Fall–Winter 2008 Volume 34: 3–4
The Journal of New York Folklore
Meskhetian Turks
Fretted Dulcimers
Passover Rituals
Pan Am 103 Remembrance Quilt
NYC’s Filer-Machol
Nepali People of Bhutan From the Director
With this issue we instrumental in the early formation of that biannually, and readers can expect to receive bid a fond good-bye council’s Folk Feet program, which high- their copies reliably in October and May of to Faye McMahon, lights traditional dance. Welcome, Lisa! each year. who has been Voices’ Ellen McHale, Ph.D., Executive Director I’ve been fortunate to work with dedicated acquisitions editor New York Folklore Society editorial board members willing to donate for the past five years. [email protected] their time to review our submissions. The high Faye has shaped the www.nyfolklore.org quality of our publication would not be pos- look and subject mat- sible without the expertise of our managing ter of the journal, From the Editor editor, Sheri Englund, and our designer, Mary taking the original intent of Voices and This issue’s lead article, Beth Malmsheimer, as well as the sage advice enhancing its professionalism and scholarly Dee Britton’s “Com- of the New York Folklore Society’s executive content. Under Faye’s direction, Voices has fort in Cloth: The director, Ellen McHale, and the support of matured as a journal and has seen a widening Syracuse University her staff. The new acquistions editor, Eileen of its readership. The New York Folklore Remembrance Quilt,” Condon, will join the staff for the next issue. Society will miss her exacting work and documents the cre- As always, I remind you, the reader, that the creative viewpoint. Thank you, Faye! ation of a unique folk- future of Voices depends on your continued In the same breath, we welcome as our art memorial for the contributions. new editor Eileen Condon, who will take thirty-five students at Felicia Faye McMahon, Ph.D. the reins with the Spring/Summer 2009 Syracuse University who died with 235 others Acquisitions Editor issue of Voices. Eileen is program director as the result of a terrorist attack December New York Folklore Society for the Center for Traditional Music and 21, 1988. This and other articles on material [email protected] Dance’s Ukrainian Cultural Initiative, having culture, ritual storytelling, and traditional mu- taken this post after several years as folklorist sic demonstrate the important contributions at the Dutchess County Arts Council. Her made by today’s folklorists working in the I am delighted to begin column, “In Praise of Women,” profiles academic and public spheres. In the next issue, serving as acquisitions some of the women important to the field Voices will welcome food columnist Makalé editor for Voices, a publica- of folklore and folklife in New York State. Faber Cullen, director of programs at Slow tion that does function as The society looks forward to her expertise Food USA in Brooklyn, New York. Makalé our voice: the collectively and outlook on the subject of folklore, folk will fill the shoes of our longtime food col- and individually rich sight- music, and folk arts. umnist Lynn Ekfelt, who wrote “Foodways” ings and soundings of tra- The New York Folklore Society is grow- for eight years and whose final contribution ditional artists, community groups, and culture ing again! In addition to the journal’s new appears in this issue. workers across New York State. I appreciate leadership, we welcome Lisa Overholser as After five years I end my tenure as editor outgoing acquisitions editor Faye McMahon’s our most recent addition to the staff. With of Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore. As helpful guidance as I come on board for the support from the National Endowment I reflect on what has been accomplished since next issue. I look forward to working with for the Arts, the society has been able to 2003, I am proud of our many achievements. and learning from Voices’ staff, editorial board add a folklorist position to superintend the Our submissions represent a wide and egali- members, contributors, and readers and will Mentoring and Professional Development tarian range of articles written by scholars, relish the communications that are part of program, to grow our services to the field, student folklorists, community members, the job. Critical feedback, ideas, questions, and to provide some significant folklore folk artists, and internationally recognized suggestions, scholarly and creative written documentation within the greater Capital names such as Roger Abrahams, Susan Davis, submissions, photography, artwork—all are Region. A native of the Midwest, Lisa is a Sandra Dolby, Elaine Lawless, and Brian Sut- most welcome. recent graduate of Indiana University with ton-Smith. Voices—which now boasts eight Eileen Condon a doctorate in ethnomusicology. She has in- regular columns, artist profiles, and an ongo- [email protected] terned at the Brooklyn Arts Council and was ing creative nonfiction section—is published
“The expansion of cultural democracy demands an equal expansion of economic democracy.” –James Bau Graves, Cultural Democracy: The Arts, Community, and the Public Purpose (2005) Contents Fall–Winter 2008
3 Features 3 Comfort in Cloth: The Syracuse University Remembrance Quilt by Dee Britton 8 Hallowed Ground Photographs by Martha Cooper 10 Ritual and Storytelling: A Passover Tale by Barbara Myerhoff; Introduction by Steve Zeitlin 16 A Trip to Poppies by Ashley Torregrossa 18 Filer-Machol: Couturier to “Our Crowd” by Mari S. Gold 28 Diatonisk and the Dulcimer by Nils R. Caspersson 38 One the Needle, Another the Thread: Ahiska in Syracuse by Felicia Faye McMahon 16 Departments and Columns 2 NYFS News 18 7 In Praise of Women by Eileen Condon 15 Play by John Thorn 24 Upstate by Varick A. Chittenden 25 Downstate by Steve Zeitlin 26 Field Notes by Felicia Faye McMahon 27 Good Spirits by Libby Tucker 35 Obituary Cover: Camila Kakhromanova, 36 Still Going Strong Sanabar Kakhromanova, and by Paul Margolis Sabina Mamedova. Photo: Felicia Faye McMahon 37 Foodways by Lynn Case Ekfelt 41 Reading Culture 38 by Tom van Buren 42 Books to Note
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 A Continuing Education Colloquia will be held at Empire State Street, Schenectady, and on our web site, Opportunity College–Hartsdale in Westchester County www.nyfolklore.org. Visit us for all of your Empire State College–Hartsdale, with the on Thursday evenings from 6:00–8:00 p.m. holiday shopping. professorial leadership of Cathy Ragland, from October 16 through December 18. If you are a frequent online shopper for is teaming up with the New York Folk- For further information or to indicate your goods and services, please consider register- lore Society to offer a series of colloquia: intention to attend, please call the New York ing with ShopforMuseums.com. A portion “Folk and Community Arts Organizations: Folklore Society at (518) 346-7008. of each purchase you make is donated to Creating, Producing, and Managing.” The the New York Folklore Society. colloquia are offered free of charge. The NYFS at the New York Library
NYFS Ne ws New York State Council on the Arts’ Folk Association Arts Program is supporting this series of Please visit the New York Folklore Society weekly lectures as a continuing education booth at the New York Library Associa- opportunity through the New York Folklore tion conference at City Center in Saratoga Society’s Community Scholar Field School. Springs on November 6–8. Come and see The series is for anyone interested in folk our new look and promotional materials. We and community arts. Topics will include phi- love to meet our membership and to hear losophies and models for working with folk from you firsthand! Fall–Winter 2008 · Volume 34: 3–4 and community-based artists; collaborating Acquisitions Editor Felicia Faye McMahon Managing Editor Sheryl A. Englund with schools, museums, and other cultural Gallery of New York Folk Art Design Mary Beth Malmsheimer agencies; programming festivals; designing The New York Folklore Society has a year- Printer Eastwood Litho
exhibits; and archiving, as well as hands-on round gallery shop, offering a consignment Editorial Board Varick Chittenden, Lydia Fish, workshops on fieldwork and documentation sales opportunity for folk artists within the Nancy Groce, Lee Haring, Libby Tucker, Kay Turner, Dan Ward, Steve Zeitlin strategies. state. Sales are available in person at 133 Jay Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is published twice a year by the New York Folklore Society, Inc. Support the NYFS 133 Jay Street P.O. Box 764 Whenever You Shop Online! Schenectady, NY 12301 New York Folklore Society, Inc. Executive Director Ellen McHale Did you know that, by shopping online, you can earn Web Administrator Patti Mason Voice (518) 346-7008 donations for the New York Folklore Society? Fax (518) 346-6617 Web Site www.nyfolklore.org The New York Folklore Society has partnered with ShopforMuseums.com, Board of Directors a national museum fundraising program, where you can shop with over President Sherre Wesley three hundred of your favorite online stores, and at no extra cost to you, Vice President Hanna Griff-Sleven have a percentage of your purchase value donated to the New York Folklore Secretary-Treasurer Karen Canning Society! Austin Fisher, Ellen Fladger, Delcy Ziac Fox, Jan Hanvik, Alice Lai, Ken Lo, Elena Martinez, Paul Here’s how: Mercer, Libby Tucker, Mary Zwolinski • Go to www.ShopforMuseums.com. Advertisers: To inquire, please call the NYFS • Log in. (518) 346-7008 or fax (518) 346-6617. • Click on the New York Folklore Society. • Click on the link of the store you want to visit, and go about your shopping. Voices is available in Braille and recorded versions. Call the NYFS at (518) 346-7008. • Stores are organized by categories. Shop at your favorite stores, The New York Folklore Society is committed to providing ser- including National Geographic, Cabela’s, Lands End, Dell, Ebay, vices with integrity, in a manner that conveys respect for the dignity of the individuals and communities the NYFS serves, as well as for Amazon.com, Eddie Bauer, Verizon Wireless, and many more! their cultures, including ethnic, religious, occupational, and regional traditions. The programs and activities of the New York Folklore Society, Your total donation will be tracked automatically as long as you 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 begin your shopping each time at www.ShopforMuseums.com. the Arts. Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is indexed in Arts & Enroll today, and please tell your friends and family to use Humanities Citation Index and Music Index and abstracted in Historical ShopforMuseums.com. 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. We appreciate your support! ISSN 0361-204X © 2008 by The New York Folklore Society, Inc. All rights re- served.
VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Comfort in Cloth: The Syracuse University Remembrance Quilt BY DEE BRITTON
n the evening of December 21, 1988, Pan result of the bombing of Pan Am 103, Syracuse pear unless group members occasionally meet O American Flight 103 flew into the winter University’s loss of thirty-four undergraduates and reinforce those memories. Consequently, solstice skies over London’s Heathrow airport as and one graduate student was one of the larg- Halbwachs concluded that autobiographical it began the final leg of a journey that originated est simultaneous student death tolls in United memory is “rooted in other people. . . . Only in Frankfurt and was to conclude at New York’s States’ collegiate history. This extensive loss of group members remember, and this memory JFK airport. The plane carried 259 people; in life ensured that the university would publicly nears extinction if they do not get together addition, its cargo hold carried a suitcase that commemorate their students. On the evening over long periods of time” (Coser 1992, 24). contained a radio cassette player filled with of the disaster, students, faculty, and staff joined Historical memory occurs when one does not Semtex explosives. The bomb exploded at 7:03 in a candlelight vigil. Over subsequent years, the have personal experience of an event; it is cre- p.m., breaking the plane into pieces. Passengers, university held memorial services, constructed ated through discourse, visual imagery, rituals, their personal effects, and flaming debris rained a Place of Remembrance, and instituted a and celebrations that commemorate the event. onto Lockerbie, a small village in southern Scot- Remembrance Scholars program. Each year, Historical memory is thus a memory that is land. All on board were killed, as well as eleven thirty-five seniors are designated Remembrance stored and reproduced by social institutions. Lockerbie residents who died when one of the Scholars and charged with creating activities and The annual Remembrance Week at Syracuse plane’s wings incinerated their neighborhood. traditions that commemorate the lives of the University creates and reinforces both autobio- Beyond the private tragedies of 270 dead, the thirty-five SU students lost on Pan Am 103. graphical and historical memory. Lockerbie air disaster was politically significant. Colleges and universities have unique As the 1998 Remembrance Scholars gathered Pan American World Airways was globally per- temporal contexts. Department curricula to discuss potential commemorative activities ceived as the American flagship, even though it rely upon historical knowledge and disciplin- for the upcoming tenth anniversary, one of was in actuality a private carrier. Although the ary understanding. Collegiate traditions and the scholars convinced her peers to create a bombing of Pan Am 103 was a continuation of rituals provide a group identity that transcends remembrance quilt. There are many types of a number of terrorist attacks on United States normal temporal boundaries. Yet colleges and quilts, including patchwork, crazy, mourning, interests, this attack was the first time in modern universities are transitory in nature; students victory, and friendship quilts. Historically, quilt- history that a large group of American civilians flow into and out of the university community ing has provided a sense of social solidarity and were the direct target of a terrorist attack. The as they matriculate and then graduate. In 1998, group identity. Remembrance quilts began to bombing of this plane resulted in the United although the bombing of Pan Am 103 was a appear in the United States in the early 1800s. States’ largest death toll from a terrorist attack defining event for the school, it was “history” Individual blocks were made by the women of until September 11, 2001. to undergraduates who were between the ages a community and were joined to create a quilt Three thousand miles from the flames and of eight and twelve when the disaster occurred. for someone who was leaving the community. In wreckage of Lockerbie, Syracuse University Maurice Halbwachs, the first sociologist to use essence, the remembrance quilt was to remind faced its own devastation. Thirty-five students the term “collective memory,” explained that the owner to remember those left behind as a of this central New York university were on all collective memory is constructed and orga- result of a life transition. board Pan Am 103, returning from a semester’s nized by social groups; individuals then do the The remembrance quilt concept was trans- study in Europe. On the evening of December actual work of memory (1950). Halbwachs also formed by the advent of the NAMES Project’s 21, the plane was filled with youthful passen- noted the difference between autobiographi- AIDS Memorial Quilt in 1987. Cleve Jones, a gers: the median age of all the victims was 29 cal and historical memory. Autobiographical gay activist from San Francisco, created the years, and the mode age was 20 years. Although memory is memory of events that a person first panel for his best friend. As organizer of many colleges and universities lost students as a has experienced, which tends to fade and disap- the NAMES Project, Jones wanted to create
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 Syracuse University Remembrance Quilt, which commemorates the thirty-five Syracuse students lost in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103. Photos courtesy of the author.
grassroots communities of local support, as 1997, 188). The AIDS quilt was composed of AIDS quilt panels were created by community well as a national memorial that would visually 1,920 panels the first time it was displayed in members to commemorate their dead, the Syra- represent the immense toll of the AIDS epi- Washington, D.C., in October 1987; currently, cuse community gathered together to quilt indi- demic. The three-by-six-foot panels have been there are more than forty-six thousand panels. vidual blocks in order to remind themselves of made by friends, family members, lovers, and The Syracuse University Remembrance Quilt is those who had been lost from the community. strangers to commemorate those lost to AIDS. different than traditional remembrance quilts, In a letter dated September 14, 1998, Remem- A number of people with AIDS have created since those remembered were unable to make brance Scholar Kimberly Hamilton described their own panels prior to their death (Sturken their own blocks. Just as the majority of the the quilt project to the parents of the Syracuse
VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore victims and requested “information such as a longtime quilters, as well as a group of quilters staff member decided that she wanted to place favorite color, special talent, or longtime hobby. that met in the university chapel. A flyer invit- at least two stitches in every student’s block. A . . . We would also encourage you to send any ing students, faculty, and staff was distributed janitor worked on a block representing a young items, fabrics, or photographs you would like throughout campus. Twenty-nine students (in- man from his hometown. Ten women who were incorporated in the quilt. No suggestion is cluding three males), six staff members, and a members of a local quilting guild volunteered out of the realm of possibility.” None of the faculty member’s spouse answered the initial to devote an entire December day to complet- Remembrance Scholars had quilting experience call. Individual quilt blocks were designed us- ing the quilting, although they had no direct and did not realize the immensity of the task ing the information and artifacts sent by the relationship with Syracuse University and had that they had assumed. The quilt was to be victims’ parents. Students and staff worked to not known any of the students lost on Pan Am presented at the tenth anniversary memorial sew and then quilt each individual block. One 103. Their participation was symbolic of the service that would be held a mere three months and one week from the date of the letter. “Had I not been naïve about quilting,” Hamilton later recalled, “I might never have proposed the idea. It has taken much more work than I ever imagined and at times has been very emotional” (Bédy 1998). Boxes containing a variety of personal ob- jects began to arrive on campus. Several family members sent single earrings that were found in the wreckage; their matches were never found. Another family sent an intramural field hockey shirt that had been recovered from the debris. Prior to its return to the family in 1989, the shirt had been washed multiple times by women in Lockerbie to remove the fuel and mildew that was embedded in the material. A mother sent fabric that she had purchased with her daughter in London; they had planned to use it in a quilt project when her daughter returned. Photos abounded. A mother sent a piece of wallpaper from her daughter’s childhood bedroom. Paja- mas, a favorite shirt, a dusty Boston Red Sox cap, a cassette tape of a song written for one of the victims—all of these items were entrusted by grieving families to be incorporated into the quilt. The Syracuse University Remembrance Quilt is not only a memorial for the bereaved and the university community, but also a work of art. Howard Becker claims that the existence, form, and representation of all works of art are determined by cooperating networks that comprise various “art worlds” (1982). Although many public commemorative projects are cre- ated in an environment of conflicting intentions, the Syracuse University Remembrance Quilt was created in an intensely cooperative art world of beginning and experienced quilters. The Remembrance Scholars approached two Syracuse University staff members who were Detail of the quilt’s center panel. The names of the students form a dove of peace.
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 social cohesion that resulted from the loss of dents, they continued this differentiation when “Remember us when you see these so many students and is typical of the quilting they donned blue and red bandanas while they blocks.” During its three week stay with community. worked for a landscape company. Although us the Remembrance Quilt has brought with it an enormous wealth of feelings, The quilt’s finished size is 87 by 91 inches. they had matriculated at different colleges, they thoughts, information, and love. The love The quilt is composed of a center panel mea- both chose to study in the Syracuse University contained within it is overwhelming and is suring 36 by 58 inches, surrounded by thirty-six London Program during the fall 1988 semester. tangible. We in Lockerbie wish to include individual blocks. The design of the center panel To mark their semester together, they decided to our love into the quilt’s embrace and so is based on an illustration created in 1989 by art receive symbolic tattoos; Eric chose the symbol with our love we send it back to you. student Jonathan Hoefer. A dove of peace is for the English pound, while Jason selected the formed by the names of the thirty-five students. British flag. Those tattoos were used after the The Syracuse University Remembrance Quilt The Remembrance Scholars approached a uni- crash to identify the twins, so that their bodies celebrates the individual lives lost on that winter versity staff member, an experienced quilter, to could be returned to their family. These impor- solstice evening. The comfort and warmth that create the center panel. Initially, she was hesitant, tant symbols are included in their quilt blocks. the quilt provides to family members and the reasoning: Their childhood is also embedded in their quilt Syracuse University community is unmatched blocks. Eric and Jason grew up with a beloved by the many other memorials that dot the This is a painful thing for all of us, I have dog, Shad, and a representation of his doghouse United States and Scotland. As Shannon Davis’s grieved privately for the thirty-five students crosses their blocks. Eric and Jason were indi- mother stated during an exhibition of the quilt who were lost in that terrorist attack. One viduals who had strong individual interests and shortly before the fifteenth anniversary of the side of me shies away, saying, “It’s time downing of Pan Am 103, “Looking at the quilt to let it rest, it’s history, why bring it up talents, yet they were tied together in both life again?” And the other side of me under- and death, as surely as the two bandanas unite and knowing it’s coming close to the fifteenth stands that those families do not want their their blocks. anniversary, of course, my heart still aches for children to be forgotten. What a tragic The quilt’s thirty-sixth block is an embroi- Shannon not being with us. But when I see the thing to have so many talented young lives dered dedication, using words borrowed from quilt, I understand something bigger than us is so cruelly thrown away, and what agony the university’s permanent memorial: at work” (Bodwicz 2003). those families have had to endure. This is too worthwhile to ignore, and I can see This Remembrance Quilt is dedicated to they need a lot of help to pull this off. I References the memory of the 35 students enrolled just wish they had started last February, Becker, Howard. 1982. Art Worlds. Berkeley: in Syracuse University’s Division of In- not in mid-October! University of California Press. ternational Programs Abroad who died Bédy, Zoltan. December 7, 1998. Personal with 235 others as the result of a plane Artifacts Form Remembrance Quilt. Syracuse The machine-appliquéd work took her more crash December 21, 1988, caused by a than eighty hours over twenty-four days. terrorist bomb. Record. Thirty-five blocks are individual commemo- Bodwicz, Marty. August 13, 2003. Shelton rations of the students, arranged alphabetically The dedication wording is not the only compo- Woman Finds Comfort in Quilt. Huntington Herald. by last name. Letters that family members sent nent borrowed from other memorials for the Coser, Lewis. 1992. Introduction: Maurice in response to the quilting project are folded ac- Pan Am 103 victims. Steve Berrell’s and Karen Halbwachs, 1877–1945. In Maurice Halb- cordion style and sewn into light orange borders Hunt’s quilt blocks include quotations that are wachs, On Collective Memory, 1–34. Ed. and adjacent to the student’s block. A local sewing also found on their plaques at Lockerbie’s Dry- trans. Lewis Coser. Chicago: University of store volunteered to embroider the students’ fesdale Cemetery. Wendy Lincoln’s quilt block Chicago Press. names on the blue lattice beneath the blocks. includes the dancer’s silhouette that marks the Halbwachs, Maurice. 1950. The Collective Memory. The individual blocks are poignant reminders headstone in her hometown cemetery. Cindy New York: Harper-Colophon. of the vibrant interests and activities that filled Smith’s block includes an angel representing Sturken, Marita. 1997. Tangled Memories: The the lives of the students who were killed in the the mahogany angel that was carved in her Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the bombing. A pocket of a favorite shirt holds a memory and is used every year in her home- Politics of Remembering. Berkeley: University cassette tape. Favorite authors and quotations town crèche. of California Press. are interspersed with athletic logos, flowers, The quilt was completed in time for the tenth Dee Britton is a lecturer in the Syracuse musical instruments, and theatrical symbols. anniversary memorial service. Its usual home University Department of Sociology and On the upper right-hand corner of the quilt, is Hendricks Chapel at Syracuse University, formerly served as visiting professor at two blocks are intertwined by blue and red but it has traveled to a number of different Colgate University and Hamilton College. She has lectured on the commemo- bandanas tied together. Eric and Jason Coker sites. After an exhibition in Lockerbie in 2000, rations of the Pan Am 103 bombing were twins. When they were small, their mother a local representative wrote the following in throughout the United States and in Italy, Sweden, and Spain. dressed Eric in blue and Jason in red in order the remembrance book that accompanies the to identify them at a distance. As college stu- quilt:
VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore I n Pra is e of
Elena Martínez BY EILEEN CONDON
For Elena Martínez, folklorist at City Lore nominating Rosa Elena Egipciaco, a New articles by Roberta on various Latin in Manhattan, it’s been a good year. Fellow York–based Puerto Rican mundillo lace maker, musics, and when I first came to intern folklorists Hanna Griff-Sleven and Jean for the NEA’s National Heritage fellowship, at City Lore—she wasn’t in the office that day—but someone said, “Do you Crandall made this observation as they nomi- which Rosa won in 2003. Elena lauds City want to meet Dr. Singer?” “OH, MY nated Elena to be profiled in this issue’s “In Lore and its founder, Steve Zeitlin, for envi- GOD! YES!” Praise of Women.” Last summer, the dance sioning programs that incorporate advocacy. “Who called me Dr. Singer?” Roberta asked documentary Elena produced with City Lore The People’s Poetry Gathering has raised Elena when they met, insisting she address her colleagues—From Mambo to Hip Hop—won awareness of endangered world languages,
as Bobbi or Roberta instead. Elena describes W the National Council of La Raza’s prestigious and City Lore’s People’s Hall of Fame “coun- Roberta as a mentor and views her own work ALMA award. NCLR, the nation’s largest ters mainstream celebrity,” Elena says, by at City Lore as “following in [Singer’s] foot- o me n Latino civil rights and advocacy organization, honoring ordinary people for extraordinary, steps.” She credits City Lore’s strong Puerto presents the ALMAs on a televised show community-enriching achievements within Rican and Latino programming to Singer’s “like the Latino Oscars,” Elena explained. the everyday life of the city. decades of work in these communities. The “We were up against some really amazing Elena’s path into folklore can be traced two still work closely on Latino projects and documentaries . . . but everyone really liked from her native New York to the West Coast have cowritten some of New York’s fin- our film.” With prime footage of South and back. “The funny thing is,” she began, est, most in-depth interpretive materials on Bronx mambo, salsa, and hip hop by Latinos explaining at high speed, with typically dry Puerto Rican cultural traditions. and insightful conversations with the genres’ humor, Upon graduation, Elena phoned Steve there were two things I wanted to do leading proponents—from Eddie Palmieri to Zeitlin to ask whether he could suggest any Willie Colón and the late Ray Barretto—From when I was a kid. One was, I just loved reading about Roman, Greek, Egyptian grants that might allow her to return to work Mambo to Hip Hop has been screened widely, myths . . . and thought about something at City Lore. To her astonishment, Zeitlin to strong reviews, and will be released shortly like that when I was older. Then you explained there was a position open and on DVD. For Elena, coproducer Steve Zeitlin, know, you think of practical-type jobs, offered it to her. She accepted on the spot. director Henry Chalfant, and all involved in so I never followed it. Then the other That was eleven years ago. Elena continues to thing was . . . I always saw Joan Embery creating the film, the rewards are long-awaited value the “freedom and flexibility” she has at and sweet. This year’s highlights for Elena also [of the San Diego Zoo] on TV. On Johnny Carson. And wanted to work in City Lore to work not only on City Lore’s re- included the popular Aguinaldo Navideño a zoo like she did. So I ended up being nowned core programs, but also on programs program—City Lore’s second annual Puerto a zoology major for a while. But then entirely her own, like the well-traveled Puerto Rican holiday dinner, with music, poetry, the, um, the organic chemistry kicked my Rican photographic exhibition “¡Que Bonita ass. So I thought, I’m going to go into dance, and song—coproduced with Teatro Bandera!” which considers the Puerto Rican LA TEA. A Mohawk poetry dinner is in the anthropology, because that was what I had always really liked. flag as folklore, politics, and history. works, too, along with a large-scale program At SUNY–Oswego, where she earned a bach- New York folklorists Jean Crandall and comparing the performative, material, and elor’s degree, she encountered anthropologist Hanna Griff-Sleven find Elena an exem- ritual traditions of Haiti, Cuba, and the Do- Ivan Brady, who encouraged her in folklore. plary researcher and programmer and a minican Republic. As a graduate student in the early 1990s, she good friend. Jean praises Elena’s passion and For Elena, interviewing artists is a joy and discovered the University of Oregon could tough integrity, while Hanna thanks Elena for privilege. “You’ll be calling cabs and booking offer her a master’s degree in folklore as well sharing resources: referrals, references, tran- hotel rooms . . . but you also get to meet these as anthropology, so she earned the two de- scribers, time, talk. Hanna also acknowledges amazing people.” Meeting John Trudell, a grees in rapid succession. Before graduating Elena for helping her, Jean, and others in Native American singer, poet, and activist she she completed an internship at the Smithson- the field realize the importance of chocolate had long admired, at the 1999 People’s Poetry ian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage breaks in the afternoon. Gathering was a thrill. Even more meaningful, and another unpaid internship at City Lore. she says, is the element of advocacy in her As a City Lore intern, Elena finally met “Dr. Eileen Condon is project work. Elena assisted Mike Amadeo, owner director at the Center Roberta Singer” face to face: of Casa Amadeo, New York City’s oldest for Traditional Music Roberta Singer. I used to read her ar- and Dance in New York continuously run Latin music store, in get- ticles. When I was in Oregon I would City. To nominate a col- ting the store into the National Register of devour anything I could find on Puerto league for “In Praise of Women,” contact her at Historic Places. She also had the pleasure of Rican culture. Of course I always found [email protected].
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 Hallowed Ground Photographs by Martha Cooper
There are no prescribed rituals for mourning thousands of people. We invented them as we went along. With a couple of candles and a bunch of flowers we transformed ordinary sidewalks and street corners into sacred spaces. Here friends, family, or passersby could pause to pray, reflect on the tragedy, and leave whatever offerings they deemed appropriate. Visitors left messages addressed to the dead with the shared belief that words, in this newly consecrated space, would somehow find their way. Grief took many forms, from simple and personal shrines for individuals to a gigantic shrine in Union Square dedicated to all. Expressing sorrow or hope, many people created small works of art from whatever markers, crayons, or colored paper and glue they had at hand. Students from all over the world sent cards and banners. The shrines blended different traditions, both sacred and secular. Saints sat beside carefully selected Beanie Babies. Dotty the Dalmatian, Fleecie the Lamb, and Glory the Patriotic Bear were oddly comforting nestled among candles beside the Virgin of Guadalupe. All offerings were welcome and the resulting installations became intricate creations of communal art, enabling each of us to mourn in our own way in a shared space.
Reprinted from Voices 27. 3–4 (Fall–Winter 2001): 8–9, in remembrance of the recent anniversary.
VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 RitualRitual andand Storytelling:Storytelling: AA PassoverPassover TaleTale
BY BARBARA MYERHOFF INTRODUCTION BY STEVE ZEITLIN
was privileged to meet anthropologist 1976. I remember asking her if success had she utilizes the tools of ethnography—a I Barbara Myerhoff on two occasions changed her. She said, you know, it’s at the remarkable ethnographic eye—to explore prior to her untimely death at the age of point now where I walk into the restroom the familiar: a Passover seder. In adapting fifty in 1985. The first was when my wife, at the university, and students follow me the piece for magazine publication, I had Amanda, and I invited both Myerhoff and in and keep talking right through the stall. to cut Myerhoff ’s essay in half; I urge all of Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett to a con- Today, as her students, we’re still doing that: you who enjoy this abridged version to buy sultants’ meeting at our Washington, D.C., continuing the conversation across death. I the book from which it is excerpted, Stories apartment for a project called the Grand also remember her telling me that people in as Equipment for Living: Last Talks and Tales Generation. I can vividly recall Myerhoff ’s academe put so much emphasis on writing of Barbara Myerhoff, where you may read it remarkable beauty and her humor—and I and not enough on talking—and talking is in its entirety. fondly recollect these two brilliant women so important. Some months after Myerhoff ’s death in bragging to one another about the bargains Myerhoff ’s astonishing talk, “Ritual and January 1985, we held an event in her honor. they had gotten on various items of clothing Storytelling: A Passover Tale,” published It was City Lore’s first public event, and they were wearing at the time. here in an abbreviated version, captures Myerhoff ’s ideas of “re-membering” and I met Barbara Myerhoff again at a second the rhythm of her words and her vivid her vision of the way culture is transmitted meeting after I had moved to New York. and distinctive train of thought, bringing set forth in this essay informs our work, She was already an iconic figure, having the reader into the classroom of one of always. completed Number Our Days and a film by the the discipline’s finest lecturers. As an an- same title, which won an Academy Award in thropologist with a poet’s gift for language,
Barbara Myerhoff’s talk was given at the Brookdale Center on Aging at Hunter College on June 6, 1983. It was part of a series of public lectures on late-life creativity, organized by Marc Kaminsky at the Brookdale Center’s Institute on Humanities, Arts, and Aging and funded by the New York Council for the Humanities. The talk has now found a permanent home in Stories as Equipment for Living: Last Talks and Tales of Barbara Myerhoff (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), edited by Marc Kaminsky and Mark Weiss in collaboration with Deena Metzger.
I would like to talk to you about a ritual retrieves them and gives them to us with a means—ritual, story, performance, and folk that is built around storytelling. It is what freshness that makes them more intense and art. We videotaped many events and then we would call a meta-story—that is, a story more effective. The ritual I’m going to talk proceeded, over the course of two years, to about telling the story, about passing on to about is Passover. . . . look at them and look at them and look at the progeny the experience of the ancestors, The work I’m going to describe comes them. This, then, is what I’m going to tell and it’s a familiar one to many of you. I like out of a longer study of yiddishkeit called you: the story of a Passover seder that we working with familiar materials because the “Transmission of an Endangered Tra- videotaped. It’s a four-hour–long tape that there are almost always elements whose spe- dition.” A number of us at the University we looked at again and again to try to figure cialness and profundity we have overlooked, of Southern California studied the trans- out what was going on there. What makes and I think that looking at familiar materials mission of yiddishkeit through various this so important is that this is, indeed, the
10 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore study of the transmission of culture. . . . We reaffirmation of the wandering through the read in and through its Haggadah. We have a look at their world as a set of meanings, a desert where, at the end of forty-nine days, group of people who are doing this together web of understandings, that they somehow they receive the Covenant on Mount Sinai, year in and year out. The participants are have to animate. And this, then, becomes and the Torah is given, and the Jews come always changing somewhat. Someone has our task: to see them seeing themselves. into being as a constituted entity. The Bible died, someone has been born, someone is Now as we looked at this ritual—this requires that this account of exodus and out of town, someone brings a guest. But storytelling ritual, this performance of a freedom be repeated. The parents tell it to there is some stable group of people who story—trying to figure out what was going the children every year when the children are are always present year after year, and they, on and how to tell other people what was told to ask, “Why do we assemble?” They in effect, become the elders who guard the going on, what quickly became apparent to are asking: What’s special about Passover, in tradition. us was that we were struggling to tell two addition to that historical or mythical event, So their family story over the years, their stories at the same time. One is the chrono- so that this is the only formal holiday of this oral stories, their particular histories go along logical story of the ritual which has a certain seriousness that takes place in the home, with this Great Tradition. The Little Tradi- set of procedures, of fixed events that have instead of the synagogue? Friends are there, tion of local people on the ground, alive in to occur in a given order, and the other is family members are there, personal ties give time, goes along with the Great Story, and the story of the family that is performing the whole thing its context. It takes place they intermingle, contradict one another, the ritual. And every family performs it among one’s primary group, so that sacred and jog along more or less side by side, differently, and every year it is performed beliefs are again put in touch with the ordi- hopefully ending at the same time. So these differently, although one of the great myths nary people of one’s life, and those ordinary two stories, then, are simultaneously told: the about ritual is that it is always the same. This people take on an extra dimension. They Great Story, which is in the Haggadah and is the essence of ritual. It is the story that become the characters in the great drama which is written down, the written tradition says: This is always the same. itself. And this revitalizes family relations. and history of how the people came out of But of course it isn’t. Common sense— It doesn’t always make them harmonious or Egypt and received the Covenant, and the which ritual banishes, and which it is sup- even affectionate, but it certainly intensifies individual family story. And these become posed to banish in order to induce belief— them…. inseparable, because you cannot understand tells us that, if we look at it immediately, Let me tell you about the text. It is called the one without the other. You are reading every ritual has to be different. There are the Haggadah, which means, literally, “the both stories at the same time. The seder is different performers, it’s a different world, telling.” There are many versions of this contrapuntal. a different year. And yet we accept the claim book. Now people write their own to suit The other thing that makes this a special to perpetuity that ritual makes. Because it is their present circumstances. Different event, a particular kind of ritual, is that the rhythmic, because it is repetitive, because it families have their own version, and they children must be present. The whole point uses a special vocabulary, all ritual takes or- don’t like the others. Within families, there of it is for one of the children—allegedly, the dinary things and makes them extraordinary. are often arguments about which version to youngest son—to ask the leader, “Wherefore The means it uses are everywhere the same. use. If the critical one got lost, this is a big is this night different from all other nights?” Whether it’s an African initiation ceremony problem. But no matter what the version, This is the first of the Four Questions, in Botswana or a Jewish storytelling session there is always some written text called the which the child asks at the beginning of the in Los Angeles, ritual sets the ordinary apart Haggadah, which will always be followed. seder. This is a marvelous piece because it by its use of language, gesture, costume, And that is what you call, in anthropology, permits the child to say, “Why are we doing posture—sensuous things. And those sensu- part of the Great Tradition. This is the al- this? What’s this ritual for? Why do we lean ous things are very persuasive and invite us legedly permanent, official, written record tonight? Why do we eat bitters? Why do we to suspend disbelief, exactly as we do in a of how the story is to be told, with stage eat of unleavened bread?” All these ques- theater…. directions: Now you drink a glass of wine. tions are saying: What’s all the specialness Now let me briefly say what Passover Now you hide a piece of matzoh. for? And this is a set-up. You can almost hear is. This is a formal holiday celebrated each Then there is the oral tradition that goes the voice of the Great Tradition say: Ah, I spring by Jews since the time of the disper- alongside this. “Well, this is the part we thought you’d never ask. It’s what makes the sion from Palestine, after the destruction leave out.” “That’s where Aunt Sadie put whole thing happen…. of the Temple. They are admonished to as- in this other part.” “Aren’t you going to do Children are obviously very symbolic. semble to retell the story of their deliverance this one?” “No, we don’t have time for that. They represent many things: the future, from Egypt and from slavery. This is the Let’s do this one instead.” Often the agree- innocence; above all, they are symbols of heart of the story: the release from affliction, ments that come out of these differences get perpetuity. So the children have to be present the release from oppression. This leads to a penciled in. And so a family’s history can be throughout the seder. Ideally, they should be
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 11 awake, but because the seder goes on a long boys was present. They were both religiously It so happened that by the end of the time, it’s not guaranteed. So various devices ignorant, with the same nostalgia, yearning evening, he was rather drunk as well. So the are put in to make sure the children are awake back to the tradition but feeling they did not videotape has this wonderful mixture of throughout. There are songs, there are riddles, really possess it—really lost as to their own authority and slippage. When his grandfather and there are all sorts of opportunities and way, but full of desire for something Jewish put him in charge of the seder, he began to invitations for misbehavior. It is understood that was their own. I was present with my take a lot of wine because he was very ner- that the children will get drunk because every- husband and my two sons, who were then vous, and his grandfather turned to him and one present has to drink four cups of wine. six and nine. There were a bunch of older said, “You can’t do that, you’re supposed to The children usually tipple throughout the people who dropped in during the course of have four cups.” The grandson said, “Look, evening. They spill and they drink, and they the evening, Yiddishists, all of them, who had these are my sacred cups, and then over here spill and they drink. There is an opportunity, carried on a long conversation, day in and day I have my other cup. I’m drinking from that which I will describe later, when they are out, with the old couple…. one, and I do the required four cups at the actually encouraged and allowed to spill. This So there we were, all assembled. Now for right time.” And the grandfather said, “That’s is quite a thrill. And then there is an actual many a year—I have been going to these sed- an interesting idea. Do you think I could do ransom of a piece of matzoh. ers for many a year—Arnold has been flirting that too?” And so an innovation was made Now matzoh, which is unleavened bread, with some essence: he has begun the seder that you knew was going to get passed down, is the symbolic food that is eaten during by saying, “This will be my last seder.” And and that generations from now in this family the eight days of Passover. There is a very that is difficult to receive on many levels. It they would tell the story of how this came important piece of matzoh called the afiko- has to be treated with respect and also with a about…. man, which is understood as dessert, and it is measure of skepticism. He announced it this I said before that anthropologists and broken. The ceremony cannot be completed year as he had in the past…. others have not studied the transmission until its two halves are reassembled. So it Arnold was very aware that his grandsons of culture systematically. We have a rather has become the custom for the leader to didn’t know anything Jewishly, and he wanted mechanical view—we get it from the secular break this piece of matzoh and put it in a this tradition passed on. So after saying the world—that education is something like a bag conspicuous place where a child will see it opening prayers, he introduced his older of potatoes in a relay race. One generation and steal it and hide it. And the child holds grandson and said, “My grandson Marc will hauls it forward, and the children pick it up it for a ransom. After dinner, when there is lead the seder.” Greg had been given a chance and continue with it, as if it were a mechanical more ceremony to do—by then it is usu- to lead the seder a couple of years before. So thing that you thrust onto the youth, and they ally very late, and everyone is very tired and Marc was expecting this, and he said under take it and continue it. But this is simplistic impatient—the seder cannot be completed, his breath as he came into the house, “If he and erroneous. and the Messiah will never come, unless the tells me to lead it and breaks in and interrupts What happens when we view the trans- afikoman is recovered. But the child does not it and takes it over, I want you to know I’m mission of tradition in the context of this give it back until the leader pays for it, and leaving.” He said this to his mother as we Passover seder? Mind you, we are dealing here the payment varies with the times and the all went in. So we were all very tense. This with family and with sacred materials. Again, economic community. It can be a bicycle, and combination of intentions does not make I say “sacred” meaning a form of authority it can be a quarter—it all depends on what for a relaxed evening, but seders are never that does not come from God; I mean what you can get away with…. relaxed. carries authority because it goes to the heart All this brings us to a particular Passover, It was a sacrifice for the old man to give up of what makes you a human being, it’s what the four-hour one we taped. It was a four- leading the seder because it was something he you carry with you all your life. And that isn’t generational ceremony. It took place in the loved to do, but he was doing this to assure something you take dutifully and receive, and home of an old couple—East European, that his grandsons would be prepared to carry then you say “thank you” and go on. Anyone Yiddishists, not Orthodox people. Arnold it on. What happened during the course of who is a parent knows this. That is not the was then ninety-two, Bella was eighty-nine. the evening was that the boy slowly changed way you teach your child to be a mentsh or the He was something of a poet and a writer, a into a man. You could see it happening before way you teach your children to do what you philosopher. She in old age had become an your eyes—this is the wonder of working do or teach them what you believe in. Not at artist, and a rather serious one. Their daugh- with videotape—and it became a rite of all, on the contrary. Common sense tells us ter, who is my closest friend and my age, was passage for him. It was the bar mitzvah that, that socialization—which is the teaching of then in her middle forties. Deena is a feminist, in a sense, he had never had. He began the sacred things—is ambivalent, it is a struggle. a poet herself, divorced. Her two sons, Marc seder as an ignorant, unsure boy, and by the And the problem is how to get the children to and Greg, were twenty and nineteen at the end of the evening he was commanding the receive what you have to teach in some form time. A non-Jewish girlfriend of one of the situation with a good deal of authority. that you consider valid and recognizable, and
12 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore to take that version and make it their own. remember when I was a kid. Even if I don’t nobility of this. And Greg says, “I don’t think That is the struggle of the parent or the one understand it, I still want to recognize the that’s what we’re doing here at all. We are who is passing it on. sounds.” And the old man saying, “What kind rejoicing. We are saying: ‘Look what we did! The struggle from the children’s point of of seder do you call this if it’s not in Hebrew, Look what happened to our enemies!’” view is how to take that stuff and make it if the prayers aren’t in Hebrew?” So there’s a This went into a discussion of who are the have something to do with their lives, how tussle about language. Egyptians. Who is the “us” and who is the to adapt it, how to make it useful, how to Meantime, the older man and the older “them”? This is the point in the seder where make it speak to the world around them. If woman, whenever they come to a stumbling we acknowledge that our enemies are part of either of these tasks fails, the whole thing point and they want to have a little argument humanity—they are like ourselves—and that fails. If the children take the traditions and aside, talk in Yiddish. This brings in all their is why we are diminishing our cup: what hap- change them, bowdlerize them, alter them cronies from their own generation, and all the pened to them happened to us. This, then, is too profoundly, so that the older people say, children are then left completely in the dark. the “humanism versus particularism” issue. “I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t They are very annoyed; they say, “Come on, As soon as it is raised, someone inevitably recognize this, it has nothing to do with us,” come on, let’s have this in English, we want chimes in and says, “Yes, and we also diminish then from the parents’ point of view this to know what you’re talking about.” So there our cups for the Vietnamese.” Someone else has been a failure, they don’t care any more. are three-way struggles there…. says, “South Vietnamese or North Vietnam- If, on the other hand, the children have had Then came the issue of the ten plagues. ese? Or all the Vietnamese?” “What about something imposed on them that doesn’t This is the recitation of all the afflictions that South Africa?” “What about people of color speak to them, that is not vital to their lives, the Lord visited upon the Egyptians. Deena here in America?” “And women!” All those then it’s a mechanical act of obedience, and said, “Now we get to my favorite part of present bring in their favorite groups of it’s useless. the seder, and I see that my father has just the oppressed. “Students!…Children!” My So that means there is a built-in tension, a crossed it out. He wants to leave it out for children always say that to be a child is to be built-in antagonism between the generations all the right reasons because we don’t want oppressed. And what happens is that this list about the sacred word that has to be passed to talk about the suffering of our enemies of the oppressed enlarges and enlarges until it on. So there has to be some negotiation. Both here. But I must say that I always liked this finally verges on being absurd, then everyone parties have to give something up, and both part because it keeps us from being sanctimo- pulls it back in. But before they do, there has parties have to agree in the end that they nious, it reminds us that we are all in symbolic been a big, very big, discussion of boundaries, recognize what it is that has been given and Egypt, we are all suffering, and I really feel and the boundaries have been moved by force received. This is a very different model from this should be put in.” of these questions: Who is “them” and who the mechanical one that goes “here it is” and A big argument develops around this is “us”? Are we Jews? Are we human beings? “thanks.” This, again, is a dialectic. And that question: What does it mean to talk about Who are our co-sufferers?… is why Passover is such a useful thing to study these plagues, anyway? And they are terrible While the boundaries between Jews and as an example of socialization. The children plagues: they are vermin and boils and locusts Egyptians are shifting and thickening and dis- come in and say, “What is going on here?” and cattle disease and blood and slaying of solving in discussion, the camera is wandering And working that out, then, becomes what the firstborn—really horrible things. So a back and forth across the table and comes to the evening is for. big discussion ensues: What are we doing rest on my six-year-old son Matthew. He’s do- The first fight that took place was a fight when we talk about all this? Her son Marc ing the plagues. And seeing him do the plagues about language. This issue is probably a very says, “Look, there is nothing wrong with on videotape, I understand exactly why the common one, the issue of what language including this. All we are doing is saying plagues will never be eliminated. There he is, to have the ceremony in, anyway. “Is this in that these things happened to our enemies, sticking his finger in the cup and flinging the Hebrew or in English?” The older people, of and because they happened, we do not fully wine, so that it hits the tablecloth—the white course, want to do it in Hebrew, which is the rejoice.” Now what happens when you say linen tablecloth, on which the others have sacred language, the language of their sacred the names of the plagues is, traditionally, you been accidentally spilling their wine. But he youth, and the children don’t understand put your finger in your cup of wine and take is allowed to do it—he is even encouraged to Hebrew, so there is a struggle. On the video- out a drop, and you drop it on your plate for do it. He is reciting these plagues in Hebrew tape, we hear the grandson who is leading the each one of the plagues, as you recite them: and putting these drops of wine on his plate, seder saying, “I have to do this in a language I “Boils…murrain…locusts…frogs …” So and some of it gets flung elsewhere. You see understand.” And Greg, the younger brother, Marc says, “We’re not celebrating these afflic- why there will always be resistance to making who turns out to be more of a traditionalist, tions; we are simply making our own rejoicing certain changes in ritual, you absolutely see saying, “But I don’t like the sound of it in less, we are making our cup less full because that this is a moment of great excitement and English, it doesn’t sound like what even I our enemies suffered.” He is moved by the satisfaction for a child. There is this overlay
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 13 of “yes…yes…friends… enemies….” But The evening is by then over. There is a There is always some reason that explains what he is really going to remember, besides good deal of chaos, and then some silence why it was the practice that was wrong and getting a present and getting drunk, is spill- when everyone realizes it has come to an not the theory or the mythology. So here, ing the wine on the tablecloth and not being end, very inconclusively. Enough has been too, they don’t look at the Haggadah and say, scolded for it. successful so that the grandparents have “There’s something wrong with this text.” When I moaned and groaned about how recognized what has happened, even if they They say, “Next year we’ll do it better, we’ll badly behaved my children were at this, as at say it isn’t theirs. They have compromised. do it different, we’ll do it right.” all other seders, a wise friend of mine said: The children have compromised, and they And so they conclude. Spoken into the Don’t you understand when you read the recognize that this seder has something to tense silence that then occurred, probably text that this is what it’s about, that it has do with their lives. The exchange has taken the only little silence that occurred during always been this way? From the times of the place. We have seen these people for four the evening, are the words that Marc says, Temple, as long as there has been a Passover hours passionately arguing about what is go- somewhat lamely and very touchingly: “Next ceremony, it is to keep the children awake, it ing on there. Every single one of the major year in Jerusalem.” This is as close to an is to keep them involved. It’s because they’re people, during the course of the evening, agreement and a success as any ritual needs not behaving themselves and the adults has said, “This is a terrible seder. This is not to come. Its very imperfections require that aren’t rebuking them that they really know my kind of seder. I would never do it again. it be done again—differently, better— the this night is special, different from all other Next year I have other plans.” You know that following year, and somehow “next year nights, and they’re given additional energy they’ll all be back. You know that much of in Jerusalem” will never come, need never by this permission. It’s because they do this will occur again. come, should never come. And so it is that grow sleepy after all the wine and talk that Ritual has the power to generate its own human beings struggle to reinvent the rea- you have to bring them back, to complete need to be redone. It’s never the mythology son for coming together and performing the ceremony. So for the ceremony to suc- that was wrong, it’s not the Haggadah. The the great stories that tell them who they ceed, the children must be allowed to mess family didn’t do it right. So next year you get are, why they are located in history and in up. This misbehavior—this space for the to do it right. When a medicine man loses a the moment as they are, and what their in- children’s spontaneity and innovation—is at patient—and this is as true of our medicine dividual lives with their struggles and their the heart of the Passover story, which is the men as of Indian medicine men—it is never confusions have to do with the great stories story of a family getting its children to pay the mythology or the germ theory of disease of their people. attention, and this is always difficult. I found that is at fault. The question of whether the this very wise and very consoling. . . . gods do indeed hear our calls never arises.
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14 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore p la
BY JOHN THORN That Dastardly Dime Novel y
“Touch but a hair of her head, and by the Beadle, were soon proclaimed wizards of and Smith, he was just another disillusioned Lord that made me, I will bespatter that tree commerce and even, as radio and television hired pen, so tired of poverty that he was with your brains!” This is from page ten of the would be in their earliest days, possible only too willing to write stories to order. first dime novel, Malaeska: The Indian Wife of forces for uplifting social and educational Ormond Smith, senior partner in the firm, the White Hunter. It was not long before such values. The Beadles also published a series proposed very specifically how Patten ought chilling propositions would become the first of similar little pamphlets, including dime to develop a juvenile series built around a words on page one: books of jokes, songs, verse, cooking, young man at a boarding school: etiquette, speeches, dance instruction, and “We will have the money, or she shall die!” even tax guides. The titles ran into the . . . the idea being to issue a library “Bang! Bang! Bang! Three shots rang out containing a series of stories . . . in all thousands and their sales into the millions. on the midnight air!” of which will appear one prominent But it is the dime novels that have en- character surrounded by suitable satel- The aforementioned tale, Malaeska, contain- dured in the national consciousness, if only lites. It would be an advantage to the ing the proposal to deck the tree with bits of as a term of opprobrium: not only the 321 series to have introduced the Dutch- brain, opens peacefully enough: “The traveller yellowbacks and 310 “illuminated” (that is, man, the Negro, the Irishman, and any other dialect that you are familiar with who has stopped at Catskill, on his way up the colored) covers published between 1860 . . . . A little love element would also Hudson, will remember that a creek of no and 1885 by the house that came to be not be amiss. insignificant breadth washes one side of the known as Beadle and Adams, but also the village.” The authoress of these bucolic words thousands more that issued forth from its Two weeks later Patten sent in a story called was Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, already well known competitors. What jump-started the dime Frank Merriwell; or, First Days at Fardale. The for novels serialized in such high-society novel was the Civil War. The broadsheet rest is history. After writing five thousand magazines as The Ladies’ Companion, Graham’s story papers that had formerly been popu- words a day, four days a week—twenty mil- Magazine, Peterson’s Magazine, and Godey’s Lady’s lar could not be tossed into a knapsack as lion words over seventeen years—as Burt Book. So how, from this prim and proper start, easily as a Beadle “dollar book for a dime.” L. Standish, Patten went to his grave as did the dime novel come to symbolize all that Reformers railed against the dime nov- the most famous American author no one was overwrought, if not downright sleazy? els for their prurience, their racism, their knew. Yet in Frank Merriwell he gave us a “The writers of the early dime novel,” encouragement to wasteful daydreaming, hero for his age and, in a not instantly visible according to Edmund Pearson in his 1929 and the generally corrupting tendencies of way, our own. study, “. . . had not the slightest intention of their bare-legged lasses, mustachioed vil- Few today have heard of Malaeska, but composing ‘sensational’ fiction.” Yet Mrs. lains, and rampant gunplay. Literary types everyone knows Frank Merriwell, the pride Stephens’s 128-page, four-by-six, yellowback hated the genre for its formulaic plots, of Yale, supreme athlete, courageous hunter, melodrama—the books came to be named stilted dialogue, and illogical story develop- and master ventriloquist who, in the words for the color of their covers—was about ment. As Edward Wagenknecht wrote in of his creator, stood for truth, faith, jus- an Indian woman whose white husband is 1982, “In the usual sense of the term, no tice, the triumph of right, mother, home, killed by her dying father’s hand. She carries boy was ever corrupted by reading dime friendship, loyalty, patriotism, the love of their son to his grandfather in New York, novels, for their heroes were not allowed alma mater, duty, sacrifice, retribution, and who forbids her to live openly as the boy’s to drink, smoke, swear, or make love. But strength of soul as well as body. Frank was mother. She attempts to reclaim her boy to killing Indians was another matter, and the manly; he had “sand,” and he was modest a savage life and fails, leaving her son on reader’s nerves were battered by an unend- to a fault. If he were to run for President of the island of Manhattan, then returns to ing succession of sensational incidents, the United States, we would elect him. her tribe, yet somehow—don’t ask—is not dished up according to carefully prescribed murdered. Ultimately she reconnects with her formulas, with endless repetition of inci- John Thorn is the son on his wedding day and reveals his par- dent and utterly without grace of style.” author and editor of many books, mostly entage, resulting in his suicide and her death. Gilbert Patten, author of more than a about sports, as well as The appearance of this cheery saga in June thousand titles behind the nom de plume occasional pieces for the New York Times, 1860 was a sensation. Malaeska sold gratify- of Burt L. Standish, dreamed of being the Los Angeles Times, and ingly well, with some estimates at 300,000 American Dickens when he started writing Boston Globe. He lives in Saugerties, New York. the first year. The publishers of the dime for Beadle in 1886. By the time he moved Copyright © John Thorn. series, Erastus Flavel Beadle and Irwin Pedro on to Munro and then, in 1895, Street
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 15 AA TripTrip toto PoppiesPoppies
BY ASHLEY TORREGROSSA
uring my spring semester at Syracuse my sophomore year, I was not used to exploring around and go back down the stairs because I D University I completed fieldwork for the new neighborhoods in Syracuse. That cold March had expected a brightly lit colorful entrance. I public folklore course Folk Arts, Festival, and evening as I drove along the city street, I realized slowly opened the door to the gift shop. Public Display offered at Syracuse University I had stepped out of my comfort zone and was Immediately, my anxiety disappeared. The through the Soling and honors programs. A now venturing into unfamiliar terrain. shop, although small, was inviting and very quiet part of my final project was a visit to Poppies, a Only after I turned my car around did I spot compared to the ruckus I had heard upstairs. community-operated folk arts shop at the Ukrai- the small, faded sign. I parked in front of the There was a hearth in a corner, and I noticed nian National Home on the west side of the city, dark doorway, feeling a bit anxious as I opened that the tiny room was filled with many differ- to photograph Ukrainian embroidery. Estab- the big wooden doors and walked up the stairs. ent kinds of traditional Ukrainian gifts, such lished in 1933, the Ukrainian National Home—a There was loud music playing. The roar of people as intricately designed pysanky (hand-decorated hub of cultural activity for Ukrainian Americans laughing and talking seeped out behind closed eggs), finely beaded jewelry, exquisite items for in Syracuse—is located in a drab, nondescript doors. The gift shop was tucked away with a the home including embroidered pillows and building, so much so that I drove by it the first small sign that announced simply “Poppies.” I tablecloths, and even clothing such as scarves, time I visited Poppies. As a university student in had walked right by the shop and had to turn slippers, and dresses. I walked around the gift
Lyubov Sosna, Munevere Ibragimova, and Ulduz Safarova (left to right) demonstrate needlework at Syracuse University Mayfest 2008. Photo: Felicia Faye McMahon
16 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore shop a few times and took pictures of various examples of folk art. An embroidered pillow appealed to me the most because of its unique woven stitch with a diagonal pattern. The design was outlined in black and red but filled in with warm colors of orange, yellow, and green to create an attractive piece of needlework. Before my visit to Pop- pies, I had read about similar cross-stitch and weaving patterns. The authors of Ukrainian Embroidery (1978), A. Kmit, J. Luciow, and L. Luciow, describe nyznk, a kind of weaving stitch that is completely geometrical and very time- consuming. The design on the pillow was so intricate that I decided that must be the reason for the small sign, “Display only.” Looking at the way the items were carefully and attractively displayed made me appreciate the real beauty of the Ukrainian folk art I had only read about in books. Pysanky by Christine Kochan. Photo: Felicia Faye McMahon Later I learned that Poppies represents only a small aspect of Ukrainian life in Syracuse. Pop- pies is part of the Ukrainian Cultural Center of learn the traditions of a homeland many have embroidered by her mother. The tablecloth Syracuse, a service organization that encourages never visited and share these traditions with new is decorated with a repeated red floral motif Ukrainian cultural knowledge and language. The audiences. trimmed with black. Although I had read that Syracuse Ukrainian Soccer Club, Saint John the I had no idea whether traditions practiced by the black signifies mourning and struggle and Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church, Ukrainian Ukrainian Americans differ from the traditions red represents love, Lyubov said she believes Federal Credit Union, and School of Ukrainian of recent Ukrainian immigrants to Syracuse, people use colors just because they like them. Studies are part of this cultural organization. but I was able to interview Lyubov Sosna, who Ukrainians consider embroidered items their There is even a web site (www.syrucc.org), on had immigrated from Ukraine in 1997. Lyubov most cherished possessions, and they are which I learned about the ODESA Ukrainian currently works as a translator at Catholic proudly displayed in all Ukrainian homes, both Dance Ensemble, a Syracuse-based group with Charities of Onondaga County refugee resettle- in Ukraine and Syracuse. Lyubov also has an a fifty-year history of promoting Ukrainian heri- ment services in downtown Syracuse and was embroidered cloth in the entryway of her home tage through song and dance. ODESA enables willing to meet with me. We met in her office, in Jamesville, New York, to show that she is a younger Ukrainian Americans in Syracuse to where she showed me a beautiful tablecloth part of a Ukrainian family. “It makes us proud to look at it,” she said. Although Lyubov does not embroider, she mentioned that she celebrates Ukrainian Easter. Lyubov enthusiastically described Easter as a very elaborate event that includes making pysanky with her children and preparing an elaborate meal with special foods such as paska (Easter bread), a special kind of Ukrainian bacon, and cher- ries. I was impressed by Lyubov’s enthusiastic description of the foodways of her homeland, but more importantly, Lyubov is a wonderful person to be around. What affected me most was her expressive personality. She taught me that heritage means more than beautiful embroidery. It’s the way we live our lives. Ashley Torregrossa is an undergraduate premedical student in the Renée Crown University Honors Program at Syracuse University. This is her first fieldwork expe- Traditional Ukrainian display at Poppies. Photo: Felicia Faye McMahon rience and publication in folk arts.
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 17 Filer-Machol: Couturier to “Our Crowd”
BY MARI S. GOLD
oday, 747 Madison Avenue, between T 64th and 65th streets in the heart of Manhattan’s luxury shopping district, is the home of the uber-elegant Italian boutique Valentino. The 747 Madison I remember was a slightly dingy brownstone where two floors housed Filer-Machol, a spe- cialty shop that catered largely to well-to-do German-Jewish women. A single street-level window displayed one dress on a headless mannequin; silk curtains discretely masked the interior, where the loudest sound was the whisper of silk. Filer-Machol opened in the early 1930s, when my maternal grandmother, Alice Hahn Machol, determined to remake the money she had lost in the stock market crash. Although she had no training, Alice instinc- tively grasped the principals of marketing and formulated a strategy. She understood the desire for private, ultra-personalized shopping among her “our crowd” coterie, descendents of the educated, largely pro- fessional German Jews who settled in New York and other parts of the United States shortly before the Civil War. Assimilated as she was, Alice was hugely proud of her German heritage. During World War II, when pressured to anglicize her husband’s name from “Katzenberg” to “Katenhill,” she refused. “That’s absurd,” she reportedly said. “Katzenberg is a fine German name. We’ll keep it.” Before Filer-Machol’s debut, affluent Alice Hahn Machol, c. 1935. Photo courtesy of the author. New York women shopped anonymously,
18 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Filer-Machol at 747 Madison Avenue, 1939. The shop was in the third building from the left, on the ground floor and second story. Photo courtesy of the New York City Muncipal Archives.
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 19 The author’s mother, Natalie Machol Sour, in front of Filer-Machol, 1940. Photo courtesy of the author.
trolling the aisles of large stores like Saks Filer-Machol’s spacious entrance like a Fifth Avenue, Bonwit Teller, and Bergdorf living room, with upholstered chairs and Goodman. In the mid-1940s, Lord and sofas in floral prints set on a pinky-beige Taylor instituted “personal shoppers,” and carpet. With the help of her banker—also a other stores followed suit, but selections woman—she established credit on Seventh were limited to in-store merchandise. At Avenue and began buying. She publicized Filer-Machol, a woman shopped by appoint- the shop entirely by word of mouth, rely- ment. While there, until she was ushered to ing on friends and fellow members of the her taxi or chauffeured car, she was the epi- Harmonie Club on East 60th Street and center of attention, selecting from dresses, Sunningdale Country Club in Scarsdale, suits, and coats gathered specifically with both bastions of German Jews. (Technically, regard to her taste, size, and planned social Alice wasn’t a member of either organiza- engagements. tion as membership was reserved for men: To manage the business side of the opera- the member in the family was her second tion, and probably to raise additional start-up husband, Milton R. Katzenberg, chairman cash, Alice persuaded Edith Filer to join her of the New York Hide Exchange.) as a partner. A sharp contrast to gregarious A customer first viewed the shop’s of- Alice who adored parties and usually wore a ferings in the front room. After making diamond pin from her pre-crash collection, her selections, she was led to one of the Filer (as Alice always called her) had a stout, mirrored dressing rooms that were almost square body, silver hair pulled into a tight as large as today’s studio apartments. A bun, and only wore black. She rented the seamstress, her bosom glittering with pins, space, installed the store’s only telephone was summoned to raise the garment’s in her office, and paid the bills. shoulders, let the waist out, or refashion
To enhance the illusion that shopping the sleeves to achieve a perfect fit. After Natalie Machol Sour, 1962. Photo courtesy was a quasi-social function, Alice decorated the final alternation, the customer departed. of the author.
20 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Natalie Machol Sour, c. 1928. Photo courtesy of the author.
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 21 dress, $110.00; and an Adele Simp- son three-piece suit with a match- ing blouse, $195.00—designers and garments comparable to the shop’s merchandise. In this era, a non-designer suit could be had for $25.00 and an Elizabeth Arden manicure enjoyed for $3.00. I was also a beneficiary of Filer- Machol’s skilled seamstresses, one of few pudgy preteens in me- ticulously fitted clothes. Friends teased me when I had to “go for a fitting,” and I found having a woman kneel at my feet to pin a straight hem horribly embar- rassing. I complained to both my mother and grandmother but was overruled. When my mother, Natalie, withdrew from Goucher College in 1929 because Alice couldn’t meet her tuition bills, she needed to work. Filer-Machol was the logical venue, but to acquire necessary seasoning, both Filer and Alice insisted she train “in the field.” That’s how my mother’s career in fashion began: behind the hosiery counter at Lord and Taylor, and then selling toys at Macy’s in the Christmas rush. “Grueling,” she said, when I asked what working at Macy’s was like. “I stood for hours without a break while customers fought over stuffed animals.” When she finally reached Sev- enth Avenue, Natalie was be-
Alice Machol Katzenberg holding her granddaughter, the author, in 1940. (By then, she had divorced friended by designers like Ben Milton Machol and married Milton Katzenberg.) Photo courtesy of the author. Zuckerman, Mollie Parnis, and Pauline Trigère who gave her a pair of gold turtle pins I still own. Mom was Money hadn’t changed hands and often ready to hang in the closet. The bill came readily accepted by the inner circle, partly wasn’t mentioned. A few days later, sig- separately, often sent directly to the client’s because she was charming, but also because nature Filer-Machol boxes—heavy green father or husband. she wore the designers’ clothes with flair. cardboard printed with yellow and white Filer-Machol’s services didn’t come cheap. As a teenager, accompanying my mother daisies and a gray-and-white art deco la- According to Vogue magazines from 1947 on her buying rounds, I heard her speak bel—arrived at the customer’s home. Inside and ’48, a Claire McCardle faille crepe pleated German to those designers who also knew lay the tissue-stuffed garments, pressed and dress cost $70.00; a Ceil Chapman dinner the language.
22 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore “I learned to speak German before Eng- considered slightly vulgar. The shop’s reputa- miniskirts, and many newly working women lish,” she told me. “Whenever my parents tion grew almost entirely from personal rec- dressed in homogeneous business suits. didn’t want me to know what they were ommendations, catering to several hundred Now, all that remains of Filer-Machol talking about, they spoke German. That was women a year at its peak in the 1940s and is a charming memory, a shopper’s Briga- all it took to make me learn it.” ’50s. Besides Filer, my grandmother, and my doon—but my early training held. I still have During the original run of South Pacific, my mother, who became a partner in the early clothes altered so the hem hangs perfectly mother—known as Miss Machol despite be- forties, the staff included three “mature” straight. ing married with a daughter—called on Mary saleswomen and roughly ten seamstresses. Martin with an armload of dresses and sold Men were never seen on the premises; deliv- her a few, but most of her customers were eries and workers like carpenters or plumbers friends or friends of friends. Each evening, came after the close of business. our phone rang constantly with clients up- By the late 1960s, after the deaths of both Mari S. Gold has written for the New dating her on their social schedules so that my grandmother and mother, Filer-Machol York Times, American Profile, Relish, the “right” dresses would be on hand for closed. I wasn’t interested in the business, TravelSmart, Indianapolis Monthly, and numerous e-zines. An avid cook and their next appointment. and fashion had changed as women became foodie, she contributes restaurant reviews Filer-Machol retained Gusso Kahn and consumed with designer labels, instead of to Zagat guides and the Vermont News Guide and is working on a young adult Company, an advertising agency, largely to identifying clothes by their source, as in novel with a food theme. She divides her place classified ads for “alteration hands.” “this dress came from Filer-Machol.” Indi- time between New York City, where she is director of communications for a major Clothes from the shop occasionally made it vidualized service grew increasingly costly; healthcare organization, and Dorset, into a newspaper feature, but publicity was the Age of Aquarius popularized jeans and Vermont.
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Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 23 e
t New Immigrants in Black Buggies
a BY Varick A. Chittenden
If you believed some of the talking heads Italians and Armenians to meet the sudden ing furniture for a store that features Amish on cable television or talk radio the last couple needs of industries like Alcoa in Massena or crafts. Amish women and girls have been pst of years, it’s been the “immigration prob- Watertown, Polish and Slavs in iron mines supplementing family incomes since they first lem” that is leading to the downfall of our of the Champlain Valley, and Jews as pack arrived here by making and selling baskets and u American way of life, and something has to peddlers, selling essential goods to far-flung quilts in their traditional dark colors or, on be done about it! Lou Dobbs and FOXNews country homes. commission by one of us “English,” in bright rail against “the government” for ignoring the But the changes in American life—the colors of our choosing. loss of American jobs to illegals, the threats of growth of cities, the increasing mechaniza- While their entrepreneurship is widely bilingual education, or the porous borders that tion of physical labor, greater mobility as admired, and their friendship is valued by allow terrorists freedom of movement into transportation became easier, and more neighbors who have come to know them, our heartland. The issues and any solutions people becoming formally educated, for ex- these Old Order Amish—said by scholars to are too complex for me to understand very ample—caught up with places like northern be among the most conservative anywhere— well. I live in the North Country, where new New York as time went on. The Golden Age are seen as both exotic and confusing. Their immigrants are few and far between. of the North Country was slipping away. refusal to put red warning triangles on their Yes, Jamaicans come to the orchards of Young people left for better employment buggies because it violated their rule against the Champlain Valley to pick apples in the opportunities, military service and travel displaying bright colors seemed foolish to fall; Mexicans work on Saint Lawrence Valley introduced many to other places they might many North Country drivers. Ignoring local dairy farms, and young Eastern Europeans like to live, and small farms—the bulwark of building codes that require smoke detectors wait tables and clean rooms in Adirondack local life—were disappearing, giving way to in houses or distant placement of outhouses resorts. Some are here legally, some are not. agribusiness, corporate-style. seems unsafe or unhealthy to others. And the But they willingly work for low pay at seasonal In the early 1970s, however, that all began objection of one family to routine surgery to jobs that Americans—including locals—seem to change, as new immigrants started arriving, repair the defective heart of a one-year-old unwilling to do. one family at a time, with their black buggies child as contrary to their religious views was Making the North Country home for new and horse-drawn farm wagons. These were controversial to others, to say the least. In their immigrants from anywhere in the world is the Old Order Amish, coming in from Ohio, words, “that’s just our way,” but it’s hard for another question entirely. What was once one Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Michigan. Land us to understand. of the fastest growing parts of the state is no here is cheap by others’ standards. Abandoned By and large, these new arrivals to the more—and hasn’t been for a long time. Dur- farm buildings on rural roads make Saint North Country are welcome and, in their own ing the first waves of settlement in the early Lawrence County an ideal relocation site for way, really fitting in. Unlike the generations of nineteenth century, for example, Saint Law- the Amish. And in the years since, they have earlier immigrants who over time assimilated rence County’s total population was among continued to move here in significant num- into the general culture of local life, these the highest of rural counties in the state. In the bers. Despite the long, cold winters and short Amish will likely not do that. They will not 1850 census, a half century after New England growing seasons, they find this place works for become like us; we will not become like them. farmers began the first wave of white immi- them. By now, there are at least four Amish But these “people apart” provide a great op- gration to establish small farms and villages, communities scattered through the county, portunity for us to experience “the other” in 68,617 people were counted. That was 10,000 with a population of over one thousand. amiable, nurturing ways that should be good more than Westchester County, over twice as It’s become common for the rest of us for all. Would that new immigrants could many as Broome (with Binghamton), and four to see Amish families at the local feed store, have that kind of experience everywhere in times as many as Rockland (a relatively short loading up grain or other supplies. But we also America! distance from the city of New York). see them at the new Wal-Mart Supercenter, By 1890, Saint Lawrence County had a buying snack food or school supplies. There Varick A. Chittenden is professor emeritus population of 89,083; in 1950, 98,897; and in are some country roads where you can find of English at the 2000, 111,284. This slow but steady growth baked goods or, in season, strawberries or State University of New York in Canton was attributed at first to new immigrants from cabbages at roadside stands about every other and Heritage Center foreign lands: French Canadians who came to house. There are nearly a dozen sawmills, a project director for work in the Adirondack lumber woods, Irish buggy maker and harness maker or two, and, Traditional Arts in Upstate New York to be tenant farmers or domestic workers, I’m told, as many as forty or fifty men mak- (TAUNY). Photo: Martha Cooper
24 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore City of Memory BY STEVE ZEITLIN
The memory map of Manhattan was of cityofmemory.org as a giant brain, en- Avenue in the Bronx, circa 1950. And even twenty feet long. The Bronx and Brooklyn compassing memory and humanity in ways the contemporary places on the map, such were small in comparison. Staten Island was that constantly surprise its creators—and the as the Federation of Black Cowboys in only two feet wide. We hauled it all down to stories and memories are accessed in mul- Howard Beach, exist virtually in relation to Washington in a pickup truck and mounted tiple ways, like synapses in the brain. Google a changing city, and the simple statement in the styrofoam maps on a chain link fence at memory extends my recall several times each the upper left-hand corner—Date Posted, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. We tracked day as it is, and online memory is, perhaps, viewed whenever—speaks to a metropolis down a stationery store for a few boxes of part of the brain’s evolution. in a constant state of change. sharpies and some acetate paper, which we Throughout its creation, Jake and I talked In life, it’s always seemed to me that the true cut into three-inch squares. For two weeks about trying to capture the cognitive maps gift that each of us is given is consciousness. former New Yorkers jotted their memories of the city each of us carries in our brain, so Our quest is to use that consciousness to on the squares and thumbtacked each to the we envisioned stories being linked together create meaning. “Our greatest desire, greater precise address where the story took place. By as “tours,” connected by a dotted line on the even than the desire for happiness, is that our the end of the two weeks the maps were filled site. Some of these evolved into our new lives mean something,” writes psychologist with memories. Strips of acetate were piled immigrant tours, where spokespeople lead Daniel Taylor. “This desire for meaning is the high beneath a single pin, creating miniature us on a tour of Places that Matter to their originating impulse of story.” In this world, tenements and tiny skyscrapers with multiple community. There is, for instance, a Russian we develop relationships as we come to share stories. It was the summer of 2001, just be- Jewish tour of Brighton Beach led by Rita memories and experiences and traditions. fore 9/11 changed everything. Kagan. But the site also includes a Local People who are close often have a visceral The maps’ designer, Jake Barton, helped Character’s Hall of Fame tour linking dispa- sense of one another’s memories. Knowing mount our styrofoam city at the festival. rate elements from different parts of the city her so well, I have a picture in my mind, for Before he left, we talked about how these and different points in time: a scene from a instance, of what my wife Amanda was like renditions of memory would work so well Rob Maas documentary of the Polar Bears as a child, although I didn’t know her then. online. The notion of cultural projects on from the late ’90s, Dave Isay’s work with the City of Memory creates a series of in- the web was new to us back then. A year Brooklyn Elite Checker Club, a club that we terlocking memories, chronicling the city’s later, in a sweet act of fate, we received notice included in our City Play exhibit twenty years inner life. Place-based, it links stories and that the National Endowment for the Arts ago. memories in ways that transcend chronology was opening a special initiative for arts and We included “ghost sites,” places whose and time, sparking connections and enabling technology. We were so excited when we absence from the landscape leave a dramatic, visitors to rediscover the city through the received the funds, confident that we would gaping hole. These places continue to have memories of others. Our hope is that New put up the site in one year. Like many of a palpable existence in the virtual city: places Yorkers from many walks of life and cultural our projects, we must have been thinking of like the house under the roller coaster made backgrounds will be able to find themselves dog years, because it took almost seven. The famous in Annie Hall and the Dorothy Day on the map and garner a deeper appreciation programmer was diagnosed with cancer, a cottage in Staten Island, both razed by real of the shared experience of urban life. As the downst second programmer didn’t work out, and the estate interests, in 2000 and 2001, respec- site’s wide-eyed creators, Jake and I watch in effort proceeded in fits and starts—after all, tively. And visitors to the site create their amazement at how the new web technologies we were inventing it as we went along. own tours of ghost sites. Kathryn Adisman enable us to use computers in ways that are It was a long, strange trip, but what was created her own “K’s New York: Going profoundly human, extending the boundaries even stranger is what happened when the site Going Gone,” which includes her favorite of consciousness and memory. began to function. Science fiction is filled with places in the West Village that are no longer stories of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or the there: the Vegetable Garden, Moondance Jewish legend of the Golem: human beings Diner, Bleeker Luncheonette. She calls it Steve Zeitlin is the create a larger-than-life form that comes to “the world of things disappearing.” Visitors founding director of City Lore in New York City. life and wreaks havoc on the world. City of have used the site to post evanescent details a
Memory began to feel like a creature with a of memory: Stan Solomon recalls bringing t life of own, but with life-affirming instead heavy wooden folding chairs to sit out on of life-effacing strengths. We came to think the sidewalk on summer nights on Leggett e
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 25 Meet Our Neighbors: The Nepali
People of Bhutan BY Felicia Faye McMahon
As a public sector folklorist and research in 1998 the Bhutanese government revoked to immigrate to the United States and other professor in anthropology at Syracuse Uni- the citizenship, making the “Llotsampas” illegal countries. versity, my fieldwork frequently brings me immigrants in the land they considered their In Syracuse there is a growing community in contact with newly arrived immigrants to home. (Nepalese of Bhutan reject the use of of about ninety newcomers whose traditions central New York. The newest ethnic group the word, which means “southerners,” be- are a unique blending from Nepal and Bhutan. to arrive in Syracuse are the Nepali people of cause it categorizes them as a regional group, They speak khas-kurā or Nepali, a Pahari lan- e s F i el d N ot Bhutan who arrived in our city this past May. when they are actually of several different guage closely related to but more conservative A phone call from one of the caseworkers ethnicities.) than Hindu. The women wear the traditional at Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement In the early 1990s, the government of Bhu- sari of Nepal and common attire for men is Services alerted me to their arrival. tan expelled 100,000 Nepali people, who were the topi (hat) worn with the daurā śuruwal, a I did not know it at the time, but the forced to flee to refugee camps in eastern Ne- two-piece suit that consists of pants and a long Nepali Bhutanese comprise one-third of pal. Because the governments of Nepal and tunic. Traditional foods include daal, bhaat, Bhutan’s population and have a distinctive Bhutan cannot come to an agreement about and tarkaari (lentils, rice, and vegetables) and culture. They are descendants of Nepalese the status of the Nepali Bhutanese, they have chiura, a snack of beaten rice eaten with tea. agriculturalists who migrated to Bhutan in lived in limbo for more than seventeen years. Because they are Hindu, they do not eat beef. the nineteenth century. In 1958 Bhutan finally In 2008, 60,000 members of this community Momos, meat- or vegetable-filled dumplings, granted citizenship to this Hindu group, but will be granted refugee status and allowed are common but are often filled with goat cheese. Other traditional ingredients include dhai (yogurt) and pharsi (pumpkin curry). Throughout the summer I’ve met with this new community under the shade of large trees on the lawn of Rosemont Cemetery to plan their introduction to city residents dur- ing Syracuse University’s “Folk Arts: Soul of Syracuse” series on October 4. The event will be held in October because it is the month when Deusi is celebrated. Among the Nepali Bhutanese, Deusi is an important festival that extends for three days. Festivals in the home- land, however, are more than holidays. They are occasions when devotion to the deities is expressed. Deusi is the most important festival because it is celebrates Goddess Bhagabatis’s victory over evil Mashisaher. Traditional dances and songs are integral to this festival. On October 4, our city’s residents will hear for the first time the sounds of the madal, a two-sided drum, and witness a performance of damphu, a traditional dance performed by girls. These and other traditions of the Nepali Bhutanese are enriching central New York’s cultural landscape.
Felicia Faye McMahon is a research pro- fessor in anthropology at Syracuse Uni- versity, where she teaches public folklore Members of Syracuse’s Nepali Bhutanese community pose in Rosemont Cemetery Park, courses in the Renée Crown University July 2008. Photo: Felicia Faye McMahon Honors and Soling programs.
26 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore g ood spi r its
Houses of Horror BY LIBBY TUCKER
Those of us who enjoy watching scary pler story about a girl or young woman who his family a little more than a year before the movies know that a certain kind of haunted drowns in the Pink House’s fountain and Lutz family moved in. Since Anson’s book house epitomizes horror. In Shirley Jackson’s then haunts the fountain as a playful ghost. and the movie attributed the haunting to the The Haunting of Hill House, for example, the Wellsville historians identify the woman who ghosts of an actual murderer and his victims, eerie, ornate mansion possessed by children’s committed suicide at the Pink House in 1857 that kernel of truth encouraged belief. spirits seems to cause the central character’s as Frances Farnum, known as “Pauline” in Synonyms for the word “horror” include death. Even larger and stranger than Hill a poem by Hanford Lennox Gordon. “revulsion” and “fear.” Both of these terms House, the mansion in Stephen King’s Rose The Pink House’s long oral history of apply to people’s reactions to the DeFeo Red seems to like nothing better than killing haunting has intrigued adults and scared murder, which transformed a family’s home people in various horrible ways. Houses like children, including a few who have become into a place of premature death. “Revul- these take starring roles in films, becoming students of mine at Binghamton University, sion” also describes many New Yorkers’ both agents of evil and settings for charac- but the house’s reputation does not extend response to the public frenzy that followed ters’ actions. beyond New York State. No film crews ar- the first Amityville book, the movie, and Most haunted houses in New York do not rive on Halloween to track the Pink House’s the many subsequent books and movies on quite rise to “house of horror” status. Kids latest developments. Like most houses with the same subject. Tourists caused endless in my neighborhood in Vestal, for example, a reputation for being haunted, this one inconvenience for residents of the house swap stories each fall about a certain haunted excites local interest but gets little attention at 112 Ocean Avenue, who altered the house. Up on a hill at the top of Cherry on a grander scale. Some houses inspire leg- house’s facade and changed its address to Lane, this house seems dark and strange. ends that appear from time to time in local deter unwanted visitors. Since the original Grass grows tall there, obscuring the en- papers. An imposing gray-and-white Victo- movie was filmed in a different house at 18 trance so that passersby cannot see anyone rian mansion in Binghamton, for example, Brooks Road in Toms River, New Jersey, that going in or out. Whoever lives in this house allegedly has a ghost that carries buckets of house’s residents also had to deal with many never comes down for garage sales or other coal upstairs late at night. Some residents of unwanted intrusions. They painted the house neighborhood events. Could the house be Johnson City say that if you stand outside blue, changed its position in relation to the haunted? Early in October, when darkness a certain stone house late at night, you can river, and made other changes to discourage falls early and the air grows cold, stories hear spectral music played by the ghost of eager ghost hunters. about our haunted house start to circulate. a little girl. Legends about these two houses Some Amityville legend tellers attribute While this dwelling comes nowhere near the have thrilled and amused local residents the haunting of 112 Ocean Avenue to angry horror quotient of Hill House and Rose Red, without becoming well known outside their spirits of Native Americans, whose grave- it gives kids a good scare on Halloween. immediate regions. yard was disturbed for the house’s construc- Most stories about haunted houses qualify In contrast to these local hauntings, a tion. One narrator makes the point that the as local legends. Many neighborhood resi- private home on the south shore of Long house “did not want to be destroyed” after dents, especially preteens and teenagers, like Island in Amityville has become a notorious completion of the first movie, because it had to hear about the history of houses where house of horror. This house’s history is so “unfinished business.” That kind of business something unusual has happened. A case in well known that I hardly need to summarize does not sound good. It is just as well that point is the Pink House in Wellsville, New it here. Jay Anson’s 1977 book The Amityville most haunted houses simply stand on their York. In Things That Go Bump in the Night Horror claimed to document paranormal plots of land and take no roles in dramas of (1959), Louis C. Jones traces the legends events that took place after George and their own. associated with Wellsville’s pink Victorian Kathy Lutz moved into a Dutch colonial mansion. Most of these legends describe house at 112 Ocean Avenue. After the Libby Tucker teaches the suicide of the mansion owner’s daughter. book’s publication, the 1979 film of the folklore at Binghamton Spurned by the man she loves, who has mar- same title caused a local and national furor. University. Her book ried her sister, this miserable young woman While some people insisted that the book Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College drowns herself in a millpond or fountain and movie were based on a hoax, others Campuses (Jackson: Uni- on the mansion’s grounds. In some variants, believed that paranormal events had taken versity Press of Missis- sippi, 2007) investigates the woman’s ghost lures her little niece into place in the house. The presence of ghosts college ghost stories. the fountain, where the child loses her life. was debatable, but it was well known that Her most recent book is Children’s Folklore: Recent narrators on the Internet tell a sim- Ronald DeFeo Jr. had shot six members of A Handbook (Westport: Greenwood, 2008).
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 27 Diatonisk and the Dulcimer
BY NILS R. CASPERSSON
y search for the psalmodikon and M the origin of the fretted dulcimer began in New York’s Saratoga County in the late 1960s. I used to hitch hike to Caffè Lena in Saratoga Springs, where I first saw and heard the fretted dulcimer. A defining moment in my search came many years later, during a 2003 trip to Sweden to visit relatives in Stockholm and Mora. My wife and I took the opportunity to visit the cultural museum Skansen on Djurgarden, a large island just off Gamla Stan, Stockholm. Skansen, established in 1891 as the world’s first open-air museum, shows more than 150 houses and farm buildings from fourteenth- to nineteenth-century Sweden, portraying the life of both peasants and landed gentry. We were in the Älvros farmhouse, a typical nineteenth-century northern farmstead and one of the museum’s sites for regularly sched- uled folk music performances, when my wife tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Look at that!” Hanging on an inside log wall in the main living area was a psalmodikon, the first I had ever seen in person. Inside the instru- ment, written in thin ink and a very delicate script, was an illegible Swedish name, but the written date—1842—was very clear. The fretted dulcimer, also known as the lap, mountain, or Appalachian dulcimer, emerged in the southern Appalachian Mountains. The fretted dulcimer is often confused with the hammered dulcimer, a multistringed harp played with small wooden hammers. The word “dulcimer” may have entered sixteenth-century English through Latin translations of the Bible (Daniel 3:5), and was broadly applied by Appalachian Hourglass-shaped moraharpa, 1526. Zorn Collections, Mora, Sweden. Photo: K. G. Svensson.
28 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Nineteenth-century psalmodikon player, Dalecarlia, Dalarna, Sweden. Courtsey Musikmuseet, Stockholm.
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 29 Detail of a nineteenth-century psalmodikon, Angermanland, Sweden. Photo courtesy of the author.
settlers. With a diatonic fret pattern, the ballad called “The Twa Sisters” (Child ballad to life. The harp is dashed against a stone or fretted dulcimer is easy to play and can be #10)—share similar references to super- upon the floor, and the maiden stands forth considered a true “folk” instrument. natural restoration of a broken soul through disenchanted. “The Twa Sisters” has a similar The instrument’s distinctive design and music. In the ballads, a maiden is drowned by reference: musical qualities link it to several sixteenth- to her jealous sister, and through a viol or harp (a And when she died, the fiddles played, twentieth-century Swedish folk instruments. fiddle is the usual instrument in Scandinavian Her father heard how she had been My research has revealed obvious Swedish ballads) furnished by some part of her body, slayed. musical ancestors to the fretted dulcimer as she reveals the identity of her killer. Among it exists in the United States today. Detailed the English texts is the “hair” incident: A version of this text was collected by links substantiate the theory that immigrants John Jacob Niles in eastern Kentucky in 1932. He’s taen three locks o her yellow hair, from the region of Lake Siljan in central Swe- The textual similarities between the Swedish, An wi them strung his harp sae fair. den and south to Stockholm brought their English, and later American forms of these folk music and instruments (the psalmodikon, And in Swedish: ballads illustrate how literary themes survive hummel, and perhaps the diatonic key pattern centuries of cross-cultural generation—and Spelmän tog hennes gullgula har, of the moraharpa) to America beginning in how traditional craft and music persist to- Och gjorde där harposträngar av. gether across time and place. the seventeenth century. More than any other ( The fiddler took her golden hair, immigrant group, these musicians sparked the And made harp strings from it.) In 1633 the New South Company was development of the fretted dulcimer. formed by Dutch and Swedish investors to Two ballads—“Systrarna” (Sisters), a me- In one Swedish version and in nearly all establish a settlement in America. They first dieval Swedish ballad, and a 1656 English the Norwegian texts, the maiden is restored settled near present-day Wilmington, Dela-
30 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore ware, in 1637 and named the area New Swe- In 1828 Swedish Lutheran Reverend Johan dikon was often made entirely of spruce, den. The second great wave of immigration Dillner learned of the Estonian psalmo- sometimes joined with handwrought metal from Sweden to the United States followed dikon, a long variously shaped instrument or wooden nails or hide glue and dovetail poor harvests and over-population in the with a small number of strings over a raised joints. The absence of fretwire, readily avail- early 1840s, when thousands of Swedes were fretboard, held on the lap or a table top able today, forced ingenious solutions with encouraged by their government to settle in and played with a short horsehair bow. He carved fret markers, alternately colored tone America. The Swedes traveled north, south, wrote a special psalmbok for his improved marking, and floating bridges. Strings were and west through Boston, New York, and psalmodikon, using the sifferskrift or tablature made of gut or tightly wound fibers. Philadelphia. Chicago became the American method (playing by fret number). With the L. P. Esbjorn learned in 1846 to play the Swedish population center, with more than psalmodikon, he taught rural Swedish choirs psalmodikon from the wife of Pastor Olaf forty thousand Swedes in 1880, followed hymn singing and four-part harmony. Dill- Forsell of the Östervalla parish. Esbjorn im- by Minnesota, Maine, Kansas, and western ner was ordained in 1839 in the Östervalla migrated three years later to the United States, New York. parish of Uppsala, just north of Stockholm, where he founded the Augustana Lutheran The violin—in Swedish, fidele—was banned where he encouraged his parishioners to Synod in North America. Other players by the Lutheran church in Sweden in the early hantverk—build their own—and play their and pastors carried their psalmodikons to nineteenth century as leading to dancing. Fol- psalmodikons. Before long, there were more America through the nineteenth and twen- lowing a fiddler,spelmän, young girls might be than ten thousand psalmodikons in his area. tieth centuries. Psalmodikons can still be enticed to dance or to go into the woods or Spruce trees grow straight and tall in cen- found in Swedish museums and private col- near the waters. In a rural culture with dances tral Sweden, and it is the dominant wood, lections in New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and music for almost every occasion and followed by birch. During the holiday of New Jersey, Minnesota, Maine, Tennessee, holiday, and where deep spruce woods and Midsommar, the third weekend of June and the Virginias, and other states. Three late cool fresh waters are everywhere, that ban was the summer solstice, people decorate homes, nineteenth-century Swedish psalmodikons somewhat paradoxical. The church encour- boats, streets, and poles with green birch found in the area of Jamestown, New York, aged choral singing, but for rural congrega- boughs, but spruce is the wood of choice are today in the private collection of Dennis tions that could not afford a piano or an organ, for more practical construction, including Dorogi of Brocton, New York. Jamestown’s musical accompaniment was a problem. stringed musical instruments. The psalmo- significant Swedish population started grow-
Appalachian three-string dulcimer made by James E. Thomas, 1913. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 31 The author playing a Spelmäner dulcimer, Holley, New York, 2007. Photo: Ian Caspersson
ing in 1846 with Swedish immigrants who holes, is estimated to be 43,000 to 82,000 a soldier in the 79th Pennsylvania Veteran settled in the area after diminished resources years old. Musical instruments with diatonic Volunteer Infantry Regiment, kept a diary and sickness forced them to curtail their scales, including the psalmodikon, hummel, (now held in the Library of Congress) from westward movement along the Erie Canal to penny whistle, harmonica, fretted dulcimer, September 14, 1861, to October 2, 1864. On the Great Lakes. and chanters with bag pipes of all sorts, can June 4, 1862, Johnston wrote, “Left Cowen’s One remarkable three-stringed spruce be played with minimal practice by almost Station and marched over the Cumberland moraharpa, collected in 1900 by Anders Zorn anyone. They are all “folk” instruments—of mountains to Cumberland Gap or Sweden in Mora, Dalarna, Sweden, has the date 1526 and for the folk. Valley,” continuing, “June 5. Left Sweden carved in the back. Tuned correctly—prob- James E. Thomas (c. 1850–1933) was Cove Valley camp and marched through ably D-A-D, or in fifth intervals, and with the earliest documented and most prolific Jaspertown.” a diatonic (in Swedish, diatonisk) key pat- dulcimer maker. This farmer from Bath in Thomas could certainly have seen and tern—like the fretted dulcimer it would southeastern Kentucky is credited with the heard a Swedish psalmodikon in the Cumber- have no “wrong” notes. Diatonic has many dulcimer’s distinctive hourglass form with land Gap region. Sandy Conatser and David definitions: no sharps or flats, the white piano heart-shaped sound holes. While there is Schnaufer of Nashville, Tennessee, have doc- keys, a natural major, eight true intervals in no known record of how or from whom umented numerous “Tennessee music boxes” an octave, do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do! The oldest Thomas learned to make dulcimers or how found throughout southern middle Tennessee known musical instrument with a diatonic he developed his distinctive design, there is and dated by family histories between 1870 scale is a Neanderthal flute found in 1997 by evidence of Swedish Lutheran immigrants and 1940. The music boxes are very similar Ivan Turk, a paleontologist at the Slovenian in the Cumberland Gap, the area where to primitive psalmodikons with diatonic fret Academy of Sciences in Ljubljana. The flute, western Virginia, southeastern Kentucky, and patterns. The earliest documented fretted a cave bear femur bone segment with four northern Tennessee meet. Adam S. Johnston, dulcimer-like instrument dates from 1830.
32 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Nineteenth-century psalmodikon fretboard, Dalarna, Sweden. Photo courtesy of the author.
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 33 Carved rosewood scroll on a dulcimer made by Dennis Dorogi, Brocton, New York, 2007. Photo: Dennis Dorogi
The German scheitholt, a linear cousin to the Swedish folk band Hedningarna. Classes and of Swedish and Scandinavian settlement. The psalmodikon, has been found in Pennsylvania instruction are available from Dulcimer Player Swedes are well known for their handicraft as early as 1781, but the scheitholt does not News, Stewart-MacDonald, Cowan Creek and stylized woodworking using indig- have a raised fretboard, making it virtually Mountain Music School, the Swannanoa enous materials. The fretted dulcimer has impossible to play with a bow, and it has a flat Gathering, and the John C. Campbell Folk evolved continuously through more than scroll. The fretted dulcimer was occasionally School. Current innovations in fretted dulci- four hundred years, across two continents played with a short horsehair bow. mer construction often incorporate acoustic and numerous cultures and populations. Today the fretted dulcimer is often used to guitar building methods and details, using Contemporary fretted dulcimers continue play a wide variety of Irish, Swedish, Ameri- three to more than eight strings and vari- to be constructed by itinerant luthiers and can, and English fiddle and dance tunes; tra- ous acoustic materials, including exotic and woodworkers. The instrument’s ease of play ditional and modern ballads; religious hymns; domestic hardwoods, cardboard, plywood, and variety of design have made it a popular classical and baroque melodies; improvisation veneers, tin cans, chromatic frets, half frets, and affordable folk music instrument readily and jazz; and more. Dulcimer festivals and re- removable frets, diatonic capos, banjo and available to people of all ages who have been lated events can be found in most East Coast guitar tuners, violin fine tuners, and electronic charmed by the strains of traditional ballads states and during Swedish holidays and festi- pickups. Some noted builders include Dennis and melodies. vals starting with Midsommar. Contemporary Dorogi, Jeremy Seeger, and Dwain Wilder. dulcimer musicians include Jean Ritchie, Joni Courses in dulcimer building are taught in Mitchell, Cindi Lauper, David Massengill, Marholmen, Sweden. Nils R. Caspersson is a luthier and fretted dulcimer musician living in Holley, New Dan Fogelberg, Brian Jones, Jimmy Page, American regional interest in the fretted York. Richard Thompson, Steve Martin, and the dulcimer frequently coincides with evidence
34 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore obit uar Pioneering Ethnomusicologist:
Henrietta Yurchenco, 1916 to 2007 BY EILEEN CONDON
New York’s folk arts community joins the tional fieldwork trips, but also through social flights of stairs to bring her gallons of water. world in mourning the passing of pioneering activism and singing sessions hosted at her She sustained them, and they sustained her.” y ethnomusicologist, radio broadcaster, and apartment. Daughter-in-law Ingrid Yurchenco Folklorist Hanna Griff-Sleven, director of educator Henrietta Yurchenco, who died at (wife to son Peter) commented that Henrietta’s the Family History Center and Cultural Center ninety-one in Manhattan in December 2007. deep connection to her students contributed at the Museum at Eldridge Street, shares with Yurchenco left behind a large legacy of publica- to her longevity: “Her students took care of Voices readers the following recollection of tions on folk music and musicians, older and her—helped her stay self-sufficient. During her visit, with students, to Henrietta’s Chelsea newer, as well as field recordings, including but a power outage, they once walked up twelve apartment last fall. not limited to documentation of the musics I had the privilege of having Henrietta Yurchenco teach a class for me last fall. (It was the last of isolated indigenous mountain peoples of class she taught, and I feel proud and honored that class was mine.) Steve Zeitlin and Amanda Mexico and the ballads of Sephardic Jewish Dargan [folklorists at City Lore in Manhattan] had introduced me to her . . . when they turned women of Morocco. On the radio for decades, their folklore class at CUNY’s Center for Worker Education over to me. One of their strong she hosted Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Bob Dylan, suggestions was that I take the class to Henrietta Yurchenco’s apartment and have her lecture to and Woody Guthrie before their names were the class about her work and life. My class consisted of twenty-five people, mostly women of well known. Broadcasts Henrietta produced African American and Caribbean background between the ages of twenty and forty-eight. The with co-host Eli Smith up until her death can Center for Worker Education program is designed for students who worked during the day and be heard at www.downhomeradioshow.com. those that started school but had not finished. Her publications include a 1970 biography On a September evening my students gathered at her apartment on West 22nd Street. Henrietta’s of Woody Guthrie and a musical memoir of home was beautifully filled with masks, paintings, and textiles from Mexico and other places. her extraordinarily daring, dedicated, and in- What charmed me the most was her collection of spoons in a holder on her dining room table, sightful searches for singers and songs across as well as her pretty ceramics holding jam and other breakfast items, for I had the same objets several continents, Around the World in Eighty de folk in my dining room! When I walked in with the students she was hitched up to a mobile oxygen machine, but it didn’t daunt her a bit. Years (2003). “Come in, come in, Hanna!” she called from the bedroom. One of my students, Yasmin, had As a City College professor, Yurchenco gotten there earlier, and she was perched on Henrietta’s bed talking away to her. “Help me move nurtured relationships with students that into the living room,” Henrietta said, as sprightly as ever. I took Henrietta’s arm and Yasmin got lasted their whole lives—and hers—not only behind her tank and rolled it behind us, and we got her settled in a chair in the living room. The through classroom interactions and interna- joy in her face as she looked around the room was contagious. My students had brought food and wine and made themselves right at home. She demanded that we fill her up a plate, and she greeted everyone and had everyone go around the room and introduce themselves. And then she held court: for about an hour and a half she regaled the class with her life story, her time at WNYC, her first trip to Mexico, and her subsequent fieldwork. The students had read part of her book in preparation, so they had egged her on and asked questions. She was funny and irreverent and feisty and warm. When she got tired she had her musician friends, Common Ground, come out and sing folk songs to the class (they had quietly arrived mid-class). Some students got up and danced, sang along. Henrietta grinned; the joy in her face at all the energy in the room was sublime. The students left, and Henrietta wanted to talk some more to me. We talked about the class and how great it had been; she wanted to know about my upcoming projects at work and my wedding. I had only met her once before, but I felt like I had known her all my life. I looked at the clock and it was past eleven, and I had to go. I kissed her goodnight. Steve Zeitlin told me she was failing, and I bought a card and had the students all sign and write notes of cheer to her. I believe it got to her the day she died. The students were really saddened to hear she had passed. That night in September—but particularly her warmth and interest in them and life—had inspired them throughout the semester. —Hanna Griff-Sleven
Basil Yurchenco. Photo courtesy of Peter Henrietta Yurchenco’s latest book, In Their Own Words: Women in the Judeo-Hispanic Song and Story, Yurchenco. is available online at www.henriettayurchenco.com.
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 35 Schooner Captain BY PAUL MARGOLIS ON G By all logic, the skills needed to manage a in 1885, is used exten- large sailing vessel shouldn’t have any place in sively by the South Street contemporary New York City. The days when Seaport for harbor tours, the southern tip of Manhattan resembled a charters, and educational forest of masts and spars are long gone. Even sails. He is responsible though the commercial era of the Port of for the operation of the New York has waned, however, sails still have vessel, program outreach, a place in the waters around the city. A hand- and grant writing, as well ful of sailing vessels serve the purposes of as scheduling and making sightseeing and education; they still operate sure that the schooner under canvas and demand the same ancient has crew and provisions maritime skills that would have been required and is in good repair. 150 years ago. For several years, he STI LL G OIN ST R Captain Aaron Singh is one of the indi- was also the captain of viduals who maintain the sailing tradition the Lettie G. Howard— in New York Harbor. Skipper of the South the same vessel he once Street Seaport Museum’s schooner, Pioneer, served on as cook. The Singh didn’t come from a yachting or sailing Lettie G. Howard is an background. He is the son of immigrants 1890s-vintage fishing from Trinidad, and he grew up in the Stanley schooner that is used Isaacs housing projects in the East 90s of as a floating classroom Manhattan. As far as he knows, no one else for the Harbor School, in his family was ever a sailor. He got his first an innovative maritime- taste of sailing at the age of twelve, as a mem- themed New York City ber of a Sea Scout troop that met on City public school. It also Island in the Bronx. In high school, Singh’s takes passengers on edu- love of the sea led him to an internship at the cational and marine ecol- South Street Seaport Museum. During and ogy cruises of several days’ duration during chance to be around boats.” “If they become after high school, he also volunteered at the the warmer months. a bunch of sailors, that’s fine,” he said, “but seaport, then took on a succession of paying While he has been working at the South sail training is a great teaching tool. It teaches jobs there. Street Seaport Museum on a regular basis kids teamwork, cooperation, and leadership “I must have had at least twenty different since 1995, Singh has also spent time aboard skills, and they can transfer those skills to jobs at the seaport,” he recalled. These in- other sailing vessels. He has worked on more school and work.” cluded a stint as cook on the schooner Lettie modern vessels, including research and envi- The craft of running and maintaining a G. Howard, vessel repair and maintenance ronmental ships. He sees his role primarily as sailing vessel, of being responsible for its jobs, and in the education department, where that of an educator who provides students safe operation and the coordination of a crew he developed and coordinated maritime with nautical experiences that they might to keep the mechanism of canvas and rope programs for schoolchildren. While he was not otherwise get. South Street Seaport has safely under way, is kept alive in the twenty- still a teenager, Singh studied and put in the a number of grant-funded programs that first century by New York City skippers like required sea time, and got his mate’s license. enable students from New York City public Aaron Singh. He went on to get a master’s license for ves- schools to spend time on sailing vessels. sels of up to one hundred tons, with an auxil- Singh pointed out that, while private schools Paul Margolis is a pho- iary sail endorsement, at the age of nineteen. can afford to pay for sailing programs on tographer, writer, and Now twenty-nine, he has recently gotten his Pioneer and similar vessels, the opportuni- educator who lives in New York City. Examples five hundred–ton master’s license. ties are very limited for children from more of his work can be seen Singh has been the skipper of the 103-foot, modest backgrounds. Singh feels that his on his web site, forty-passenger Pioneer since April 2005. greatest contribution is to provide sail train- www.paulmargolis.com. Pioneer, a steel-hulled schooner that was built ing to “kids who wouldn’t normally have the
36 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore foodw
No Egg, No Cream BY LYNN CASE EKFELT
My husband and I recently made a pilgrimage never with club soda. It must be drunk stand- The Original Brooklyn Egg Cream
to New York City to taste an egg cream. When ing up and gulped down immediately before a This recipe comes straight from the web site of
I told her our plans, one of my friends said, it goes flat. ys the experts at Fox’s, makers of U-bet chocolate “Only you would travel eight hours to taste a As a native Buffalonian, I’d never heard of syrup—it couldn’t be more authentic. soda.” Maybe so, but for loyal fans of the egg this delicacy until I had lunch with my former cream, that simple soda has all the evocative coworker Joan Larsen, born and raised in New Take a tall, chilled, straight-sided eight-ounce potential of Proust’s madeleines. York. She waxed nostalgic about childhood glass. Spoon one inch of U-bet chocolate syrup into glass. Add one inch whole milk. Tilt the glass Yes, an egg cream is a chocolate soda, and trips to Gladys and Sam’s candy store, where and spray seltzer (from a pressurized cylinder no, it contains neither eggs nor cream. Like all her family went for their egg creams. Appar- only) off a spoon to make a big chocolate head. mythic icons, the egg cream’s origins are mys- ently no one ever made them at home, although Stir, drink, enjoy. terious. Although most people seem to agree it seems that would have been easy enough in that it was invented in 1890 by Louis Auster, those days, when a wooden box of seltzer in slurped as fast as we could, but it was difficult a Jewish candy shop owner in Brooklyn, no bottles with siphons arrived weekly at every to get to the bottom of the drink before it went one is sure where it got its name. Of course, door in her neighborhood. But no, one made flat and turned into watery chocolate milk. Still, various theories have been propounded: Auster a trip to the candy store or to its more upscale there was a lot to be said for the combination did put eggs and cream into his original soda, sibling, the luncheonette, and let the soda jerk of chocolate and fizz, however ephemeral. but later changed the formula, keeping the old perform the magic. We decided our palates needed a break name. . . . The froth on top looked like egg I decided we needed to try two versions of before our next sample, so we took a side trip white. . . . “Egg cream” is a corruption of a this nectar for the sake of comparison, so I did through Tompkins Park, pausing to watch a Yiddish phrase now forgotten. . . . Eggs and a little research online. Not too surprisingly, group of men playing speed chess with clocks. cream were used in elegant dishes, so by calling there were several web sites where devotees Thirsty again at last, we crossed the street to his soda an egg cream, Auster was appealing to vigorously argued the merits of their favorite Ray’s, an incredibly tiny storefront. It was his customers’ desire to emulate the rich and purveyors. We picked the two that seemed just wide enough for a door, a counter, and famous. They all sound plausible, so pick your the most popular and set off. The candy store a space for the elderly counterman. Belgian favorite. seems to have been supplanted by the magazine fries seemed to be the specialty of the house, However vague connoisseurs may be about shop as the venue of choice for egg creams. but we were on a mission, so we ordered our the origins of the name, they are firm about We went first to the Gem Spa, which despite its comparison chocolate egg cream from a long the particulars of the construction. It must be ritzy name, is basically a tiny corner shop selling list of definitely unorthodox flavors. Mango made with Fox’s U-bet chocolate syrup, manu- lottery tickets, magazines, cigarettes, postcards, egg cream? I don’t think I’d want to hear factured in Brooklyn. It must be made in an and—from a miniscule counter—egg creams. what Louis Auster would say to that! Again, old-fashioned Coke glass. It must be made only Ours came in a paper cup rather than the iconic it appeared in a paper cup. Maybe in these with seltzer water squirted through a siphon, Coke glass, but it had a nice foamy head. We hectic times no one wants to stand still even long enough to guzzle a quick egg cream and return a real glass to the proprietor. This one seemed to go flat even more quickly than the first, although in compensation, it did have a deeper chocolate flavor. The bottom line? Egg creams are very good, but they are too soon gone. I’d rather linger over a super-thick chocolate milkshake, the ambrosia of my childhood.
Lynn Case Ekfelt is retired from her position as a special collections librarian and university archivist at Saint Lawrence University. She is the author of Good Food Served Right: Traditional Recipes and Food Customs from New York’s North Country (Canton, New York: Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, 2000). This is her final column forVoices .
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 37 One the Needle, Another the Thread: Ahiska in Syracuse BY FELICIA FAYE McMAHON
n 2005 the U.S. State Department ethnic clashes in Uzbekistan in 1989, the and carpet making. Their sophisticated ag- Igranted refugee status to fifteen thou- Ahiska were forced to flee to Krasnodar. As ricultural skills, however, are not useful for sand Ahiska from the Krasnodar region a Muslim minority, they have been treated their new urban lives in Syracuse and other of Russia. Often identified by resettlement as illegal immigrants and denied Russian American cities, where Ahiska communi- agencies as Meskhetian Turks (in their own citizenship. ties work to acclimate to American life and language, Akhyskha Tiurkliari) during the For sixty years the Ahiska were exiled simultaneously preserve their heritage. Ottoman Expire (1299–1922), the Ahiska from their homeland in Meskhetia. Despite My first meeting with Sanabar Kakhro- emigrated from Turkey to Meskhetia, now decades of oppression, they have preserved manova was challenging for both of us. I a region in Georgia, which borders Turkey. much of their folklore, such as traditional speak no Russian or Meskhetian Turkish (a Stalin’s regime had deported the Ahiska dance and music, as well as occupational blending of Turkish and Russian languages), to Soviet Central Asia in 1944, but during traditions like wool spinning and blanket and Sanabar speaks no English, so to this
Ahiska wedding dance at Community Folk Art Center in Syracuse on March 31, 2007. All photos courtesy of Felicia Faye McMahon.
38 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore day we communicate through a Russian translator. Because Sanabar is Muslim, she feels most at ease working with a female interpreter. In addition to language barriers, publications about Ahiska language and traditional arts are limited. I nonetheless immediately experienced the warmth and generosity of Sanabar, her husband, her children, and her Ahiska community. Later, when I coordinated a public folk arts program with Elmira Amurlayeeva, a community dance leader, she described our collaboration aptly: “One the needle, another the thread.” When guests like myself visit any Ahiska home, they are immediately made to feel comfortable and welcome. A tablecloth is spread on the floor to accommodate guests, who are always offered bread and chai with fruit or sweets. Scholar Kathryn Tomlinson suggests that this gesture of Ahiska hospitality has a religious connection to Islam. As a root metaphor for Ahiska culture, it is expressed in the phrase, “Misfire elixir kepi’ Dan, rush elixir any’ ad” (If a guest comes through the door, God will send as much as He has created for you through
Ulduz Safarova demonstrates needlework in the folk arts tent at Mayfest 2008.
Ulduz Safarova with granddaughter, Albania. the window) (2005, 111). Chai is served hot and sweet without milk, and it concludes every meal. No good hostess ever fails to offer her guests tea. A typical meal in the Ahiska home begins with yogurt and etmek, a large round load of bread. Yogurt and bread are staples that women continue to make from scratch in the home. In Russia, Ahiska women typically baked one or two dozen loaves of bread each week, except for summer months when the weather was too hot. During that period bread was purchased in stores. Etmek is never wasted; stored properly it stays fresh for two or three days. Katmer, a special flaky bread, con- sists of many thin layers of dough that are brushed with oil, folded, and baked. Bread has such a cultural significance that a simple meal of homemade kalamen (a square-shaped bread), served with chicken and halva (butter and flour sweetened with sugar water), is the first meal shared privately by Ahiska newlyweds. Wedding guests are served both traditional and modern foods, which may include vinegret (Russian Ahiska knitting and crochet.
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 39 Ahiska scarf trimmed with el mandely.
beet salad), khinkali (Georgian dumplings), leaves stuffed with rice, spices, and ground at weddings and other social celebrations. pakhlava (a flaky pastry), and sometimes beef; hanim, layered pastry with beef; hinkali At these festive gatherings, one hears the vodka (Ranard 2006, 21). or manti, boiled dumplings filled with beef; traditional music of zurna (folk oboe), davoul Other traditional foods served in Ahiska pilav, spiced rice; chorba, tomato-based soup (drum), or keyboard, which now substitutes homes include dolma, cabbage or grape with beef and lentils or chicken and rice; for the saz (guitar). Although it takes a des- and kowurma, a dish of layered ignated dancer or “needle” to begin, once vegetables. A typical meal is he or she initiates the dance, many others an elaborate affair that begins form a veritable dancing thread, connecting with etmek, yogurt, and chai, everyone in the room to one another. and continues with chorba and the main course, such as dolma, References hanim, hinkali, or manti, ac- Tomlinson, Kathryn. 2005. Bread is First companied by pilav. This is before Everything!: Moral Economy in followed by a dessert course of Households and States. In Contesting Mo- chai, sweets, and fresh or dried ralities: Science, Identity, Conflict, 105–16. Ed. fruits. Nanneke Redclift. London: UCL Press. In their Syracuse homes, I Ranard, Donald A., ed. 2006. Meskhetian noticed that the Ahiska have Turks: An Introduction to Their History, preserved their unique folk Culture, and Resettlement Experiences. Wash- arts. Women sew yastuh, flat ington, D.C.: Center for Applied Lin- woolen pillows, for a bride’s guistics. dowry, as well as minderler, elon- gated seating cushions. Scarves Felicia Faye McMahon is acquisitions trimmed with hand-crocheted editor of Voices and research associate lace (el mandely) are waved by professor in the Department of Anthropol- ogy at Syracuse University. Since 1998, dancers when they perform she has coordinated the folk arts program haliy, a traditional circle dance, for the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center Marina Izotova (left) with Vasilya Fakhlulova. in Auburn, New York.
40 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore REA DIN G C UL The Oral Tradition Goes Digital BY TOM VAN BUREN
Oral tradition has been finding its way into ceremonies wherever African communities Now, removed far from its source, the es- written form since there has been writing. are found, from Atlanta and Florida in the sential elements of the repertoire are songs Aesop’s fables, while oral and vernacular in South, to Chicago and Minneapolis in the of more general appeal and pertinence to character, cannot be distinguished from their Midwest, to, of course, New York. Patrons modern life. “Denin” tells children not to cry, written form because it is through writing of such events are willing to go to extraor- for their parents will take care of them—a that they have been passed down to us. In dinary lengths to bring a jali—or even bet- kind of African “Summertime.” this age of high-resolution documentation, ter, a group of them—to preside over an Another song, “Kuma,” counsels the
almost everything is recorded in some form. event. At weddings and naming ceremonies, listener not to gossip about people, as it is T URE Even tradition bearers who have had little Diabate does what his ancestors have been contrary to a proper and holy life. “Dieu discourse with or use for the printed word doing for eight centuries: singing blessing n’aime pas ça” he says—“God does not like are becoming increasingly adept in a world of songs of the West African Islamic tradition, this.” This song invokes the words of a mod- digital manipulation. We ought to adjust our praise songs to patrons, and songs of advice ern Islamic religious leader, Sherif Ousmane concepts of “oral” and “written” to reflect and counsel to brides, grooms, families, and Madany Haidara of Bamako, Mali. Diabate these changes, since what will survive of oral youth. Two of the most prevalent themes very much wants his music to be heard by this culture today will almost certainly be known of advice songs are respect for elders and very man and his community, to show them through recordings, archives, and the web in the importance of saving face. A common that, even in New York, these wise words all its many forms. refrain runs that the deeds you do will live resonate. Other songs reflect the timeless The question of the transition of oral on in the words or gossip—part of the oral tradition of praise for patrons. One tells of culture to an inscribed form resonates for tradition—of your community. a Bronx African grocery store owner, who me as I have been assisting in the production Back in a Brooklyn studio, Diabate has also owns a ferry boat on the Gambia River of a musical recording of Mandinka praise had the opportunity to record anything he in Africa, and who is remarkably generous to singing by one of New York City’s most wants. This is his signature project to date, people in the Mandinka community on both accomplished hereditary singers, from Mali, featuring his choice of repertoire, instrumen- sides of the Atlantic. West Africa. This formerly oral tradition has tation, and musicians. This is the recording All of this is being related through digital been practiced in New York since the early he hopes will define his sound and legacy, multitrack recording and editing, all intended 1980s, when immigrants from Senegal, Gam- both here in New York and back home in to recreate the spontaneous interplay of bia, Mali, and Guinea began to settle here. Mali, where he wants the recording to be African harp, marimba, guitar (replacing the Theirs is an increasingly transnational culture, available so that family, friends, and the rest traditional lute), percussion, and call-and- due in no small part to digital media. of the musical community can know what response voices. The notion of continuity I first met Bronx-based singer and musi- he is up to: “writing” down—in a digitally through collective memory is being enhanced cian Abdoulaye Diabate in 1996, when he was recorded and edited fashion—the essence through the recording, but the recording is crossing some of Africa’s most traditional of the oral tradition from which he came. not merely an ethnographic tool. Indeed, musical practices with its contemporary “Je suis un griot, et je dois faire de tradition. this project shows how the tradition bearer popular music. Descended since the thir- Mes parents ont faites la tradition, et c’est ce has adopted the tool of preservation and teenth century from a family of hereditary que je dois faire pour la memoir d’eaux,” he incorporated it into the tradition itself. I look musicians, court entertainers, and counsel- says—“I am a griot and must maintain the forward to exploring this use of technology ors, known as jalilu (the singular form is tradition. My parents did this, and this what in tradition through Voices and any other jali), he came to the United States playing I must do for their memory.” means we folklorists of New York State electric guitar behind popular singers from The recording’s range of songs gives a can muster. the Ivory Coast. Over the dozen years he good sense of where the heart of this musi- has been in New York, he has collaborated cal tradition is found today. In the past, a with musicians and composers in the genres griot or jali might devote a larger part of his Tom van Buren directs the folk arts of jazz, Afro-pop, and contemporary and repertoire and practice to singing epics of programs of the experimental music. the formative history of the Mali empire or Westchester Arts Between concert engagements, however, reciting genealogies of a tightly knit com- Council and serves as archivist for the many weekends find him and his counter- munity at weddings and other ceremonies, Center for Tradi- parts at Malian and Guinean community where it matters who is related to whom. tional Music and Dance.
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 41 Books –to– Note
Urban Legends: A Collection of English language and literature, history, and natural,” which includes “The Devil at the International Tall Tales and Ter- parapsychology. Wisely, the editors do not Disco,” “The Ghost in Search of Help for a rors, edited by Gillian Bennett and Paul emphasize legend theory; the nine sections Dying Man,” “Mary Whales, I Believe in You,” Smith. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood contain just the right amount of contextual and “The Vanishing Hitchhiker.” Since “The Press, 2007. 343 pages, appendix, indexes, information and interpretation, as well as Vanishing Hitchhiker” is one of the oldest $85.00 cloth. suggestions for further reading. and best documented urban legends, it is good Section one, “City Life,” presents a number to see that the editors chose to include six Gillian Bennett and Paul Smith, editors of of legends that have circulated widely, both in examples of its variant forms, including “The the Perspectives on Contemporary Legend Europe and in the United States. “Alligators Coat on the Grave,” “Jesus on the Thru’way,” series and subsequent works that have signifi- in the Sewers,” for example, has amused and and “The Double Prophecy.” Ghostlore cantly influenced legend scholarship, present frightened Americans and Europeans since aficionados like me might hope to see even a splendid range of legend texts in this enter- the early 1980s. Articles from Paris newspa- more ghost legends, but the book has eight taining, well-organized volume. Unlike Jan H. pers show how seriously French citizens took other sections, so the selection of texts must Brunvand’s alphabetically arranged Encyclope- this legend in the 1980s and 1990s; films and have some limits. dia of Urban Legends (2002), this book has nine literary works have been shaped by its variants A helpful appendix provides a list of urban sections: “City Life,” “Horror,” “Accidents, (3). Other legends discussed in this section legends in film and literature; there is also a list Fate, and Chance,” “The Body and Disease,” include “The March of the Sewer Rats,” “The of online resources and suggested readings. “Animals,” “Sex and Nudity,” “Merchandise,” Mutilated Shopper,” “The Grateful Terror- Since the book includes separate indexes for “Murder, Death, and Burial,” and “The Super- ist,” “Roaming Gnomes,” and “The Severed urban legend titles, urban legends on film, and natural.” Each section includes source material Fingers.” urban legends in literature, it is easy to find that demonstrates the legend’s dissemination Section two, “Horror,” covers some of the whatever information one needs. and adaptability to social conditions. most hair-raising stories told by preadolescents Gillian Bennett and Paul Smith have pro- The editors’ introduction explains that leg- and adolescents, including “The Boyfriend’s duced an outstanding sourcebook for legend ends “have been recently told and are clothed Death,” “The Hook,” and “The Roommate’s scholars and general readers. Their carefully in modern dress,” but in many cases have a Death.” “Little Alf ’s Stamp Collection,” a arranged selection of legend texts reminds us long lineage. The “Blood Libel” legend, for wartime horror legend told by adults, first how consistent legend patterns can be, even example, originated in the Middle Ages. In appeared in England in 1917 (68). Some of though each story has its own content and contrast to folktales, which are sometimes the titles in this section differ from the ones context. As they aptly observe, “The world known as fairy tales, legends do not feature most familiar to American storytellers; “The around us is altering all the time, but fear and “fabulous beasts, enchanted forests, witches Doggie-Lick,” for example, more commonly laughter will always be with us, and will lead us and magicians, ghosts and fairies, set in a fan- bears the title “Humans Can Lick, Too” in the to continue to swap our stories of the weird, tasy world” (xvi). Featuring unusual content United States. the wonderful, the absurd, and the terrifying” in an everyday setting, legends may inspire One of the most interesting parts of the (xx). belief or partial belief, but it is usually difficult book is section four, “The Body and Disease,” —Libby Tucker, Binghamton University to determine whether they are true or false. which reflects Bennett’s expertise in that area. Such determinations seem unimportant, as The editors go into considerable depth on Not Just Child’s Play: Emerging “stories are valuable and exciting regardless the subject of AIDS aggressors, with stories Tradition and the Lost Boys of of their truth value” (xx). about kisses, bites, sputum, mirrors, caskets, Sudan, by Felicia R. McMahon. Jackson: Bennett and Smith provide a short history and needles. They also closely examine leg- University Press of Mississippi, 2007. 228 of legend studies; while this history could have ends about stolen body parts, including baby pages, introduction, photographs, appen- been somewhat more thorough, it covers the parts, eyes, and kidneys. One of my favorite dices, notes, glossary, bibliography, index, field’s milestones effectively. Noting that folk- body legends, “The Tapeworm Diet,” is well $50.00 cloth. lorists have done the most assiduous legend represented, with variants from France, Eng- research, the editors list other fields in which land, and the United States. During the 1990s, civil war in southern Su- scholars have pursued legend studies, includ- Another section that presents intriguing dan forced a group of boys to walk hundreds ing anthropology, business, communications, variants of popular legends is “The Super- of miles in search of better living conditions.
42 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Refugee workers named them “Lost Boys” brid identity of what it [means] to be a young DiDinga of Saint Vincent de Paul Church. after the parentless boys of Neverland in J. DiDinga male in America” (141). Application Having seen performances by the Lost Boys M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. In this remarkable book, of Richard Schechner’s performance model in 2005 and 2007, I have been inspired by Felicia McMahon (Voices’ acquisitions editor) shows that the DiDinga nyakorot (formal their spirit. McMahon’s book celebrates their documents the communally danced songs of community dance of celebration) goes from achievements and paves the way for future DiDinga young men who eventually settled warm-up (lilia), to performance, to cooldown studies of refugees’ preservation of cultural in Syracuse, New York. She persuasively ar- (also called lilia), and finally to an aftermath, traditions. gues that these songs “constitute a strategy which ranges from community comments —Libby Tucker, Binghamton University by which the young men proudly position after the performance to “critical responses, themselves not as victims of war but as pre- archives, and memories” (134). The first The Story is True: The Art and servers of DiDinga culture and as harbingers nyakorot performed in the United States took Meaning of Telling Stories, by Bruce of social change” (3). Her book contributes place on July 21, 2002, in a church parking lot Jackson. Philadelphia: Temple University substantially to scholarship on diaspora and in Auburn, New York. It was videotaped with Press, 2007. 256 pages, index, $29.95 cloth. performance; it also offers an intriguing nar- two cameras. McMahon “did not realize the rative of ethnographic discovery. extent to which these videotapes would affect The Story is True: The Art and Meaning of One of this book’s many strengths is the the collective memory and critical response Telling Stories is at once both a thoughtful vividness of McMahon’s own story. Explain- of this diasporic community” (128). Both examination of story and storytelling and ing that her first meeting with DiDinga youths the audience and viewers of the videotapes a presentation of folklorist Bruce Jackson’s was “one of those proverbial life coincidences were profoundly affected by the young men’s own personal narrative. It is a brilliant mo- rich with profound consequences” (3), she performance. bilization of storycraft to illuminate aspects traces the development of her work with the Audience members who are enjoying a per- of the storyteller’s art and the nature of Lost Boys through description and excerpts formance usually do not know much about story itself. Bruce Jackson is Samuel P. Capen of recorded conversations. These excerpts the process that precedes the public presen- Professor of American Culture at the State eloquently demonstrate how the ethnogra- tation. McMahon explains that recontextual- University of New York at Buffalo. He is a pher interacted with and learned from her in- izing traditions through public performance prolific writer, photographer, filmmaker, and formants. For example, when she pointed to “places the folklorist in the problematic role public intellectual who has studied folklore a photo and asked, “Is this DiDinga dance?” of cultural mediator” (142). After inviting and narrative for half a century. The ques- one of the young men replied, “No [laugh- DiDinga and Dinka youths to perform to- tions addressed in this book are not new to ing], . . . they are from tribe of Dinka” (84). gether, she found that it was difficult for the Jackson, but in The Story is True, he addresses The explanation that follows involves two two groups to cooperate. Her explication of them masterfully. young men’s clarification of DiDinga tradi- the conflict resulting from individual, ethnic, The stories in this book are populated tions through words, gestures, and laughter: and national identity issues, as well as the mainly by the author, his family, and their an engaging interaction that helps the reader conflict’s resolution, offers valuable insight friends. Various concepts are illustrated by understand subtle cultural differences. to others who work with diverse groups of Jackson’s own stories about other people The author’s interdisciplinary approach in- refugees. telling stories. Some of these people are cludes linguistics, drama, and play scholarship, Another important contribution is the household names who have been the author’s as well as African studies and folkloristics. As book’s inclusion of many DiDinga song texts, associates: Bill Kunstler, Warren Bennis, one of the authors and editors of Children’s translated by the singers themselves. Some Chuck Schumer, Peter Fonda. Some are Folklore: A Source Book (1995), she applied songs emphasize guidelines for behavior, household names about whom stories have her expertise in children’s folklore to a broad while others focus more on wit, politics, or been told, such as O. J. Simpson. Others are range of cultural traditions. Here she exam- other areas of interest. Cattle-herding “bull- masters of story in print: Homer, Faulkner, ines DiDinga children’s games, which “do not songs” sung by young men during a nyakorot Shelley, Hammett. The central character in reflect a separate children’s culture” because can function as love songs. While most of the this book is always Bruce Jackson, and the they imitate adults’ songs, dances, and other song texts in the book come from young men, reader quickly gets to know him pretty well. activities (119). She finds that the Lost Boys’ a few come from young DiDinga women, The book is presented in three parts. The recontextualized performances accurately the “Lost Girls” about whom little has been first deals with personal stories—the stories represent DiDinga children’s games; they also written. The author’s analysis of the songs is people tell to one another—and nearly all of express important aspects of the displaced highly insightful and interesting. the examples presented are stories told by young men’s identity and pride as tradition Not Just Child’s Play provides a model for people close to the author. Here the often bearers. the study of recontextualized performance complex characteristics of story and storytell- McMahon suggests that both recontex- by refugee groups. It also helps the reader ing are illustrated by well-chosen examples tualization and kinesthetic imagination help understand the resilience and strength of the richly described. to define the Lost Boys’ diasporic identity. youths whom successfully adapted to life in The second part deals with public stories, Performances of dances learned during child- the United States after their epic journey from examining several key stories that “took life hood in Sudan convey “authentic embodi- war-torn Sudan. Proceeds from this book go in the public sphere” and how they continued ments of the young men’s childhood as a hy- to the Lost Boys chapter in Syracuse and the in the interpersonal. Here the O. J. Simpson
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 43 murder trial is followed as a public story that Scroll Book, and Other Paper Tales),” “Hand culture where teachers have little spare time moved into the author’s home. The legend Stories,” and “Other Handy Tales (Handker- and the arts and humanities are struggling to of Bob Dylan going electric at the 1965 chiefs, Napkins, Towels, and Other Props).” keep their footing, teachers may be reluctant Newport Folk Festival is reexamined from In her introduction, she states that the stories to use resources that do not have curricu- the author’s “in the wings” perspective as “range from very simple to very complex. lum guidelines already predetermined for director of that festival. Jackson weaves a There are stories to share with preschoolers individual states. Teachers who are willing tale of his detective work that involved lis- and elementary children” (xi). to set aside time to review and utilize this tening to the original tapes of the incident Simpler stories such as “The Pesky Skee- book, however, will not be disappointed to ascertain whether or not, as legend holds, ter” or “Fox Chases Bunny” can assist in with the results they see in their classrooms. the booing audience members were booing demonstrating literary elements, such as The stories in this book really do offer Dylan. As it turns out, the story Jackson has character identification and story organiza- something for everyone. As Dianne de Las told since 1965 is proven true. tion. More detailed stories, such as a liberal Casas remarks, “Even older students enjoy A powerful chapter, by itself worth the adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s handmade tales. I love the magical moment price of admission, is titled “Words to Kill “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” can be uti- when a simple piece of paper, string, or cloth By.” Here Jackson reviews some of the ways lized to discuss elements of character identi- is transformed, and kids respond with, ‘Awe- words and stories have been used to sanitize fication, story organization, and story line or some!’” (xi). and sanction killings in war, capital punish- plot. These stories may also be manipulated —Amanda Fickey, ment, and Nazi genocide. The concluding to examine performance elements of story- Lexington, Kentucky part of the book begins as a long story about telling and role playing. Allowing students to a con man who created a story so believable act out portions of the story would create Greenwood Encyclopedia of and attractive that he conned the author. It discussion of performance elements. Folktales and Fairy Tales, edited finishes with a thread that runs throughThe While the book is most beneficial to edu- by Donald Haase. Westport, Connecticut: Story is True from beginning to end: no story cators working with preschoolers through Greenwood Press, 2008. Three volumes: exists out there by itself. Every story takes early elementary students, stories such as 1,240 pages, list of contributors, introduc- its life from the teller and the listener. “The Boy Who Drew Cats” with origins in tion, illustrations, bibliography and resources, The Story is True is a delight to read. Bruce Japan, “The Girl Who Used Her Wits” with general index, $299.95 cloth. Jackson has written an enjoyable and en- origins in China, and “The Frog and the Ox: tertaining book that is grounded in solid A Balloon Tale based on an Aesop Fable” Encyclopedias are designed to do two theory and mature observation. Students of may serve as stepping-stones into a larger things: to suggest the breadth of relevant narrative will find much insight in the stories discussion of identifying folktales, legends, topics on a subject and to educate readers told here by this master storyteller. For those and myths. Of course, these stories would on the particulars of those topics. Too often, who choose to read deeper, an expanded need to be supplemented with additional however, readers expect an encyclopedia to understanding of humanity’s most intimate information that would allow students to contain all knowledge on its subject matter. workings is in store. understand them within their cultural con- The first two goals are achievable, but the —Daniel Franklin Ward, texts. Using the stories in this manner would third is a chimera. “Encyclopedic” is not Cultural Resources Council gear them more toward elementary or middle synonymous with “omniscient.” Those of school students. us who edit encyclopedias have an additional Handmade Tales: Stories to Make These stories can also be tied to fields challenge: to bring together multiple (and and Take, by Dianne de Las Casas. West- outside of literary arts and the humanities. occasionally contradictory) perspectives in port, Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited, 2008. Storytelling is often used in the classroom such a way that they make a coherent whole. 112 pages, resources, index, $30.00 paper. setting to assist students with understand- I face these challenges as the editor of an ing math and science. In fact, math and encyclopedia of gay folklife, a two-volume Educators and librarians are constantly science materials that integrate storytelling set with approximately 260 articles. looking for new and creative ways to inspire can be found on the CARTS (Cultural Arts As a fellow encyclopedia editor, I am noth- and entice students. Handmade Tales: Stories to Resources for Teachers and Students) web ing short of astonished at the fine job Don- Make and Take will certainly serve as a great site (www.carts.org). One example is “Fig- ald Haase and his companions have done resource. While educators will not find spe- ures, Facts, and Fables: Tales in Math and with the Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales cific curriculum references, as the book is not Science,” by Barbara Lipke. While Handmade and Fairy Tales. With more than six hundred based on any individual state’s curriculum, Stories is not specifically written for math and entries and a global perspective on folktales the examples in the book can be used as science educators, connections could easily and fairy tales, this three-volume set reflects teaching tools in a number of subjects. be made between the hands-on examples in the current state of folklore studies as it The author, Dianne de Las Casas, a this book and the local curriculum. grows progressively more multicultural and professed lover of storytelling and making The book does not provide specific inclusive. I find it interesting, however, that things by hand, divides the book into six curriculum materials for any fields, in fact, the introduction reads as if the three-volume parts: “String Stories,” “Draw and Tell,” and teachers will need to determine how set were dedicated exclusively to fairy tales. “Cut and Tell,” “Paper Tales (Fold and Tell, to incorporate the book. In an educational Why, then, does its title include folktales?
44 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore The explanation is given in the “Fairy Tale” areas could afford to be more fully explored, sion of specific genres. Chapter One provides article, written by Donald Haase himself. The especially those concerning Africa and the an overview of the Arab world that includes article is an exhaustive exploration of fairy LGBTQ community. Despite Haase’s efforts, an explanation of how Arabs are self-defined, tale scholarship, different interpretations of the encyclopedia tilts towards the Eurocentric a short regional history, and a guide to Ara- what is or is not a fairy tale, and the lines that and heteronormative. The “Witch” article bic. Chapter Two discusses general folklore people construct in order to classify a story might have mentioned, for example, the definitions and classifications. Both chapters as a folktale, fairy tale, or legend. Needless to role witches play in Mali’s Sundiata epic, and are short for the breadth of information say, this is contested territory. Explorations of the transformation by the witch Mombi of provided, and Reynolds does an excellent job this ilk are normally tedious, but Haase man- feminine/female Ozma into masculine/male of avoiding either oversimplifying concepts ages to inject humor into the dry academese Tip and then back again in Frank Baum’s The or overwhelming the reader. Chapters Four that burdens such discussions. His article is Marvelous Land of Oz (1904). But the limited and Five provide supplementary information so convincing, in fact, that I would have no information on African and queer themes in to enhance the reader’s understanding of the problem with labeling the entire collection folk and fairy tales reflects the need for greater genres discussed. Chapter Four discusses the simply an encyclopedia of fairy tales. awareness of these areas within folklore stud- evolution of folklore theories in relation to Then again, I was raised in a household ies, more than lack of inclusiveness by the the study of Arab folklore, and Chapter Five where my father would regularly read to us editor. illustrates some of the difficulties inherent to from folklorist Joseph Jacobs’s English Fairy I recommend The Greenwood Encyclopedia of folklore research through an exploration of Tales (1890), which contains a mix of folk Folktales and Fairy Tales, both as a trustworthy various contexts for Arab oral genres. Again, tales, legends, fables, and fairy tales. We as academic resource and a good browse. these chapters manage to be clear and insight- folklorists must constantly monitor our Aris- —Mickey Weems, ful, despite their brevity. totelian mania for taxonomy to ensure we do Columbus State Community College The heart of the book, however, is the not impose rigid and immutable distinctions lengthy third chapter, which contains detailed on our folk and their lore. I congratulate Arab Folklore: A Handbook, by examples of Arab folk culture. Reynolds sub- Haase et al for outlining the borders between Dwight F. Reynolds. Greenwood Folklore divides folk culture into verbal arts, musical genres, while simultaneously recognizing the Handbooks. Westport, Connecticut: Green- arts, material arts, and customs and traditions. permeability of those borders. wood Press, 2007. 258 pages, illustrations, Each category contains several examples A perusal of the entries reflects inclusion glossary, bibliography, web resources, index, drawn from well-known ethnographies or of as much of the human family as possible, $55.00 cloth. Reynolds’s own research. His selections illus- with special attention given to ethnicity, ge- trate the rich diversity of traditions within the ography, language, and gender, and a decent Contemporary politics have made abun- region and dramatize the difficulty established nod to sexuality. Since, as Haase states in dantly clear the importance of understanding in the first chapter of defining exactly who the introduction, not every fairy tale can be the cultures of the Arab countries. Although is an Arab. Readers will encounter slices of included, the encyclopedia has to be both the field of folklore contains numerous ex- folk culture from each of the major regional selective and representative. This tension can cellent ethnographies that explore individual groupings, read about urban and rural artistic never be resolved, but it can be reduced, and aspects of Arab folk culture, it lacks a single expressions, and learn about Muslim, Chris- Haase succeeds admirably in doing so. cross-country, cross-genre overview. This tian, and Jewish traditions. Indeed, it is a bit One outstanding article that strikes a nice lack can be explained by the difficulty of the mysterious why Reynolds chose to combine balance is “Fairy, Fairies.” It is concise and task: the Arab League contains over twenty the categories into a single chapter, when each informative—I did not know before reading countries, and each country further contains could have stood alone as its own chapter. the article that fairies were typically feminine multiple ethnic groups and regional folk Despite the book’s general excellence, and intrinsically linked to glamour, a term for cultures. Fortunately, Dwight F. Reynolds has it does have two minor drawbacks. First, shape-shifting powers. As a queer scholar, undertaken the difficult task of synthesizing it fails to represent all regions of the Arab I find this tidbit amusing, considering the the various cultures into a single volume, Arab world equally. Egypt is overrepresented; the premium that many effeminate gay men Folklore: A Handbook. He makes no pretense Gulf region is underrepresented; and sev- (also known as fairies) place on glamour. The at comprehensiveness, instead selecting works eral countries, like Mauritania, Somalia, and author also gives references to fairies outside “to serve not only as illustrations of a particu- Libya, do not appear at all. Second, dance is of the western European model, such as the lar genre of Arab folklore, but also as demon- almost completely omitted. The diversity of Japanese willow-tree fairy and the tokoloshes strations of some of the main themes that lie dance genres within the Arab world could of South Africa. at the heart of modern folklore studies” (xi). have merited dance being its own category. Some differences in scholarship within The result is a solid introductory guide to the Instead, dance is only discussed as part of the the encyclopedia are left unresolved. For folk culture of the Arab world that also serves exploration of two music and dance traditions example, Aesop is said to be from Thrace in as an introductory text about the history and in Oman and briefly mentioned in the con- the “Aesop” article, but called an African in methods of folklore research. text of Sufi whirling. Neither of these issues the “African Tales” article. Suffice it to say Arab Folklore is divided into five chapters. is unique to Reynolds; instead they reflect that the differing points of origin reveal an The first two chapters provide the introducto- general trends in folklore scholarship on the unresolved item in folklore studies. Other ry material required to understand the discus- Arab world.
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 45 The small shortcomings should not over- View and Identity,” and “Symbol and Mind.” for those who work in public folklore. Edi- shadow Reynolds’s larger success. “It is my Such grouping is a difficult proposition, as tions were published in 1992 and 1996 by the hope,” Reynolds writes, “that this volume will nearly everything written by Dundes has Smithsonian Institute Press; the University provide readers with a glimpse of the diversity some aspects of all three theoretical ap- Press of Mississippi has now reprinted the and richness of Arab folk culture, a world proaches. Regardless, the collection provides volume. The collection brings together sixteen that seems remarkably distant from western a solid sampling of Dundes’s extensive body important essays that explain the history and media portrayals of Arabs” (xii). He has of work. Articles range from his earliest evolution of public folklore, explore methods certainly accomplished his goal. Arab Folklore works on structural analysis of genres, to of practice in presenting folklore, and define will serve as an excellent foundational text his psychoanalytical studies of latrinalia and the work of public folklorists. for any undergraduate class on folk culture jokes, to his analysis of folklorists themselves, The 2008 edition features a new preface, in the Arab world, as well as an interesting, as well as representative samples of his nu- “Cultural Continuity and Community Creativ- informative read for anyone unfamiliar with merous other areas of study. These essays ity in a New Century: Preface to the Third folk culture of the region. are gems of folkloristic analysis and theory Printing.” The preface places the essays in —Miriam Robinson Gould, spanning a lifetime, on a wide range of genres the context of the current state of folklore, University of Texas at Austin and cultures. Postscripts written by Dundes, concluding with a discussion of the decline of sometimes decades after the original article, folklore programs in the United States. Baron The Meaning of Folklore: The have been thoughtfully attached to some of and Spitzer also address intellectual property Analytical Essays of Alan Dundes, the older essays, describing in the scholar’s and the ownership of folklore in a thorough edited by Simon J. Bronner. Logan: Utah State own words the reaction to the original piece, and scholarly manner. University Press, 2007. 580 pages, preface, as well as later theories and developments. The collection of essays includes several introduction, $49.95 cloth. In his brief introduction to each article, notable pieces. The first section of the book, Bronner discusses Dundes’s theoretical meth- “Reflections and Directions,” contains Roger The Meaning of Folklore: The Analytical Es- ods or interpretations, but with considerable Abrahams’s “The Public, the Folklorist, and says of Alan Dundes reprints twenty essays qualification (“or so the theory goes,” “ac- the Public Folklorist,” which presents a valu- representing a lifetime of work on analytical cording to this theory,” and so on). This—as able overview of the beginnings of public methods by the late folklorist Alan Dundes. well as the editor’s curious tendency to put folklore and its importance to the field. Billed as a posthumous “sequel” to Dundes’ words such as “meaning,” “modern,” and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s “Mistaken seminal 1980 collection, Interpreting Folklore, “interpret” in quotation marks—betrays Dichotomies” urges folklorists to mend the this volume is both important and valuable, an underlying skepticism of the so-called divide between applied and academic folklore; as many of the articles are reprinted from Dundesian approach. In fact, most of the this essay is essential for those new to the field far-flung and obscure original sources. introductions to the essays seem overly critical, of folklore as it explores many long-standing Editor Simon Bronner’s preface and intro- attempting to disprove or replace the analysis issues within folklore studies. Archie Green’s duction are informative, although somewhat or methodology with the editor’s own, rather “Public Folklore’s Name” traces the evolution lengthy and repetitive. Bronner uses the book than elucidating or explaining Dundes’s own of the term “public folklore,” intertwining sto- as a platform to examine what he calls the concepts and theories. Bronner notably man- ries of his work as an advocate for traditional “Dundesian approach” as a unified method of aged to reference his own work—often more arts funding during the 1970s. Bess Lomax folkloristic inquiry, providing a useful synopsis than once—in seventeen of the twenty-two Hawes’s contribution, “Happy Birthday, Dear for any folklore scholar. Bronner also profiles sections he contributed to this volume. American Folklore Society: Reflections on the Alan Dundes’s life and career, paying special These concerns aside, a single volume that Work and Mission of Folklorists,” reminds attention to Dundes’s “mythological” and brings together these important selections folklorists that research, public presentation “religious” status in the folklore community. from Dundes’s long career is invaluable. The and documentation, teaching and preserva- He perhaps takes this idea a little far, painting Meaning of Folklore is a remarkable look into tion, and administration are all components Dundes as something of a cult leader and his the life and work of one of folkloristics’ most of successful fieldwork; this 1988 address to followers as fanatic zealots. He give Dundes’s important and prolific scholars. the American Folklore Society concludes with biography in the form of a hero narrative, —Kelly Revak, a to-do list for folklorists that remains relevant describing his oration as “prophesies” and Lambda Archives of San Diego today. Each of these essays is interesting and “preaching from the pulpit” and referring entertaining, although new folklore students to his students as “followers” or “believers” Public Folklore, edited by Robert Baron may have to do a bit of research about the (he is careful to point out he is not one). Yet, and Nick Spitzer. Jackson: University Press cultural and historical contexts of these es- it is undeniable that Dundes’s mystique and of Mississippi, 2008. 370 pages, preface, says so that they may fully grasp the issues “extra-human” influence has only continued introduction, $25.00 paper. presented. to grow after his death. Perhaps he might now In the second section of the book, “Meta- indeed be considered the “patron saint” of Robert Baron and Nick Spitzer’s Public phors and Methods of Practice,” eight essays rigorous analytical folkloristics. Folklore has become a standard text for many discuss the application of theory and explore The selected essays are grouped into three graduate programs that offer folklore concen- the presentation of cultures. Of particular sections: “Structure and Analysis,” “World trations, and it has long been a useful resource note in this section is Nick Spitzer’s article,
46 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore “Cultural Conversation: Metaphors and Methods of Practice,” which explores the idea Submission Guidelines for of cultural conservation, using the genre of music to trace the impact of folklorists upon Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore traditional communities. Gerald L. Davis’s Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is Style “‘So Correct for the Photograph’: ‘Fixing’ a membership magazine of the New York The journal follows The Chicago Manual of Style. the Ineffable, Ineluctable African American” Folklore Society (www.nyfolklore.org). Consult Webster’s Third International Dictionary for examines depictions of African Americans The New York Folklore Society is a nonprofit, questions of spelling, meaning, and usage, and avoid statewide organization dedicated to furthering gender-specific terminology. and calls for folklorists to look beyond the cultural equity and cross-cultural understanding Footnotes. Endnotes and footnotes should be surface to find the deeper meaning of activi- through programs that nurture folk cultural expres- avoided; incorporate such information into the ties documented and seen in communities. sions within communities where they originate, text. Ancillary information may be submitted as a share these traditions across cultural boundaries, sidebar. Susan Roach’s and Dan Sheehy’s articles and enhance the understanding and appreciation of Bibliographic citations. For citations of text provide specific examples of ways in which folk culture. Through Voices the society communi- from outside sources, use the author-date style cates with professional folklorists and members of public folklore activities change the lives of described in The Chicago Manual of Style. related fields, traditional artists, and a general public Language. All material must be submitted in artists. All of the section’s essays will be of interested in folklore. English. Foreign-language terms (transliterated, great use to those entering the field. Voices is dedicated to publishing the content of where appropriate, into the Roman alphabet) should folklore in the words and images of its creators and The final section, “Recovering a History be italicized and followed by a concise parenthetical practitioners. The journal publishes research-based English gloss; the author bears responsibility for the of Public Folklore,” includes four essays articles, written in an accessible style, on topics correct spelling and orthographics of non-English examining the history of public folklore related to traditional art and life. It also features words. British spellings should be Americanized. stories, interviews, reminiscences, essays, folk poetry and the ways in which public folklorists are and music, photographs, and artwork drawn from Publication Process trained. A second essay by Abrahams, “The people in all parts of New York State. Columns Unless indicated, the New York Folklore Society Foundations of American Public Folklore,” on subjects such as photography, sound and video holds copyright to all material published in Voices: recording, legal and ethical issues, and the nature of provides a historical overview of folklore The Journal of New York Folklore. With the submission traditional art and life appear in each issue. of material to the editor, the author acknowledges study in America, beginning with the work that he or she gives Voices sole rights to its publica- Francis James Child, William Wells Newell, Editorial Policy tion, and that permission to publish it elsewhere Feature articles. Articles published in Voices and Franz Boas. Robert Cantwell’s “Feasts of must be secured in writing from the editor. represent original contributions to folklore studies. For the initial submission, send an e-mail attach- Unnaming: Folk Festivals and the Representa- Although Voices emphasizes the folklore of New ment or CD (preferably prepared in Microsoft Word tion of Folklife” explores the concept of the York State, the editor welcomes articles based on and saved as Rich Text Format). the folklore of any area of the world. Articles on folk festival, the difficulties of distinguishing Copy must be double spaced, with all pages num- the theory, methodology, and geography of folklore bered consecutively. To facilitate anonymous review between traditional folk culture activities are also welcome, as are purely descriptive articles of feature articles, the author’s name and biography and ones that are not, and the many cultural in the ethnography of folklore. In addition, Voices should appear only on a separate title page. provides a home for “orphan” tales, narratives, and negotiations that transpire in planning and Tables, charts, maps, illustrations, photographs, songs, whose contributors are urged to provide captions, and credits should follow the main text and producing a festival or similar public event. contextual information. be numbered consecutively. All illustrations should be Robert Baron’s essay, “Postwar Public Folk- Authors are encouraged to include short personal clean, sharp, and camera-ready. Photographs should be reminiscences, anecdotes, isolated tales, narratives, lore and the Professionalization of Folklore prints or duplicate slides (not originals) or scanned at songs, and other material that relates to and en- high resolution (300+ dpi) and e-mailed to the edi- Studies,” focusing on the rise of professional hances their main article. tor as jpg or tiff files. Captions and credits must be folklorists, shares what the author describes as Typically feature articles range from 1,000 to included. Written permission to publish each image 4,000 words and up to 6,000 words at the editor’s the “hidden chapter in the history of folklore must be obtained by authors from the copyright discretion. holders prior to submission of manuscripts, and the studies” (309). The section concludes with Reviews and review essays. Books, recordings, written permissions must accompany the manuscript Steve Siporin’s “Public Folklore: A Biblio- films, videos, exhibitions, concerts, and the like are (authors should keep copies). selected for review in Voices for their relevance to Materials are acknowledged upon receipt. The graphic Introduction.” This essay provides folklore studies or the folklore of New York State editor and two anonymous readers review manu- a useful set of bibliographic resources, but and their potential interest to a wide audience. Per- scripts submitted as articles. The review process they have not been updated since 1992, so sons wishing to review recently published material takes several weeks. should contact the editor. Unsolicited reviews and Authors receive two complimentary copies of the readers will need to refer to the preface’s proposals for reviews will be evaluated by the editor issue in which their contribution appears and may references and other works for more current and by outside referees where appropriate. Follow purchase additional copies at a discount. Authors the bibliographic style in a current issue of Voices. resources. of feature articles may purchase offprints; price Reviews should not exceed 750 words. information is available upon publication. This collection remains an important and Correspondence and commentary. Short but useful text for public folklorists and those substantive reactions to or elaborations upon mate- rial appearing in Voices within the previous year are who teach in folklore programs. Few other welcomed. The editor may invite the author of the Submission Deadlines sources can match the background provided materials being addressed to respond; both pieces Spring–Summer issue November 1 here on an array of issues with which public may be published together. Any subject may be addressed or rebutted once by any correspondent. Fall–Winter issue May 1 folklorists continue to struggle and concern The principal criteria for publication are whether, themselves. in the opinion of the editor or the editorial board, Send submissions as Word files to Eileen —Lisa Abney, Louisiana Folklife Center the comment constitutes a substantive contribution Condon, Voices Editor (e-mail preferred): to folklore studies, and whether it will interest our [email protected] or c/o Center for general readers. Traditional Music and Dance, 32 Broadway, Letters should not exceed 500 words. Suite 1314, New York, NY 10004
Fall–Winter 2008, Volume 34: 3–4 47 Join the New York Folklore Society today and become a subscriber to Voices
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48 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Thank you, New York Folklore Society Supporters! The New York Folkore Society thanks the people and organizations that supported our programs and publications in 2008. Your help is essential to our work. If your local library is not listed among the institutional subscribers below, please urge it to join.
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Working with Folk Materials in Self-Management for Folk Art- To order New York State: A Manual for ists: A Guide for Traditional Artists and Performers in New York State Books subtotal $______Folklorists and Archivists By Patricia Atkinson Wells Edited by John W. Suter Shipping and handling With contributions by leading New York State This handbook is a must for traditional artists Add $4 for the first book, archivists and folklorists, this manual introduces in New York State interested in managing and $1 for each additional item. $______folklore to the archivist and archives to folklor- marketing their own businesses. Topics include ists. It is required reading for those working promotion, booking, contracts, keeping re- with collections of folklore materials cords, taxes, and copyright. Total $______in any part of the country. 148 pages, loose-leaf notebook 168 pages, loose-leaf notebook $30 $40 nonmembers $______Enclose check payable to New York Folklore $25 $35 nonmembers $______Society and mail to New York Folklore Society, P.O. Box 763, 133 Jay St., Schenectady, NY 12301. Folk Arts Programming in New Folklore in Archives: York State: A Handbook and ______A Guide to Describing Folklore Resource Guide Name and Folklife Materials By Karen Lux ______By James Corsaro and Karen Taussig-Lux Written for anyone considering starting a folk Shipping Address Written primarily for archivists and others who arts program at their institution. Shows the potential of a broad range of different types ______care for collections of folk cultural documen- City, State, Zip tation, this manual describes the theory and of folk arts presentations and provides infor- practice of folklore and provides essential mation on how to carry them out. ______information on how to accession, arrange, and 108 pages, paperback Phone describe folklore materials. $10 $______128 pages, loose-leaf notebook $25 $35 nonmembers $______
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