CENTERNEWS FALL 1998. VOLUME XX, NUMBER 4

American Folklife Center • The Library of Congress TELEPHONE AND ONLINE INFORMATION RESOURCES Administrative Office Fax: 202 707-2076 American Folklife Center publica­ Reference Service tions (including Folklife Cen ter Tel: 202 707-5510 News), a calendar of events, collec­ tion guides, general information, BOARD OF TRUSTEES and connections to a selection of other Internet services related to Congressional Appointees folklife are available on the William L. Kinney Jr., Chair, Internet. South Carolina James F. Hoy, Vice-chair, Kansas LC Web is available through Charles E. Trimble, Nebraska your local World Wide Web service. The American Folklife Center The Center's home page can be was created in 1976 by the U.s. Con­ Ex Officio Members accessed from the Library'S main gress to "preserve and present James H. Billington, Librarian of menu. The direct URL for the Americanfolklife" through programs Congress Center's h ome page is: http: of research, documentation, archival I. Michael Heyman, Secretary of IIlcweb Joe.go v Ifolklifel preservation, reference service, live the Smithsonian Institution performance, exhibition, publication, Bill Ivey, Chairman, Folkline, an information ser­ and training. The Center incorporates National Endowment for the Arts vice providing timely information the Archive of Folk Culture, which William Ferris, Chairman, Nationa l on the field of folklore and folklife, was established in the Music Division Endowment for the Humanities including training and professional of the Library of Congress in 1928 and Alan Jabbour, Director, American opportunities and news items of na­ is now one of the largest collections Folklife Center tional interest, is available through of ethnographic material from the the above Internet servers. For tele­ United States and around the world. phone service, call the Folklife Reading Room: 202 707-5510.

EDITOR'S NOTES Administration Alan Jabbour, Director FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS Center Gains Permanent Status Doris Craig, Administrative Assistant James Hardin, Editor Acquisitions David A. Taylor, Editorial Advisor After being reauthorized eight Vacant John Biggs, Library of Congress Graphics Un it, Designer times since it was created in 1976, Processing the Center has now been autho­ Catherine Hiebert Kerst, Archivist Nora Yeh, Archivist Folklife Center News publishes ar­ rized permanently by the Con­ Programs ticles on the programs and activi­ gress. The new status may be at­ Peter T. Bartis, Folklife Specia list ties of the American Folklife Cen­ tributed to the work of members Camila Bryce-Laporte, Program ter, as well as other articles on tra­ of the Center's Board of Trustees Coordinator ditional expressive culture. It is (and in particular former and cur­ Mary Hufford, Folklife Specialist available free of charge from the rent board chairs Judy McCulloh David A. Taylor, Folklife Specialist Library of Congress, American and Bill Kinney) and to the many Publications Folklife Center, Washington, D.C. persons around the country who James Hardin, Editor 20540-4610. Folklife Center News sent letters of support to their con­ Public Events does not publish announcements gressional representatives. All of Theadocia Austen, Coordinator from other institutions or reviews us at the Center are grateful for the Reference of books from publishers other than Jennifer A. Cutting, Folklife the Library of Congress. Readers continued on page 15 Specialist who would like to comment on Judith A. Gray, Folklife Specialist, Center activities or newsletter ar­ Coordina tor ticles may address their remarks to Stephanie A. Hall, Automation the editor. Cover: Ray Dickens Jr., Kimberly Ann Hoog, Folklife Specialist Dickens, and Jeffrey Honaker selling ramps on Drew's Creek Road, Naoma, West Virginia, to motorists en route to the annual Ramp Supper in 1997. Photo by Lyntha Eiler.

2 Folklife Center News Tending the Commons: Ramp Suppers, Biodiversity, and the Integrity of "The Mountains"

Ramps at Edna Turner's house, ready for cleaning. The roots are chopped off and the outer membrane (also known as the "slimer") is removed. The roots can be replanted to start new ramp patches. Photo by Lyntha Eiler

By Mary Hufford Big Coal River, peepers are an­ hills myself, paring knife in hand, nouncing spring. High in the hills, in a modest rectangular building Biodiversity has been protected coves drained by chortling creeks officially known as "The Ramp through the flourishing of cultural di­ are alight with the whites of tril­ House." Perched as far up the hol­ versity. Utilizing indigenous knowl­ lium, the yellows of spice bush, low of Drew's Creek as a person edge systems, cultures have built de­ the reds of wake robins, and the can drive in a two-wheel drive car, centralized economies and production bright greens of ramps. From the the Ramp House faces the Delbert systems that use and reproduce valleys the bare woods appear Free Will Baptist Church across a biodiversity. Monocultures, by con­ spangled with the russet blooms small parking lot. For more than trast, which are produced and repro­ of "hard" maples, the green­ forty years it has functioned as a duced through centralized control, tinged yellows of "soft" maples, community center, where women consume biodiversity. 1 the white bursts of "sarvice" and of the church hold weekly quilting dogwoods, and the deep pinks of bees, and families assemble for re­ The Ramp House on Drew's "Judas trees." Soon, they say, the unions. But its name registers its Creek bass will be leaving the river and most public and celebrated pur­ swimming up into the creeks to pose: sheltering friends, neigh­ It is mid-April, and throughout spawn. bors, and kin who come together the tributaries of West Virginia's I am sitting fairly high in the each spring to feast upon ramps. Fall 1998 3 Ramps, allium tricoccum, are well into the month wild leeks. Thriving throughout of May. From noon the Appalachian range in rich, until 8 P.M., the dark woodlands near mountain women who orga­ streams, ramps are among the first nize this particular edible foods to appear in the early event will serve spring, when they pierce the gray nearly five hundred and brown leaf mold with a spire plates piled high of tightly furled, onion-scented with potatoes, fried leaves. In June the lance-shaped apples, pinto beans, leaves wither and the plant sends cornbread, and up a stalk with an umbel of white ramps. flowers. Underground the stems The week before swell into white bulbs connected the ramp supper is by a mass of fibrous rootlets. These one of the year's diminutive leeks smell like garlic, busiest, and mem­ only stronger. bers of the Delbert Throughout the Appalachian Free Will Baptist South, ramps are hailed with feast­ Church divide the la­ ing at ramp suppers and festivals. bor of production. The most famous of these commu­ Each evening the nity fundraisers include the Ramp women meet in the Festival at Cosby, Tennessee,2 and Ramp House to clean the Feast of the Ramson at and refrigerate the Richwood, West Virginia. ramps brought in by Richwood, in fact, is home to the the men from the up­ NRA-the National Ramp Asso­ per-elevation hol­ ciation. But many smaller events lows wrinkling the proliferate throughout April and ridge-lines. The fe-

Mabel Brown, Jenny Bonds, and Peggy Gilfillen, clean­ ing ramps for the 1995 Ramp Supper. Photo by Terry Eiler

male camaraderie on cited about the day ahead. Only these evenings, pun­ one man is present, Laffon Pettry's gent with the aroma husband, Bob. Bob tolerates the of ramps, coffee, and women's razzing with good hu­ sassafrass tea, and mor. "You put down that cigarette punctuated with and get your knife and get busy," laughter, makes this Mabel Brown warns him as he an event in its own tries to take a break. "You'll be the right. "We sit in a first one we fire, Bob!" circle and clean "He's slightly outnumbered, ramps and talk," isn't he," murmurs Theresa Elkins. Delores Workman "He'd better watch it here with told me at last year's this gang of females!" Mabel ramp supper. "It's a teases, brandishing her knife. lot of fun. I love my Dusk gathers outside, and in ramp circle." the wake of the setting sun the "You should hear stars are brightening into the sign the tales Jenny tells," of the ram, for which it is said that laughed Judy Griffy. ramps were long ago named Hoping to, this year "ramsons" by the Swedes.3 Inside, I am in the Ramp the air is thick with the smell and House the night be­ the talk of ramps. Jenny Bonds fore Ramp Day, tells about a ramp-themed basket chopping ramps and her granddaughter gave her for tape-recording the Christmas, containing ramp vin­ talk of a dozen egar, ramp seeds, dried ramps, Patrons of the 1996 Ramp Supper greet one another women, worn out ramp jelly, pickled ramps, even on the porch of the Ramp House at the head of Drew's from a week of ramp wine. "1 had some of the Creek (see map on page 9 ). Photo by Lyntha Eiler preparation, but ex­ jelly," said Jenny. " It stunk." Other 4 Folklife Center News possibilities are advanced: ramp In southern West Virginia a morel mushrooms. They say you pizza or Jenny's ramp casserole, mixed mesophytic forest (known can hear them popping up with sausage, potatoes, and cheese. among ecologists as the world's through the dried leaves when it most biologically diverse temper­ rains. Old apple orchards, scat­ Crafting Locality ate-zone hardwood system) is not tered throughout the woods where just a product of nature. It is inte­ people used to live, make good Historically, in these moun­ gral to a cultural landscape that places to go molly mooching. A tains, female sociality has flour­ has taken shape over many gen­ neighbor found fifty-six today in ished around the gathering and erations. On Coal River, I have an old apple orchard behind processing of greens and other heard people say the best place to Laffon's house. "He found thirty­ wild produce. On the heels of seven yesterday," said Laffon. ramps a host of other greens The salient feature of start popping up: dandelions, ramps is the smell. The poke, shawnee lettuce, woolen Menominee Indians called it britches, creasies, and lamb's "pikwute sikakushia": the tongue. And around these, skunk. "Shikako," their name women have fashioned for a large ramp patch that womens' worlds. "That was once flourished in northern Il­ the big deal when everybody linois, has been anglicized to used to go green picking," said Chicago : "the skunk place." 5 Carrie Lou Jarrell, of Sylvester, Our chopping of leaves is fill­ on another occasion. "That ing the air with aromatic was the event of the week. organosulphur compounds, Mrs. Karen Thomas would characteristic of members of come up and she always the allium family but carried brought Jessie Graybill with to extremes in ramps and their her, and then Miss Haddad consumers.6 Some have seen would come, and most of the in this practice of restoring the time Maggie Wriston came body while emitting a sul­ with her. And usually Sylvia phurous odor a rite of death Williams was always there to and resurrection, seren­ do green picking with them. I dipitously coinciding with knew from the time I came Easter. 7 Actually with ramps into the world that she was just the motif appears to be breath a good friend. But that was the and insurrection. Liberating thrill of my life to get to go with organosulfides seems to com- all of these women, because they prise, if not a rite of inversion, talked about good stuff." at least a delicious form of Such talk is one means of backtalk: the country crafting locality. It catches backtalking the city, the im­ people up into a dense fabric Carrie Lou Jarrell, Sylvester, West Virginia. Photo proper backtalking propriety. of kinship and community and by Lyntha Eiler The efforts of official institu­ fastens that fabric to places tions to quell this annual olfac­ and events in the mountains. look for red mulberry trees, now tory uprising have been rehearsed Through such talk the women in serious decline, is on farms; that at every ramp supper I've at­ enunciate their place in the hills, a the cows that grazed throughout tended. place remarkable not only for its the mountains well into the twen­ "Let me get this down so I can biodiversity, but for the interweav­ tieth century kept the snake popu­ move on," said John Flynn at the ing of biodiversity and community lation down; and that Peach Tree 1995 Ramp Supper. "We did not life. In the Ramp House the Creek was named for peach trees eat ramps. There were very strong women laugh over how Violet encountered there by the first women in my family who did not Dickens once mistook sassafrass white settlers entering the region like the odor. Also, if you ate tea for bacon grease and poured it in the early 1800s. In the Ramp ramps and went to school, they over the frying ramps: "We need House they say you can start your sent you home because of the odor. you to come season the ramps," own ramp patch from the bit of There were a lot of authoritarians Mabel kidded her the other day. root they're chopping off at the in the school, so you didn't do a They compare the aromas of poke ends. 4 "Mabel has a few ramps lot of ramp eating. Someone might and collard greens, and marvel at growing in her yard," said Jenny. get up the guts to do it once, but how window screens get black "I do, Edna does, and Sadie does. they didn't do it twice. The odor with flies when you're cooking You don't, do you Theresa? You're was the issue." Ways of annulling them. They wonder where the going to have to plant you a patch the odor creep into ramp talk. creasies (dry land cress) are grow­ of ramps and some molly mooch­ "I like them raw," said Jess ing this year, and Jenny points out ers." Duncan, of Sylvester, "like you'd that creasies won't grow unless This week the molly moochers eat a hot pepper or something with you till the soil. are coming in. Molly moochers are a sandwich." Fall 1998 5 The Easter Onion

by Johnny Russell

Years gone by, still they gather A time to reminisce, spin a tall tale or two Tribute to a heritage, gloried past Cars line the dusty lane, even a politician feels at Easter onions, in Appalachia called ramps home Family, friends, people from far and wide. The pungent smell gives way, heaven in the taste In His infinite way, the Lord gave us the ramp. On Coal River, up Peachtree to Pine Knob This time of year, everyone a memory to share A Savior risen, and so is the ramp Good music, preaching, and food; thank you, Lord Food for the heart, food for the soul The sun warming, trees making horizons green. Hopes renewed, yet another season I awake each year, and spring's Easter onion. Blooms hanging heavy, petals fall like snow With the spring, hope springs like flowers Johnny Russell is a coal miner from Montcoal, Time to come together, everyone welcome West Virginia. He wrote this poem in 1996. Fill your plate, come and set a spell.

"Fried potatoes, pinto beans," their germicidal and toning ef­ linked with reduced rates of can­ added Pat Canterbury. fects. The beliefs that ramps are cer.l0 Ramps are higher in vitamin "You can't beat them," said good for the heart, that they thin C than oranges.ll They contain Jess, "and they don't stink if you and purify the blood, and that cepaenes, which function as don't eat very many of them." they relieve the common cold are antithrombotic agents. 12 Ramps "They do too," said Pat. widespread. 9 Scientific research also contain flavanoids and other "If you eat them with a sand­ suggests that such faith in ramps antioxidents that are free radical wich, they don't," Jess insisted. is well-placed. The allicin (diallyl­ scavengers.13 "My wife's never complained." sulfide oxide) in ramps, which has As the first of the wild foods to "Now, if you're confined close," antibiotic properties, has been appear, ramps satisfy the body's cautioned Bob Daniel, of Dry craving for living food at the end Creek, one morning in Syble's Bed of a winter filled with produce and Barn, "say in an office with that's been dried, canned, frozen, people, I'm sure it would offend or shipped from faraway places. people like that, but in my line of "They used to say," said Jenny work I don't think I bother any­ Bonds, "that people that lived out body with them." like we did didn't live near grocery "If you don't like the smell," stores, so they said in the spring­ laughed Mae Bongalis, "go the time you always need green other way. Stay at your house!" things, like vegetables. So they The most famous official cen­ said in the springtime the country sure of ramps was brought on by people got ramps, that was our the late Jim Comstock, editor of spring tonic." the West Virginia Hillbilly. "What does a spring tonic do?" Comstock, inspired by scratch­ I asked. and-sniff advertising for perfume "Cure for spring fever, I guess," and coffee in several local papers, said Jenny. announced the Richwood Ramp "Strawberry rhubarb pie is my Supper one year by lacing the spring tonic," said Laffon Pettry. printer's ink for his spring issue Spring fever is twice cured by with ramp juice. "We got a repri­ ramps, which lure people into the mand from the Postmaster Gen­ higher reaches of the mountains. eral," Comstock recalled. "And we "Ramps are fun to hunt," said John are probably the only paper in the Flynn. "You can go out in the yard Unites States that's under oath to and get all the poke you want, but the federal government not to Vivian Jarrell, of Dry Creek, with a jar of you have to go into the forest to smell bad." 8 frozen ramps. Ramps must be stored in look for ramps." Behind the powerful aroma it jars, according to Judy Griffy, in order to "The higher you go," said appears there really is something keep the odor from permeating other Woody Boggess on another occa­ good for what ails you. Ramps foods in the freezer. Photo by Lyntha sion, "the more ramps and the big­ have long been recommended for Eiler ger." 6 Folklife Center News Ramp Patches and the Commons of "The Mountains"

Ramp patches in the mountains have long functioned as a common resource. Most of the ramps served at the ramp supper, some fifteen bushels full, do not come from peoples' personal patches. They come from the upper-elevation coves rising high above the Ramp House. "I've got a few planted up the holler here," said Dennis Dickens, of Peachtree Creek, a be­ loved octogenarian who passed away this year. "They just grow at an elevation of about, I'd say 2,000 to 2,500 feet. Real rich soil."

Patrons at the 1996 Ramp Supper. Photo by Lyntha Eiler

cornbread and take some potatoes tains among America's de facto and get the ramps and clean them commons. Telltale signs of this di­ and fix them on top of the moun­ versity abound in the hollows and tains." coal camps, and in yards and "We'd take our corn bread and homes on the river: the handful of pinto beans," said Mae Bongalis, butternuts curing on a step, the of Naoma, during the 1995 ramp coal bucket of black walnuts ready supper, "and go to the mountain, for shelling, the hellgrammite up Board Tree Hollow, dig ramps seine at the ready on the porch, the all afternoon. Then we'd clean ginseng drying in the rear window them in a little stream coming of a car, the squirrel meat marinat­ through the patch, wash them and ing in a bowl, the gallon of black­ cook them, and then have dinner. berries ready for canning, the plas­ They taste better that way, too." tic bag full of homemade "deer The higher elevations, known jerky," the jar full of "lin" (white simply as "the mountains," have bass) honey, the paw paws in the long functioned as what anthro­ freezer, the molly moochers soak­ Mabel Brown in her ramp patch, Brown's pologist Beverly Brown terms a ing in salt water, the pickled ramps Hollow, Drew's Creek. Photo by Lyntha "de facto commons," 14 an open­ in the pantry. Eiler access area where people go to The traditional knowledge sus­ hunt, picnic and party, gather a taining this annual round of har­ For many, eating ramps in the variety of roots, herbs, nuts, and vesting is anchored in a peoples' mountains is as much a rite of fruit, or to enjoy some solitude. landscape inscribed all over the spring as attending the ramp sup­ Ramps inaugurate an annual mountains, a literary work writ per. "I love them," said Bob round of small-scale subsistence large.1s Daniel, over breakfast at Syble's harvesting of woodland bounty, Bed and Barn one spring morning. and afford the first opportunity to Reading the Cultural Landscape "I like to dig them and eat them get back into the mountains. But right there. Sit down in the woods they are fortifying throughout the The hills rising away from the with a piece of cornbread and eat growing season. "Ramps are sweet Ramp House are rich in family and them." this time of year," said Tony community history. Names be­ "That's the fun part," said Mary Dickens of Pettry Bottom, one late stowed on every wrinkle in the Jarrell, speaking in Lloyd's Conve­ September evening. "You'll come ridgeline commemorate people, nient, which she operates with her across a ramp patch when you're events, and moments in the sea­ husband at the mouth of Rock out ginsenging. Last week I dug sonal round. What appears to be a Creek. "Getting them and cooking more ramps than ginseng!" jumble of coves, ridges, creeks, them out. We'd go to several Supporting an unusually di­ knobs, branches, gaps, and forks places, like Hazy, where they've verse seasonal round, central is as legible to some residents as a closed it off. We would always go Appalachia's mixed mesophytic metropolitan grid is to an urban­ and take a skillet and make forest distinguishes these moun­ ite. "These different little hol­ Fall 1998 7 lows," said Howard Miller, "they Using a net suspended had a name for each one, so when between two broom a neighbor talked to another handles, Ray Cottrell neighbor about a certain thing that and Randy Sprouse happened at this holler, they knew seine for hellgrammites exactly where it was at, they knew on Coal River near the even from Beckley down to Racine mouth of Hazy. The down to Madison." technique involves The names for the coves anchor raising rocks and local history and knowledge in the allowing the water to land: Mill Holler, Peach Orchard carry what's underneath into the net held Holler, School House Holler, and downstream. Hellgram­ Bee Light Holler, where they mites, also known as baited bees in order to "line" them grampus, are the larva to wild hives, filled with honey of the dobson fly, and from mixed mesophytic flowering are favored by the trees like basswood ("lin"), small-mouthed bass in tuliptree ("yellow poplar"), and Coal River. Sprouse yellow locust ("mountain locust"). directs the newly Thus indexed, the landscape is a formed Coal River dynamic repository of rural life, Mountain Watch, a knowledge, and history, which Whitesville-based elderly raconteurs render into nar­ organization dedicated rative. "Quill Holler's below the to cultural and environ­ Ramp House," Howard went on. mental conservation on "They used to get a hollow straw Coal River. Photo by Terry Eiler

and drink sugar water where they notched a sugar tree. Something like these straws at a restaurant, but it's a plant." The cultural landscape is rife with landmarks. Over generations of working the seasonal round, a language for navigating the moun­ tains discriminates them into a wide array of landmarks: not only the highwalls, mine breaks, augur holes, and other traces of industry, but into "knobs," "drains," "coves," "swags," "ridges," "crossings," "gaps," "flats," "bear wallows," "orchards," "home­ places," "sink holes," "walk paths," "hill climbs," "camp rocks," "bottoms," "brakes," "graveyards," "bee trees," "den trees," and "benches." This landscape supports the common world celebrated in the Ramp House. Cultural practices like ramp suppers, ramp talk, and roaming the mountains have co­ evolved with an industrial land­ scape 16 as ways of holding to­ The seasonal round on Coal River, showing the continuing role of the mixed meso­ gether a world chronically visited phytic forest in community life. Many of these activities rely on common pool re­ with environmental, social, and sources located in the mountains. Produced by Suzuki Graphics, based on inter­ economic crisis. Only by bracket­ views and a field sketch by Mary Hufford ing out the civic commons is it 8 Folklife Center News possible to reduce a mountain to conversation that Woody Boggess Cuby, where the mines is, you go "a worthless piece of dirt," as one videotaped in Andrew, Dave across that creek, go over to the industry spokesman put it, "good Bailey and Cuba Wiley conjure and left, go right on up that road to the for nothing, save for snakes and re-occupy Hazy as a capacious and mines. You can stop the car where scrub pine." 17 An alternative generous landscape where they the road's washed out, you walk view-of biodiversity flourishing both lived for many years. Cuba, maybe to the top of the hill, and in the context of community life­ who hasn't been up in Hazy lately, the side of the mountain is covered is rehearsed in stories and jaunts wonders what it's like since the with ramps." that map the commons back onto people moved out in the late 1980s. "Well," picks up Cuba, invok­ the land. "People tell me I wouldn't know ing another space where ramps it up that hollow now," he says. grew, "what about the Straight Ramp Talk and the Cultural Dave imaginatively takes him Fork of Hazy, where Three Forks Landscape of Hazy Creek up there, and Hazy Creek floods used to come in together, and I into the room through their words used to go in the Straight Fork of Many of the ramps for this and gestures. "You go up there, Hazy, and just go up there a little year's ramp supper came from Hazy Creek, a long, lush, mean­ dering hollow that hooks around • Shumate's Branch like a sheltering arm. Hundreds of people lived at the mouth of Hazy in the nineteen­ forties when the coal town of Edwight was the bustling hub of the river between Whitesville and Glen Daniel. Though Hazy Creek and Shumate's Branch were evacuated of dwellings in the 1980s,18 people continue to comb the hollows of Hazy Creek for ramps, ginseng, molly moochers, yellow root, mayapple, bloodroot, berries, and signs of history. Though the coal industry has closed Hazy Creek to the public (Cherry Pond Mountain is slated for mountaintop removal), people still enter with permission to gather plants and hunt, or to visit historic sites and cemeteries. On a trek up Hazy for ramps in 1996, Dave Bailey and Woody Boggess distilled Sights on the overgrown landscape into signs of former communities everywhere: the rusting incline hidden on the Hazy Gap hillside; the sludge pond, its banks N "reclaimed" in thorny field locust; Perry Jarrell fann a stand of Indian corn near Charlie Rock, named for Charles Wiley; A the remains of a "splash dam" o 1 once used as a skidway for easing Miles timber out of the mountains; red dog from the slate dump that burned for years and was haunted by an old woman's ghost; a big Boone County rock that Woody says Hobart Clay could have cleared in his Hazy machine, and camp sites marked Wyoming County by the presence of ramps. "People have camped there for years," commented Dave. "They set them out so they'd have some." The cultural landscape of a de facto commons on Hazy Creek. For elderly racon­ As access is increasingly cur­ teurs, the place names and structures on this landscape index an oral history of tailed, people vividly reconstitute land-use and settlement that begins before the Civil War. Map produced by Suzuki Hazy Creek through stories. In a Graphics, based on interviews and field sketches by Mary Hufford

Fall 1998 9 piece on up that hollow and walk you who else went in there and mons of the cultural landscape are in on the right, and that scoundrel found them before he died: Calvin mutually sustaining and cannot be mountain was lined with them." Clay. Calvin Clay and them found reclaimed by covering a stream "That's right," says Dave. "Just that patch." with spoil and putting a pond on as far as you could see." "1 didn't know they were in top of a highland complex, mov­ They go on to the Everett Fork, there," Dave marvelled. ing a smokehouse from a Hiram Fork, and Bradley Moun­ "Sugar Camp," says Cuba. homeplace to a pioneer village, or tain (where Lige Bradley fled from "Good patch, buddy." relocating a family cemetery from marauding Yankee and Confeder­ Reconstituting Hazy, Dave and its ancestral grounds to a commer­ ate troops during the Civil War, Cuba walk its paths, populate it cial cemetery many miles away. and where people returned to tend with fellow gatherers, and savor The commons on Coal River and harvest apples in the Wayne its views, routes, and destinations. models an alternative, integrated, Bradley Field long after Bradley Stories of plying the seasonal community-based approach to the was evacuated for strip-mining). round, of gathering ramps, molly conservation of natural and cul­ On the way out, Dave and Cuba moochers, fishing bait, and gin­ tural resources. The seasonal pause for a moment at Road Fork seng, are like beacons lighting up round, itself a cultural production, and Sugar Camp. Hazy's coves, benches, walk paths, outlines a roster of "services" we "You know what?" says Cuba, historic ruins, and camp rocks. In might expect from central "I'm gonna tell you something. I fact, such stories and inscriptions Appalachia's post-mining land­ wa~ in Sugar Camp, way up in constitute a rural industrial ];:md­ scapes. Common pool resources there, I could look down over there scape as coherent, as saturated like the ramp patches of the named at the Coffee Pot Restaurant and with "traditional cultural proper­ systems of coves might qualify for all that, and that walk path that ties," 19 as representative of protection not as endangered spe­ goes right on up through there America's rural-industrial history cies, but as vital resources for takes you to Bradley." as any landscape recorded on the mountain life-"traditional cul­ "Yup," says Dave. "1 know National Register. tural properties." Such sites, scat­ where it's at." Like other productions of the tered throughout the mountains, "1 believe I could find it yet," commons, ramps, ramp patches, define the social collective, serv­ Cuba resumes. "That walk path, and ramp talk are resources for ing both as touchstones to a shared I'd turn left and go up just a little holding together a way of life that past, and as thresholds to a future ridge, about fifty or seventy-five is continually dismantled by plans in which a historic, mixed meso­ yards and that scoundrel ridge for progress.20 The civic commons phytic landscape continues to was lined with ramps, and I'll tell of the Ramp House and the com­ form a hedge against social, envi­ ronmental, and economic crises.

Notes

1. Vandana, Shiva, Biopiracy: The Plunder ofNature and Knowledge (Boston: South End Press, 1997), p . 72.

2. For a discussion of the festival at Cosby, Tennessee, see Michael Ann Williams, Great Smoky Mo untain Folklife (Oxford, Mis­ sissippi: University Press of MiSSissippi, 1995), pp. 172-77.

3. According to the Oxford English Dictio­ nary, ramps, rams, and ramsons all apply to the broad-leaved garliC, allium ursinum. Ramson derives from the Swedish plural for rams. Several sources link this term with the sign of the ram, Aries. See Doug Elliott, Roots: An Underground Botany (Old Greenwich, Connecticut: Chatham Press, 1976), p. 46 .

4. This practice is widely attributed to the Cherokee as something that occurred in the past. See, for instance, Runkel and Bull: "The Cherokees gathered wild leek bulbs by cutting or breaking off the little stub under the bulb-actually the stem from (Left) David Bailey, of Stickney, digging hunting for ginseng in the fall. Such which roots come-and replanting it so the ramps on Hazy Creek, not far from the named rock shelters are found through­ plant would continue to grow. This is an Poplar Flats. (Right) Charlie Rock, a out the mountains, and many of them excellent example of resource conserva­ "camping rock" near Spring Hollow on are prolific sources of Native American tion." Wildflowers a/Iowa Woodlands (Ames: University of Iowa Press, 1987), p. 151. Hazy Creek, known as a place to camp artifacts. Photos by Lyntha Eiler out when digging ramps in the spring or 5. Ibid. Runkel and Bull, p. 251. 10 Folklife Center News A "valley fill" in the foreground of a mountaintop removal project near Clear Fork. Designed to store excess rock and spoil from the mines, such structures have displaced more than nine hundred miles of streams and coves, according to a recent survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Also displaced are populations of ramps, ginseng, and other resources of the commons that flourish in native hardwood coves. Photo by Lyntha Eiler

6. Marilyn Singer, The Fanatic's Ecstatic, 13. Crellin and Philpott observe that alli­ 18. Shumate's Branch has been turned into Aromatic Guide to Onions, Garlic, Shallots, cin "has a mild stimulating action that lies a "coal refuse impoundment." See Mary and Leeks (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: behind the reputation as a counterirri­ Hufford, "Weathering the Storm: Cultural Prentice-Hall, 1981), p. 106. tant." Herbal Medicine: Past and Present: A Survival in an Appalachian Valley," in Reference Guide to Medicinal Plants, Vol. II Harvard Ayers, Charles Little, and Jenny 7. William J. Darby, Paul Ghalioungui, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990), p. Hager, eds., An Appalachian Tragedy: Air Louis Grivetti, Food: The Gift of Osiris, Vol. 319. Pollution and Tree Death in the Eastern United II (New York: Academic Press, 1976), p. 662. States (San Francisco: Sierra Books, 1998). 14. Beverly Brown, "Fencing the North­ 8. Jim Comstock, "Ramps in the Ink," west Forests: Decline of Public and Accus­ 19. See Patricia Parker and Thomas King, Golden Seal 20 (Winter 1994):23. tomed Rights," Cultural Survival Quarterly "Protecting Traditional Cultural Proper­ (Spring 1996), pp. 50-52. ties," Department of the Interior Bulletin 9. See also Popular Beliefs and Superstitions: 38. A Compendium of American Folklore from the 15. In this array of wild produce we Ohio Collections of Newbell Niles Puckett, glimpse the outcroppings of an alterna­ 20. Hundreds of square miles in southern Vol. I, Wayland D. Hand, Anna Casetta, tive, rural economy that enables survival West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky have Sondra B. Thiederman, eds. (Boston: G.K. outside the mainstream. On the central been approved for a method of coal min­ Hall, 1981), p. 325. Appalachian plateaus, a patchwork of ing known as "mountaintop removal," strategies that includes gardening, wage which removes the top of a mountain (the 10. Eric Block, "Organoselenium and labor, and forms of subsistence-borrow­ "overburden") in order to recover multiple Organosulfur Phytochemicals from Genus and-barter is richly adumbrated by re­ seams of coal. The overburden is disposed Allium Plants: Relevance for Cancer Pro­ sources from the mixed mesophytic forest. of in coves and streams, producing a land­ tection," in Food Factors for Cancer Preven­ See Rhoda Halprin, The Livelihood of Kin: scape of "highland mounds," "wetland tion, H. Ohigashi, T. Osawa, J. Terao, S. Making Ends Meet "The Kentucky Way" drainage areas," and "valley fi lls." For a Watanabe, T. Yoshikawa, eds. (Tokyo: (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), study of the ecological impact of this form Springer, 1997), pp. 215-21. and Paul Salstrom, Appalachia's Path To De­ of mining, see Stacy Edmunds (with Orie pendency (Lexington: University Press of Loucks), "A Landscape View of 11. Thomas M. Zennie and C. Dwayne Kentucky, 1994). Mountaintop Removal." Master's thesis, Ogzewalla, "Ascorbic Acid and Vitamin A Miami University, in progress. Content of Edible Wild Plants of Ohio and 16. For a fuller account of the "industrial Kentucky," Economic Botany 31 (1997):76­ landscape" in the region, see Mary Mary Hufford is a folklife specialist at 79. Hufford, "American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons," Folklife Center News XIX, the American Folklife Center. This ar­ 12. See Elizabeth M. Calvey, Kevin D. nos. 1 and 2 (Winter-Spring 1997), p. 3. ticle is part of a larger study of the White, Jean E. Matusik, Deyou sha, and cultural impact of mountaintop re­ Erick Block, "Allium Chemistry: Identifi­ 17. Fred Holroyd, "State Agencies Send moval and reclamation. cation of Organosulfur Compounds in Mixed Messages in Land Use," West Vir­ Ramp (Allium Tricoccum) Homo-genates," ginia Coal Bell (July 1998), p. 4. Phytochemistry 49 (1998):359-64.

Fall 1998 11 Bicentennial Project to Document Local Traditions

Folklife Center staffers James Hardin and Peter Bartis review photogaphs of Center field documen­ tation projects, which will be used with Local Legacies informational material to provide examples of traditional activities that might be documented for the project. Library of Congress photo by Glenn Krankowski

By James Hardin nation's diverse culture and as­ American Folklife Center's Board semble a selection of documentary of Trustees in New Orleans. The Library of Congress Bicenten­ materials to be presented to the Billington suggested that each nial Program in cooperation with Library of Congress for sharing congressional district might nomi­ the American Folklife Center has with others. The project will cul­ nate an example of "extraordinary launched a nationwide project minate in a special event in May creativity" to be placed in the called Local Legacies, as part of a 2000, to which all participants and Archive of Folk Culture and have larger program to commemorate their senators and congressional digitized to share with the rest of the Bicentennial of the Library of representatives will be invited. the country on the Internet. Congress, which was founded The documentary material will be All 50 states, the 435 congres­ April 24, 1800. The objective of the made available online on the sional districts, the u.s. Trusts and project is to increase public and World Wide Web and added to the Territories, and the District of Co­ congressional awareness of, sup­ Library's collections, so as to pro­ lumbia have been invited to port for, and participation in local, vide present and future genera­ launch community-based Local state, and national programs and tions of researchers with informa­ Legacies projects. Cultural docu­ activities that document, preserve, tion about the nation's community mentation is performed by per­ and present traditional culture. life and grassroots culture. sons conducting interviews, tak­ The Local Legacies project en­ The idea for the project was ing photographs, and writing courages the formation of teams in suggested by the Librarian of Con­ notes on their observations and every state and congressional dis­ gress, James H. Billington, during discoveries. Documentary materi­ trict to document aspects of our the May 12, 1997, meeting of the als include photographs, written 12 Folklife Center News reports, sound and video record­ powwow, auction, market-day cel­ cember 31,1999. The resource per­ ings, and miscellaneous material, ebration, or annual parade, pro­ sons, among them the state librar­ such as local newspaper clippings, cession, or traditional music festi­ ians, may also recommend that the posters, and flyers, relating to the val- a "signature" event that entire collection of project materi­ subject of study. The Local Lega­ many know. It might include the als be deposited in a local or state cies project teams will be spon­ music, crafts, and foods that rep­ archive, library, or other repository sored by Senate and House con­ resent the traditional life in a par­ as a resource for the community. gressional offices in the states and ticular region or district. A local As the nation's Library, serving districts; members of Congress legacy might also include the art­ all the people, the Library of Con­ will name team leaders to repre­ istry of individuals performing gress encourages the participation sent each state and district; and traditional music and dance or of every citizen in this Local Lega­ resource persons invited to help working at crafts and trades, such cies project to highlight America's will include state and locallibrar­ as fishing, farming, or ranching. cultural heritage and provide fu­ ians, folklorists, and state arts and Since documentation of some ture generations with "snapshots" culture specialists. events may be extensive, the Li­ of everyday life in America at the A "local legacy" is defined as a brary is asking for only a selection turn of the century. Readers with traditional activity or event, iden­ of material: photographs, a writ­ Internet access who wish to learn tified as emblematic of a particu­ ten report, and administrative in­ about other Library of Congress lar area or having special signifi­ formation. That selection, made in Bicentennial projects, can visit the cance for a community, and wor­ close consultation with senators, Library's web pages: http: / / thy of documentation and preser­ congressional representatives, and lcweb.loc.gov.bicentennial/ vation for future generations. A resource persons, should be sent local legacy might be a rodeo, to the Library of Congress by Oe­

American Folklife Center Gains Permanent Authorization

By James Hardin Act. Many board members and supporters from every state and some members of Congress have region of the country, who re­ When President Clinton signed regarded the periodic review of sponded with letters, telephone the 1999 Legislative Branch Ap­ the Center associated with con­ calls, faxes, email messages, and propriations bill on October 21, gressional reauthorization hear­ direct-contact conversations with 1998, the American Folklife Cen­ ings as a good way for the Center members of Congress in both the ter gained permanent authoriza­ to maintain relations with Con­ House and the Senate- all endors­ tion, a goal sought by the Center's gress and congressional constitu­ ing the work of the Center and af­ Board of Trustees and supported encies. firming the national importance of by many of its friends from around But attempts to gain reautho­ the Archive of Folk Culture. The the country. Former board chair rization for fiscal year 1996 were campaign not only helped to cre­ Judith McCulloh, who spear­ unsuccessful, and only the inter­ ate new supporters but reassured headed a 1997 and 1998 nation­ vention and strong support of Sen. previous supporters that the Cen­ wide campaign to enlist support Mark Hatfield (a cosponsor of the ter had an active, concerned con­ for the Center, said, "Fantastic! original legislation creating the stituency. Thanks are due to everyone who Center) during the summer of On March 4, at a meeting of the kept the faith and rallied to sup­ 1996 resulted in a two-year autho­ Senate Committee on Rules and port the Center when support was rization for the Center for fiscal Administration, Sen. Thad most needed. All of us who have 1997 and 1998. At the time, Sena­ Cochran spoke in support of per­ enjoyed working with the Center tor Hatfield recommended that manent authorization and later and its staff over the years look the Center's Board of Trustees and introduced a bill in the Senate to forward to continuing that rela­ the folklore community work to that effect. The language from the tionship. I' m off the Center's increase fundraising activity and Cochran bill was included in the board of trustees, but as a Center expressed the hope that "the next Legislative Branch Appropriations supporter I'm still on-board." Congress will enact a permanent bill, with provisions calling for The Center had been reautho­ authorization for the center." permanent authorization for the rized eight times since it was cre­ Over the past year and a half, Center, the elimination of a salary ated in 1976 by Public Law 94-201, the Center's board solicited the the American Folklife Preservation help of hundreds of friends and continued on page 15 Fall 1998 13 News from the Montana Heritage Project

(Left) The Library of Congress has donated journey from Washington, D.C., to Libby, in 110 recycled computers to schools participat­ the remote northwest corner of Montana. ing in the Montana Heritage Project. Center Libby received 25 of the 110 machines. Folklife Specialist Peter Bartis worked out the (Right) Libby, Montana, high school student donation with James Kopp, who coordinates Chris Pearson checks out one of the donated the Library's participation in a government­ computers. Pearson has a visual impairment wide computer recycling program called and needs the computer to do regular school­ "Computers for Learning." In this photograph, work. In the background are teacher Rod Teri Cinnell, project manager, loads comput­ Tempel and Montana Heritage Project direc­ ers into a horse trailer at the Montana Heri­ tor Michael Umphrey. Montana Heritage tage Project office for the final leg of their long Project photos

In the Library's Prints and Photographs Division, curator Beverly Brannan (right) shows historical photographs of Montana to visiting Montana Heritage Project students and teachers, April 30, 1998. From left to right: teacher Philip Leonardi, Annemarie Webber, Gale Price, Kate Campbell, teacher Annmarie Kanenwisher, Matt Martindell, and Brannan. Photo by Peter Bartis

14 Folklife Center News At the October 6 meeting of the Center's Board of Trustees, Board chair William Kinney reviews the provisions included in the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill that provide permanent authorization for the Center, along with fellow trustees: (from left, front) Alan Jabbour, Kinney, James Hoy, and Charles Trimble. Looking on are Christa Maher (digital conversion specialist); Joseph Hickerson (former staff member), Ann Hoog (refer­ ence specialist) Geraldine Otremba (director of the Library's Congressional Relations Office), Rachel Howard (digital conversion specialist); Stephen Kelley (congressional relations specialist); Thomas Bramel (team leader, digital conversion project); and Nora Yeh (processing archivist). for board members, elimination of Librarian is instructed to name to and the acquisition of major the position of deputy director the board "individuals who are folklife collections," he said. "The (which has remained unfilled widely recognized by virtue of Center is now shifting to a new since the retirement of Ray their scholarship, experience, cre­ stage. Permanent authorization Dockstader in 1993), and the ad­ ativity, or interest in American will change the conv ersation dition to the board of six new po­ folklife traditions and arts." within and outside the Center, al­ sitions-four appointed by the Li­ Center director Alan Jabbour lowing us to show new leadership brarian of Congress and two ex was elated by the news. "Perma­ nationally and accomplish new officio (the presidents of the nent authorization will allow the things within the Library of Con­ American Folklore Society and the Center to undertake more effective gress." Society for Ethnomusicology). The long-range planning, fundraising,

EDITOR'S NOTES from page 2 currently has underway a number Ramp Suppers of projects to celebrate its bicen­ eloquence and enthusiasm of tennial. One of the largest, and a An excellent example of a "lo­ those letters and heartened by the favorite of the Librarian, James H. cal legacy" that might be docu­ tribute they paid to the Center and Billington, is a project to document mented for the Library's project is to the work of folklorists and of local community traditions. This the ramp supper that Mary folklife programs and organiza­ Local Legacies project will be the Hufford describes in her article in tions in general. Many thanks for most comprehensive national this issue. Hufford shows the way your help. documentation project ever en­ seeking out, preparing, and talk­ gaged in by the Center. And we are ing about ramps ties a West Vir­ Library Launches Local Legacies gratified that many state folklor­ ginia community to its local land­ Project ists and folk arts coordinators have scape and to one another. expressed enthusiasm for the The Library of Congress was project and a willingness to par­ founded on April 24, 1800, and ticipate. Fall 1998 15 Liz Claiborne (left) and Art Ortenberg (right) meet with student participants in the Center's Montana Heri­ tage Project during their visit to the Library of Congress on April 30, 1998. The project has been supported for three years by generous grants from the Liz Claiborne and Art Ortenberg Foundation, and students from Corvallis High School presented the couple with this quilt in appreciation. Pictured behind the quilt are students Matt Martindell, Gale Price, Kate Campbell, and Annemarie Webber. Photo by John Nelson

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