• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

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.

Load more

  16

Copy Link