American Folklife Center

October-December 1985

Volume VIII, Number 1:

Mississippi Fiddle Music

Omaha Pow-Wow Revisited

Folklife Annual 1985

Publications

OMAHA INDIAN MUSIC HISTORIC RECORDINGS FROM THE FLETCHER/LA FLESCHE COLLECTION beneficial. But I am troubled when I tribution of the scholars-the contribu­

FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS hear passionate advocacy accompanied tion of naming-has not only preceded by disparaging remarks about scholars but served as a prerequisite to the work a quarterly publication of the who categorize culture instead of help­ of the activists, one might vote in favor ing it. There is room in our field for both of the scholars' contribution. But my analyzers and helpers of culture, both real moral is that scholar and activist at the taxonomists and advocates. In fact, the work symbiotically in our civilization, Library of Congress same person can do both, and a careful and naming is fundamental to what they analysis helps the advocate to advocate. accomplish.

Alan Jabbour, Director I would argue further that taxonomic This train of thought was prompted analysis, category-making, describ­ by my observing that a phrase the Ray Dockstader, Deputy Director ing- giving names to things-can have American Folklife Center seems to have Carl Fleischhauer as powerful an impact on cultural con­ coined is now working its way into other Mary Hufford servation as direct cultural assistance. areas of society. It is neither as tangible Dorothy Sara Lee When I was growing up in Jackson­ as "dogtrot house" nor as particular as Folklife Specialists ville, , we all used one word to " ballad" or "urban legend," and Peter T. Bartis, Folklife Researcher describe the modest frame dwellings one it describes not what folklorists study but

Patricia M. Markland, Program Assistant encountered throughout the rural land­ rather a cultural system that includes the Brett Topping, Writer-Editor scape of North Florida and in the work of folklorists in it. The phrase-or Magdalena Gi!insky, Contracts Specialist working-class neighborhoods in town. perhaps term-is cultural conservation. It Doris Craig, Administrative Secretary Lisa Oshins, Staff Assistant The word was "shack." With that word is defined in the policy study that takes as our guide, it is no wonder people it as a title-Cultural Conservation: The Pro­ Tel: 202 287-6590 agreed that such houses were a blight on tect.ion of Cultural Heritage in the United the landscape; the very name "shack" States, coordinated by Ormond H. implied it. Loomis (Washington, D.C . : The

Joseph C. Hickerson, Head Little did I know that, while I was Library of Congress, 1983). This col­ Gerald E. Parsons, Jr., Reference Librarian learning the word and worldview umn has previously reflected upon our Marsha Maguire, Archivist "shack," scholarly pioneers like Fred goals in the study itself ( Folklife Center Sebastian LoCurto, Staff Assistant Aldona Kamantauskas, Staff Assistant Kniffen were learning to see something News, Vol. V, No. 4, October 1982). more complex and interesting than what For now our subject is the phrase and Tel: 202 287-5510 I saw. They categorized buildings, its history as an example of naming. assigned names, speculated on tax­ Why we coined the term is perhaps Federal Cylinder Project onomic relationships, and began map­ the easiest part of the mystery of nam­ Dorothy Sara Lee, Director ping them as evidence of the regional ing to unravel. Our mandate, in The Judith A. Gray, Ethnomusicologist diffusion of American culture. Turning Historic Preservation Act Amendments an undifferentiated corpus of materials of 1980, was to provide a report on Tel: 202 287-9022 into an intelligible universe- bringing "preserving and conserving the intangi­ Washington, D.C. 20540 order out of chaos- takes a formidable ble elements of our cultural heritage.'' amount of naming, and the vocabulary But two considerations inclined us to they invented mixes terms borrowed search for a new term. First, the word Managing Editor: Brett Topping from tradition (dogtrot house, shotgun "intangible" defines negatively; it tells house) with terms invented or not what something is, but what it is not. shanghaied for the purpose. The whole Such words historically provide poor an­ process was full of the heady excitement chorage, and we wanted a better DIRECTOR'S COLUMN of discovery. In the 1960s I first en­ keyword in the report. Second, we saw countered their work, and I recall the that the report had to deal not only with Sometimes I think that we folklorists sensation of having the blinders fall away intangible elements of culture but with make our greatest mark upon society from my eyes. By the 1970s their ter­ tangible elements as well. What was when we name things. Taxonomists will minology was cropping up in the con­ needed was a conceptual system that take comfort in my assertion, but others versations of preservationists, and by the related efforts involving intangible may find it wrong-headed. For over a 1980s it was possible to visit a town like elements of culture to similar efforts on decade we have focused on assistance to Louisville, and have people behalf of tangible cultural artifacts. and advocacy for the people we study. from all walks oflife point with pride to "Cultural conservation" was our ter­ A willingness to undertake "hands-on" the "shotgun houses" lining their minological solution. We designated it work with various cultural traditions has neighborhoods. as the overarching term for an in­ become a virtual prerequisite for public­ It is intriguing to ask: Who con­ tegrated, comprehensive system for sector folklife positions. Now I am a tributes more to preserving vernacular working with cultural traditions. Within tireless advocate of advocacy, and our architecture in America, the scholar who it we discerned two subsystems for fervor to be helpful to the cultural tradi­ categorizes it or the advocate who urges cultural efforts: preservation and encourage­ tions we admire has no doubt been us not to tear it down? Since the con­ ment. Within each subsystem we

2 OCTOBER-DECEMBER specified various cultural strategies that it is hard to imagine our being the first it will certainly spread the term and con­ could be employed. We selected conser­ to happen upon it. once cept to thousands ofvisitors drawn from vation over preservation as the com­ mentioned having come upon "folklife" the general public. More recently, a live­ prehensive term for a host of (or perhaps "folk life") in a 19th-century ly debate inspired by the cultural con­ complicated reasons, ranging from the publication, though we think of it as a servation theme at the festival burst connotations ofthe two terms in current more contemporary term in English. upon the pages of The American Folklore usage to the fact that "cultural conser­ Similarly, no doubt, someone will soon SocietyNewsletter(Vol. 14, No. 5, October vation" alliterates. present us with early citations for 1985). When it was coined as a term, and by ''cultural conservation.'' When the AFS newsletter aired it~ whom, remain more mysterious. Office After its mysterious genesis, however, debate on the meaning of ' 'cultural con­ lore traces the moment of genesis to a the historical trail for "cultural conser­ servation," I had an impulse to chime staff meeting not long after we had vation" becomes a bit clearer. The term in with my own definition, but then launched the study. Who came up with was presented to the panel ofconsultants thought better of it. With naming, as the chosen phrase, under what cir­ who periodically met to assist us in the with publications, one must be schooled cumstances, and whether it received in­ study, and after due deliberation they by the moral implicit in the phrase " Go stant accolades or hesitant assent, endorsed its use as a keyword. Then its little book!'' which provides a formulaic already seem impossible to discover. public life began as a title on circulated ending to many medieval literary com­ Personally, I am fond of this aspect of drafts of the report. In time we began positions. Authorship is a painstaking, the term's history, which reminds me of referring to it not only in Folklife Center meticulous affair; yet there comes a mo­ nothing so much as the "singing, danc­ News but in myriad conferences and ment when that which is authored takes ing throng'' posited by early ballad academic meetings. After the report on a life of its own, proceeds on its own scholars as the collective creative source came out in 1983 the Center and the Na­ path, and assumes its own signification. for composing traditional ballads. tional Park Service established a One may launch a term in a general It remains possible that we were not Cultural Conservation Steering Com­ direction, but one cannot preciselv chart the first to use "cultural conservation." mittee to implement certain ad­ Indeed, the phrase now sounds so ministrative recommendations within natural to me, and has such a comfort­ the Department of the Interior. Center able ring (thanks to the alliteration), that staff began using the term in reference to some of their activities, and one ir­ reverent staffer was heard to say ''culcon.'' My first inkling that the term BOARD OF TRUSTEES "cultural conservation" was "taking ofr' came when I received in 1984 a Jeanne Guillemin, Massachusetts, copy of the program for the 38th Na­ its future course. Further- and here Chairman tional Preservation Conference, spon­ William L. Kinney, Jr., , namers must be chastened-the surest sored by the National Trust for Historic sign that a term is taking hold is that its Vice Chairman Preservation. One session, coordinated authorship begins to be lost sight of. Suc­ Edward Bridge Danson, Arizona by the Alliance for Historic Landscape cess and anonymity go hand in hand. David E. Draper, Preservation, was entitled "Cultural Someday, perhaps, we at the Folklife Ronald C. Foreman, Jr., Florida Conservation.'' I scanned the list ofpar­ Center may find ourselves asking: How Bruce Jackson, New York ticipants and concluded that someone have we contributed more to American St. John Terrell, New Jersey who had no immediate connection to the J. Barre Toelken, Utah folklife , by helping folk culture at the American Folklife Center had chosen the grassroots level or by launching a phrase term. "Cultural conservation" was that helps people think and act a bit beginning to appear without our more effectively with regard to-well, to bidding. Ex Officio Members cultural conservation? The answer, I am In 1985 the 's sure, will be that both strategies are ap­ Festival of American Folklife adopted Daniel J. Boorstin, The Librarian of propriate for the Center-within the "cultural conservation" as a focal theme Congress larger goal of cultural conservation. Robert McCormick Adams, Secretary of for a section of the festival. Visitors to the Smithsonian Institution the National Mall could stroll through Francis S. M. Hodsoll, Jr., Chairman, an extensive area ofthe festival, read at­ National Endowment for the Arts tractive exhibit texts, and become en­ ___, Chairman, National Endow­ gaged in events and activities under the ment for the Humanities explicit rubric of cultural conservation, , Director, American and the program booklet explored the Folklife Center theme in greater depth. Plans are now underway for a another cultural conser­ vation section in the 1986 festival, and

FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS 3 FIDDLE MUSIC

Herbert Halpert and the "sound wagon, "Saltillo, Mississippi, 1939. (All photos in this article are courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History)

On May 8, 1939 folksong collector Members of the Federal Writers', In addition to helping with the actual and scholar Herbert Halpert arrived in Federal Music, and Federal Theater recording, Ferriss kept fieldnotes on the Mississippi to document folklore and projects had been canvassing the state trip and took photographs of the musi­ during a recording tour ofthe since 1936. By the time Halpert arrived cians, their families, homes, and sur­ South sponsored by the Joint Commit­ they had assembled a prodigious list of roundings. At the project's conclusion tee on the Arts <;>f the Works Progress ballad singers, fiddlers, blues and gospel the recordings became part of the folk­ Administration (WPA). He drove into singers, and many other artists music collections at the Library ofCon­ the state in an old ambulance outfitted throughout Mississippi. gress. The photographs and much of the with cabinets, a small cot, food, and To take full advantage of Halpert's manuscript material related to the proj­ clothes. The ambulance also had special­ short visit, local WPA workers acted as ect remained in Mississippi. ly built shelves for the latest in recording intermediaries, preceding the recording The Mississippi Department of Ar­ equipment-an acetate disc recorder truck to make arrangements with the chives and History has now published lent by the Archive of American Folk performers he would visit and grouping Great Big Yam Potatoes: Anglo-American Fid­ Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture) artists in convenient places to minimize dle Music from Mississippi, an album of at the Library of Congress. travel and maximize recording time. fiddle tunes collected by Halpert and The arrival of Halpert and his "sound Following their schedule, with a few side Ferriss. To produce the disc folklorist wagon" marked the high point of a trips to pursue a couple of leads of his Tom Rankin researched the field re­ survey carried out by local members of own, Halpert cut 168 records between cordings at the Library ofCongress. The the WPA to locate Mississippi folk musi­ May 8 and June 11, 1939. Abbott Fer­ Archive of Folk Culture has a collection cians and record their songs and tunes. riss, a Mississippi native, assisted him. of 419 acetate disc recordings made by

4 FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS Meals in 1939 could be found in rural Mississippi for upwards of eighty-five cents or a dollar, and small hotels gave a night's lodging for one or two dollars. Even so, as we roamed the state recording folk music, Halpert often slept in the van he had driven from New York, and for convenience I sometimes found a bed in the spare room of the home of the musician whom we were recording. Over dusty gravel roads and the newly-laid hard surfaces, our itinerary had been arranged so that we roved the entire state: from the cool hills of Tishomingo County to the sands of Harrison, from Parch­ man to Quitman, and many cities and towns between. Represen­ tatives of the Writers or Music Projects in each county had alerted locally-known folk singers and musicians to expect us, had written down the text of many of their songs, and often accompanied us to the home of the informant. Also, Arthur Palmer Hudson's Folksongs of Mississippi led us to many singers of ballads and play­ party songs. We felt that, by following up on the leads of others and recording the authentic sound of a musical performance, we were contributing greatly to the study and preservation of Mississippi's John Hatcher of Tishomingo County, Mississippi was recorded at the same time and place folk culture. as John Brown on the following page. While Brown was recorded in the clothes in which Churches, schools and prisons he had just been plowing his fields, Hatcher had taken the time to put on his Sunday best. were used for indoor recordings, His five tunes on the disc are characterized as being among the finest in the collection. but the hot May-June weather usually led to recording on the Herbert Halpert in the South during the and string band. A companion booklet front porch of rural homes. An full WPA recording tour which extend­ includes extensive annotations by Tom automobile battery was wired to ed from March 15 to June 15, 1939. In Rankin and Gary Stanton. The booklet the heavy recording machine and addition, it has recordings of Halpert also contp.ins an essay by Rankin on the the twelve-inch wax put in place. discussing his work for the Federal WPA projects in the state, an analysis The needle cut from the inside Writers' and Federal Theater projects of Mississippi fiddling styles by Tom outwards, creating a black string of and research files containing interviews, Sauber, and a brief recollection of the wax. Silence was requested during correspondence, papers, clippings, and documentary tour by Ferriss, professor the recording, but it often was photographs resulting from the WPA's emeritus ofsociology at Emory Univer­ broken by a rooster or a cow or work. Rankin also located supplemen­ sity (see excerpt). the scrape of a chair over the floor tary background information and Great Big Yam Potatoes offers fresh in­ by family members or friends who photographs from the Mississippi por­ sight into the fiddle music of Mississip­ had come to watch. Halpert was tion of the recording tour at the pi as well as the work ofthe WPA. It can attentive to informant fatigue and Mississippi Department ofArchives and be obtained by mail for $8 plus $2 sometimes broke off a session so History. postage and handling from the Center that the performer could prepare The LP recording includes forty-two for the Study of Southern Culture, supper or rest; we often returned fiddle tunes from the eastern counties of University of Mississippi, University, the next day if we had met an ex­ Mississippi. Many are played solo, Miss. 38677. Volume discounts are ceptionally talented informant. others with a range of accompaniment, available. including ''beating the straws,'' guitar, Continued on overleaf

OCTOBER-DECEMBER 5 MISSISSIPPI and Middle English words mixed from the kitchen settled upon the with Scotch and Irish, transformed fields .... Continued from previous page by Civil War allusions and in­ These experiences led me to a Besides taking photographs, and fluences of cotton culture. We deep appreciation of Mississippi finding out when and from whom gathered work songs from the cot­ folk culture, a respect for the the song or tune was learned, to ton fields and prisons, play songs dignity and humanity of its people, the extent possible I also wrote of the genteel and proud Scotch­ both black and white, and an down the words. I could not Irish, fiddle, banjo, and guitar abiding motivation to understand always keep pace with the singer, tunes that had delighted the family the process of cultural accretion nor record more than a poor before the radio or and change. phonetic equivalent, in letters, of had substituted for this linkage the words. This process un­ with the cultural past, work songs Abbott L. Ferriss doubtedly resulted in as much and the plaintive "hal-loooos" and "Music Tour Remembered" misrepresentation as it led to ac­ calls to animals or family that were curacy, for we were finding Old heard as dusk and wood smoke

Great Bid Yam Pofafocs Anglo-American f1ddle MU8lc fromMirlll88lppi

John Alexander Brown, originally of Ita­ wamba County, Mississippi, was sixty­ seven when Halpert and Ferriss recorded his "careful and delicate fiddle style" in 1939. ''Ijust picked fiddling up from rrry daddy, '' he told them. "Just practiced the sounds of it, just listened. I heard a piece and went back home and played it. "His photograph is the basis for the recording's cover and booklet illustration.

6 FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS Bringing the Voices Home

THE OMAHA POW-WOW REVISITED

"Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see,'' goes the old saying. Off and on since 1973 I have worked with sound recordings in the col­ lections of the Library of Congress documenting early ethnographic field­ work, so I have had good reason to reflect on what can or cannot be learned from the sounds cut for us by the early collectors from among the densely tex­ tured sights, sounds, and movements they experienced. I had occasion to think further on what fieldworkers bring back for others to see and hear this last September, when I accompanied Folklife Center director Alan Jabbour, Federal Cylinder Project director Dorothy Sara Lee, and sound engineer Mike Rivers to the Omaha Tribal Pow-wow in Macy, ' Nebraska. We had been invited to pre­ sent the tribe with the newly released album Omaha Indian Music: Historic Re­ cordings from the Fletcher/La Flesche Collec- · tion. I am not a specialist in American Omaha drummers at the 192 2 pow-wow in Macy, Nebraska. (Courtesy of the Nebraska State Indian culture, so this article represents Historical Society - 1394-1 71) only an informal series of personal im­ pressions from a brief but memorable allow time for fanciful daydreams, so I notes, but it was Dennis's enthusiasm visit. dutifully sent the voices in the wax to that sparked the project to life. I first heard the Fletcher/La Flesche their places on tape, interspersed with Dennis added new dimensions to the recordings around 1980 in the course of my own identifying announcements and plans for the recording: that the Center my work as technical consultant to the technical remarks, and went on to the propose a collaboration with the Omaha Cylinder Project. I remember being next batch of cylinders. Tribal Council, and that the release of struck at the·time with the vividness of Several years later, in the spring of the album coincide with the annual pow­ the voices they preserved. It was not 1983, Dennis Hastings, the Omaha wow in Macy. It was for this event that merely that the recordings had less sur­ tribal archivist, visited the Cylinder Alan and I met in St. Louis on Labor face noise than most and were excep­ Project team. Although I was no longer Day weekend and flew on to Nebraska. tionally free of damage and distortion. a full-time member of the project staff, We were not attending the pow-wow as It was not, in fact, what the recordings I had returned to the Folklife Center mere observers (if there is such a thing lacked; it was what was there, surviving under contract to do further preserva­ outside the academic mind)-we would years of neglect-a kind of freshness of tion work on the cylinder recordings. be participating in a shared celebration presence, enabling the listener to im­ Dorothy Sara Lee brought Dennis of the return of the recordings, a part of agine not only the singers but the setting, around to the recording lab to show him Omaha heritage that had been lost and almost evoking the clarity of light and the cylinders and play him some of the now was being given a solemn but joyful the quality of the air. I had seen an old Omaha material. He listened with mo­ welcome home by the Tribal Council, photograph ofa grove ofoak trees on the tionless intensity, his excitement clear. the newly revived Hethu'shka (Warrior) Omaha reservation in Macy, Nebraska, Folklife Center staff had already been Society, and the Omaha people. where gatherings were held . . .. But thinking about producing an album of the demands of preservation work do not the Omaha material with accompanying Continued on overleaf

OCTOBER-DECEMBER 7 kind of retreat for both our staff and OMAHA POW-WOW pow-wow participants-a distraction pa­ Continued from previous page tiently endured by sound engineer Mike Rivers. Ifmy knowledge of the Omaha had heretofore been limited to what I Alan and I arrived in Macy about could gather from books and recordings, 7:30 p.m. Already in its second day, the his must now be firmly bounded by the pow-wow was in full swing. In the half­ aluminum frame of the vehicle's window light behind the risers that defined the through which he observed all the pro­ arena the immense, gaudy feathered ceedings. Throughout Saturday we kept headdresses and bustles worn by the fan­ the boxes containing disc and cassette cy dancers glared as though they had an copies of Omaha Indian Music under inner source oflight. The bells attached wraps, saving them for the ceremonial to the .leggings of the costumed men presentation Dennis and pow-wow MC made a steadily pulsing, high-pitched, Clifford Wolf were planning for Sunday. shivery noise like a field of crickets. It The dancing and singing was steady sounded to me disconcertingly like sur­ and compelling. Even when it was face noise on a cylinder-somewhere at broken by the "specials," formal oppor­ the back of my mind I kept identifying tunities for honoring individuals and the sound's frequency, as though I could giving away goods, one could still feel reach for a knob and edit it away. It took the music in the same way that the feel­ a while before I could not only accept it ing of being rocked by waves continues but enjoy it. after leaving a boat. The specials and It was bewildering to walk at early other breaks in the dancing were oppor­ evening through the very oak grove I tunities to listen appreciatively to the had seen in the old photograph, and forceful skill with which the Omaha en­ bewildering to hear the songs that I had dow their speechmaking. There was no heard before thinly rendered on wax and pretence of informality or casualness tape now shake the air and even make about it. It was clearly serious business the ground beneath my feet throb. The to speak, and speak from the heart. We overload of alterations and continuities knew that we would be expected to speak was confounding. But food is a great ourselves on Sunday, and hoped that we convincer; after I had eaten several tacos would somehow measure up. served on fry bread and further fortified Dennis reminded us that we would be myself with a bowl of corn soup, I was expected also to dance during our honor­ ready to sort out and even welcome any ing song. There were half a dozen further confusions of time, place, and clowns, male and female, scattered identity the weekend might bring. among the dancers, whom Clifford Wolf Dorothy and Alan, who had both referred to with glee as visitors from been in Macy before, introduced me Washington, D.C. from the renowned around and helped me find my feet. BIA tribe. I prayed that we would ac­ Dennis, a thoughtful head host, was quit ourselves as dancers acceptably if always handy to guide us through the in­ not with honor, and that pow-wows to tricacies of protocol we faced. Unex­ come would not include a comic con­ pectedly, I found that my voice (on tingent from the long lost AFC tribe. My preservation tapes from the Cylinder observation of the movements of the Project already circulating in Macy) women dancers took on a desperate in­ represented a point of recognition to tensity. those I met-just as my sole familiarity Perhaps for this reason, despite the Top right-Omaha women dancers at the with them was through the voices oftheir more dramatic and flamboyant leaps 1922 pow-wow in Macy, Nebraska. grandparents on the cylinders, they and feints of the men dancers, it is the (Courtesy of the Nebraska State Historical knew me by voice through the an­ image of the women dancing that re­ Society - 1394-167). Top left-Tribal nouncements on the recordings. It was mains with me most clearly. Too firmly Chairman Wade Miller introducing the like a meeting of people who had only rhythmic to be a glide, and too smooth Folklije Center's delegation to officially pres­ talked on the telephone: an odd blend to be a pace, the step is different and per­ of surprise and reassurance. sonalized for each woman, and yet the ent Omaha Indian Music to the Omaha On Saturday the weather was hot overall effect as the women move around Tribe. (Photo by John Carter - 233189­ enough that the recreational vehicle the arena is of harmonious and poised 118) Bottom right-Omaha women dancers rented by the Folklife Center as a record­ revolution. Several times in the course at the 1985 pow-wow in Macy. (Photo by ing station and headquarters became a of the women's dances MC Clifford Dorothy Sara Lee - 233189-3115)

8 FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS Wolfe called out ecstatically "How beautiful! How gracious! How delicious!" It was a curiously reverent and accurate review, and one which did much to help me, however briefly, ''see with a native eye" (to use Barre Toelken's useful phrase). Sunday's events began for us with a lunchtime feast given by Charlie Holt on behalfof the Hethu'shka Society and at­ tended by members of the society and their families. We sat in a circle on a windy hillside by an abandoned Mor­ mon church and ate our fill. Then, led by Hollis Stabler, one by one the men of the society stood and spoke to us of the meaning for them of the recordings that we had had a part in bringing back to Macy, and the meaning for them of the songs of the past in making one's way now as an Omaha in white man's society. I thought of many hours spent in a chilly back studio over the course of the last eight years, working on these and other old 7ecordings, and gave a silent thanks for the chance to have shared in this process and, finally, this meeting on a windy Nebraska hillside. Continued on overleaf

OCTOBER-DECEMBER 9 OMAHA POW-WOW

Continued from previous page

There is much more that could be said. I wish that I could list the many men and women whose generosity and hospitality made our visit so special. Perhaps it is right simply to express gratitude to all the Omaha people, past and present, who made the event possi­ ble. Sunday afternoon, during the for­ mal presentation of the recording at the pow-wow, I found myself imagining the arena crowded not only with the par­ ticipants of the day but with those who had consigned the songs to wax ninety years ago, perhaps hoping for just such a renaissance of appreciation. I thought, too, of Alice Fletcher. My studio at the Library in Washington was only a block from where the house once stood that she shared with her adopted son Francis La Flesche, and now I was in the grand­ stand of the arena in the grove of oak trees old already when she made her recordings. How ironic that of the many schemes by which she sought to benefit the Omaha people the only one bearing fruitful dividends today is her ethno­ graphic fieldwork, a task she undertook in the urgent certainty that the tribe's days as a distinct cultural group were numbered. Thank God she was mistaken. And thank God her mistake resulted in a body of song now finding its way home to the repertory ofa proud people, today very much alive.

-Erika Brady

• Previous newsletter articles on Omaha collec­ tor Francis La Flesche, the disc and cassette recording, and the annual Omaha tribal pow­ wow appear in Volume IV, No. 1, January Top-Alan Jabbour (second from left) 1981 ; Volume VI, No. 2, April-June 1983 ("Director' s Column"); and Volume VI, No. Omaha Indian Music: Historic Record­ presenting a copy of the recording to singer 4, October-December 1983 . ings from the Fletcher/La Flesche Collec­ Charlie Edwards ofthe Omaha Tribe. Join­ tion (AFC L71), published under the ing him are Erika Brady (center), Dorothy auspices of the Elizabeth Hamer Sara Lee (second from right), and archivist Kegan Fund with a generous grant and tribal historian Dennis Hastings. (Photo from the L. J. and Mary C. Skaggs by John Carter- 233189-1127) Bottom­ Foundation, is available in disc and Mike Rivers recording the pow-wow. (Photo cassette for $10.95 from Omaha In­ by Dorothy Sara Lee - 233189-4132) dian Music, Information Office, Box A, Library ofCongress, Washington, D.C. 20540. Please add $2 postage and handling. Also available at the sales counters in the Library'sJeffer­ son and Madison buildings.

10 FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS FOLKLIFE ANNUAL 1985

CONTENTS

Culture and the Cultivation of Nature: The Pinelands National Reserve by Mary Hufford

The Origin of the Pineys: Local Historians and the Legend by David Steven Cohen

The Archive's Shores ,by Archie Green

"The Teamster inJack MacDonald's Crew'': A Song in Context and Its Singing by Edward D. Ives

Range Culture and Society in the North American West by John Bennett

Tom and I Were Cowboys by John R. Erickson

"Born into the Stone": Carvers at the Washington Cathedral" by Marjorie Hunt

Watts Towers and the Giglio Tradition by I . Sheldon Posen and Daniel Franklin Ward

Howard Finster: Man of Visions byJohn F . Turner andJudith Dunham

Simon Rodia and his Watts Towers from Arts and Architecture Magazine, July 1951. (Photo by James Reed) Photos and excerpts on this and the following pages arefrom Folklife Annual 1985.

The American Folklife Center is demonstrated by the table of contents color-drawn from the collections ofthe pleased to announce the availability of and excerpts on these pages, they il­ Library of Congress and from many Folklife Annual 1985, the first volume in luminate many aspects ofAmerican folk other sources. a new series celebrating the traditional culture and its study-the performance Folklife Annual 1985 can be ordered for expressive life and culture of the United and collection offolksongs, the relation­ $16 (postage included) from the States. The essays in this 176-page, ship of inspiration and craftsmanship to Superintendent of Documents, U.S. clothbound volume were selected and folk art, continuous and changing Government Printing Office, edited by Alan Jabbour, director of the features of traditional occupations, and Washington, D.C. A check, charge card American Folklife Center, and James the interdependencies of communities number, or account number must ac­ Hardin, folklife publications editor for and their environment. The essays are company the order. Please refer to stock the Library's Publishing Office, and are beautifully illustrated with 136 number S/N030- 000-00169- 9. intended for a wide audience. As photographs and drawings-36 in full Continued on overleaf

OCTOBER-DECEMBER 11 ANNUAL Continued from previous page

Howard Finster preaching the word.

With as much determination as he preached to Baptist congrega­ tions in rural and for most of his life, Howard Finster began in 1971 to build and plant a garden in the two-acre yard behind his home in Summerville, Georgia. Like many of his ideas, this one came from a vision, wherein, he said, "it come to me to build a paradise and decorate it with the Bible." Over the past twenty years, Finster has filled his most celebrated creation not only with vegetation but also with hundreds of objects, concrete pathways embedded with broken glass, towers constructed from cast­ offs, and other impressive and ec­ centric structures-interspersed with Bible verses handpainted on wooden signboards or spelled out in mosaic.

From "Howard Finster: Man of Visions" With an rye on the scupltor's plaster image behind him, Roger Morigi uses a pneumatic ham­ by John F. Turner and mer to carve the image of the Good Shepherd for the Washington Cathedral. (Photo ~Y Morton Judith Dunham Broffman)

12 FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS Wet harvesting with "walk-behind" To know that an artifact is a Cranberry culture may not be a machines at the Haines 's bogs in folk artifact, one must know the performing art, but it generates a Chatsworth, NJ (Photo by Joseph processes that generated the ar­ lot of audience. Since the advent of Czarnecki - 216395-4123) tifact. A folk artifact is not merely wet-harvesting in the early 1960s, an object created by one of the the harvest has provided a colorful Stone carvers view themselves as "folk," but a material product of spectacle of bobbing red berries performers engaged in the skillful the folk process, a physical herded toward a conveyor belt act of interpretation. ' 'The manifestation of the interplay of through water reflecting a deep sculptor is the composer," says tradition and innovation, an in­ blue sky, ringed with amber sand Vincent Palumbo. "He creates herently pragmatic mixture of and bright evergreens. It attracts whatever he has in his mind. And communally accepted convention busloads of schoolchildren and a the carver is the performer. Our and situationally demanded inven­ spate of reporters each.fall. work is to transfer into stone what tion. Although Sam Rodia was Machines for wet-harvesting are the sculptor creates in clay. But, thought to be something of a essentially large horizontal egg­ nevertheless, on the carver goes "crazy" by many viewers of his beaters that knock the berries off much more responsibility, because work, few would have argued that the submerged vines. There are the carver's doing the finished he was not also "folk" by any two kinds of wet harvesters: "ride­ product." David Pye in his book definition of the term. Calling the ons" and "walk-behinds." The The Nature and Art of Workmanship Watts Towers "folk" art, however, berries shoot to the surface, where aptly describes craftsmanship as raised the problem of Rodia's they are shepherded ("hogged") the "workmanship of risk." The marginal position in the communi­ over to the conveyor belt that carvers certainly attest to this: ty of Watts. There were no other raises them onto a truck. The hog­ " The sculptor has the option with Italians around. How could Rodia ging method was developed by clay to put on and take off, but the and his work operate within a Eduardo Torres, one of the farm carver's only got one chance and tradition if he was alone in his hands at the Haines bogs in Hog it's got to be the right one. If he world? Wallow. takes off more than he's supposed to, he's ruined." From "Watts Towers and From ' 'Culture and the From " 'Born into the Stone': the Giglio Tradition" Cultivation of Nature: Carvers at the Washington by I. Sheldon Posen and The Pinelands National Cathedral" by Marjorie Hunt Daniel Franklin Ward Reserve" by Mary Hufford

OCTOBER-DECEMBER 13 Washington, D.C. 20402; stock no. 96 pp.; $8 (Stock no. S/N030-000­ PUBLICATIONS S/N030-000-00127-3. Also available 154-1) . Describes Benjamin Ives from the sales desks in the Library'sJef­ Gilman' s cylinder recordings from the CURRENTLY ferson and Madison buildings. 1893 World' s Columbian Exposition AVAILABLE No. 9-American Folk Architecture: A and the "Demonstration Collection" Selected Bibliography by Howard Wight edited by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel Marshall with assistance from Cheryl and issued by the Berlin Phonogramm Gorn and Marsha Maguire, 79 pp. Ar­ Archiv shortly after World War I. Mail Unless otherwise noted, available at ticles and books on theory, antecedent order with remittance, citing stock no charge from the American Folklife references from the British Isles, and number, to: Superintendent of Center. resources dealing with specific regions of Documents, Government Printing Of­ American Folklife Center. A general the country. fice , Washington, D.C. 20402 . brochure on the Center. No. 10-Cultural Conservation: The Pro­ El Centro Americana de Tradicion Popular. tection of Cultural Heritage in the FOLKLIFE ANNUAL A Spanish translation of the Folklife by Ormond Loomis, 123 pp.; $4.50. A Folklife Annual 1985, edited by Alan Center's general brochure. report on means of preserving intangi­ Jabbour and Jim Hardin, clothbound, Archive of Folk Culture. A general ble features of the nation's cultural 176 pp. ; $16. A collection of essays on brochure on the Archive. heritage, with an appendix that traces folk artist Howard Finster, the An Inventory of the Bibliographies and the history of relevant legislation and a stonecarvers at the Washington Other Reference and Finding Aids Prepared by bibliography. Mail order with remit­ Cathedral, Sam Rodia's Watts Towers, the Archive of Folk Culture. Information tance, citing stock number, to: cowboys, the Archive of Folk Culture, handout. Superintendent of Documents, Govern­ .folk songs and folk singers, and residents A Guide to the Collections ofRecorded Folk ment Printing Office, Washington, of New Jersey's Pinelands National Music and Folklore in the Library of Congress. D .C . 20402; stock no. S/N030-000­ Reserve. With 136 illustrations, 36 in Information handout. 00148-6. color. Mail order with remittance, citing Folklife Center News. A quarterly No. 11-Traditional Crafts and Crafts­ stock number, to : Superintendent of newsletter. manship in America: A Selected Bibliography Documents, Government Printing Of­ by Susan Sink, 84 pp. An indexed fice, Washington, D.C. 20402; stock no. PUBLICATIONS OF THE bibliography, citing Library of Congress S/N030-000-00169-9. AMERICAN FOLKLIFE call numbers. Produced in cooperation CENTER: with the National Council for the Tradi­ RECORDINGS: No. 3-Folklife and Fieldwork by Peter tional Arts. Children of the Heav 'nly King: Religious Bartis. A 25-page introduction to Expression in the Central Blue R idge (AFC fieldwork techniques. STUDIES IN AMERICAN L69/70), edited and annotated by No. 3A-Tradicion popular e investiga­ FOLKLIFE: Charles K. Wolfe, two discs and a cion de campo. A Spanish translation of No. 1-Ethnic Recordings in America: A 48-page illustrated booklet; $14. Folklife and Fieldwork. Neglected Heritage, edited by Judith Available from the Recording No. 6-Buckaroos in Paradise: Cowboy McCulloh, hardbound, 269 pp.; $13. A Laboratory, Motion Picture, Broad­ Life in Northern Nevada by Howard Wight collection of essays on the history and casting and Recorded Sound Division, Marshall and Richard E. Ahlborn current status of the ethnic recording in­ Library ofCongress, Washington, D .C. (reprint), 120 pp.; $15.95 . A companion dustry, with numerous illustrations and 20540 . Checks payable to the Library of publication to the 1980 Smithsonian ex­ a complete index. Mail order with remit­ Congress must accompany order. hibit, including an essay on buckaroo tance, citing stock number, to: Omaha Indian Music: H istoric R ecordings life, a catalog of exhibit artifacts, and Superintendent of Documents, Govern­ from the Fletcher/ La Flesche Collection (AFC numerous photographs. Available from ment Printing Office, Washington, L71 ), edited by Dorothy Sara Lee and the University of Nebraska Press, Sales D.C. 20402; stock no S/N030-001­ Maria La Vigna, disc or cassette and Department, 901 North 17th Street, 00098-2. 20-page illustrated booklet; $10. 95. Lincoln, Nebraska 68588. Also available No. 3-The Federal Cylinder Project: A Available from Omaha Indian Music, from the sales desks in the Library's Jef­ Guide to Field Cylinder Recordings in Federal Information Office, Box A, Library of ferson and Madison buildings. Agencies. Volume 1-Introduction and In­ Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540. No. 7-Blue Ridge Harvest: A Region's ventory by Erika Brady, Maria La Vigna, Please include $2 postage and handling. Folklife in Photographs by Lyntha Scott Dorothy Sara Lee, and Thomas Ven­ American Folk Music and Folklore Re­ Eiler, Terry Eiler, and Carl num, Jr., 110 pp.; $8.50 (Stock no. cordings 1983: A Selected List. An an­ Fleischhauer, 115 pp.; $6. A close look S/N030-000-00153-2). An indexed notated list of thirty-one 1983 recordings at cultural landscapes, communities, listing by collection of more than 10,000 selected by a panel as outstanding ex­ religious expression, and life-style por­ field-recorded wax cylinders for which amples of records containing " root" traits of men and women from the area. preservation-tape copies exist at the traditions. Mail order with remittance, citing stock Library of Congress. Volume 8-Early American Folk Music and Folklore Re­ number, to: Superintendent of Docu­ Anthologies, edited by Dorothy Sara Lee cordings 1984: A Selected List. An an­ ments, Government Printing Office, with a foreword by Sue Carole De Vale, notated list of thirty 1984 recordings

14 FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS of blue reindeer and fir tree on a red background, and papercut by Claudia Hopfofa black tree, leopards, and fowls on white background in the German scherenschnitte style; ten pages oftext and illustrations on the origins of papercut­ ting and techniques used; blank center­ fold for greeting with patterns for cutouts on reverse side. Card with envelope, $2. Brochures-The Art ofBasketmaking by Rosemary Joyce; Halloween: The Folklore and Fantasy of All Hallows by Jack San­ tino; Rag Rugs by Geraldine Johnson; and Weaving Harvest Grains by Caroline Schultz. Greeting cards-Blueberries on a bush taken during the 1983 Pinelands Folklife Project; and Watermelons, both red and yellow, photographed during the 1977 South-Central Georgia Folklife Project. Package ofsix blank cards with envelopes, $3.50. Recipe greeting cards-CanningJars in the home of Mae Willey from Baywood, with Ruth Newman's recipe for uncooked relish on the back; Tomato Meringue Pie card with Ruth Newman's pie recipe on the back; Cranberries with a Pinelands recipe for cranberry pie; and Apple­ Black Walnut Cake photograph with cake recipe on back. Package of six blank cards with envelopes, $4.25. Postcards-a selection of postcards reproducing quilt photographs from the 1978 Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project. Package ofeight postcards, $2. selected by a panel as outstanding ex­ a glimpse of cranberry cultivation and POSTERS AND T-SHIRTS amples of records containing "root" use in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Poster-"Washington Meeting on traditions. The book grew out of the Pinelands Folk Art," designed by John Crank of Folk Recordings: Selected from the Archive Folklife Project, and the recipes were col­ Staples & Charles Ltd. Black tree with ofFolk Culturt;. Brochure and order form. lected from residents of the region. blue, orange, yellow, and black birds, Watermelon by Ellen Ficklen, 64 pp.; $10. and orange lettering at base; twenty by RECIPE BOOKS, BROCHURES, For watermelon lovers everywhere, in­ twenty-six inches. Signed, hand printed AND GREETING CARDS cludes historical and dietary facts, and colored, limited edition (100), $50; All items for which a price is indicated humorous observations, poetry, and a printed edition, $10. are available at the sales counters in the touch of serendipity to capture some­ T -Shirt with a green tree-of-life Jefferson and Madison buildings of the thing of the good-times feeling that emblem and red lettering ''American Library of Congress and by mail order watermelons seem to produce. Amply il­ Folklife Center, Library of Congress" from the Library ofCongress, Informa­ lustrated in color and duotone. Contains on the front; heavy 100% tan cotton in tion Office, Box A, Washington, D.C. "tried-and-true" recipes and newer men's sizes small, medium, large, and 20540. Please include $1 postage and thoughts on the subject of watermelon extra large, $6.95. handling for single orders and $2 postage consumption. Books, recordings, posters, greeting cards, and handling for multiple orders. Those Greeting card/brochures- Egg Art. and other items sold by the Folklife Center at for which no price is given are available Color cover; ten pages of text and il­ the sales counters in the Jefferson and Madison free ofcharge from the Folklife Center. lustration on the traditions associated buildings and by mail order are published under Recipe books-Cranberries, 132 pp.; with eggs and egg-decorating tech­ the auspices of the Elizabeth Hamer Kegan $5. Combines color cover and illustra­ niques. Papercutting. Color covers­ Fund. Contributions to thefund, which assists tions with traditional recipes to provide Polish wycinanki by Magdalena Gilinsky the Center's publications efforts, are tax exempt.

OCTOBER-DECEMBER 15 (Volume 8). She also joined Maria La in library science from the University of STAFF CHANGES Vigna in editing the Center's recently California at Berkeley. Prior to her released documentary record Omaha In­ tenure at the American Film Institute, dian Music, an LP disc of historic wax­ Maguire held a position with the The Folklife Center is pleased to an­ cylinder recordings made between 1895 Library's Motion Picture, Broadcasting nounce several recent staff changes. and 1910 by Alice Cunningham Fletcher and Recorded Sound Division. She has Dorothy Sara Lee has joined the staff as and Francis La Flesche. Her other also worked as an intern and later as a folklife specialist, filling the position publications include Franklin County contract consultant for the Archive of vacated by Elena Bradunas. Marsha Folklore, Native North American Music and Folk Culture, during which she assisted Maguire is now archivist for the Archive Oral Data, and "Toward an Understand­ in the completion of a number of of Folk Culture, a newly created posi­ bibliographies and finding aids, in­ tion, and Aldona Kamantauskas has cluding American Folk Architecture and received a two-year appointment to the American Indian and Eskimo Music. Her ar­ Archive's staff to undertake various ad­ ticle "Confirming the Word," which ministrative and reference-related ac­ discusses the Eleanor Dickinson collec­ tivities. tion in the Archive, appeared in the Dorothy Sara Lee from New York Ci­ Library's Quarterly Journal (Summer ty has worked on the Center's Federal 1981 ). Cylinder Project since 1981, becoming ing of Music and Identity in the Social Aldona Kamantauskas from Colum­ its director in 1982. She received her World'' in Discourse in Ethnomusicology: A bia, Maryland is a graduate of Kenyon doctorate in folklore and ethnomusi­ Tribute to Alan P. Merriam. College, where she majored in drama cology from Indiana University. Her Marsha Maguire comes to the Center and theater arts. She was previously an dissertation analyzes music performance from the American Film Institute in Los intern in the Archive of Folk Culture. and identity in Fiji. She is editor of the Angeles, where she was working on The She has also worked under contract on Center's catalog series The Federal American Film Institute Catalog of Feature occasion to process donated and loaned Cylinder Project: A Guide to Field Cylinder Films, 1911-1920. A native of San collections of unpublished recordings in­ Recordings in Federal Agencies, two of which Diego, California, she holds a master's to the Archive's holdings. have appeared-Introduction and Inventory degree in folklore from George The Center is happy to welcome all (Volume 1) and Early Anthologies Washington University and a master's three to its staff.

Cover illustration for the Center's LP disc and cassette recording Omaha Indian Music: Historic Recordings from the Fletcher/La Flesche Collection.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS FIRST-CLASS MAIL AMERICAN FOLKLIFE CENTER POSTAGE & FEES PAID WASHINGTON, D.C. 20540 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON, D.C. OFFICIAL BUSINESS PERMIT No. G-103 PENALTY FOR PRIVATE USE, $300

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