SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION * ) 1991 Festiva of American Folklife ( >n the cover Manuela Gonzales /'ere;, Mayan Tzotzil weaverfrom San . Indres Larrainzar, Mexico, spins cotton with a drop spindle. Photo In Ricarclo Martinez On the back cover, top A sidewalkfood vendor in Jakarta fans the fire under Ins speciality, sate ayam (charcoal-grilled chicken) Hisportahle "kitchen is ornately caned in Madurese style Photo by Katrinka I bbe Bottom Harlan Borman hands his daughter. Kate, up to her grandfather Raymond Atkinson, sitting in the combine Kate is now _' >' years old and an active partu ipant in thefamilyfarm in Kingdom < 'ity, Missouri Photo courtesy Borman family SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 1991 Festival of American Folklife June 28 -July 1 July 4-July7 Co-sponsored by the National Park Service Contents INTR< )l>l i n >RY STATEMENTS The 25th Annual Festival: Land and Culture 4 Robert McC. Adams, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution Presenting America's Cultural Heritage 6 James M. Ridenour, Director, National Park Service The Festival of American Folklife: Building on Tradition Richard Kurin ROOTS O] RHYTHM WIMillh ["HE ROBERT JOHNSON Blues at the Festival: A Community Music with Global Impact 21 Worth Long and Ralph Rinzler Robert Johnson in the '90s: A Dream Journey 22 Peter Guralnik Robert Johnson, Blues Musician 24 Robert Jr. Lockwood, compiled from an interview with Worth Long Wisdom of the Blues 21 Willie Dixon, compiled from an interview with Worth Long i I Will > (-"ARMING IN THE HEART] Wl Family Farm Folklore 32 Betty J. Belanus A Year in the Life of a Family Farmer 36 Steven Bernts< in The (-hanging Role of Women on the Farm 4l Eleanor Arnold and an interview with Marjorie Hunt The Farmer and American Folklore 47 James P. Leary Threshing Reunions and Threshing Talk: Recollection and Reflection in the Midwest 50 J. Sanford Rikoon F< IRES1 FIELD AND SEA: FO] Kl II I IN INDi 1NESIA Forest. Field and Sea: Cultural Diversity in the Indonesian Archipelago 55 Richard Kennedy Longhouses of East Kalimantan 61 Timothy C. Jessup Environmental Knowledge and Biological Diversity in Fast Kalimantan 65 Herwasono Soedjito Craft and Performance in Rural East Java 69 1 )ede < )et< imo Boatbuilding Myth and Ritual in South Sulawesi 73 Mukhlis and Darmawan M. Rahman LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES Knowledge and Power: Land in Native American Cultures 76 Olivia Cadaval Conocimiento y Poder: La Tierra en las Cultures Indigenas 81 Olivia Cadaval, traducido por Alicia Partnoy We Live in the Amazon Rainforest, the Lungs of the World 83 Miguel Puwainchir Vivimos en la Amazonia, El Pulmon del Mundo 84 Miguel Puwainchir Land and Subsistence in Tlingit Folklife 87 Nora Marks Dauenhauer and Richard L. Dauenhauer Clans and Corporations: Society and Land of the Tlingit Indians 91 Rosita Worl Ethno-Development in Taquile 95 Kevin Healy The Sukci Kollus: Precolumbian Agriculture of Tiwanaku 96 Oswaldo Rivera Sundt, translated by Charles H. Roberts Los Sitka Kollus: La Agricultura Precolombina del Tiwanaku 98 Oswaldo Rivera Sundt Ethno-Development Among the Jalq'a 100 Kevin Healy The Hopi Dictionary 101 Emory Sekaquaptewa Our Zapotec Ethnic Identity 103 Manuel Rios Morales Nuestra Identidad Etnica Zapoteca 104 Manuel Rios Morales Politics and Culture of Indigenism in Mexico 106 Jose Luis Krafft Vera, translated by Charles H. Roberts Politica y Cultura en el Presente Indigena de Mexico 108 Jose Luis Krafft Vera An Excerpt from San Pedro Chenalhd: Something of its History, Stories and Customs 110 Jacinto Arias Fragmento de Sail Pedro Chenalhd: Algo de sit Historia. Cuentos y Costnmhres 111 [acinto Arias Festival <>l American Folklife l © l »l In [he Smithsonian institution Editor Petei Seitel £ "i irdinat <i \i lene Rcinigei Designer Joan Wolbier Assistant Designers Carol Barton, Jennifer Nicholson Typesetter I larli am' Printer < olorcraft Typeface 1T< ( larami md Papei \ intagc Velvet Insert I rosspointe Genesis Dawn The 25th Annual Festival: Land and Culture Robert McC. Adams Secretary, Smithsonian Institution This year, the Festival is about human rela- surely one; the family farm is surely another. tionships to land. Culturally, land is never just 'I'he idea of the family farm also entails some ol soil and terrain. It is roamed or owned, wilder- our strongest values — hard work, self-reliance. ness or property. Land can have borders or be a family solidarity and community life At the Fes- path to different realms. Ideas of mother nature. tival, farming families from twelve midwestern son or daughter oi the soil, the fatherland, and states present their culture through family folk- heaven, earth and underworld, lor example, lore and storytelling, community celebrations show how intimately our understanding of land and demonstrations of work skills — from ma- is intertwined with ways of thinking about cos- chinery repair to computer-based management mology, ecology, society, and personal and na- of breeding records. Farm families try to pre- tional identity. serve a way of life and to remain stewards of the Indonesian land punctuates sea and ocean to land. Hut today then task is more complex than form some 13,000 volcanic islands. On these it has ever been, given the economic, techno- islands is an amazing diversity of environments, logical and informational revolutions in farming. ranging from the sandy beaches of Sumatra to Tensions between an increased productivity snowcapped mountains that rise above the rain- through innovation on one hand and a preserva- forests in Irian Java on New Guinea. To sample tion of family lifeways and values on the other. this diversity, the Festival presents cultural tradi- animate the present challenge of living oil .tnt.\ tions from three particular environments — the caring U >r the land forests of Kalimantan, the fields of Java and the Land is also important as we begin to com- sea coast of Sulawesi kenvah and Modang memorate the Columbus Quincentenary and to people oi Kalimantan show us how they have consider the meaning and consequences c >l Co- made life possible and meaningful in the rain- lumbus' voyages Five hundred years ago. the forest. Witness their careful use of indigenous year before those voyages, the western hemi- plants tor medicine, trees lor vernacular long- sphere was home to a wonderful array of houses, and other forest products tor aesthetic peoples, cultures and civilizations. The land was and religious practices Buginese and Makassa- populated by the descendants of peoples who rese boatbuilders, seafarers, cooks and silk mak- crossed over from Asia to Alaska some lens of ers demonstrate skills they use to live with and thousands ol years ago. For millennia, this land from the sea — the economic trade and natural was theirs. With a knowledge and understanding bounty it has historically provided. And from of this land developed over generations, native East Java come village agriculturalists, rice farm- peoples gathered and cultivated its bounty, bred ers of that island's rich soil who have developed new crops, derived medicines to cure sickness, an intricate fabric of social, material and per- mined ores lor making tools and ornaments, formance arts. These rich traditions are the ex- used its earth, stone and wood for building pression of a civilization whose cultural sources homes, made dyes tor cloth and invented ways — local, Mmdu. Buddhist, Islamic — are as ot preparing and cooking food. Land and its use complex as any on earth. informed social, moral, religious and cosmologi- Halt a world away from Indonesia and much cal beliefs, and sacred m~h.\ secular practices (loser to home is the American "heartland." Some of this knowledge and practice of land American culture embodies a tew elemental sell- use and its symbolic elaboration in artistic forms images with mythic stature — the frontier is are still continued among many Native American groups. At the Festival, culture bearers from the enriched the spirits < >f the people — artists, schol- Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian people from Alaska; ars, government officials and visiting children and Hopi from Arizona; Maya and Lacandon from adults — who annually come to meet each other Chiapas, Mexico; Zapotec and Ikood from on the nation's front lawn. The Festival has Oaxaca, Mexico; Shuar, Achuar and Canelos shown that people of different backgrounds, Quichua from Ecuador; Jalq'a and Tiwanaku from beliefs and sensibilities can indeed talk together Bolivia; and Taquile from Perti illustrate how the and understand one another if given the oppor- land in many varied environments is cared for tunity. And the Festival has had strong impacts and thought about, and how, almost five back home, on the creative lives of individuals hundred years after Columbus, the wise and hu- and the institutional life of communities. mane use, the knowledge and power of land The Festival does not celebrate itself loudly, must be re-'discovered." perhaps in keeping with the character of the The Festival itself is no less about land. The people it represents. The Festival resists commer- Festival is mounted annually in a symbolically cialization, glitter and stylization. It is nonetheless powerful place, the National Mall of the United a complex undertaking, undergirded by extensive States, surely among our nation's most sacred research, detailed logistics, intricate funding ar- plots of land. In the Festival's 25 year history, it rangements and the like. The Festival is some- has brought more than 16,000 of the world's mu- times messy and unpredictable, but that is be- sicians, craftspeople, storytellers, cooks, perform- cause it speaks in and through many voices. It is ers, workers, ritual specialists and others from a 20th century genre of complex human interac- every part of the United States and more than 50 tion invented to get people to talk, listen, share, nations to the National Mall. Farmers and fisher- understand and appreciate one another, and to men, bluesmen and quilters, taro growers and do it in a way that is indeed filled with fun and matachines, bricklayers and potters, representing sometimes wonder.