American Folklife

-^-^ -i-^--^ . ,'^^3iiisl American Folklife T^^^*ltMW^^P'>*^t?. ^Ht Imithsonian Institution National Park Sen ice . Community: The Festival Theme Since its beginnings in 1967, the Festival of American Folklife has approached research and presenta- tion of traditional culture from three perspectives. These are: the perspective of style, focusing on the manner in which a traditional item is made or performed and which marks that piece as a creation within a particular tradition; the perspective of identity, highlighting the ideational content of a perform- ance that expresses a particular ethos or approach to group life; and the perspective of community, examining the relationships among people that support and are ex- pressed by folklife performances. We have selected the last of these, community, for particular emphasis in this year's Festival and in the four annual Festivals that will fol- low. The community that we explore and celebrate has many forms. It is the cohesive, closely knit, geo- graphically discrete community of ethnic and tribal groups. It is the occupational community that as- sembles for eight hours a day at a particular worksite. It is the community whose members may be separated by oceans and may never have met, but whose communal feelings are evoked when a shared linguistic and cultural heritage is realized. It is the community of age-mates that gathers to learn and play. And finally, it is the family community that shares its daily sustenance together. We explore the contours and meanings of these communities. We celebrate them, and we ask you to Festival of American Folklife Program 1 Smithsonian Insli(u(ion 1978 join us in experiencing and ap- © Editor: Jack Saiuino preciating their value. AiitsianI Editors: Kathleen Brown. Linda OuRrn. Constance Minkin, Ralph Rinzler | /I, Ralph Rinzler, Director yiir,,,, ).iM< I Siiallon I ./i/,/r,( /), „^r„r Kathleen Bn>wn Folklife Program h/i' ':llii. (;<)in|X)sltion Sysii I l'u„i,i Stephenson Ini ^J<^,h ., • Festival ~>M^sS^5S^^i^f^.y^^^w:>ri.. - American Folklife Octohn / V, ('ohiwhin Day \\i < ' ' / Smithsonuin Institution \iitioniil Piirk Service 1941 Contents Community; The Festival Theme Ralph Rinzler Deer Dance, February 1977 The Folklife Festival: In Search of Community S. Dillon Ripley 3 Ceremonies in the San Juan Pueblo of The Nation's Festival on the New Mexico involve the whole commu- National Mail William J. IVhelan 4 nity. Early in the morning, deer dancers Festival, Folklife and Community are summoned from the hills with a chant led by singers drummers oj the American Sense of Ciommunit) : Circling the and pueb- Square or Hitting the Road Roger D. Abrahams 5 lo. After arriving in the pueblo, the dan- In and Out of Time: Festival, Liminality cers are allowed breakfast, and a few and Communitas Victor Turner 7 hours later, return to dance the second The Festival as Community Susan Kalcik 9 part (shoum here), where they makefour Mexican Communities circuits oj the pueblo. They dance in the South, North, and East plazas, In Celebration of Mexico Today Ralph Rinzler 12 singing a Traditional Music of the Mexican different song on each of the four circuits. Later, the dancers return to the South Mestizos Daniel Sheehy 1 plaza Craft Sales at the Festival Ralph Rinzler 16 for the conclusion of the dance. At the sound a gun shot, the deer scatter The Ethnic Community of in all directions while the women the Mexican-American Crafts and Household of pueblo try to catch them. Arts Susan Kalcik & Alicia Gonzalez 17 The gourd rattles and belts of bells Ellis Island and American around waists and legs are found in most Immigration Margaret Yocom 1 San Juan dances; the all-white costumes The Native American Community are traditional for the Deer Dance. Sprigs Seven Centuries of Tradition: The Pueblo of evergreen branches on each dancer's of San Juan Maria LaVigna 2 1 arms are symbols of everlasting life. Family Folklore Good Stories from Hard Times Steven Zeitlin 23 The strength of San Juan tradition is Program Supplement: General Information, Schedules, Participants shown by a photograph taken in the Children's Folklore mid-30's of this same portion of the Deer Dance. years, little has changed Boys and Ball Games Kate Rinzler 25 In forty The Dunham School Exhibit Margaret Yocom 27 in the ceremony. The Occupational Community Cover photo l>y Maria LaVigna © 1978. Old photo: T. Harmon Parkhurst, courtesy Museum The Community that Works Together Jack Santino 29 of New Mexieo. Organ Building John Fesperman 3 New Life for the Ancient Craft of Organ Building Barbara Owen 32 The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Jack Santino 35 Sharecroppers George McDaniel 40 Energy and Community Peter Seitel 4 The Regional Community The Chesapeake Bay Charles Camp 43 Smith Island William W. Warner 46 The Festival Staff and Sponsors 48 a The Folklife Festival: In Search of Community S. Dillon Ripley What binds us together in com- families, as the basic units of society. munities? Food? danger? the scientific Communities involve people who method? jobs? songs? stories? age? are kin to each other and their rela- language? sex? color? love? geogra- tionships with people who are not kin, phy? Why the quest for community but who—because of their shared and the need for roots and multiple food, dance, crafting of musical in- identities? This is an invitation for you struments and utensils, games, songs to commune with us again—on the and stories—have a sense of being kin. Mall and in the halls of the Kinship, as all know, does nc^t mean Smithsonian—to find some answers to being alike. Relatives, Margaret Mead these fascinating questions which af- once observed, are people you might fect all of our personal lives. With the not know—or perhaps even want to 1978 Festival of American Folklife, know—unless you were kin to thein. the Smithsonian starts a five-year Families are the first places where we cycle of variations on the theme of learn about human variety, for "community." Our scholars and mothers and fathers often demon- guests will be demonstrating folklore strate great contrasts of temperament as the artistic expression of commu- and skills, and children often seem as nit\ life, and the pleasure and dignity though they are chips off quite differ- found in that process. ent blocks. If community means the sharing So it is with folk culture generated and passing on of certain cultural and within the same kinds of linguistic, ethnic traditions, the concept pro- geographic, or occupational com- vides a nearly inexhaustible source of supermarket, may tell stories and plav munities. The songs and jokes of oil inspiration for research, symposia games that reflect cultural motifs drillers and roughnecks in Texas and and festivals. "Community" gives a from south of the border as well as the Saudi Arabia may have the same focus for examining and enjoying latest TV commercials. There is no range of variety as the songs and jokes what modern civilization owes to the fail-safe antidote to the standardiza- of coal miners in Pennsylvania, Ken- skills and values of folk not yet en- tion of mass culture, but festivals such tucky, and the Ruhr. Yet there are gulfed by mainstream media and the as ours help to maintain our system of some interesting shared responses to symbols of science and city. cultural phualism and the delights of these ways of drilling and digging for The way a person from an oyster diversity. Blue jean culture may now "energy." These are essential to un- community holds a shucking knife or be universal. With it, variety endures derstanding the human linkages to fashions a duck decoy out of wood are beneath the denim. the machines exhibited in your Na- intangible skills which produce arti- In the more than a decade already tional Museum of History and facts that give tangible continuity to devoted to folk cultures as the source Technology. Technology cannot be communities such as are found on of energy and inspiration for "high well understood without reference to Smith Island in Chesapeake Bay— art," the Festival of American Folklife the humans who design or use that unique nearby region celebrated in has dealt only implicitly with the idea technology. William Warner's Beautiful Sivimmers of community and how traditions are Our First Lady has brought new at- and James Michener's Chesapeake. transmitted —through the genera- tention to the need to stop the decline Similarly, the grinding of corn in San tions, through occupations, and from of neighborhoods and communities Juan Pueblo and in the states of the Old World to the New World. and the rupturing of the network of Mexico symbolizes the community Thanks to the reverberating appeal of personal ties which give both order bonds which cut across international the Smithsonian's 1976-1977 educa- and freedom to our society. Though boundaries. Spanish-speaking chil- tion program and symposium, "Kin some localities have lost part of their dren right in the nation's capital, de- and Commimities: The Peopling of identity when their place names no pendent upon corn from boxes in the America," soon to be published as a longer appear on postmarks, citizens book, we have discovered that we have across the land happily are engaged in S. Dillon Ripic)' n Sirretaty oj Ihr Smilhsiiniaii only grazed the surface in trying to historic and cultural preservation, in- lii.slilulion. uncierstand communities, including volving architecture and life styles. — The Nation's Festival on the National Mall William J. Whelan and are seeing to it that we do not The Festival of American Folklife will find the farmer, the village ignore our community heritages.

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