the broadest number of people and thus realize our original mission to increase and diffuse knowledge. Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife 1997 Festival of American Folklife The Department of the Interior has as part of its On the mission the protection of a magnificent and bounti- ful heritage. This includes the natural environment, like America's rivers and other waterways. But it also Banks of includes our cultural heritage, that which defines our sense of place and unites us as a people, as a nation, and as a world community. the River This year at the Festival we are proud to join with the Smithsonian Institution in celebrating the traditions of the Mississippi Delta, a culturally rich region where Native, Together Spanish, African. French, and American people all merged, just as many tributaries flow into one river. Beginning even before the arrival of Europeans, the Bruce Babbitt Mississippi has been a source of food and irrigation, a Secretary of the Interior highway for commerce, a strategic center for political power, a source of inspiration for song and spirit. We also celebrate the enterprise and vitality of recent The Department of the immigrants to the United States from Africa, who have brought their cultures across the Atlantic Ocean. At the Interior has as part of Festival, we will also hear in Sacred Sounds some of the ways in which music flows from the spirit of a diverse its mission the humanity to express its highest aspirations. It is most fitting that we gather on the lovely National protection of a Mall, here among the national monuments and museums. Here we are part of the confluence of two historic and magnificent and living watersheds, the Anacostia River and the Potomac River; where their waters and traditions join together, we bountiful heritage.... celebrate our American and human cultural heritage. [This] includes our cultural heritage. Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife 1997 Festival of American Folklife nyone who visits cowboys to The Washington. D.C., taxi drivers, The A around the Fourth meat cutters, of July can't miss the bricklayers. Festival of Festival of American Senators (as Festival of Folklife. Held in coopera- in baseball tion with the National Park players) and American Service, spread out in a sea senators (as American of large white tents across in members the National Mall, the of Congress), Folklife: Festival is an annual living doctors, trial Folklife & exhibition of cultural her- lawyers, itage from around the domestic Culture, United States and the servants in You world. It extends the the White ^\ __ _ _J