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On the cover: Manuela Gonzdles Perez, Mayan Tzotzil weaver from San Andres
Larrainzar, Mexico, spins cotton with a drop spindle. Photo by Ricardo Martinez

On the back cover, top: A sidewalk food vendor in Jakarta fans the fire under his
speciality, sate ayam (charcoal-grilled chicken). His portable “kitchen” ts
ornately carved in Madurese style. Photo by Katrinka Ebbe

Bottom: Harlan Borman hands bis daughter, Kate, up to ber grandfather Raymond
Atkinson, sitting in the combine. Kate is now 23 years old and an active participant

in the family farm in Kingdom City, Missouri. Photo courtesy Borman family

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

1991 Festival of
American Folklife

June 28-July1
July 4-July7

Co-sponsored by the National Park Service

Contents

INTRODUCTORY 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 7
Richard Kurin

ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND BLUES: THE ROBERT JOHNSON ERA

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 27
Willie Dixon, compiled from an interview with Worth Long

FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND
Family Farm Folklore 32
Betty J. Belanus
A Year in the Life of a Family Farmer 36
Steven Berntson
The Changing Role of Women on the Farm 41
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

FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA

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 East Kalimantan 65

Herwasono Soedjito

Craft and Performance in Rural East Java 69
Dede Oetomo

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 Culturas 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 Suka Kollus: Precolumbian Agriculture of Tiwanaku 96
Oswaldo Rivera Sundt, translated by Charles H. Roberts

Los Suka 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
José Luis Krafft Vera, translated by Charles H. Roberts
Politica y Cultura en el Presente Indigena de Mexico 108
José Luis Krafft Vera
An Excerpt from San Pedro Chenalho: Something of its History, Stories and Customs 110
Jacinto Arias

Fragmento de San Pedro Chenalho: Algo de su Historia, Cuentos y Costumbres 111
Jacinto Arias

Festival of American Folklife
© 1991 by the Smithsonian Institution
Editor, Peter Seitel
Coordinator: Arlene Reiniger
Designer: Joan Wolbier
Assistant Designers; Carol Barton, Jennifer Nicholson
Typesetter: Harlowe
Printer: Colorcraft
Typeface: TTC Garamond
Paper: Vintage Velvet

Insert; Crosspointe Genesis Dawn

The 25th Annual Festival.

Land and Culture

Robert McC. Adams
Secretary, Smithsonian Institution

This year, the Festival is about human rela-
tionships to land. Culturally, land is never just
soil and terrain. It is roamed or owned, wilder-
ness or property. Land can have borders or be a
path to different realms. Ideas of mother nature,
son or daughter of the soil, the fatherland, and
heaven, earth and underworld, for example,
show how intimately our understanding of land
is intertwined with ways of thinking about cos-
mology, ecology, society, and personal and na-
tional identity,

Indonesian land punctuates sea and ocean to
form some 13,000 volcanic islands. On these
islands is an amazing diversity of environments,
ranging from the sandy beaches of Sumatra to
snowcapped mountains that rise above the rain-
forests in Irian Jaya on New Guinea. To sample
this diversity, the Festival presents cultural tradi-
tions from three particular environments — the
forests of Kalimantan, the fields of Java and the
sea coast of Sulawesi. Kenyah and Modang
people of Kalimantan show us how they have
made life possible and meaningful in the rain-
forest. Witness their careful use of indigenous
plants for medicine, trees for vernacular long-
houses, and other forest products for aesthetic
and religious practices. Buginese and Makassa-
rese boatbuilders, seafarers, cooks and silk mak-
ers demonstrate skills they use to live with and
from the sea — the economic trade and natural
bounty it has historically provided. And from
East Java come village agriculturalists, rice farm-
ers of that island’s rich soil who have developed
an intricate fabric of social, material and per-
formance arts. These rich traditions are the ex-
pression of a civilization whose cultural sources
— local, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic — are as
complex as any on earth.

Half a world away from Indonesia and much
closer to home is the American “heartland.”
American culture embodies a few elemental self-
images with mythic stature — the frontier is

surely one; the family farm is surely another.
The idea of the family farm also entails some of
our strongest values — hard work, self-reliance,
family solidarity and community life. At the Fes-
tival, farming families from twelve midwestern
states present their culture through family folk-
lore and storytelling, community celebrations
and demonstrations of work skills — from ma-
chinery repair to computer-based management
of breeding records. Farm families try to pre-
serve a way of life and to remain stewards of the
land. But today their task is more complex than
it has ever been, given the economic, techno-
logical and informational revolutions in farming.
Tensions between an increased productivity
through innovation on one hand and a preserva-
tion of family lifeways and values on the other,
animate the present challenge of living off and
caring for the land.

Land is also important as we begin to com-
memorate the Columbus Quincentenary and to
consider the meaning and consequences of Co-
lumbus’ voyages. Five hundred years ago, the
year before those voyages, the western hemi-
sphere was home to a wonderful array of
peoples, cultures and civilizations. The land was
populated by the descendants of peoples who
crossed over from Asia to Alaska some tens of
thousands of years ago. For millennia, this land
was theirs. With a knowledge and understanding
of this land developed over generations, native
peoples gathered and cultivated its bounty, bred
new crops, derived medicines to cure sickness,
mined ores for making tools and ornaments,
used its earth, stone and wood for building
homes, made dyes for cloth and invented ways
of preparing and cooking food. Land and its use
informed social, moral, religious and cosmologi-
cal beliefs, and sacred and secular practices.
Some of this knowledge and practice of land
use and its symbolic elaboration in artistic forms
are still continued among many Native American

groups. At the Festival, culture bearers from the
Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian people from Alaska;
Hopi from Arizona; Maya and Lacandon from
Chiapas, Mexico; Zapotec and Ikood from
Oaxaca, Mexico; Shuar, Achuar and Canelos
Quichua from Ecuador; Jalq’a and Tiwanaku from
Bolivia; and Taquile from Peru illustrate how the
land in many varied environments is cared for
and thought about, and how, almost five
hundred years after Columbus, the wise and hu-
mane use, the knowledge and power of land
must be re-“discovered.”

The Festival itself is no less about land. The
Festival is mounted annually in a symbolically
powerful place, the National Mall of the United
States, surely among our nation’s most sacred
plots of land. In the Festival’s 25 year history, it
has brought more than 16,000 of the world’s mu-
sicians, craftspeople, storytellers, cooks, perform-
ers, workers, ritual specialists and others from
every part of the United States and more than 50
nations to the National Mall. Farmers and fisher-
men, bluesmen and quilters, taro growers and
matachines, bricklayers and potters, representing
only a sample of human cultural diversity, have
demonstrated their knowledge, skill, aesthetics
and wisdom. In doing so, they have told their
story to some 20 million visitors. They have
brought issues of cultural conservation, survival,
continuity and creativity to the symbolic center of
our nation, to national and to international con-
sciousness.

The Festival is the foremost example of a re-
search-based presentation of living culture. It has

enriched the spirits of the people — artists, schol-
ars, government officials and visiting children and
adults — who annually come to meet each other
on the nation’s front lawn. The Festival has
shown that people of different backgrounds,
beliefs and sensibilities can indeed talk together
and understand one another if given the oppor-
tunity. And the Festival has had strong impacts
back home, on the creative lives of individuals
and the institutional life of communities.

The Festival does not celebrate itself loudly,
perhaps in keeping with the character of the
people it represents. The Festival resists commer-
cialization, glitter and stylization. It is nonetheless
a complex undertaking, undergirded by extensive
research, detailed logistics, intricate funding ar-
rangements and the like. The Festival is some-
times messy and unpredictable, but that is be-
cause it speaks in and through many voices. It is
a 20th century genre of complex human interac-
tion invented to get people to talk, listen, share,
understand and appreciate one another, and to
do it in a way that is indeed filled with fun and
sometimes wonder. The Festival is firmly rooted
in specially endowed land — land that belongs
to and provides a place for everyone. The Na-
tional Mall nourishes the mind, the spirit and the
identities of those who stand upon it. Our Festi-
val on the Mall helps empower cultures pre-
sented here to invite you to cross boundaries not
regularly crossed and hear the voices of the
earth’s peoples, from around the world and from
close to home.

Presenting America’s
Cultural Heritage

James M. Ridenour
Director, National Park Service

Ever since 1973, the National Park Service
has been a co-sponsor of the Festival of Ameri-
can Folklife on the National Mall in Washington,
D.C. We are proud to join with the Smithsonian
in celebrating this, the 25th annual Festival. The
Festival is a nationally and internationally ac-
claimed model of research and public educa-
tion, which informs our citizens and foreign
visitors about the rich and diverse cultural heri-
tage of our nation and the larger world.

This year also marks the 75th anniversary of
the National Park Service. The National Park
Service is actively at work, every day through-
out the United States, to preserve and protect
the natural, historical and cultural heritage we
all hold so dear, The National Park Service is a
steward for the American people of Yellow-
stone National Park, Grand Canyon National
Park, the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial
and literally hundreds of other natural areas,
historical sites and monuments that grace the
landscape and the public consciousness of our
nation.

We have worked with numerous local, state
and regional agencies throughout the United
States to promote the preservation, understand-
ing and interpretation of folklife and grassroots
cultural traditions. We have cooperated closely
with the American Folklife Center at the Library
of Congress in developing cultural conservation
policies and specific research projects with Low-
ell National Historical Park and now an Acadian
Cultural Center in Maine. Ongoing festivals, per-
formance programs and skills demonstrations

such as the National Folk Festival held at
America’s Industrial Park in Johnstown, Pennsyl-
vania, and others at Jean Lafitte National Histori-
cal Park in Louisiana, Golden Gate National Rec-
reation Area in California, Hawai'i Volcanoes
National Park, Chamizal National Memorial Park
in Texas, Blue Ridge National Parkway in Vir-
ginia and North Carolina, Cuyahoga National
Recreation Area in Ohio, and Virgin Islands
National Park on St. John testify to our commit-
ment,

This year, at the Festival of American Folklife
and beginning in October at Columbus Plaza,
Union Station and in other venues, the National
Park Service will develop exhibitions, programs
and publications to mark the Columbus Quin-
centenary. The Quincentenary provides an op-
portune moment for all Americans to re-exam-
ine and re-consider the history of our hemi-
sphere and its varied peoples and cultures. The
National Park Service is proud to play a key role
and to join with the Smithsonian to make that
history accessible to the broadest public. In
visiting the National Mall and many other na-
tional parks, sites and monuments, one can
observe not only remnants of that five hundred
year history, but also its results in the practices
and beliefs of living cultures. Understanding
how our cultural history was made is of great
importance for Americans and for all the world’s
people. It is a knowledge that we can build
upon as we begin to shape our history and cul-
ture in the next five hundred years.

The Festival of
American Folklife:

Building on Tradition

Richard Kurin

This summer marks the 25th annual Festival of
American Folklife. Over the years more than
16,000 musicians, dancers, craftspeople, storytell-
ers, cooks, workers, and other bearers of tradi-
tional culture from every region of the United
States and every part of the globe have come to
the National Mall in Washington to illustrate the
art, knowledge, skill and wisdom developed
within their local communities. They have sung
and woven, cooked and danced, spun and
stitched a tapestry of human cultural diversity;
they have aptly demonstrated its priceless value.
Their presence has changed the National Mall
and the Smithsonian Institution. Their perform-
ances and demonstrations have shown millions
of people a larger world. And their success has
encouraged actions, policies and laws that pro-
mote human cultural rights. The Festival has been
a vehicle for this. And while it has changed in
various ways over the years, sometimes only to
change back once again, the Festival’s basic pur-
pose has remained the same. Its energy and
strength is rooted in the very communities and
cultural exemplars it seeks to represent, and in
small, but sometimes significant ways, to help.

The First Festival

The marble museums of the Smithsonian
Institution are filled with beautiful hand-
worn things made long ago by forgotten
American craftsmen. Nostalgic reminders
of our folk craft heritage, the museum
exhibits are discreetly displayed, precisely
labeled, and dead.

But the folk craft tradition has not died.
Yesterday it burst into life before the as-
tonished eyes of hundreds of visitors on
the Mall. (Paul Richard in The Washington
Post, July 2, 1907, on the first Festival of
American Folklife)

Mary McGrory, then a reporter for The Evening
Star, wrote,

Thanks to S. Dillon Ripley, Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution, thousands of
people have been having a ball on the
Mall, watching dulcimer-makers, quilters,
potters and woodcarvers and listing to
music. “My thought,” said Ripley, “is that
we have dulcimers in cases in the mu-
seum, but how many people have actually
heard one or seen one being made?”

During the mid-1960s the Smithsonian Institu-
tion re-evaluated its approach to understanding
and interpreting American culture and its atten-
dant institutional responsibilities. Secretary Ripley
reported his initiative to mount the first Festival
to the Board of Regents, the Smithsonian's gov-
erning body, in February, 1967:

A program sponsored by the Smithsonian
should reflect the Institution’s founding
philosophy and current role. Although it
has the world’s largest collections of
American folk artifacts, the Smithsonian,
like all museums in our nation, fails to
present folk culture fully and accurately.
Through the Bureau of American Ethnol-
ogy, it has pioneered the collection, ar-
chiving, analysis and publication of Ameri-
can Indian cultural data, [but] neither the
Smithsonian nor any other research institu-
tion has employed the methods of cultural
anthropology in an extensive fieldwork
program in American folk cultures.

The lack of museum expertise and the
absence of adequate field programs in
American folklife studies has resulted from
a general ignorance of the abundance of
our traditional cultures. Related to the
collections and based on the philosophy
of the Smithsonian, an exposition of the

Dejan’s Olympia Brass Band from Louisiana performs on the National Mall at the first Festival in 1907. Festival stages
have generally remained small, encouraging intimate audience interaction. Photo Smithsonian Institution

folk aesthetic on the Mall accompanied by
a seminar would be provocative

A program presenting traditional crafts-
men and dancers as well as musicians
would convincingly demonstrate the vigor
of our folk traditions. At an interdiscipli-
nary seminar, individuals with mutual
interests who are not ordinarily in commu-
nication — including scholars, government
and foundation representatives as well as
concerned laymen — will explore the
significance of the traditions displayed

Secretary Ripley also envisioned the eventual
formation of an American Folklife Institute that
would establish “standards for research and inter-
pretation of our folkways” and “enable the Smith-
sonian to provide the basis for a total view of
American culture.”

James Morris, then Director of the
smithsonian’s Museum Service, Ralph Rinzler,
coming from the Newport Folk Foundation as an
applied folklore consultant, and others took up
the task and the leadership of the project. Morris
became Director of the newly constituted Divi-
sion of Performing Arts, Rinzler became the

Festival’s Director and Marion Hope became the
project assistant and then Festival coordinator
and assistant director

Some in the U.S. Congress felt that Ripley's
plans for the National Mall — which in addition
to a Festival of American Folklife included a
carousel, outdoor evening concerts at the muse-
ums, and a kite-flying contest — were frivolous,
that they would turn the Mall into a “midway
But Ripley and his supporters prevailed. Ripley
thought it made sense for the Smithsonian to go
outdoors and establish what some members of
Congress termed “a living museum.” Education
could be fun. Serious purposes could be accom-
plished on the nation’s front lawn, historically
known as “Smithsonian Park.” The Civil Rights
marches had already dramatically demonstrated
this

Professors and scientists had their universities
and publications; fine artists had their art galleries
and museums; fine musicians had their sympho-
nies and operas. The work of popular and com-
mercial artists was proclaimed in the mass media
of television, radio, recordings and magazines.
Where could the voices of “folks back home” be

heard so they too would contribute to our sense
of national culture, wisdom and art? Simply, the
National Mall provided just such a platform for
people to speak to the rest of the nation.
Through the Festival, everyone could be repre-
sented; it made good sense as part of the na-
tional museum charged with presenting the story
of human accomplishments. Members of Con-
gress understood this meant that their constitu-
ents, the people, the folks back home, would
have a place in the cultural life of the nation.
Texans and Ohioans, Mississippians and Hawai-
ians, Anglo-Americans from Appalachia and
American Indians from the Plains, new and older
urban immigrants, children and elders, miners,
cowboys, carpenters and many others would all
have a place — a special place — to represent
their cultural contributions.

The first Festival included a variety of musi-
cians and craftspeople from across the country
— Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Sing-
ers, Moving Star Hall Singer Janie Hunter and
coil basketmaker Louise Jones from South Caro-
lina, dulcimer maker Edd Presenell from North
Carolina, Dejan’s Olympia Brass Band from New
Orleans, Navajo sandpainter Harry Belone,
Acoma Pueblo potter Marie Chino, the Yomo
Toro Puerto Rican Band and an Irish Ceilidh
Band from New York, cowboy singer Glenn
Ohrlin, bluesman John Jackson, Libba Cotton,
Russian Glinka dancers from New Jersey, King
Island Eskimo dancers from Alaska, and country
blues singer Fred McDowell among many others.

The first Festival represented a convergence
and distillation of several ideas. The name,
“folklife” was taken from the Pennsylvania
Folklife Festival and Don Yoder’s scholarly adop-
tion of the European term. The Festival's juxta-
position of musical performance with crafts, nar-
rative sessions, foodways and sales came from
Rinzler’s pioneering experience at the Newport
Festival. The dominant idea — that of a festival
combining art, education and the struggle for
cultural recognition — came from Rinzler
through the influences of ethnomusicologist
Charles Seeger, social activist and educator Myles
Horton, and folklorist A. L. Lloyd.

From its inception, the Festival was to have a
strong scholarly base. Festival presentations
would indicate the cultural and social history of
featured traditions. It would represent them ac-
curately. Concurrent with the first Festival was an
American Folklife Conference, organized by Mor-
ris, Rinzler and Henry Glassie, then state folklor-
ist for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Con-
ference participants included Smithsonian cura-

tors, folklorists D. K. Wilgus, Richard Dorson,
Roger Abrahams, Austin Fife, Archie Green and
Don Yoder, anthropologist Ward Goodenough,
cantometrician Alan Lomax, cultural geographer
Fred Kniffen, architect James Marston Fitch, rec-
ord producer Moses Asch, historians, educators
and other scholars from Mexico, Ireland, Canada,
and Switzerland. The conference addressed top-
ics of American and international folklife studies,
the relationship between folklife and history,
applied folklife, and folklife in schools, museums,
communities and government agencies.

In the first Festival and Conference, several
important ideas emerged. The study of grassroots
traditional cultures was a multidisciplinary proj-
ect; factors affecting the survival of cultural tradi-
tions in contemporary life had to be addressed;
the study and presentation of cultures, through
schools and other institutions was an essential
part of public education; the Festival provided a
collaborative means for scholars and culture bear-
ers to discuss and present their understandings of
particular traditions and communities.

The Festival and Conference project was
viewed in 1967 as part of a larger strategy to
study, present and conserve traditional grassroots
cultures. The last session of the conference was
devoted to planning for a National, or American
Folklore Institute. The Institute would sponsor
intensive scholarly fieldwork on American folk
cultures, stimulate and preserve folk traditions
through economic and educational assistance,
produce an annual festival, encourage regional
festivals and seminars, publish scholarly mono-
graphs and seminar proceedings as well as more
popular works, produce documentary films,
maintain an archive, compile resource guides for
folk culture, disseminate educational materials to
schools, advise other government agencies on
cultural conditions related to their programs, and
develop proposals for a national folk perform-
ance company and a national folklife museum.

The first Festival was indeed a public success,
with more than 431,000 visitors attending. As
Alan Lomax said,

In affairs like this we realize our strength.
We realize how beautiful we are. Black is
beautiful. Appalachia is beautiful and even
old, tired, Washington sometimes is beau-
tiful when the American people gather to
sing and fall in love with each other again.

At the Festival people do talk, meet, and un-
derstand something of each other as they easily
cross social boundaries usually not negotiated in
their everyday life. And through the Festival,

tradition bearers enlarge the measure of cultural

pride they brought with them to the Mall and
bring it back home, energized by the experience
of presenting their traditions in a national con-
text. While not all of the suggestions developed
in the 1967 American Folklife Conference have
been realized, most of them have indeed come to

pass.

Festival Benchmarks

It is difficult, if not impossible, to summarize
all the milestones, all the accomplishments of the
Festival of American Folklife. Key benchmarks
merely signal its scope and contributions to
scholarship, museology, government policy and
the life of cultural communities themselves

Community Involvement and Staffing

The Festival was intended to help present and
interpret in a direct, public way the sometimes
overlooked artistic creations of America’s diverse,
grassroots Cultural communities. Influenced by
the Civil Rights Movement, the Festival was to
provide a means whereby many Americans could
tell their story and exhibit their aesthetics, their
knowledge, their skill and their wisdom to the
rest of the nation. Crucial to this process was the
involvement of Community members, not only as
performers, but also as audience and as curatorial
and professional staff

In the late 1960s, the Smithsonian museums
attracted very few visitors from minority commu-
nities and had only one minority curator. Follow-
ing the first Festival, Rinzler met with civil rights
acuvist, singer and cultural historian Bernice Rea-
gon, Anacostia Museum Director John Kinard,

Ernie Cornelison from Bybee, Kentucky,
demonstrates ad Dutch American pottery
tradition, preserved in bis family for
generations, at the 1908 Festival. Crafts
processes demonstrated at the Festival
ypically invite close observation and
questions. Photo by Robert Yellin,
Smithsonian Institution

writer Julius Lester and others to
develop programs through which
African Americans in Washington
might see the Festival and the
Smithsonian as worthy of their par-
ticipation. Similar efforts were di-
rected toward other communities
traditionally left out of Smithsonian
museums and activities

These efforts led to the appoint-
ment of Clydia Nahwooksy, the first
Native American professional at the Smithsonian,
and to the establishment of the Festival’s American
Indian Awareness program. Portions of the 1968
Festival were held at the Anacostia Neighborhood
Museum. An African Diaspora Advisory Group
was formed in 1971 to develop programs on Afri-
can-derived cultures, foster community involve-
ment, and engage scholars in finding solutions to
questions of cultural representation. Gerald Davis,
Reagon, James Early, Worth Long, Roland Free-
man, and many others became involved. Over the
years, the Festival played an important role of
bringing scholars and cultural thinkers to the
Smithsonian from previously unrepresented or
underrepresented communities. Many, such as
Reagon, Early, Manuel Melendez, Alicia Gonzalez,
Rayna Green, Fred Nahwooksy have held posi-
tions of increasing responsibility and scope within
the Smithsonian.

The Festival also provided an opportunity for
networks of minority scholars to develop. Free-
man, a documentary photographer, and Long, a
civil rights Community organizer, teamed up in
1974 to survey and document the folklife of
Mississippi's Black communities for the Festival,
over the years they have collaborated on many
projects, and are working together again this year

The Festival has long attempted to provide
research, training and presentational experience to
members Of minority Communities. This has
served two purposes. On one hand the Festival
has helped enhance community self-documenta-
tion and presentation, On the other, the dis-
courses of the Festival, the Smithsonian and a
broad public have been enriched with the per-
spectives Of minority professional and lay scholars

on their own community’s cultures and on
broader issues of social and cultural history.

This kind of involvement has become a regu-
lar feature of the Festival. Field research con-
ducted to help select traditions and participants
for the Festival is typically done by trained and
lay scholars from the studied communities them-
selves. When Hawaiians, Virgin Islanders, Sene-
galese, or members of a deaf community are pre-
sented to the public at the Festival, scholars from
those communities usually frame the presenta-
tions with background information. When this is
not possible, presentations are done by scholars
who, though not of the community, have col-
laborated closely with local scholars.

This ongoing commitment to cultural dialogue
took the form of a Summer Folklore Institute in
1989 and 1990. Hundreds of lay scholars work in
communities across the United States document-
ing, preserving and presenting their community’s
traditions without benefit of professional training,
institutional networks or adequate human and fi-
nancial resources. The Institute, organized
around the Festival, exposed fellows, most from
minority backgrounds, to techniques and meth-
ods used within the field. It also provided a
means whereby they could meet one another as
well as academic and museum scholars and inter-

ested public officials whose help they might draw

upon. The Festival provided a fertile field for
discussing, illustrating and examining questions
of cultural documentation and presentation for
the Institute’s fellows. Just as the Festival has, the
Institute has assisted community-level work on

local cultures by encouraging its practitioners.

The Program Book

At the 1968 Festival, a program book accom-
panied Festival presentations. Noted scholars
from a variety of disciplines addressed general
issues of folklore and folklife and the specific
traditions illustrated in the Festival in a writing
style accessible to public audiences. In 1970 the
Festival program book included many documen-
tary photographs, recipes, statements by and
interviews with craftspeople and musicians. It
attempted to bring the many voices of the Festi-
val event to its printed publication. Over the
years, the program book has included seminal
and informative articles on traditions and issues
presented by Festival programs. The contents of
the 24 program books provide a compendium of
multidisciplinary and multivocal folklore scholar-
ship, with articles on regional American culture,
American Indian culture, the cultures of African
Americans and of other peoples of the diaspora,

on ethnicity, community musics, biographical pro-
files of important musicians, verbal arts, deaf cul-
ture, material culture, vernacular architecture,
foodways, communities and community celebra-
tions, occupational folklife, children’s folklore, the
folklore of the elderly, the cultures of other coun-
tries, and issues of cultural policy. Several articles
have focused on institutional practice and reflected
on the production of the Festival itself — the ideas
used to develop programmatic themes, to decide
on who is to be represented and how and why.
Program books are broadly distributed to the gen-
eral public every year and used in university class-
rooms for teaching about American cultural tradi-
tions. Many states and locales have reprinted ar-
ticles for use in their schools.

Featured State and Region

First in 1968 and then in ensuing years, the Fes-
tival adopted and in some cases developed innova-
tive categories for understanding and presenting
folklife traditions. In 1968 the Festival began its
ongoing concern with the regional cultures of
America with a distinct, “featured state” program
about Texas. The program illustrated that regional
culture often crosses ethnic communities and pro-
vides a particular cultural identity and aesthetic
style. At the same time, regions generally host con-
siderable cultural variation and diversity. Since
then, Festival programs have been produced for
every region of the United States and for 17 states
and territories.

Regional and state programs have been impor-
tant in projecting to the American public a knowl-
edge of the talents, sensibilities and values of their
fellow citizens and neighbors. John Waihee, Gov-
ernor of Hawaii, eloquently spoke of this at the
1989 Festival.

It is with joy that we bring what is special
about Hawaii to you, which is the spirit of
aloha. Because we are more than wonderful
weather, or beautiful beaches or powerful
volcanoes. We are a people. We are people
from many different backgrounds, and yet
one, in the middle of God's Pacific, based
on our native Hawaiian heritage, which
binds us together in a spirit of love and
pride, and built upon those who came later
for a better life, reaching out so that their
children’s future would be secure. All of this
we bring to Washington. To you, from the
community of communities, to the nation of
nations, we bring our spirit of aloha.

State and regional programs at the Festival have
also been important in generating lasting institu-

Horsemen race down the Mall for the Oklaboma program featured at the 1982 Festival. The Festival's presentations
attempt to contextualize performances and skills, sometimes through large-scale structures, often through directed
attention to a particular individual

tional effects back home. Working in concert
with the Folk Arts Program at the National En-
dowment for the Arts, the Festival has provided a
useful means of encouraging folk arts programs
within various states

Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon spoke of this
impact at the 1978 Festival

This is a national Festival, but not just for
Washington, D.C. My congressional col-
leagues and IT are very much aware of the
impact this Festival has had on our own
states and regions. For example, my state,
Oregon, has had two successful folklife
festivals as a result of the Festival here. A
young woman who did the fieldwork for
the 1976 Bicentennial Festival returned
home to Oregon to direct a north coast
festival in Astoria in 1977 and a central
Oregon festival this year. The festival dem-
onstrated the breadth of folkways in just
one state. From loggers and fishermen on
the coast to buckeroos and smoke jumpers
in the rugged central part of the state
rhese regional festivals demonstrate that
the cultural traditions brought out by the

Photo by Jeff Tinsley, Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian are worthy of respect, cele-
bration and scholarship on the home turf.
For a century, I believe the Smithsonian
has been noted primarily for the collection
of artifacts of the American experience
and has become the nation’s attic. But it is
the life of the American folk that we cele-
brate here today, not their encased arti-
facts as important as they may be. For it is
the people themselves here in festivals
like this across the country that provide us
with an understanding of our own com-
munity. No curator can convey through a
glass display case what the people them-

selves can say to us directly

Most states have remounted a Festival program
back home — Oklahoma in 1982, Michigan, ev-
ery year since being on the Mall in 1987, Massa-
chusetts in 1988, and Hawaii in 1990. The U.S.
Virgin Islands plans to remount the Festival on St
Croix later this year and next year on St. Thomas.
States have also used the Festival to develop their
own on-going programs for the study, presenta-
tion and conservation of local cultures, Michigan
has done this effectively; Hawaii is now consider-

Iroquois teenagers play and demon-
strate the Indian-originated game of
lacrosse at the 1975 Festival. The
Festival's presentation of American
Indian culture has spanned music and
dance, crafts, foodways, architecture,
storytelling, ritual performance, subsis-
tence activities, sports and efforts at self-
documentation and cultural revitaliza-
tion. Photo by Jim Pickerell, Smithsonian

Institution

ing a collaboration with the Smith-
sonian for a cultural institute; and
the Virgin Islands, based upon its
experience, is poised to establish a
state folk arts program, pass a Cul-
tural Preservation Act and establish
a Virgin Islands Cultural Institute.
The impact of such state and re-
gional programs is not limited to
formal institutions, but also extends
to participating artists, cultural ex-
emplars and scholars. For some,
the Festival represents a personal
highlight, a benchmark from which
they take encouragement and inspiration.

Native American Programs

The 1970 Festival expanded to include a unt-
fied program focussed on Native American cul-
tures. While the Smithsonian's long established
Bureau of American Ethnology had collected and
documented evidences of previous lifeways, the
Festival's thrust was to complement this with the

rich dance, craft, foodways and ritual traditions of

contemporary Indian peoples. The Festival
worked closely with members of American In-
dian tribes to document and present traditions on
the Mall. Collaboration in planning the Festival,
in training community people, and having Ameri-
can Indians speak directly to the public marked
the development of these programs over the
years.

Since 1970, representatives from more than
130 Native American tribes have illustrated their
cultures at the Festival. Survey programs were
followed with thematic presentations, so that in
1978, 1979 and 1980, American Indians demon-
strated the uses of vernacular architecture, the
skills and knowledge needed for its construction
and its ecological soundness. In 1989 an Ameri-
can Indian program examined the access to natu-
ral resources necessary for the continuity of tribal
cultures; that year’s program was accompanied
by the publication of Thomas Vennum’s influen-

tial Wild Rice and the Ojibway People.
The American Indian program at this year’s

Festival examines use and knowledge of the land
among Native American groups from Alaska and
the U.S. Southwest, Mexico, the Andes, and
Ecuadorian rainforest. In a continuation of the
dialogue begun through the Festival model, Na-
tive American Festival participants will, during
and after the Festival, work with staff and cura-
tors of the Smithsonian’s new National Museum
of the American Indian to help shape its opera-
tions and plan its initial exhibits.

Working Americans and
Occupational Folklife

The 1971 Festival marked the beginning of
another series of programs, one concerned with
the occupational folklife of working Americans.
Rarely presented publically as culture prior to the
Festival of American Folklife, occupational
folklife consists of the skills, knowledge and lore
people develop as members of occupational
groups or communities. In 1971, during a sum-
mer of great national division, young people
harboring stereotypes of people in hard hats had
the opportunity to meet, talk with and reach a
greater understanding of construction workers.
Since then, Festival programs have illustrated the
folklife of meat cutters, bakers, garment workers,
carpenters and joiners, cowboys, farmers, stone

Logger Gary Winnop of Sitka, Alaska, checks rigging at the 1984
Festival, Occupational presentations have seen barns, threshers,
livestock, railroad tracks and cars, building frames, boats
and computers on the Mall to help workers demonstrate
and explain how they work for a living

Photo by Jeff Ploskonka, Smithsonian Institution

masons, oil and gas workers, sheet metal work-
ers, railroad workers, seafarers, truck and taxi
drivers, bartenders, firefighters and in 1986, even
trial lawyers, who demonstrated their dramatic,
strategic, storytelling and people-reading skills

some occupational groups and organizations,
such as the AFL-CIO Labor Studies Center and
the American Trial Lawyers Association, have
used their Festival experience in self-presenta-
tion, in turning work skills into performance, to
study and interpret their occupational culture.
Programs in the Festival have also resulted in
longer term research studies and documentary
films, such as Robert McCarl's D.C. Firefighters for
the Smithsonian Folklife Studies series, and Mar-
jorie Hunt’s 1984 Academy and Emmy Award
winning film, 7be Stone Carvers

Folklife Legislation

The 1971 Festival also was the setting for what
Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris called, “a folk
hearing down on the Mall.” Senator Harris, co-
sponsor of a bill called the American Folklife
Foundation Act, felt that

American cultures have not been viewed
with the pride they warrant; too often,
they have been scorned as the life-style of
an uncultured lower class. Nothing Ameri-
can was allowed to bear the label “cul-
ture.” We had no national policy of appre-
ciation and support for America’s folklife.

The legislation was proposed as an effort to
invest in the culture of America’s Common man.
The bill, according to Harris,

says that the country fiddler need not feel
uncultured simply because his fiddle does
not produce a concert tone; it says that the
pottery of Jugtown, North Carolina, and
the sandpainting of the southwestern Indi-
ans are artistic treasures in the same sense
as those from the dynasties of China, it
says that the black bluesmen along the
Brazos Valley in Texas are recognized as
pure artists and welcome as a national
treasure; it says that the American Indian
philosopher has something urgently im-
portant for America today and that society
wants to hear him as well as the ancient
Greeks; it says that the total lifestyles of
Swedish Americans in Milwaukee, of Pol-
ish Americans in Chicago and of Italian
Americans in Boston have brought a per-
spective and a contribution to this country
that has enobled us as a society; and it
says that the bluegrass band has devel-
oped a music with a complexity and rich-
ness that will grow and that will endure
always as a living monument to American
musical genius. In short, the bill says that
there is a vast cultural treasure in
America’s common man, and that our
society will be a better one if we focus on
that treasure and build on it.

The bill defined folklife and called for the
establishment of an American Folklife Foundation
that would give grants, loans and scholarships to
groups and individuals to organize folklife festi-
vals, exhibits and workshops, to support re-
search, scholarship and training, to establish ar-
chives and material and documentary collections,
and to develop and to disseminate educational
materials relating to folklife. It was modeled on a

bill first proposed by Texas Senator Ralph Yar-
borough in 1969 and inspired by the Festival of
American Folklife, by the initial 19607 conference
and by the subsequent interest the conference
had generated. Sen. Harris and Rep. Thompson
of New Jersey, the sponsor of the companion bill
in the House of Representatives, chaired the pub-
lic “folk hearing” on the Mall at the Festival. Festi-
val participants Dewey Balfa, a Cajun fiddler from
Louisiana, Barbara Farmet and Rosetta Ruyle,
American Indians from the Northwest Coast,
Florence Reece a coal-mining wife and singer
from Tennessee, building tradesman Phil Ricos,
and others testified at the hearing as did singer
and folk documentor Mike Seeger, folklorists
Archie Green and Francis Utely, and Festival
American Indian programs coordinator, Clydia
Nahwooksy.

The bill was not voted upon in 1971 but laid
the legislative groundwork for the establishment
of two other federal programs — the Folk Arts
Program at the National Endowment for the Arts,
and the American Folklife Center at the Library of
Congress. The former assumed responsibility for
grant-making to individuals and local, state and
regional arts agencies, while the latter, under the
terms of the 1976 American Folklife Preservation
Act, concentrated on archival collections, folklife
research and other programs.

Old Ways in the New World

While the emphasis of the Festival was on
American folk traditions, staff folklorists and oth-
ers had interests in the root traditions from which
many American traditions had derived. In 1973
the Festival initiated the first of a series of annual
programs on “Old Ways in the New World.”
These programs sought to research and present
the ways in which traditional practices of com-
munity and ethnic identity, rooted in the “old
world,” were perserved and transformed in the
American context. Programs like the one on
Cajun culture in Louisiana examined this process
through music, and rather than seeing immigrants
as dispossessed of culture, presented examples of
living cultural continuity, vitality and creativity.
These programs fostered pride and, in some
cases such as among Cajuns and Irish Americans,
local renaissances of traditional cultural forms.
Folks whose traditions had been devalued even
by themselves and their children reinvested en-
ergy in those traditions. Cajun fiddler Dewey
Balfa, who appreared at the 1964 Newport Folk
Festival at the urging of Rinzler and came away
promising “to take the applause that echoed in
my ears back to Louisiana,” expressed this point

of view at the 1982 Festival. Said Balfa,

It matters not what part or what nationality
you are. You should be proud of your na-
tionality, you should be proud of your re-
gion. I want to respect your culture, you
respect my culture. And if we ever learn to
do this, America is a beautiful country, but
it would be even more beautiful. And we
can do that. Some of us has some work to
do, but I think we are all together. We can
do that.

Balfa, now retired as a school bus driver, but
still playing his fiddle, was recently appointed an
adjunct professor at Southwest Louisiana State
College to convey his knowledge of Cajun culture
to the next generation.

Old Ways in the New World programs from
1973 to 1976 focused on ethnic groups with roots
in Great Britain, Yugoslavia, Sweden, Norway,
Finland, Tunisia, Greece, Germany, Italy, Lebanon,

Japan and Mexico. They generally reunited Ameri-

can communities with cultural exemplars from
“back home.” The connection between an Ameri-
can immigrant group, whether newly arrived or
long settled, and its root population has continued
to be important in Festival research and program-
ming. The impact of these combinations on per-
forming artists, craftspeople and musicians was
sometimes profound. Said Balfa in 1989 when at
the Festival with French-style fiddlers from West-
ern France, Quebec, New England, North Dakota
and Louisiana,

This afternoon we were all [together] doing
a workshop. I imagined in my mind while

this was going on how long it would have

taken me to travel all these miles and hear
this music. I got it in one hour on the Mall,
and I think that is beautiful.

The Old Ways in the New World concept
framed the need to include in our cultural history
the new immigrant groups reaching American
shores as a result of the 1965 immigration act and
the war in Southeast Asia. Presentations of these
groups at the Festival coincided with the
Smithsonian’s establishment of a Research Institute
on Immigration and Ethnic Studies headed by Roy
Bryce-Laporte.

Recognizing similarities in the immigrant experi-
ence between different eras and from different
continents prompted a program at the 1988 Festi-
val on “Migration to Metropolitan Washington:
Making a New Place Home.” African American,
Chinese, Oromo, Amhara, Salvadoran and other
immigrant communities were brought together to

illustrate cultural processes which they all
shared, and which, when understood, could
help promote neighborly intercultural ex-
changes in an urban environment.

Programmatic interest in newly immigrant
communities and their interactions has contin-
ued in the research work carried out by staff
folklorist Olivia Cadaval on Salvadoran and
Latino communities in Washington, D.C. An-
other researcher, Frank Proschan, is working on
the recovery and conservation of Kmhmu ver-
bal art in collaboration with elders and lay
scholars in a community widely disbursed geo-
graphically throughout the United States. Cur-
rently, we are engaged in a research project on
Soviet American and cognate Soviet cultures
resulting from a 1988 Festival program on So-
viet musics. Joint teams of American and Soviet
researchers are conducting fieldwork on
Bukharin Jewish communities in Uzbekistan
and in Queens, New York; on Old Believers in
southern Russia and in Oregon and California;
Ukranians in the Soviet Union and U.S. cities;
and other such root and cognate communities.
The project examines the transformations of
identity and folklife within these communities
and will probably result in a Festival program in
the mid-1990s.

The Old Ways in the New World programs
involved cultural exemplars from some 40 na-
tions in the Festival and provided a means for
the American public to approach cultures and
peoples usually far removed from them. In 1978
the Festival began “featured country” programs
with the participation of Mexico and Mexican
Americans. Such country programs as those on
Korea, India, Japan, France, the Soviet Union,
Senegal and this year, Indonesia, provide Festi-
val visitors with an opportunity to see artistic
and cultural expressions rarely glimpsed
through mass media. These programs also pro-
vide an Opportunity for close collaborative ties
between American and international scholars
and sometimes even influence cultural policies
in the represented nation. The 1985 Festival
program, “Mela: An Indian Fair,” was accom-
plished with strong collaboration of Indian
folklorists, community activists, designers, and
local communities who were struggling to
maintain their artistic traditions. This program,
conceptually and aesthetically organized by
Indian principles and sensibilities, provided a
powerful cultural representation, which not
only gave visitors a sense of Indian cultures, but
also influenced policies and practices aimed at
broadening human cultural rights in India.

African Diaspora

A similar impulse informed the founding of the
African Diaspora program conceived in 1970 and
produced at the 1974 Festival. The African Dias-
pora program, first proposed by Gerald Davis and
developed in collaboration with the African Dias-
pora Advisory Group, which included Bernice
Reagon, A. B. Spellman, Kathryn Morgan and
others, was a ground-breaking attempt to make a
statement about the continuity of African cultural
forms in the many places in which African
peoples live.

African American culture forms are rooted in
Africa, often via the Caribbean and Latin America.
Some forms, such as Sea Island basket making,
folktales, hair braiding, and some musical and
verbal styles have aesthetically and functionally
survived intact; others were synthesized and trans-
formed to deal with historical and daily exigen-
cies. The 1974 Festival program made a tri-conti-
nental statement, linking musicians, dancers,
cooks, woodcarvers, hairdressers, basket weavers
and others from Ghana and Nigeria, Trinidad and
Tobago, and varied African American communities
in the United States.

African Diaspora programs in 1975 and 1976
continued to look at commonalities of the African
experience as found in a diversity of North Ameri-
can, Caribbean, South American and African set-
tings. Participants at the Festival, millions of visi-
tors, African Americans, European Americans,
scholars and Smithsonian staff discovered the
many ways in which common aesthetics in
foodways, personal adornment, music, dance, use
of language and use of space were expressed by
peoples from Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Zaire, and
Senegal; from Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad & Tobago,
Surinam and Brazil; and from the Mississippi
Delta, from the Georgia Sea Islands, from urban
New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago and
Washington, D.C. African Diaspora programs
marked a major development in the scholarly and
public treatment of African-based cultures and
helped set the foundation for programs in the
National Museum of American History.

The need and impetus for such programs con-
tinues. The 1990 Festival featured a program on
Senegal involving the participation of Senegalese
and Senegalese Americans. Joined with the U.S.
Virgin Islands at the Festival, participants, scholars
and officials “re-discovered” many of the cultural
commonalities — in storytelling, mocko jumbi,
music, narrative, foodways and adornment tradi-
tions — which unite them. At the Festival, the
Senegalese Minister of Culture and the Governor
of the U.S. Virgin Islands announced plans for a

3 33

Yugoslavian participants and visitors join hands in dancing totamburashi band music at the 1973 Festival

Old Ways in the New World program. Photo Smithsonian Institution

bilateral cultural exchange program. Staff folklor-
ist Diana N’Diaye and others are currently work-
ing on educational kits for the school systems in
Senegal, the Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C
so that children will have access to their cultural
heritage, spanning as it does, oceans, continents
and centuries. We also continue to work with
Senegal in developing a West Africa Research
Center to promote continuing studies of the link-
ages between African and African American
populations. And as the Smithsonian develops its
new African American Museum, and Senegal its
Goree Island Memorial, we trust the Festival will
have played a role in bridging cultural connec-
tions

The U.S. Bicentennial

In sheer size and public impact, the 1976 Festi-
val for the U.S. Bicentennial was formidable. The
Festival was held over a 12-week period and
involved the participation of every region of the
United States, 38 foreign governments, scores of
American Indian tribes, and many labor organiza-
tions and corporate sponsors. Despite what might

be expected, the Festival avoided massive state
spectacle and retained its intimate presentational
modes — relatively small performance stages,
narrative workshops, intimate crafts and
foodways demonstration areas, children’s partici-
pation areas and the like

The Bicentennial Festival illustrated in the
strongest terms the living nature of folk culture
throughout the United States and the world
Rather than dying in the industrial revolution, or
having been smothered by the influence of mass
culture, community-based, grassroots cultural
traditions were still practiced, still meaningful in
the contemporary lives of Americans and other
people of the world. This was easy for millions of
visitors to see and experience on the National
Mall

The Bicentennial Festival was an immense
undertaking and illustrated the collaboration of
the Smithsonian with literally thousands of na-
tional and international scholars, community
spokespeople and cultural exemplars involved in
the documentation, presentation, transmission
and conservation of cultural traditions. The plan-

Ghanaian praise singer Salisu Mahama, playing the gonje, and
group illustrate the traditional music played for the court of the
Dagomba king at the 1975 Festival. Photo Smithsonian Institution

ning for the Bicentennial Festival had begun in

1974 and provided an unprecedented means of
establishing cultural networks, training students,
and providing Opportunities for diverse peoples
to interpret and present their traditions.

The Bicentennial also saw the flowering of a
touring program, originally begun in 1973, in
which groups at the Festival would tour the
United States, bringing part of the Festival to
cities, rural areas, midwestern towns, concert
halls, local school classrooms, city parks and
shopping malls. Through these touring programs,
the Smithsonian put people across the breadth of
America in touch with traditional domestic and
foreign cultures. While these tours are no longer
formally done, they served as a model of taking
grassroots performance to local people for other
organizations and for the Smithsonian’s own spe-
cial programs. For example, the Festival sent
contingents of American performing groups to
the Soviet Union in 1988 and 1990. Groups in-
cluded musicians for stage performances, street
musicians, a New Orleans brass band and a girls
double-dutch jump rope team. On tour in the
Soviet Union, the Americans performed not only
in concert halls, but also in the factories of the
Leninski shipyards, on a collective farm, in a
Ukranian town square, on the streets of Kiev and
in apartment complexes

The Office of Folklife Programs

Preliminary plans to discontinue the Festival of

American Folklife after the Bicentennial were
swept aside by the enormous outpouring of pub-
lic support for the Festival and its educational
and cultural mission. After the Bicentennial, the
Smithsonian formally established the Office of
Folklife Programs, with Ralph Rinzler as its
founding director, The Office, now with a perma-
nent staff, was able to approach the larger task
set out by the initial American Folklife Confer-
ence of extending beyond the Festival to more
thorough, broad ranging and varied means of
documenting, studying, presenting and dissemi-
nating educational materials on folk cultural tradi-
tions,

The web of activity generated initially by the
Festival and then by the Office has grown large
and complex. In addition to producing the an-
nual Festival and mounting the archival and field
research which makes it possible, the Office is
engaged in numerous projects. The Smithsonian
Folklife Studies series, formally begun in 1976
publishes documentary studies on American and
worldwide folk traditions in the form of scholarly
monographs and ethnographic films. Monographs
and films such as The Meaders Family, North
Georgia Potters, Tule Technology, Northern Paiute
Uses of Marsh Resources in Western Nevada, The
Drummaker and The Korean Onggi Potter,
among others, are technical, documentary studies
used by scholars, community people and univer-
sity educators. This series is supplemented by
many other books, pamphlets and articles by
Office scholars, some related to Festival pro-
grams, such as Family Folklore, others based on
ongoing fieldwork and scholarship.

Since its inception the Festival has collabo-
rated with Smithsonian museums in mounting
exhibitions related to folk culture. Exhibits of folk
art incorporating Objects, photographs, song and
spoken word recordings and sales were held in
the National Museum of American History and
then toured by the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibi-
tion Service. An exhibit of Copp family textiles in
the Museum of American History encouraged
living practitioners, like Norman Kennedy, to
work with the museum to help document and
interpret its collection. Consultations between
practitioners and museum curators have since
become a regular Festival feature,

The Office of Folklife Programs has produced
several traveling exhibits including Southeastern
Pottery, The Grand Generation, which presents
the folklife of the elderly, and recently Stand by
Me: African American Expressive Culture in
Philadelphia. All grew out of Festival programs
and research. In 1982-83 the Office collaborated

with the Renwick Gallery to mount Celebration,
an exhibition of objects related to human ritual
behavior curated by Victor Turner. During the 15
month-long exhibition, artifacts in the Gallery
were contextualized by living performances,
demonstrations and rituals offered by numerous
cultural communities. The exhibit resulted in a
catalog and three books and established the
groundwork for the inclusion of living people as
integral participants in museum exhibitions. This
practice was at the center of Aditi: A Celebration
of Life, mounted in 1985 at the National Museum
of Natural History for the Festival of India. This
exhibition, one of the Smithsonian’s most ambi-
tious and successful, gained national and interna-
tional attention, set high standards for museolo-
gists in design, content and programming, and
served to connect museum display with issues of
cultural survival.

The Office of Folklife Programs has produced
numerous symposia, often in collaboration with
other Smithsonian units and with national and
international cultural and educational organiza-
tions. Symposia have ranged from those on
popular culture and traditional puppetry to those
for the Columbus Quincentenary on Native
American agriculture and the relationship of com-
merce and industry to expressive culture,

The Festival has always generated educational

materials and media products. Many documentary

films have been produced about the Festival and
its particular programs over the years in different
regions of the country and abroad. Radio Smith-
sonian has featured series of programs generated
from the Festival and other research projects;
Smithsonian World has featured the Festival in its
television segments. A record produced from
music performed at the Festival was released in
1970 and helped establish the Smithsonian Re-
cordings Division.

In 1987 the Office of Folklife Programs ac-
quired Folkways Records from the family of
Moses Asch. Folkways — a long established com-
pany with a 50 year archive and catalog of 2,200
titles spanning U.S. and world musics, verbal art,
spoken word, and historical and scientific docu-
mentary recordings — took root at the Smith-
sonian under the care of musical anthropologist
Anthony Seeger. To help pay for the acquisition,
popular musicians agreed to produce a benefit
album and donate their royalties to the Smith-
sonian. Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou
Harris, U2, Little Richard, Pete Seeger, Arlo
Guthrie, Willie Nelson, Taj Mahal and others
performed their versions of Woody Guthrie and
Leadbelly songs in the Folkways collection. The

effort, Folkways: A Vision Shared, generated con-
siderable sales and won a Grammy Award. It also
led to a companion music-cultural history video
on Guthrie and Leadbelly, a release of original
recordings from the archives, and educational
materials produced in concert with the Music
Educators National Conference. Smithsonian
Folkways is keeping every title in the original
Folkways catalog in print and is stabilizing the
archives. More than 70 titles have been remas-
tered and rereleased on CD and cassette. New
albums and series are being researched and pro-
duced — Hawatian Drum Dance Chants, The
Doc Watson Family, Musics of the Soviet Union,
Lightnin’ Hopkins, and many more — sometimes
in concert with Festival projects and often in
collaboration with local scholars and institutions.
With the help of the Ford Foundation, Smith-
sonian/Folkways has worked closely with the In-
donesian ethnomusicological society to train
fieldworkers and documentors and to produce a
series of recordings surveying the musical culture
of that diverse nation. A version of the series with
Indonesian language notes will be produced so
that adults, but especially children, there can
have access to their own, sometimes fragile tradi-
tions. Smithsonian/Folkways may also be found
in unlikely places — the Boston Children’s Mu-
seum plays its recordings in the bathrooms and
computer-based educational programs use Folk-
ways music to teach geography and cultural
awareness. Folkways co-distributes a world music
and dance encyclopedia and is about to embark
on laser dise and high definition television proj-
ects. Its archival holdings attract scholars in eth-
nomusicology, folklore and cultural history and
invite the attention of people from the communi-
ties whose music, words and art it seeks to pre-
serve.

The range of scholarly, museum, educational
and public service activities undertaken by the
Office confirms the vision of the first Festival and
Conference. But there is yet more to do,

Cultural Conservation

The Festival had long been conceived as pro-
moting cultural pluralism, continuity and equity.
The concern for preserving and encouraging
cultural diversity and creativity framed Rinzler’s
work from the beginning. In 1973, Secretary
Ripley made this explicit in his statement for the
Festival program book:

We are a conservation organization, and it
seems to us that conservation extends to
human cultural practices. The possibility

of using a museum that is essentially a
historical documentary museum as a thea-
ter of live performance where people ac-
tually show that the objects in cases were
made by human hands, and are still being
made, practiced on, worked with, is a very
valuable asset for our role as a preserver
and conservator of living cultural forms,
and should be understood in those terms.

Programs in 1979 and ensuing years examined
community efforts to preserve and extend their
cultural traditions in such activities as vernacular
architecture, food procurement and processing,
and ritual life. Rinzler took this concern for cul-
tural conservation to larger arenas in the Smith-
sonian when he became Assistant Secretary for
Public Service in 1982.

In 1985 with Peter Seitel as Director of the
Office of Folklife Programs and Diana Parker as
Director of the Festival, a specific program called
Cultural Conservation was developed for the
Festival that examined how institutional practices
and pressures threatened Mayan Indian, Puerto
Rican, Cajun, Kmhmu and other communities and
how local and sometimes national and interna-
tional efforts worked to assist their cultural sur-
vival. Cultural conservation programs continued
in following years to examine the role of local
social institutions, the maintenance of language
and the use of natural resources in preserving
American cultural communities and allowing
them to define their own futures.

The concern for the conservation of cultural
diversity and creativity has been expressed in
various publications and through various Festival
projects, and it informs ongoing and developing
collaborations with international organizations
and federal, state and local agencies.

Conclusion

As the Festival passes its 25th year it will con-
tinue to experiment with presentational tech-
niques and to explore categories for understand-
ing varieties of grassroots cultural expression.
Festival staff, and the scores of officials, academic
colleagues, public folklorists and community
people who yearly write and talk about the Festi-
val continue to use it as a vehicle for thinking
through issues of cultural representation and
conservation,

An unfinished agenda from 1967 still resonates
today. It would be a mistake to think that the
promulgation of global mass culture will inevita-
bly wipe out all forms of tradition-generated,

community-held, creatively performed grassroots
culture. Not all culture is or will be produced in
Hollywood, Paris, Nashville or on Madison Ave-
nue. Local folks, people in families, communities,
tribes, regions and occupations continue to make
culture. More research must be done on the con-
texts within which local forms of grassroots cul-
ture do survive and indeed, may flourish. If we
think cultural diversity is worth conserving, then
the time is ripe to examine how economic devel-
Opment strategies can encourage the continuity
of local culture, how local cultural practices and
knowledge can support environmental preserva-
tion, how local communities can participate in
the shaping of the images used, too often by
others, to represent them, and how the wisdom,
knowledge and aesthetics of diverse cultures can
directly, and through innovative media, be
brought into classrooms and other forums of
public education.

The Festival and the Office of Folklife Pro-
grams will continue its work. It will continue to
tap into the great streams of tradition and creativ-
ity which, though threatened, still abound in the
United States and throughout the world. It will
continue to heed, honor and celebrate remark-
able people who, in exemplary ways, carry with
them lessons learned by word of mouth over
generations, so that the next generation of young
artists can return to root forms when shaping
new creations. And the Festival will continue to
encourage practitoners to practice, scholars to
research, and the public to learn.

To museums, educational systems, community
groups, governments and the general public that
seek forms for presenting information about cul-
tural knowledge, practice, wisdom and aesthetics,
the Festival offers an important resource. And as
American society, and indeed societies around
the world, daily confront cultural issues in
schools, homes, market places and political are-
nas, the Festival provides a model, however
emergent, of how diverse forms of cultural ex-
pression can be accommodated, communicated
and appreciated within a broad framework that
recognizes human cultural rights.

Richard Kurin is Director of the Smithsonian Institution
Office of Folklife Programs and a Professorial Lecturer
at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies. He is a cultural anthropologist with a Ph.D
from the University of Chicago who has done most of his
research work in India and Pakistan. He first worked
on the Festival of American Folklife in 1976

ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND BLUES: THE ROBERT JOHNSON ERA

Blues at the Festival:
A Community Music with
Global Impact

Worth Long and Ralph Rinzler

At the very first Smithsonian
Folklife Festival back in 1967, you
would have heard performers simi-
lar to the artists in this program.
Grassroots singers and instrumen-
talists from the Georgia and South
Carolina Sea Islands, New Orleans
French Quarter, New York City,
and the Mississippi Delta offered
the oldest songs they knew, then
described in music and words their
creative innovations. They ex-
plained how their music coordi-
nated work, praised and lifted the
spirit, danced out joy or sorrow,
and helped them struggle for
change. In every succeeding Festi-
val, the oldest, root traditions have
been here alongside emergent
forms created by artists fired and
inspired by their heritage.

Museums exist to study and ex-
hibit history, science, and art — sometimes great,
ofttimes ordinary — through the perspective of
time. The Smithsonian has long collected visual
and plastic art treasures and artifacts of history,
but prior to the 1967 Festival, it had not system-
atically curated and presented living forms of
grassroots music and craft. Once included, living
folklife traditions were acknowledged as though
they had been there from the outset and should
always remain.

“The Roots of Rhythm and Blues: The Robert
Johnson Era” embodies a tried and true Festival
approach: start with the roots and present the full
flower of the traditions, old and young; highlight
links in the creative chain of a people’s art.
Robert Johnson was a potent and significant link

Roots of Rhythm and Blues: The Robert Johnson Era
has been made possible by the Smithsonian Institution
and a grant from its Special Exhibition Fund, and by a
grant from the Music Performance Trust Funds

Fiddler Mr. Kennedy and his grandchildren. Tuckers Grove,
North Carolina, 1979. Photo by Roland L. Freeman, © 1991

in tradition .. . a Picasso, a Rodin of the blues. He
passionately absorbed and then reforged the mu-
sic of his community and era. His art decisively in-
fluenced the music of today’s world. This program
is meant to explore that story of creative change
and cultural continuity.

Blues historian and folklorist Worth Long has spent over
20 years doing research on Black culture in the South
He has been a Smithsonian Institution researcher spe-
clalizing in blues, spiritual, and gospel music since the
early 1970s. His publications include a film, made with
{lan Lomax, titled “The Land Where the Blues Began

Ralph Rinzler was the founding Director of the Festival
of American Folklife and of the Office of Folklife
Programs from 1967 to 1982. He was the Assistant
Secretary for Public Service from 1983 to 1990. Through
his museum projects, books, articles, films and audio
recordings, he has supported cultural diversity and
institutional recognition of the aesthetic and ethical
values expressed in folk and working class cultures

ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND BLUES 21

Robert Johnson
in the 90s:
A Dream Journey

Peter Guralnick

Who would ever have thought that 52 years
after his death Robert Johnson would go gold?

A friend of mine wrote recently and asked:
Can you imagine him walking down a crowded
city street, seeing his name and face displayed in
a store window? Well, I can and I can't. It’s a
metaphor I've imagined many times in the past:
Blind Willie McTell wandering into the TK studio
in Miami in the late 1970s (don't ask me why TK;
remember, this is just a dream); Robert Johnson
hearing his songs on the radio on a hot summer's
night. I think the movie “Crossroads” forever
drove this fantasy out of my mind: my dream was
rich in possibilities and associations, | felt. It was
pure. Perhaps it was the mundaneness of the
movie's conceit; more likely, it was just the reality
of finding a secret treasure dug up and exposed
to the light. The music was just as magical, but
somehow the fantasy had grown old.

I don’t think Pd even heard of Robert
Johnson when I found the record, it was
probably just fresh out. | was 15 or 16,
and it was a real shock that there was
something that powerful. It seemed as if
he wasn’t playing for an audience. It didn’t
obey the rules of time or harmony or any-
thing. It all led me to believe that here
Was a guy who really didn’t want to play
for people at all, that his thing was so un-
bearable to have to live with that he was
almost ashamed of it. This was an image
that I was very, very keen to hang on to.
— Eric Clapton

We all were. It was the sustaining image of a
generation, the central thesis of the liner notes to
the first album, even the cover illustration for the
second: the romantic loner with his face turned
to the wall. And yet the real Robert Johnson
played for people; he traveled the land; he
played the juke joints, he was a fixture in court-
house squares, he even played on the radio. He

22 ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND BLUES

Was a professional bluesman. And that was how
he died.

What are we to make of all this implausible
latter-day success, the commercialization, and
canonization, of something that would have
seemed, to Eric Clapton and Keith Richards, or to
me, when we were all 15 or 16 years old, imper-
vious to exploitation? There are movies in the
making; there are bitter disputes over ownership
of something that was once declared by Colum-
bia to be in the “public domain.” What is now
being talked about is something both more —
and less — than a priceless cultural legacy. We
are talking about Robert Johnson as cultural com-
modity: we are talking about the inevitable price
of success.

I don’t know what to think about it all, quite
honestly. It would be easy to say that America
likes its heroes dead — but that would probably
be true of most cultures, While an artist is still
creating, he is always dangerous, there is no
telling what he might do next. Robert Johnson?
He recorded 29 songs — there are rumors of
another one or two. There are 12 alternate takes.
His work makes up a convenient canon — it can
be studied and quantified.

And what of the audience that hears his music
now for the first time? How can they/we relate?
The world that he lived in, the language that he
employs (“She's got Elgin movements from her
head down to her toes”: Elgin has to be ex-
plained, place names have to be explained, sex-
ual metaphors have to be explained and excused
— different time, different place). But somehow
something essential comes through. What is it? I
don’t know. What is it that captured me, that
captured Eric Clapton, that captured a generation
that listened with its ear glued to a tinny speaker,
that studied every crackle on that first LP when it
came out in 1961? King of the Delta Blues Sing-
ers. Even the title is indicative of the misunder-
standing. Howlin’ Wolf might introduce himself,

Studio portrait of Robert Johnson, circa 1935

Photo courtesy of Stephen ¢

mythopoetically, as “The Wolf,” but Robert
Johnson? Can you imagine him referring to him-
self as royalty?

One time in St. Louis we were playing one
of the songs that Robert would like to play
with someone once in a great while,
“Come On In My Kitchen.” He was play-
ing very slow and passionately, and when
we had quit, I noticed no one was saying
anything. Then I realized they were crying
— both women and men.

—Johnny Shines

That is what Robert Johnson is about. It’s what
we have to keep on reminding ourselves, not just
about Robert Johnson but about art itself or any-
thing that we value in our lives. It’s not about tag

lines, it’s not about commercial slogans, it’s not
about comparing One experience or achievement
to another, it’s not about ownership and it’s not
about sales. It’s about a spirit, it's about some-
thing that lingers in the air, it's about something
that can persist 52 years after a man’s death, that
will keep knocking slyly, over and over again,
ignoring the rebuffs of history, ignoring the deat-
ening silence of time, until at last it is let on in.

Peter Guralnick is the author of Searching for Robert
Johnson as well as a trilogy on American roots must
Feel Like Going Home, Lost Highway aid Sweet Soul
Music. He is currently at work on a@ biography of Elvis
Presley

2
ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND BLUES 23

Robert Johnson,
Blues Musician

Robert Jr. Lockwood

Compiled from an interview with Worth Long

Robert Jr. Lockwood

When I turned 13, Robert Johnson followed
my mother home in Helena, Arkansas, and she
couldn't get rid of him. Robert looked awful
young to me, and he looked young to my
mother. But he was making believe that he was
older than my mother. He was full of Indian, and
he didn’t have a beard or mustache. When he
died, when he got killed, he didn’t have a beard
either

When I met Robert, he was playing just like
these records are today. He played by himself
but sounded like somebody sitting at the piano. |
never had heard the guitar played like that. I
always felt like I wanted to play the piano until
Robert Johnson turned me onto his guitar style

24 ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND BLUES

When I was young, I couldn't play reels and
popular tunes at home ‘cause I was living with
my grandfather. We played them on the organ
when my folks would leave. But when they'd
come back, we'd play church music.

There was no name for the first songs I started
playing. I had two cousins who could play two
or three little tunes on the piano, and I just
watched them and learned how to play it. Maybe
I was born to play

Because Robert was living with my mother, he
told me I could go watch him play. I didn’t have
a guitar, Everytime he set the guitar down, I'd
pick it up. He’d set the guitar down, and he'd be
with momma, and I'd pick it up. He finally asked
me, “Do you really want to play?” and he decided
to teach me

He'd play a tune and then show me how he
did it, and I would do it. He didn’t have to do it
but once for me. I had a sense of time, and I
knew three musical changes, so when I started
playing the guitar, it wasn't a problem. I couldn't
get the real feel of it like he was doing but I
could still do the notes, Within three months
time, I was playing. I was only 14

After I learned to play, | went to Clarksdale
with Robert. You got the Sunflower River ferry
there. So Robert put me on one side of the
bridge, and he went on the other side. He was
real smart. He said, “Robert Jr., we do it like this,
we ll make more money.” He said, “Now you sit
here and play, and P’m going on the other side
and play.” | didn’t realize what he was really
doing but the people were transferring across the
bridge both ways, confused about who Robert

Johnson was. I said, “Ull be doggoned.” We set

on each end of the bridge and played about 35
minutes and made almost $20 apiece when they
passed the hat around

Soon I was playing all over Mississippi and
Arkansas and Tennessee. I started playing with
Sonny Boy Williamson and also went with Robert

Richard “Hacksaw” Harney in
performance at the National
Folk Festival, 1971. Photo
courtesy Stephen C. LaVere, © 1971
Stephen C. LaVere

to a lot of little places. Most
of the places where we
played, where I played in
Mississippi, me and Sonny
Boy Williamson was on
street corners ... we made a
lot of money. Be a lot of
people downtown, and we'd
go down and get permission
from the police to play, and
we were making $75 and
$80 dollars apiece. That was
a lot of money then... it’s a
lot of money now.

They had house parties
and things going at that
time, “Saturday night sup-
pers” they called them. The
guys would be shooting dice and dancing and
drinking and playing on the street corners. I done
a lot of that.

Guitar players at that time couldn't hardly get
a job in a band because you couldn’t hear it. |
always did like big bands. I liked a whole lot of
pretty changes and I couldn't get all of that out of
three changes. The very first band I had was with
the Starkey Brothers when I left King Biscuit
Time and went on Mothers Best Flour Time. I
had a jazz band made up of James, Will and Ca-
mellia Starkey. One was playing piano, the others
were playing horns, and we had drums and bass

. about six pieces. That was in 1942.

In 1939, the Melrose pick-up came out and I
think me and Charlie Christian were the first
people to have one. You could just push it across
the hole in the guitar and plug it up. Amplifiers
then, you would call them practice amplifiers
now. They was just loud enough to bring the
guitar up to the piano.

Robert Johnson could play the harmonica and
the piano, but he didn’t really care too much
about neither of those. Robert played the guitar
by himself and sounded like two guitars. He was
playing the bass and lead at the same time. He
was playing background for himself on the bass
strings and playing melody on the lead.

Hacksaw Harney could do that. He was a
monster player. He was also a piano maker. I ran
into Hacksaw back when I was coming under
Robert Johnson. He could play the piano well.

He couldn't talk plain, he stuttered. And I used to

catch him watching me and I would ask him,
“Why you watching me?”

He could play the guitar, and with the same
hand he was picking with, he’d be playing drum
parts against the guitar. Me and Robert was real
close to him. Hacksaw was playing old standards,
and Robert was playing the blues and old stan-
dards like “Chinatown”... but more blues.
Robert was playing ragtime, show tunes like
“Sweet Sue” and all them old tunes. Hacksaw had
a lot to do with Robert's playing because they
played somewhat similar. [Robert] was living in
Clarksdale for a while and there wasn’t no de-
mand for what he was doing because the city
was too small. He was playing ballads — you
could call it jazz.

Blind Blake was playing ragtime and jazz like
Hacksaw did. But, at that time, the white folks
called the blues “devil’s music” so everybody
played a little jazz or something like that and
tried to stay away from the blues. Robert Johnson
didn’t care nothing about the blues being bad.
He played the blues even when it was aban-
doned by the white society.

I first met Willie Dixon in Helena, Arkansas,
and then in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Later, when I
moved to Chicago, me and Dixon played for
Chess 17 years. We did nothing but session work,
backing up everybody. Roosevelt Sykes, Willie
Mayburn, Little Walter. I played with almost
everybody who was doing blues. I played with

ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND BLUES 25

Muddy. I recorded in 1940 before he recorded.
Muddy Waters didn’t record until 1945 or some-
thing like that.

When I first went to Chicago, I recorded by
myself. “Litthe Boy Blue” was my first recording
and “Take a Litthe Walk With Me.” One on each
side. My first recording session was “Mean Black
Spider Blues,” “Littke Boy Blue,” “Take a Little
Walk with Me,” and “Train My Baby.” I wrote all
the songs. I been writing my own songs ever
since I learned how to play. That was my first
four tunes recorded on RCA Victor, which was
the Bluebird label. They sold but I don’t know
how well they sold because I didn’t get nothing
from them. I got the first money that the man
paid me, and I ain’t got no royalties. Twelve fifty
a song. Everybody got caught in that.

Wasn't no segregation about that. Twelve fifty
a side and 13% of one cent for royalty. I didn’t
even get that. [Once] I made Bluebird pay me
$500 for the recording session. | went to Chicago
with Dr. Clayton, who was pretty smart. And with
all these record companies bucking against each
other, me and Clayton got paid $500. I ain't ever
got no royalties from nobody, and I ain't ever got
no publishing money from nobody, and I have
often wondered how in the hell do they expect
you to keep working for them when they don't
give you your money? It’s very wierd.

Finally, | had to draw a line and said, “If ?'m
going to make a living, 'm going to have to do
something better than this.” | have my own label
now, Lockwood Records. I think by me having
that and by me and my wife working so hard,
we're getting the company known all over the
world, so [ think things are going to tee off in a
little bit.

I'm so glad I am able to do this. I don’t have
to listen to no one tell me, “Well, | don’t like the
songs.” Do you know how disappointing that is?
That’s really bad when they say, “Well, | don’t
like so and so.” Then you got to try to do some-
thing they like in order to sell it. Now, I just go
ahead and record what I want to record, and I
put it out. And if they don't like it, it don’t make
no difference. And if they do like it, fine.

The audiences don’t know what they like no
way until good creators do them. And after we
do them, then they say they like it. But if they
don't want to accept nothing they ain’t never
heard, how do unexplored people ever get rec-
ognized? How they going to keep creating? There
ain't no point in creating nothing.

Fifty-two years after he died, Robert Johnson is
getting on the charts. Here Tam living and play-
ing just like him and ain't getting no breaks. |

20 ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND BLUES

know there’s some prejudice in this. There has
to be.

Robert Johnson was at least 55 or 60 years
ahead of his time. There wasn’t nothing like
him. What was there to hold him? I've seen him
sit on street corners and make $100 in a hour
and a half in nickels and dimes and quarters.
Except for Hacksaw, there is nobody else I
know of that could do any of the things that
Robert did. I hate to see them good ones go like
that.

That man was something. He could play and
sing. He didn’t need no help. That was the real
strong thing about his career. If I just want to
play the blues, I don’t need no help.

John Hammond is making his living off of
Robert. He works hard and I like him. But there
ain't nobody that I’ve taught that sounds like
Robert. IT was teaching Johnny Shines when he
had that stroke. If he hadn't had that stroke,
he’d be doing pretty good now.

You know, I'm responsible for B.B.’s career. I
taught Luke Stuckey, Willie Johnson and I kinda
helped M.T. Murphy, and taught Lonnie Pitch-
ford, who plays in my style. If the record com-
panies were smart, they would have me playing
Robert Johnson tunes right now. But I know
what the problem is. I'm free, Black and 76
years old, and they think I might fall dead to-
morrow, But [ got news for them. [ ain't going
nowhere,

There are some people who want to try to
get some glory because Robert is so popular.
They say they knew Robert, and they don't
know a damn thing. They talked about him
selling his soul to the devil. | want to know how
you do that! If anybody sold their souls to the
devil, it’s the groups that have to have a million
dollars worth of dope and have to make a mil-
lion dollars in money to play. | don't like the
way they are trying to label him. He was a blues
musician, just like the rest of them.

Robert Jr. Lockwood, the adopted son of Robert
Johnson, was borin in Marvel, Arkansas, in 1915
Changing instruments from Plano to guitar he first
became a prominent bluesman in Memphis, in the
company of Sonny Boy Williamson and B.B. and
{/bert King, among others. After a stint in St. Louis
where he worked with the influential vocalist Di
Clayton, Lockwood became a studio guitarist in
Chicago in the 1940s. Here he worked with many
great blues artists. I 1960 be moved to Cleveland and
has remained — with frequent journeys to festivals
and other performa ne e slages — ever since

Wisdom of the Blues

Willie Dixon

Compiled from an interview with Worth Long

Willie Dixon, born in Mississippi the same year
as Robert Jr. Lockwood, is a poet-philosopher and
blues activist. He did not know Robert Johnson, but
like Johnson, Dixon created a conceptually rich

repertoire of blues songs that candidly offer his deep

thoughts and feelings about critical social and
cultural issues
In this interview, Willie Dixon shares some of his
insight on African American secular and sacred
musics. He also provides an autobiographical
framework that deepens our comprehension of the
genius and complexities of African American mu-
sic. His observations on issues of segregation, the
industrialization of community musical forms and
the impact of corporate manipulation of Black
people's culture are trenchant and insightful
Worth Long
Ralph Rinzler

My name is Willie Dixon and I was born in
Vicksburg, Mississippi, July 1, 1915. My whole
family was from that area. | went to school there
for a while. I lived around there as long as I possi-
bly could under starving conditions, until I had to
get the hell out, so somebody else could eat

Ain't but one part of Vicksburg, and that’s
Vicksburg. I lived on the outskirts of town. I was
about one, two blocks from the bus. At that time,
we had a street car. You got on the trolley car and
went straight to the back. That’s where you'd sit
until you got off. And if a white person came over
and needed your seat, you had to get up and let
him in there — that’s all

They had just about the same conditions all
over, you know. But the thing was, that some
were well enough brainwashed, so that they
thought this was the best. And others knew it
wasn't the best. Now, there were others that knew
it wasn't the best and were afraid to say different,
afraid to act different. Anytime you’re born and
raised in Mississippi . . . in those days, it was the

experience that happened to anybody that moved

Willie Dixon at the 1989 Handy Awards, Memphis

My father used to say, “If you don’t learn noth-
ing, you have nothing, you know nothing, and
you do nothing”; but Littke Brother Montgomery
used to say that everybody was born naked
When I first met him as a youngster, I used to
ask him, “Why do you say that everybody was
born naked all the time?” When I was older, and
he and I were getting around together, he said
that meant we all started the same way — you
can gain if you want to, or lose if you please, but
ain't nobody came in here with nothing, and ain't
nobody going to take nothing away. So get what

ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND BLUES 27

you can while you're here. And be the best you
can. And try to make arrangements for somebody
else while you're here.

I knew Little Brother Montgomery since I was
quite young. IT used to play hooky from school
just to hear those guys playing on the street cor-
ner. He was little, and I thought then — because
he was a little short guy — that he was a boy.
But he was grown. At that particular time, he
played all the different styles, all the styles other
people never heard of. He did a song called the
“Vicksburg Blues,” which was real popular in
Vicksburg, and then Roosevelt Sykes changed it
into the “Forty-Four Blues.” It was the same
music. Little Brother had to sit down at different
times and show me how they first started to play
it, and then how they added a little bit here and
there, and how different people who had died
long before they got a chance to record, how
they played. He knew all of them.

They all start from the original stuff because
the blues — the rearrangement of the blues —
created all these other styles, and it’s really very
easy to see. It’s like “Dudlow” out of Dudlow,
Mississippi. He was one of the guys that inspired
that left hand to the original 12-bar blues. When I
was a kid they used to call it “Dudlow” — all the
real old-timers, they called it that name. But after
the people decided they were going to commer-
cialize it, record it, they started to call it “boogie-
woogie.” And by calling it boogie-woogie, then
everybody could get into the act, and everybody
did get in the act. Everybody come up with a
boogie of his own. But it was all 12-bar blues.

You learn a lot of things when you are young,
and a lot of things you can tell people about.
And then, some things you can’t tell people. Es-
pecially in the South, where people didn’t know
too much at that time and weren't allowed to
learn very much. They thought every time you
brought up a conversation about something, it
was something to argue about. But afterwards,
you learned they were playing the same identical
music, the same identical tunes,

One was called a spiritual, and the other was
called the blues. And the only difference was:
one of them was dedicated to the earth and the
facts of life, which was the blues; and the spiri-
tual things were dedicated to heaven and after
death, you know. So that was the difference be-
tween the spirituals and the blues. And the expe-
rience you receive on earth was the only thing
you had to go on because nobody had the expe-
rience of heaven. And I don’t think they have
had it yet.

You see, | had a chance for two sides of

28 ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND BLUES

things because my mother was definitely a Chris-
tian all of the way around, and my father was
sometimes a Christian and sometimes anything he
wanted to be. But he thought of the difference.
Christianity and his thing were two different
things. He thought the Christian thing was just
psychologizing people so they could be under
control. And after I got older, | could make my
own decision either way Id feel.

My father always said, “You got to live before
you die. And don't get ready to die before you get
ready to live.” So that was kind of my philosophy,
that I have to live before I died. I figured getting
ready to live was better than getting ready to die.
When I'd get old enough, then I'd start getting
ready to die. This organization I have, the Blues
Heaven Foundation! helps you get a litthke heaven
before you die. Then, if you happen to miss, you
have a little taste of it anyway,

The reason I have the Blues Heaven Foundation
is so the blues will be properly advertised, publi-
cized, emphasized, talked about and understood.
Once you understand the blues, it will give every-
body a better life because you'll have a better life
with each other. That’s what Blues Heaven is all
about.

I always had great expectations in the singing
field. I sung my first song — I must have been
about four or five years old — in the Spring Hill
Baptist Church in Vicksburg. My mother always
used to tell us to learn how to sing in harmony.
And there was a fellow down there in Vicksburg
called Phelps — he was a jubilee singer. He taught
harmony singing. Well, | was with him at that par-
ticular time he started singing. The group was
called the Union Jubilee Singers in Vicksburg.

Then after that, | was singing spirituals. Once in
a while the kids would move on to other things,
by singing other songs that weren't spirituals. And
at that particular time, when you didn’t sing spiri-
tuals, they called the other songs “reels.” And the
reels weren't considered as good music for all the
spiritual-minded people then.

We used to broadcast at WOBC radio station,
down there in Vicksburg, once a week, mostly on
Friday. We rehearsed just about every day or so.
Let me see now, that goes back to 1934...°35.

When Theo Phelps was teaching us harmony, I
began to learn quite a bit about it, and I loved it. I

'The Blues Heaven Foundation, a not-for-profit organiza-
tion, was founded by Willie Dixon for the purpose of garner-
ing proper recognition and broader acknowledgement of the
blues. It provides an annual scholarship, The Muddy Waters
Scholarship, and, with matching grants, has donated a selec-
tion of band instruments to high schools around the country

still love it. I found out things done in harmony
are always better than things done without har-
mony, don’t care what it is.

You know all kids always play all kinds of
instruments, but one that I actually tried to play
on was a bass. Then I did play the guitar for a
little while, mostly in Europe, when Memphis
Slim and I went over there.

I didn’t get interested in the bass until I came
to Chicago. After I came to Chicago, I won the
Golden Gloves as a novice fighter . . . that’s in
1937. At the same time I was in the gymnasium,
guys would be singing and playing around there.
And I'd get in there harmonizing a little bit be-
cause I knew most of the bass lines for all the
things. In those days the Ink Spots were just start-
ing, and the Mills Brothers. And everybody was
imitating the Mills Brothers because they imitated
instruments. I used to imitate the bass instrument
all the time because I knew most of the bass
lines.

Things got rough for me in the fight game. I
decided to hang around with Baby Doo Castin, a
piano player, and he insisted on making me a
homemade bass out of a big oil can. And that’s
the way I started playing the bass. We put a stick
on the oil can. That oil can had an open bottom
to it, and we put this stick on the back of it and
made it like an African instrument. Then he made
another thing like a fingerboard and put this one
bass string on it, attached to the center of the oil
can and on top of the stick. And the stick had a
little adjusting thing that he could wind up and
down to play into whatever key we were playing
in. Well, I just called it a tin can bass. | didn’t
make any other instruments, but Baby Doo did.
He came from Natchez, and he made his own
guitar. He always told me about it, and then he
made one when he was in Chicago. He made it
out of something like a cigar box. But he would
make the box, you know, so that it was strong
enough to hold the strings. He died last year in
Minneapolis.

I got together with two or three groups before
we got together with Baby Doo. One of them
was with a guy called Bernard Dennis. He used
to play with me and Little Brother and Brother
Radcliff, and we'd name a different group a dif-
ferent thing every two or three weeks. But we
never got a chance to record with him. And first
thing I ever actually recorded was this thing
called the “Bumping Boys.” That was with me
and my brother and my nephew and another
fellow and Baby Doo. We always got together
and did some things on Decca for J. Mayo Wil-
liams. After that we had the Five Breezes, and

after that we had a group called the Four Jumps
of Jive. Most of the time we consisted of some of
the same guys, and then we cut it on down to
the Big Three Trio. We began making a little
noise for Columbia, doing background for people
like Big Bill and also Rosetta Howard . . . folks
like that.

My mother used to write all types of poems
and things, and I'd always tell her that I was
going to sing them when I got older. She made a
lot of litthe old poem books when I was a kid.
They were consisting of nothing but spiritual
ideas and things out of the Bible. Some of them I
remember. Then I had a whole book of poems
that I wrote as a kid.

I never was good at art, but I always did like
poems. Poems of everything, of anything. There’s
room enough in the world for everything, and
there’s more ideas in the world than your head
can hold. Get these ideas together and make
them into verses so people are interested. My
mother always tried to put the verses in a poetic
form.

Many people have something that they would
like to say to the world and would like the world
to know about. But most people never get a
chance to say these things. And then, you're
going to try to make them see something in a
song that an individual can’t see for themselves.
Like the average man has his own feeling about
women or love or whatever — what's in his heart
or what’s in his mind. All of a sudden, here
comes somebody that’s singing it out right. You
know good and well what he’s talking about, and
he knows what you're talking about. Then that
gives you an inspiration because here’s a guy
who's saying just what you wanted to say. That’s
what makes hit songs. Things that are common
to any individual — and it’s not a complicated
thing. It makes it easier for life, easy to express,
easy to say. Blues songs are facts of life, whether
it’s our life or somebody else's.

The songs that I like the best are generally the
ones that | am writing on as of now. I try to keep
my songs up to the condition where they can be
educational and provide understanding to the
audience that’s listening. I feel like the audience
today doesn’t know the value of peace. I made
two different songs on peace. “You Can’t Make
Peace” speaks for itself:

You take one man’s heart

And make another man live.
You go to the moon

And come back thrilled.
You can crush any country

In a matter of weeks,

ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND BLUES 29

But it don’t make sense
When you can’t make peace.

Most of the songs I write offer wisdom, and
this is why I say most of them are considered as
wisdom of the blues. I made this song up about
“Evil, Ignorance and Stupidity.” When I say “evil,
ignorance and stupidity,” | mean that everything
that’s been done wrong on the face of the earth
happens because of:

Evil, ignorance and stupidity

The three worst things in the world.

It ain't no good for no man or woman,
Neither no boy or girl.

‘Cause if you're evil, you're ignorant,
And if you're stupid, you're wrong.
And there’s no way in the world
You can ever get along.

If you're evil, ignorant and stupid,
You create prejudice and hate.

If it don’t be tomorrow,

It will be sooner or late.

I try to say it in the facts of life — one way or
the other, whether it’s the fact of my life or some-
body else’s. That's why I make these particular
types of songs. The blues are the true facts of life
expressed in words and songs and inspirations
with feeling and understanding. The people,
regardless of what condition an individual is in,
they want to be in better shape. They believe in
letting somebody know what condition they're
in, in order to help themselves. Whether it’s
good, whether it’s bad. Right or wrong.

The world has woken up to the facts of life,
and blues are about the facts of life, have been
since the beginning. The blues have been around
a long time. Even before Robert Johnson there
were many people singing the blues. At that
time, people hadn’t been taught that the blues
was wrong. When I was a youngster, a lot of
people used to talk about Robert Johnson. |
never did actually meet him, but | saw him and I
ran into Robert Jr., who he partly raised, and also
Johnny Shines. Johnson looked very much like
the original picture that he had there. | was a
youngster singing spirituals. | always did like any
kind of music. I was in Mississippi in one of
those litthe Delta towns, and I saw Robert Jr. and
was excited to see him.

In that day, there weren't very many record-
ings out there, and anybody that could get a
recording made was somebody that you had to
hear. And there were very few Black ones out
there at all. Records were played in places down-
town, and people would be playing them out in

30) ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND BLUES

stores. And everybody would stop and listen. I
remember we finally got an old record player.
You'd fool around and wind it up too tight — the
spring jumped loose, and nobody knew how to
fix it,

Folks played everything; they didn’t have ra-
dio. | remember my brother, he was working
where they made the little crystal radio, and he
brought one home. We had earphones, and you
could hardly hear anything, only about two or
three stations on the line. But at the same time
they played most of what they wanted to. Most
Was country-western. They had so many different
kinds of songs... and dances, too, Nobody in
the world could keep up with all the different
dances: the two-step, the black bottom, the snake
hip. Everybody that could do anything, they done
it and named it that dance.

When I write a song, I hope that people like it
well enough to dance to it. Because most of the
time if people dance to something — ten to one
— they learn something about the words of it
that gives them a certain education they wouldn't
learn otherwise. They learn because they like it.
But they don’t have to be listening directly to the
words, As you know, rhythm is the thing. Every-
thing moves to rhythm, Everything that’s under
the sun, that crawls, flies or swims, likes music.

But blues is the greatest, because blues is the
only one that, along with the rhythm and the
music, brings wisdom. When youngsters get a
chance to hear the wisdom along with the music
— it gives them a chance to get a better educa-
tion and have a better understanding.

Most people never have looked at it like that.
This is why I say the youngsters today are
brighter and wiser than they were yesterday.
Because old folks told you something, you be-
lieved it like that — you couldn't believe the old
folks lied. But we found out the old folks lied so
long [that now] you can't get the young folks to
trust anybody.

I made a poem that was made out of cliches
of the world. Cliches are always made to the facts
of life. They say them all over the world in differ-
ent languages. [| began to take all these different
clichés from various parts of the world and put
them together. And I call it “Good Advice.” One
of the poems T put together:

People strain at a gnat,
But they swallow a camel.
A wise man bets

And a fool gambles.

The difference between a better and a gam-
bler: a gambler is going to stay there to win it all.

But the better bets this and bets that, and says, “If

I lose, I'm through.”
Barking dogs
Seldom bite.

A barking dog always warns the people, and
there’s nobody going to look for him to bite
them. Everytime somebody gets bit by a dog —
ten to one — he didn’t see him coming or didn’t
hear him.

What’s done in the dark,
Will come to the light.

That’s a fact. Because many things done in the
dark, take a long time to get here. Some of them
take nine months or more. Most of the time it’s
done in the dark.

You can’t tell a farmer

From a lover.

You can’t tell a book

By its cover.

So these are the facts of life.
Repeat each one as above.
Then add, “That’s good advice.”
You keep on going

When you're sure you're right.
A weak brain

And a narrow mind

Cause many a man

To be left behind.

A heap of people see

But a very few know.
Many a One start,

But a mighty few go.

The darkest part of night
Is just before day.

And when the cat is gone
The mice gonna play.

All these things

Is good advice, you know,

You can’t get blood from a turnip.
All glitter ain't gold.

You can get good music
When you play with soul.
‘Cause everything that’s started
Has to have an end.

And if you keep on betting,
Sooner or later you'll win.

A still tongue

Makes a wise head.

These are the things

That the wise folks said.

Now all this is good advice.

When I go to the source, the roots of all
American music, I find out it was the blues to
begin with. All American music comes from the
blues. We put the roots down. It was like discov-
ering America.

Willie Dixon, musician, composer and founder of Blues
Heaven Foundation, Inc., is often referred to as “the
poet laureate of the blues.” For more than 50 years
Willie Dixon has shaped the course of this musical
genre and has campaigned for the recognition of the
blues and its artists as the cornerstone of American
popular music

Further Readings

Bastin, Bruce. 1986. Red River Blues: The Blues Tradi-
tion in the Southeast. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press.

Charters, Samuel. 1991. The Blues Maker. New York:
Da Capo Press.

Evans, David. 1987. Big Road Blues. New York: Da
Capo Press.

Guralnick, Peter. 1988. Feel Like Going Home. New
York: Harper and Row.

_ 1989, Searching for Robert Johnson,
New York: E.P. Dutton.

Palmer, Robert. 1981. Deep Blues. New York: Penguin

Books.

Pearson, Barry Lee. 1984. “Sounds So Good To Me”: The
Bluesman ss Story. Philadelphia: University of Penn-
sylvania Press.

Titon, Jeff Todd. 1977. Early Downhome Blues: A Musi-
cal and Cultural Analysis. Urbana: University of
Illinois Press.

Suggested Listening

Blues Rediscoveries. Folkways RF11.

Dixon, Willie. The Chess Box. MCA 10500.

Dixon, Willie. Hidden Charms. Capitol/Bug 7905952.

House, Son. The Complete Library of Congress Sessions
1941-42. Travelin’ Man 02.

Johnson, Robert. The Complete Recordings. Columbia

CZK4622.

Lockwood, Robert jr. and Johnny Shines. Hanging On.
Rounder C-2023.

News and the Blues: Telling It Like It Is. Columbia
CK40217.

Patton, Charlie. Founder of the Delta Blues. Yazoo
1020.

Roots of Robert Johnson. Yazoo 1073.
The Country Blues: Vol. 1, Folkways RF1.
The Country Blues: Vol. 2. Folkways RF9.

ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND BLUES 31

FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND

Family Farm Folklore

Betty J. Belanus

Dred by
the scone
famity

Strategies include redividing labor among family
members, diversifying crops and livestock, and
establishing a farm-related “side business” to
supplement income. There seem to be as many
combinations of strategies for survival as there
are farm families. And even in the “Heartland”
states of the Midwest, often considered a ho-
mogenous region of European Americans, a great
variety of family farms exists.

Midwestern family farms include small “truck
patches” and huge hog producers; medium-sized
beef cattle farms and thousands of acres in corn,
soybeans and wheat; fruit orchards and large
dairy farms. And the families that operate the
farms include African American farmers, whose
grandfathers moved north to work in the city
long enough to afford a piece of land; descen-

Three generations of the Peters family of Vallonia, Indiana, pose dants of Northern, Central and Eastern European

in front of the sign that shows their farm as having been farmers, Who came to America seeking land and
in the family for over a century opportunities unavailable to them in the Old

Photo courtesy Jackson County Schneck Memorial Hospital

The “economic crisis” of the early 1980s ri-
valed the Great Depression of the 1930s in its
impact on family farming. Its effects are still
being felt today. Some farms that have been in
families for a century or more have gone bank-
rupt; people who love working the land have
been forced to move to towns or cities and work
in factories or offices. In many rural areas,
churches and schools have closed or merged
with those in nearby towns because populations
have become depleted. Some farmers complain
they don’t know their neighbors any more, as
farmland is turned into housing developments or
is bought up by large agribusinesses.

But many family farms have survived. In spite
of the ups and downs of fluctuating agricultural
markets, unpredictable weather, and debt pay-

ments, they have found strategies to persevere.

Family Farming in the Heartland has been made
bosstbhle by the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S
Department of Agriculture

32 FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND

Country; American Indian farmers whose agricul-
tural tradition stretches back millennia on the
continent; and recent Southeast Asian immigrant
farmers, Who work cooperatively to provide their
communities with foods they were familiar with
in their homeland.

It's almost impossible, therefore, to define “the
Heartland family farmer.” Its easier to mention a
few common traits. We’ve found two things that
the families researched for this year’s Festival
have in common — a body of skills and knowl-
edge inherited between generations within an
ethnic and rural tradition; and a keen interest in
and understanding of their rural past, reflected in
family histories, stories, photos and memorabilia.
These two qualities — knowledge and conscious-
ness — can be called “family farm folklore,” and
they have helped rural families maintain a way of
life few of them would willingly trade for easier
and often more profitable lives in towns and
cities,

The folklore of farm families is unique, for it
emerges where occupation intertwines with fam-
ily, where all household members are, or have
been at one time, involved with the life of the

Mandan Indians, Lydia Sage-Chase and her husband, Bob, in their garden in North Dakota. Today, Lydia and other
members of ber family carry on farming traditions, using seeds passed down through the generations, blessing the

crops each year with spec ial ceremonies. Photo courtesy Lydia Sage-Chase

farm. Farm families are not like those where fa-
ther and often mother work outside the home
and interact with children only in mornings and
evenings, on weekends and during vacation

Most farm families live in an almost constant state
of “togetherness.” This often extends to grand-
parents and sometimes even great-grandparents,
who live nearby and still help on the farm. The
folklore of families owning other types of family
businesses may be somewhat similar — but farm-
ing is as much a distinctive lifestyle as it is a busi-
ness. Some examples will bring this unique type
of family folklore into focus.

Consciousness of a Rural Past

Like many other families, Heartland farm fami-
lies mark their histories with documents, photo-
graphs, stories and various types of material ob-
jects. But the way a farm family constructs its
history is remarkable in the extent to which their
history reflects that of the farm itself. Large aerial
photographs of the farm 20 years ago and today
may take up part of the living room wall; home
displays of photographs mix family portraits with
images of children showing prize dairy or beef
cattle, Future Farmers of America (FFA) certifi-
cates of merit, and blue ribbons won at the 4-H
fair for perfect garden vegetables.

Some families have written lengthy histories of
their ancestors, or are included as founding

members in Community or county histories.
Along with writing, other families have found
unique ways of preserving and displaying their
past. Ilona Todd and her daughter, Deonna Todd
Green, from Mecosta County, Michigan, created
an extraordinary family quilt. It tells the story of
Stephen Todd's escape from slavery, his marriage
to Caroline Todd, their eventual settlement as
pioneer farmers, and their six generations of de-
scendants; the quilt incorporates family oral nar-
ratives, Bible records, and documents found
through library research. The mother and daugh-
ter quilters have also created an “old settler’s
quilt” commemorating other African American
homestead farmers in the history of their county.

Family stories are one of the most important
means of conveying family history. Like photo-
graphs, these also can reflect a rural past. For
instance, Ordell (“Bud”) Gustad who farms with
his three sons in Volin, South Dakota, likes to tell
the story of how his father raised enough cash to
start farming on his own in the 1930s. Ineligible
for a WPA (Works Project Administration) job,
Bud's father got the ingenious idea of selling
coffee and doughnuts to the WPA workers. The
next year, he started farming on his “coffee and
doughnut” money

Another recollection from the recent past gives
a humorous family story a rural twist. Judy Bor-
man, who grew up on and now runs her family’s

FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND 33

dairy farm in Kingdom City, Missouri, with her
husband, Harlan, tells the story of how she was
almost late to her own wedding. Before the cere-
mony she spent a litthe too much time showing
off the family farm to the out-of-town guests. By
the time she arrived at the church to get dressed,
most of the guests had already arrived and were
seated. To avoid being seen by anyone, she
sneaked into the dressing room by climbing up
the fire escape.

Along with stories, the material items that farm
families choose to collect also reflect the ImmMpor-
tance of the farm in their lives. A common col-
lectible is model farm machinery. A wall of
shelves in the living room or family room often
displays their collection, which more often than
not reflects the type of machinery currently or
once owned by the family. Larry Loganbach,
whose family has raised cucumbers, tomatoes,
and sugar beets for several generations in north-
western Ohio, found himself in a dilemma when
his young son requested a model sugar beet har-
vester for a Christmas present. Since none of the
commercial farm machinery model companies
carried such a relatively uncommon item, Larry

and his wife, Connie, labored for weeks after the

94 FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND

(2
2 an
Marktavious Smith with his son and mother-in-law, Marie Berry Cross, at home in Mecosta County, Michigan. Their

ancestors settled in Michigan as farmers in 1800. The fiddle has been handed down for five
generations from the time of the first settlement. Photo by Roland Freeman, © 1986

children were asleep to build the desired toy
Larry has since completed 14 of these models at
the request of other sugar beet farming families
While many families proclaim their rural past
by displaying old plows or other parts of used
machinery on a lawn, or by incorporating them
into a mailbox post, the Arnold family of Rush-
ville, Indiana, restored the original 1820 log
homestead on their farm as a tribute to the farm’s
founders. The modest cabin stands as a physical
reminder of the humble beginnings of the family,
and of their progress over the years. The farm-
house that Eleanor and Jake Arnold live in — the
second house on the farm, built in 1853 — is

itself a tribute to earlier members of the family

Knowledge and Skills

Most knowledge and skills needed to run a
family farm are passed down from one genera-
tion to the next through a process combining
informal learning and formal apprenticeship. As
children follow their parents around the home
and farm, they are gradually introduced to simple
tasks. They graduate to more complex ones as
time goes on. At the same time, most farm chil-

dren in the past several generations have been

encouraged to join rural-based clubs that more
formally prepare them for farm life. Recently,
more and more young people have attended
college, studying agriculture and bringing mod-
ern innovations back to the farm. The older gen-
eration has embraced what they find useful in
this new knowledge, combining it with the tried
and true methods of the farm operation,

As most farmers will admit, farming often re-
lies more on continual trial-and-error than on
science. Traditional knowledge also helps. Dave
Jones of Brown County, Nebraska, explains how
his father used the phases of the moon and the
information in a farm almanac to guide his plant-
ing. While Dave does not always use this method
today, he has become known in his family and
community as a weather predictor in recent
years. Applying information he read several years
ago in a farm magazine, Dave predicts the com-
ing winter’s snowfall by examining the choke-
cherry and plum bushes in the area. If there is
not enough fruit on these bushes for small ani-
mals to store, then there will be less snowfall to
allow them to forage for food. This knowledge
has served Dave and his two farming sons, Tom
and Jim, well in the past few years, warning them
to store more feed and hay for farm animals if a
severe winter is predicted.

Children are usually introduced to more com-
plex chores on the farm before the age of ten.
Bradley Peters of Jackson County, Indiana, was
almost eight last year when he received his first
heifer calf, which he raised under his father
Larry’s supervision as a 4-H project. The heifer
has now been bred, and when she calves, Brad-
ley will get to raise the offspring as well. He
trades work on the farm for feed for the heifer.
His father proudly says that his son is building “a
little business of his own” and saving money
toward his college education. Other farm children
have started their own profitable side businesses
as well, building on what they learn from their
parents as well as the skills they learn from clubs
like 4-H and FPA.

Recently, many farmers have been attempting
to reduce the chemicals used in the form of fertil-
izers and herbicides on the farm, and to employ
more aggressive soil conservation methods. For
the Cerny brothers of Cobden, Illinois, this means
a blend of traditional practices they have already
been engaged in for years, and soil conservation
techniques like “no-till,” which leaves corn resi-
due in the field after harvest to act as mulch and
reduce erosion. As Norbert Cerney puts it, “This
land has been farmed for a long time, and it’s
been farmed hard... . Maybe we can leave

Close by the original family farm house, the Cerny brothers of
Cobden, Illinois, prepare to plant tomato seeds in the hotbed
their grandfather built. Most vegetable growers now begin
their seeds in green-houses, but the Cernys prefer the

older method. Photo by LecEllen Friedland

things a little better than we found them.”

Generally, family farmers seem conservative
and progressive at the same time. Machine sheds
house small tractors dating back to the 1940s,
which are often still used for some farm opera-
tions, side-by-side with giant tractors with com-
puterized dashboard controls and stereo sound
systems. The old and the new, the older genera-
tion and the younger generation, come together
on the family farm. Like folklore itself, life on the
family farm embodies both continuity and dis-
juncture, change and durability.

Betty Belanus is the Curator of this year’s Family Farm
program, She grew up on a farm in the dairying area of
Addison County, Vermont, and holds her Ph.D. in
folklore from Indiana University

Further Readings

Americans in Agriculture: Portraits of Diversity. 1990
Yearbook of Agriculture. Washington: U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture.

Berry, Wendell. 1977. The Unsettling of America: Cul-
ture and Agriculture. San Francisco: Sierra Club
Books

Friedberger, Mark. 1988. Farm Families and Change in
Twentieth-Century America. Lexington: University
Press of Kentucky.

Klinkenborg, Verlyn. 1986. Making Hay. New York:
Vintage Departures.

Kohn, Howard. 1988. The Last Farmer: An American
Memoir. New York: Harper and Row

Rhodes, Richard. 1989, Farm: A Year in the Life of an
American Farmer. New York: Simon & Schuster

FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND oD)

A Year tint the Wie
of a Family Farmer

Steven Berntson

Steven Berntson farms with his wife, Joanne, and
son Daniel in northwest lowa, near Paullina. The
farm bas been in the family for SO years, estab-
lished by Steven's grandfather, a Norwegian im-
migrant. The following are excerpts from his per-
sonal journal for the year 1990

Thursday, January 11

In Roman mythology, Janus, guardian of por-
tals and patron of beginnings, was a god of two
faces: one looked forward, the other back.

We are deep into winter, and the great snows
of the season are swirling upon us. These days
are an enforced break from busyness, a rare time
for quiet thought. And so I look forward and
back in my own inner inventory of what it means
to belong to the land.

Robert Frost once wrote, “We were the land's
before the land was ours.” It is a line that seems
paradoxical but isn’t. We claim ownership in
titles and deeds, but in the end, what are we
without cornfields? Without the farmer, the earth
is yet the earth. Without the earth, what is the
farmer?

We do not own the land, it owns us. It garners
our days and steals our hearts. If farming were a
drug, we would all be addicts.

somehow, when you farm, everything gets all
mixed up together — your wife and kids, your
acres and your work, your home and your life
itself. It gets all knitted together in what we call
the home place. Painted on the great white barns
with a date neatly inscribed below, the name of
the home place is spoken in a reverential, almost
holy way

The home place: a remembered place. A place
of secrets and memories and dreams. Of mistakes
as well

\ safe place. A place where you know who
you are. A place of stories. A place to go back to,
sometimes in person, more often in mind.

For myself, 1am deeply grateful to my parents

30 FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND

and grandparents for the rich life they gave me as
a child on this particular home place, the place of
my moorings.

Tuesday, February 6

I'm deep in the art of taxes; my tax appoint-
ment is Friday. Bookkeeping is not my forte, but
it must be done.

Today | also paid for some of my seed corn
but won't pick it up until late April, just before
planting. Is seed corn ever getting expensive!
Some of it is now over $70 a bushel. In return,
I'm lucky if [can get $2 a bushel for the corn I
grow and sell. Who said farming ever made

sense?

Saturday, February 17

My attention is shifting from the farming year
past to the year upcoming. I have finished my
taxes and am doing some thinking about crop
insurance for the next year. How much risk
should T take?

This afternoon I'm going to a meeting to hear
about the government farm program for 1990,

Thursday, March 1

March 1 is the traditional date for the major
moves of the year: taking possession of a newly-
bought farm, making payments on a mortgage,
moving to a rented place, etc. In that sense, it is
the beginning of a farmer’s year.

I can never begin a new farming season with-
out thinking of my Grandpa Berntson, a Norwe-
gian immigrant, who exactly 80 years ago this
very day made that fateful move from an 80-acre
hill farm in Marshall County in southeastern Iowa
to this farm near Paullina. How many times have
| heard that long and eloquent story! How he
loaded his family and machinery and livestock
and furniture on two freight cars, and then on an
unseasonably warm March day was surprised to
be met at the Paullina depot by his new neigh-
bors, who helped him move the final five miles

Dried soybeans are lifted by elevator into a steel bin for winter storage
Steve and his father, Glenn, watch from below

Photo by Bill Neibergall, courtesy Des Moines Register

to a new farm and a new life. Here he and his
wife, Karina, the enchanting evangelist from
Mayville, North Dakota, who had stolen his heart
at a tent meeting, achieved a good measure of
worldly success in their farming (buying a second
farm in the midst of the Great Depression), only
to have their confidence in themselves and in
their God grievously shaken when scarlet fever
plucked two of their children, Burdette and
Beulah, from the bloom of childhood

I write this in the very house — indeed, in the
very room — they died. And that has meaning,
too: if the story of my immigrant grandfather
sustains and fortifies me, it also scares me, in
caution and apprehension.

Iam a keeper of his story, a custodian of his
old-but-not-so-odd dream of land, and the inheri-

tor of that promise. But in a larger
and truer sense, | am more than
curator. | am creator. For | own
the land adjacent to his land; my
dream borders his. His place has
become my place.

And yet it is not a case of intru-
sion, of a stranger in his place. It
is the fulfillment of his place

Monday, March 26

The snowstorm that swirled in
just ahead of April had to give
way quickly to the sun and the
thaw

It was a rich snow, indeed, for
it leaves behind a greening earth
that contrasts wildly with the dirti-
ness of fall’s leftovers. And this is
a green like no other. I have often
marveled at the solid green of
corn neck-deep in a wet July, and
then after the harvest another kind
of richness in the color of money.
But here in the green spring there
is no price whatever, but a bar-
gain basement value of promise
and hope.

Tuesday, April 10

These spring days are tentative
and yet decisive

I began field work today, seed-
ing 20 acres of oats on last year’s
cornstalks, There is something ele-
mental and fundamental about
sowing oats — no high-tech ma-
chinery, no herbicides, no fertil-
izer except for what I haul out of
the barn

The crisp air was utterly intoxicating, the
crunch of cornstalks a potent medicine for a
farmer’s soul

High overhead, flocks of Canada geese plowed
faint furrows into their own vast blue prairie
fields

What a marvelous day!

Saturday, April 21

We still haven't had a good spring rain, so
farmers can work in their fields without interrup-
tion from the weather. Joanne and Daniel and |
have been flying kites in the evenings when the

wind goes down

Wednesday, May 2
I started planting corn today. Here in northwest
lowa we try to plant our corn between May 1 and

FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND 3

Steve Inspects an ear of corn, Steve's father built this storage bin in 1972 from wire and old telephone poles. The sun
and the wind dry these ears naturally, unlike the mechanical process used in closed steel bins

Photo by Bill Neibergall, courtesy Des Moines Register

May 10 — earlier than May 1 and you risk dam-
age from frost, later than May 10 and the crop

doesn’t have a full growing season

Friday, May 18

Daniel was excited today to have one of the
nests of ducks hatch out. The mother has 18 in
her brood. Where but on a farm does a child

grow up so close to life, to birth and death itself?

Saturday, May 26

I finished planting soybeans today. It’s a job I
enjoy for many reasons: it doesn’t require quite
the precision corn planting does, the days are
warmer, it’s the end of spring planting

Memorial Day is just around the corner; I’m

ready for a nap!

fonday

, June 4

It is the season of motherhood again. The farm
teems with life

he hoghouse is full of hog music, sometimes

nearly deafening as the sows, with deep rhyth-

38> FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND

mic grunts, call their piglets, who squeal and
fight over their milk

Several litters of kittens have been born in the
bales of the barn, but it will be a few weeks yet
before the tabbies bring their young out into the
world

Daniel’s ducks have hatched four nests, to-
talling 47 ducklings, and some of the ducks are
now sitting on their second clutch of eggs.

Our grove is home to squirrels, owls, wood
ducks and a host of smaller birds. Badgers and
foxes have dug dens for their young in the grass-
back terraces, and pheasants and partridge are
nesting in the grassy waterways of the fields

Life is on its legs again, and T exult

Tuesday, June 12

What a terrible hailstorm last night! | doubt if
there is a more horrifying sound to a farmer than
the clanging and banging of hailstones on the
root

I have been through desiccating drought be-

fore — it wears on the soul like a lingering, lan-
guishing cancer. Hail is easier to take — like a
heart attack — sudden, swift, definite, definable.

My beans have been hurt the worst, but not
enough to warrant replanting.

Wednesday, June 20

Late this afternoon Daniel raced out to the
field to ride the tractor with me while I finished
cultivating the beans. Back and forth, back and
forth we went, to the throaty solo of the Farmall
M.

Then, as the day was dying, a doe and not
one, but two fawns shadowed forth to our little
stream for an evening drink. They came closer,
ever so close, and we sensed then a kinship with
them.

Utterly motionless, they stared, but music like
the “Moonlight Sonata” cascaded from their wild
brown eyes, and I understood every note. Both
melodies are inscribed this hour upon my heart. I
know which is the more beautiful.

Monday, July 2

We baled our second cutting of hay today.
The recent rains have made for a lot of hay, but
it’s also tougher to get the hay to dry properly.

Sunday, July 22

Both sides of my family have been having
their annual summer reunions. Typical summer
reunions: lots of talk (same old stories, a few
new ones), too much food, a few new babies,
pictures, too much lemonade, relatives I see ev-
ery day and others I see only at reunions.

What compels these family reunions? It is, I
believe, a fundamental curiosity about yourself.
Apart from your kin, you cannot begin to under-
stand who you are or what you mean. Their story
gives the sense to your story.

Bound by kinship to the soil and to one an-
other, these are my people. We relish our time
together. Good families don’t just happen; they
need to be nourished and nurtured.

Tuesday, August 7

We've been busy shelling last year’s corn. As
farmers go, I am about as average as average can
be, farming a half section of land in a typical
corn/soybean rotation and raising hogs.

But I am decidedly old-fashioned in picking
corn in the ear and then shelling it the next sum-
mer, rather than simply combining my corn in
the field.

Corn shelling is some of the most grueling, hot
and dusty work on the farm, yet we seem to
enjoy it. That’s in part because we enjoy each
other — joking, telling stories, eating together.

There is a place for everyone. | remember
how my grandfather in his eighties could still
take pride in just being able to bring out lunch,
even though he couldn't scoop corn the vigorous
way he once did.!

Thursday, August 23

This morning I went to an auction of 80 acres
of land about five miles from home. Early specu-
lation was that the land might go for around
$2,300 an acre. That was optimistic; it sold for
$1,940,

Sometimes I get a little weary from all the talk
about what land is worth, and I think that in the
deepest sense, to the true farmer, it’s beyond and
apart from dollars. Sure, I suppose it’s more fun
the more digits that are on your net worth state-
ment, but it’s a shallow measure. One of the
greatest crimes inflicted upon rural America is the
notion that somehow a man’s net worth and his
human worth are one and the same. When you
belong to the earth it really doesn’t matter.

Tuesday, September 25

We had our first hard, killing frost last night, a
reminder of how fickle fall can be.

One day you marvel in an immense sky and
heady, crisp air. And the next day the sky turns
sullen and melancholy and leaden, and the wind,
like work, finds you no matter where you try to
hide.

I suppose you could decipher the season in
terms of jet streams and fading chlorophyll and
mean temperatures, and you would be correct, in
a sense. But not really, for fall has more to do
with meanings than reasons.

Wednesday, October 3
Our soybean harvest is in full swing now.
Most of the beans are averaging 24 bushels an
acre, which is about half the normal crop. It’s the
biggest loss ’'ve had in my 15 years of farming.
When you farm, you take your losses with
your gains.

Saturday, October 20
We picked corn again today, and it looks like

' Author's note: Corn shelling is the process in which ears
of corn are removed from a corn crib using a horizontal
elevator called a dragfeed, and then run through a sheller —
a combine-like machine which removes the kernels from the
cobs. A typical shelling crew includes two or three men in the
crib to scoop the corn into the dragfeed, one man to run the
sheller and others to level off cobwagons and truck the corn
to town. Corn shelling is considered hard work both because
of the physical exertion required and because it is dusty
work, often done in the hottest days of summer and the
coldest days of winter

FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND 39

Steve and Daniel inspect the farm from their pickup

truck. Photo by Bill Neibergall, courtesy

Des Moines Register

we could get done this next week with any luck
at all. Dad drives the picker tractor, and Daniel
and T haul and unload the corn. Joanne and |

will be relieved when harvest is over because we

worry about the danger of all these machines
Accidents happen in a twinkling

Daniel’s job is to stay on the tractor and work
the hydraulic lever that raises the wagon as |
unload the corn into the elevator. He’s very
proud that he can “higher the wagon,” as he
calls it

I'm not sure which I enjoy more: listening to
dad as he tells about his 50 years of cornpicking,
or answering Daniel's delightful questions

At 36, | wonder — at what other job are you
blessed at once with the wisdom of a 76-year-old

and the wonder of a 6-year-old?

Saturday, November 3

PFoday Daniel and I tore out an ancient, sag
ging fence just north of our cattle shed. It wasn't
a long stretch, only 150 feet or so, and it served
no useful purpose, holding nothing either in or
out

When the day was done, all that was left were

two sets of footprints in the mud, irresistibly

t{Q) FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND

metaphorical, Daniel was walking, quite literally,
in my footsteps

One of my favorite and most comical images
of my father comes from when he would get
home from a long day in the field, and then,
doing chores, would be trailed by — in approxi-
mately this order — his elderly father, his brother
and partner in farming, his youngest son, the dog
and at least a dozen cats. The cats were waiting
for him to milk the cow, the rest of the proces-
sion had assorted concerns of the day. It made

for quite a collection of footsteps.

Tuesday, November 13

We received our first serious snow of the sea-
son today, about three inches. The first snow is a
marker of the season, like the first frost. The gray
slate of the land and the year are now cleared.
There is no finer imagery than snow; even the
Scriptures use it: crimson sins are washed “whiter
than snow.” The snow has blanketed our fields,
covering whatever the sins of our farming were.

Sunday, November 18

As IT write on this quiet, rural autumn evening,
the western sky, like embers upon a hearth,
sends marvelous shadows across the land. It is
spectacular in its subtlety. We are but four days
from Thanksgiving. | wonder, could Thanksgiv-
ing have found a more reflective time of year?

Tuesday, December 18

Working with the soil doesn’t automatically
endow a man with either wisdom or philosophy,
but it does accord him an understanding of the
sequences and cycles of the seasons

\ farmer lives by these seasons, and it is good
to have them clearly and cleanly defined, not by
the calendar, but by the days themselves. You
plant your fields; you harvest them in their due
season, again and again and again, in endless
repetition, until one day you are worn out and
used up and gone. And then in that final harvest,
the farmer himself is planted into the soil, his
final seed

We are slipping again into the deep midwin-
ter. | walk into the still, star-shot night, pondering
the year past, looking up, like Whitman’s learned
astronomer, in perfect silence at the stars
Steven Berntson farms and writes about farming in
northwest lowd. He has been published in the Des
Moines Register, (he Northwest lowa Review, and farm
cooperative magazines. Steven graduated from Dana
College, Blair, Nebraska, with a B.A. in English

The Changing Role of
Women on the Farm

Eleanor Arnold

Introduction

The role women have played in the farm fam-
ily has changed many times over the years, but
one thing has remained constant —women have
always been an essential part of the team.

Pioneer women came into the forest and the
plains, bringing with them one or two cherished
pieces of furniture and “starts” of flowers from
their previous homes. They moved into their log
cabins and sod houses and began the long hard
work ahead of them. They often worked side-by-
side with their husbands, making the land ready
for farming, while at the same time raising their
families, cooking and preserving food, spinning
and weaving cloth, and making a home in the
wilderness.

Their daughters and granddaughters in the late
1800s and the early 1900s had their spheres of
responsibility on the busy, self-sufficient farms of
the era. As always, the family was the first con-
cern of a homemaker, as she did the housework
and child care. In addition, however, she would
be responsible for the poultry, the dairy cows,
the care of the milk and butter, the garden and
the preserving of food for winter. Laundry, iron-
ing, cooking, baking, sewing and mending took
much of her waking hours. She also might be
called on for occasional light work in the fields,
but the mores of the era argued that women
didn't do field work. This was just as well, since
she was busy from morning to night with her
own work, in addition to being pregnant or nurs-
ing through most of her work years.

The decades surrounding World War II were a
watershed. The advent of electricity and gasoline
engines lightened many back-breaking and time-
consuming chores and created some discretion-
ary time in women’s lives. The wartime call to
the nation’s factories and businesses made work-
ing outside the home a possibility for women.

Also during the war, women and girls worked in
the fields to keep farm land in production, taking
up the slack left by rural men who were in the
services.

Peacetime found farm women with more work
options than ever before. Their responsibility for
homemaking and child rearing did not change,
but some continued to help with the farm work
outside, as larger equipment and other technology
made it possible for a single family to farm larger
acreage. Other farm women continued their tradi-
tional “around the house” roles but took on fur-
ther responsibility for bookkeeping, marketing
and other paper-work functions. Some farm
women took full- or part-time employment off the
farm. These trends continue to the present.

Unlike urban families, whose daytime interests
may vary widely, a farm family has always been
involved in the family business together. They live
in the midst of it; they are at their work site from
the time they awaken. Family members work as a
unit, sharing the work, the worries and the bene-
fits of their lifestyle.

This is especially true for the farm woman. She
has always been essential to farm life. Her love of
her family and the energy she expends to make
life good for them are the central part of her life,
just as they are for urban women. But the farm
woman is also vital to the financial success of the
family business — their farm. Her work, and
sometimes her salary, help to make the farm eco-
nomically viable. Her homemaking and mothering
make the home a warm, welcoming center for the
whole enterprise.

Methods of farming and the part the women
play in the intricacies of farm and family life have
changed through the years, but woman’s vital role
— as an essential component of the farm family
team — has never changed.

FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND 41

Interview

Note: Eleanor and Clarence “Jake” Arnold and
their family own and operate a 1,200 acre grain
and livestock farm in Rush County, Indiana,
which has been continuously farmed for over 170
years by six generations of Arnolds. The following
is excerpted from an interview with Eleanor and
Jake Arnold conducted by folklorist Marjorie Hunt.

Marjorie: When you were growing up, what type
of work did women do on the farm?

Eleanor: When I was young, women nearly al-
ways took care of all the poultry. If you had tur-
keys or chickens — then that was women’s work.
My mother always did all the gardening — that
was traditionally a farm woman's thing. You put
out about as much as you were going to eat be-
cause that’s where food came from. We were
raised in the ‘30s — the late '20s and ’30s — and
that was very hard times on the farm. And essen-
tially you didn’t want to buy anything at the gro-
cery store if you could manage it at home. I’ve
seen many a time my mother would sit down at a
table like this and say, “Everything on here except
the sugar — I grew.” My mother tried to preserve
everything that she grew. She even canned meat
because she didn’t have any other way to pre-
serve it except curing; and so she canned all her
beef. Because if she didn’t have it put away, we
just didn’t have it!

Marjorie: What other things would women of
your mother’s generation do?

Eleanor: Well, mother mowed the lawn, and she
always went down and helped with milking in the
evening. In the morning she didn’t, because she
Was busy getting breakfast. Now, mother didn't
do field work. A lot of people thought it was
terrible when women did field work at that time.
In fact, there were a couple of sisters who helped
their brother in the field, and it was the talk of the
neighborhood! That just wasn't done when we
were growing up — it was a shame to a man.
There were a lot of things I saw as a child that
my mother knew, like making soap and things
like that. Those were women’s skills: what to do
with your meat after it was butchered, how to cut
it up, how to cure it, how to make the different
sausages. These were real skills, women’s skills;
and they're no longer necessary, so they're gone.
Well, you know the old saying, “A man works
from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never
done.” It definitely came from the time of an
agrarian society, because men couldn’t do much

42 + AMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND

after dark. There were no lights on the horses,
you know, and they had to come in. But a
woman kept right on working.

Marjorie: When you were growing up, what were
your responsibilities on the farm?

Eleanor: There were two boys and two girls in
my family. The boys helped dad, and my sis and
I helped mother. The boys had to feed the
horses, feed the cows, and we fed the chickens
and gathered the eggs, brought in the corn,
brought in the wood, pumped the water and
brought it in. There were all sorts of chores that
were done daily — sometimes two or three times
daily.

Of course there was plenty to do in the
house, too. We had kerosene lamps, and every
morning we washed the chimneys because they
got sooty. And so that was part of the morning
chores: we used to wash them, clean them up,
refill them and have them ready for when night
came because, of course, all your light was from
kerosene. It wasn't that you were looking for
something to do. Especially before electricity,
everything was physically hard to do in the
home.

Marjorie: How did changes in technology — like
electricity — affect your family?

Eleanor: Oh, electricity! That was the watershed
— because before that everything was done by
somebody's muscle, either your muscle or a
horse’s muscle. We didn’t get electricity until I
was nine years old, which would have been
1938. After that, you had all sorts of help in all
sorts of different directions.

Like ironing — we had these big black irons.
You put them on the old coal range. And when
you thought they were warm, you held them up,
and put your finger [out], and licked it, and
touched it. And if it went sss¢/it was warm
enough. You ironed with it. And then when it got
cool you had two or three other ones waiting on
the stove. Most women, when they got electricity
— the first thing they got was an electric iron.
They weren't very expensive, and they did save
so much work.

Another big change was plumbing. Jake and I
didn’t have water in the house until 1955 — after
three children! We had a privy in the back and a
well with a pump. When IT was going to [do a]
wash, I went out to pump the water, and put it
on the stove, and heated it, and then carried it

Four generations of Arnold women — Jake's great-grandmother, Sarah Arnold, her granddaughter, Sarah, great-

granddaughter, Flora and her great-great-granddaughter, Leona — pose for a picture taken

in the early 1900s

back out and put it in a conventional washing
machine. It was so much work. And it was even
more so when my mother had to wash clothes
by rubbing on the board. Back then, laundry was
a real skill. Now anybody can go and open up
the door and put in laundry. But a white wash
was something a woman was really proud of —
“She puts out a good white wash” — that’s what
you'd hear

No one wants to go back to washing on a
board who’s ever done it. No one wants to go
out to privies at night who’s ever had to. There
were lots of nice things about the good old days,
but no one who has ever done both ways would
want to give up the technology

Marjorie: Affer you got married, how did you
and Jake divide the work on your farm?

Eleanor: We've always worked as a team. But,
you know, you divide things up. It’s more effi-

Photo courtesy Arnold family

cient that way and a lot of it falls along tradi-
tional lines. At first Jake was so busy on the farm,
and I had the little children at home, so I
couldn't get out and help very much. So I ended
up doing what was traditionally thought of as
women’s work on the farm. He would come in
and help a little with the children. But he was
tired. He was out all the time, so he didn’t par-

ticipate a lot in child care

Jake: After they got a little older I'd take them
with me out on the tractor. In fact, I can even
remember John I'd actually take him on the
cultivator. He’d crawl in between the frame and
sit up there and ride back and forth across the
field. And I remember one field had raspberries
at one end that was ripe at that time. And he’d
get off and eat some raspberries. And then he'd
get back on and go around. And then he’d crawl
underneath the truck and go to sleep. That’s

where he took his nap

FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND +3

Eleanor: He wanted me to have little red jackets
for them to wear because he said he could see
them all over the field that way. He was always
worried — the safety factor, you know,

Our kids have always helped. John, you just
had to scrape him out of the [tractor] seat. He’s
always wanted to farm,
and always was fascinated
by machinery, and was al-
ways right there to help
When the kids were grow-
ing up — we were sort of
in that transition period —
we didn’t have as many
actual chores that had to
be done. We had quit the
chickens and the milk
cows, so hog feeding was
about the only thing that
they really had to do.

The kids always helped
me in the garden. They
enjoyed it, and we always
had a lot of fun

As far as household
chores, the girls always
helped me. They shelled
peas, and snapped beans,
and helped me can, and
helped clean the house. They just helped. What-
ever I was doing, they were helping, too. We just
all kind of worked together. Everyone pitched in

Marjorie: Did you work in the fields?

Eleanor: Oh yes, | went out to the fields in the
spring and the fall. | usually plowed and disked
| was one of the first ones who actually started
working in the fields around here, but everybody
admired it — “Oh, that’s wonderful, you know,
you're helping.”

I never planted because that’s a very crucial
part of it, and I never combined. I used to drive
the tractors and the wagons or the trucks away
from the combines. Pd take the seed corn into
town because you had to sit there and wait. And
Jake’s so antsy, and sitting and waiting in harvest
season Was just he couldn't do it.

Jake always was good, when I was working
out in the fields, to come in and help me with
what had gotten behind in the house. But with
people our age, I think there’s a lot more separa-
tion of men’s work and women’s work than
there is with kids nowadays — the young farm-
ing couples. My son just comes in and does eve-
rything. | mean he cooks, he does whatever

needs to be done

#4 FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND

Mary Arnold pretends to help with the ironing

by imitating her mother, Eleanor
Photo courtesy Arnold family

Marjorie: What are some of the other changes
you see in your children’s generation?

Eleanor: So many women now work off the
farm, | think a common pattern is to work until
you have your children, stay home until the chil-
dren are in school, and then go back to working
at least part-time; and,
maybe when the children
are older, working full-
time. I think that’s a very
common pattern now in
farm housewives.

Well, coming out of the
home was definitely be-
gun during the Second
World War. There was just
very little of anything.
Women were not em-
ployed outside except as
teachers, perhaps nurses,
sometimes social work,
and as sort of an informal
thing, the hired girl. Those
were the things that were
open. But in the Second
World War, it was a patri-
otic duty to come out of
the home and be “Rosie
the Riveter,” and you got
lots of acclaim for doing that sort of thing.

Once they had found that they could earn
money and that they could work outside the
home, they felt freer — financially freer — be-
cause they didn’t feel as dependent on the father,
husband, brother, whatever. And also, the fact
that their work had value meant something to
them — like it or not, we do value by the dollar;
if you're paid for it, the work means more — and
I think this was a profound change with
women.When the war was over, it never was
unthinkable again to work outside the home. It
Wasn't an Option in my mother’s time and my
sister's time, but in my time, it was an option.

Just in our community, if you go around,
you'll find very few farms that are absolutely
100% farmers. | mean either the husband or the
wife works outside extra, too

Marjorie: What sort of support groups did farm
women have?

Eleanor: Women’s club work was, many times,
the real salvation for women. Farm women, they
stayed so close to home, and they had only a few
things that were socially acceptable that took
them out. That’s why extension homemakers and

church groups were popular — because they
gave women sociability.

Marjorie: How has that changed over the years?

Eleanor: It’s changed a lot. The isolated country
woman image is done for. You know, people
look to find time to be
home now, because
they’re on the go so much.
There are so many de-
mands on their time that a
night at home, I think, is
treasured now; where
before, my mother went to
her ladies aid, and she
went to her home
eclonomics club] — and
those were her two times
out. She went to church
on Sunday morning, and
every two weeks she went
to town to cash the milk
check — and, literally,
mother might not be off
the place other than that.
And so her home ec club

Photo courtesy Arnold family

and her ladies aid — the

support of women, the

talking with women, the

being with women — meant a great deal to her.
They meant a very great deal to her. Now, you
might have visiting back and forth on Sunday
afternoon, but I tell you: the rural womans life
was isolated.

Marjorie: Getting back to your own family farm,
what made you decide to go into farming?

Eleanor: It’s a choice we made together when
we were still down at school. We were two farm
kids, and we knew what life was like on the
farm, the good and the bad. And we stood at a
crossroads, you might say. “Shall we go on with
our education and do something else that will
probably make us more money — more spend-

able income — or shall we go back to the life we

know?” And we both together decided we
wanted to go back to the life we knew. Because
we felt there’s so many values there that we
wanted to have for ourselves, that we'd had in
our own lives. And we wanted our children to
have them, too.

Marjorie: What do you value most about your
way of life?

Eleanor: Well, the fact that we're together. We're

working together, and we have common and

John Arnold pretends to drive his father’s tractor

shared aims. It’s not just the man and the wife,
it's the children also. I think [the farm] is the fin-
est place there is to raise a family. For one thing,
you don’t have as many worries because the chil-
dren are always there with you. They’re sharing
and working, and they’re talking to you about
what’s going on. They see
what daddy does, and he’s
right there. He’s in and
he’s out, and they’re in
and out with him. I think
it’s fairer to the male. Be-
cause [| think [in urban
life] when the male goes
away early in the morning
and comes back home
tired, and the woman has
to do all the discipline and
so forth — I think it’s
unfair to the male.

Jake: I'll agree with that.
You've got to realize,
when I walk out the door
I'm at my workplace. No
commuting time! It’s great,
you know. I come in, and
— we've always had a
noonday meal — we see
the kids. Actually, you’re really getting down to
the basis of farm life. We chose it and we enjoy
it.

Marjorie: Eleanor, what do you consider your
most important contribution to your family farm?

Eleanor: Well | undoubtedly think my children
are my greatest accomplishment. And I think that
most women would say that. Because whether a
farmer or otherwise, we're very happy that we've
raised three good children and feel that we’ve
made a contribution to the community. And that’s
my greatest accomplishment

Now, if you're wanting to think about — as a
farmer or as a farm woman, what’s the best thing
I've done? I don’t know The work I did on
the farm for years. | worked for about 20 years
on the tractor, and that helped us economically
But another thing I did that helped economically
was that I was a very thrifty person. I always
canned, I always froze, I sewed. I tried to use our
funds wisely and tried to look ahead and see that
we needed to save. | think that’s a good deal of
my contribution — spending the money wisely

There’s an old country saying — “She can
throw it out the front door with a teaspoon faste:
than he can scoop it in the backdoor with a

FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND 4)

The Arnold family in 19917. Photo by Marjorie Hunt

scoop shovel” — for a woman who isn’t thrifty.
Because there's only a certain amount of money
that comes in from the farm, and how you use
that limited amount makes a good deal of differ-

ence
Marjorie: Are you still canning?

Eleanor: Oh yes! I can and freeze. | can green
beans. [can applesauce, I can peaches. I can
pickles. | can tomatoes, and I do jellies and pre-
serves with whatever we have that year... . And
I freeze peas and peaches and all the fruits —
cherries, raspberries, blueberries. Everything is
grist to my mill — whatever comes that we can't
eat fresh, why, I freeze it.

Marjorie: Who does the books in your family?

Eleanor: He was an accounting major — | have
nothing to do with them! ['m the world’s worst
with books.

Marjorie: / understand that in some farm fami-
lies women have that responsibility

Eleanor: Many, many times. I would say we're
an exception. An awful lot of women do it.

Jake: A lot of women do marketing. Quite a few
of them, they're quite good at it. They're not as

emotional as a man, I think they look at it more
objectively. They're better traders than a man in

some Cases

Marjorie: }ou mentioned to me that there used to
be a farm on every SO acres?

Eleanor: That's so very true. You can look up

and down this road and see where there are

4Q FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND

homesites — the homes are no longer there.
Because as the people who were living on the
80s got older and died or moved into town, the
person next to them bought the land. He wanted
to farm it... . So you have all these old home-
sites where maybe the daffodils still come up or
there’s still a lilac bush blooming, but the home-
places are gone.This is not just here, it’s happen-
ing everywhere. The technological advances, the
larger equipment, means a farmer's able to farm
more land.

Marjorie: ) ou once told me that there's no money
in farming, you have to love farming to farm.

Jake: You asked me if I could tell a successful
farmer driving down the road. And then I got to
thinking, “What is a successful farmer?” And I
came to the conclusion that if he’s kept half way
financially secure, and raised a good family with
decent kids, and put a little something else back
into the community, he was a success — whether
he had 10,000 acres or just five. That’s the truth. I
feel that.

Eleanor: We could sell all our land, and we
could put the money in the bank, and we could
live off the interest better than we do now. We
want to live like this.

Eleanor Arnold is the project director and editor of
Memories of Hoosier Homemakers, @ six-volume oral
history focusing on the life and work of rural women in
Indiana, and Voices of American Homemakers, a
national version. She attended the Folklore Summer
Institute for Community Scholars at the Office of
bolklife Programs tn 1990

Varjorie Hunt is a folklorist and research associate with
the Office of Folklife Programs. Her interest in family
farming stems from her own family’s roots on a farm in
southwestern Missouri

Further Readings

Armold, Eleanor, ed. 1983-1988. Memories of Hoosier
Homemakers (6 volume series). Indiana Extension
Homemakers Association

1985. Voices of American Homemak-
ers. National Extension Homemakers Council

Jensen, Joan M, 1980, With These Hands: Women

Working on the Land. Old Westbury, New York
Feminist Press

Thomas, Sherry. 1989, “We Didn't Have Much, But We
Sure Had Plenty’: Rural Women in their Own
Words. New York: Anchor Books

The Farmer and
American Folklore

yames PlLeary

Alert visitors to rural America will note a pro-
liferation of bumper stickers proclaiming, “If you
criticize the farmer, don’t talk with your mouth
full,” and “Farming is everybody’s bread and
butter.” In an era when many farmers feel that
market forces and government policies threaten
the family farm, in a time when too many people
think milk, bread, and meat come from the store,
these combative and pithy slogans stress the fun-
damental importance of farming and food.
Through them, farmers remind their non-agrarian
neighbors, “you need me”; they inform their oc-
cupational fellows, “I’m one of you”; and they tell
themselves, “I’m proud to be a farmer.”

Such conscious and complex cultural expres-
sions beg consideration of the farmer's symbolic
place in rural life and in American society as a
whole. Unfortunately, Ray Allen Billington’s char-
acterization of the farmer as “the forgotten man”
of American folklore remains accurate (Fite
1966). While investigations of the rural scene
have been a mainstay of American folklore schol-
ars, studies generally have been done according
to cultural regions, ethnic groups, or folklore
genres. We know about Appalachians, or Ozark-
ers, or Illinois “Egyptians”; about the Pennsylva-
nia Dutch, or the Cajun French; about barns, or
agricultural beliefs, or rural tall tales, or common
folks’ food. But our understanding of the expres-
sive dimensions of farming as a changing occu-
pation has lagged.

American farmers have stayed at home when
frontier adventure and city lights beckoned, and
home has always been a place where hard, re-
petitive, dirty work is done. Farmers have been
maligned accordingly as unsophisticated rustics:
rubes, hicks, yokels, and bumpkins. They have
been lumped with regional fare and its procure-
ment and have been associated unfavorably with
outdoor work and topography through slurs like
prune-pickers and rednecks.

No wonder John Lomax informed the Ameri-
can Folklore Society in 1913 that the nation’s
folksongs concerned miners, lumbermen, sailors,
soldiers, railroaders, cowboys, and members of
“the down and out classes — the outcast girl, the
dope fiend, the convict, the jailbird, and the
tramp.” No wonder Richard Dorson’s America in
Legend declared sixty years later that the nation’s
heroes were preachers, frontiersmen, boatmen,
mill hands, bowery toughs, peddlers, cowboys,
loggers, miners, oil drillers, railroaders, acid
heads, and draft dodgers. The steady, family-
oriented farmer, the backbone of the community,
seems to have sparked few songs or stories. The
farmer apparently embodied the dull background
against which others loomed large.

Despite name-calling and neglect, farmers
have always made profound symbolic statements
about their life and work — often in deceptively
simple ways. One late May afternoon in 1978, I
was driving through Portage County in central
Wisconsin. The corn was just poking through the
soil as T encountered a farmer with a hand
planter working in the corner of a field. His me-
chanical planter’s turning radius had prevented
him from filling out the corn row — and he
wanted symmetry.

Farmers take pride in the true furrow, the
straight row, the verdant crop-signs of their skill,
their industry, their dedication to the land. In
contrast to other heroes in American folklore,
their triumph has been one of community and
harmony, not individualism and conquest. My old
Barron County, Wisconsin, neighbor, George
Russell, once told me about

_ a city girl named Foy. She was a
lawyer's daughter and [my sister] Ann
worked for them. Ann took the girl home
to the farm country one time, and we
were out riding in the buggy. It was the
late summertime and we were going

FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND 47

through the fields. And Ann said, “Nice

country, isn’t it?” She said, “Yes, but you

can't see over the corn

Ms. Foy missed the point. The corn was the
country

The Russells not only took pride in their
crops, but they considered their ample farm a
showplace.” The driveway and house were bor-
dered with a stately pine windbreak. Flowers
brightened the yard. The barns and outbuildings
were painted vivid yellow and adorned with
murals of livestock. Woodlot, pastures and fields
were well-maintained and bountiful. The entire
farmstead exemplified a balance between nature
and culture, It presented the very image that
aerial photographers capture nowadays and
farmers frame on their fireplace mantles: a God’s-
eye view of the farm at harvest time

This blissful image of the farm — drawn from
life and emblematic of a way of life — has been
replicated countless times, either entirely or in
part, by countless farmers using assorted media
Some give their farms lyrical names and install
portraits of fattened Herefords and full-uddered
Holsteins on signs along the road. Some tell sto-
ries, write reminiscences Or Compose poems cele-
brating life. Others paint pictures of shared har-
vest chores, build models of equipment, sculpt
lomestic animals and fellow farmers, or stitch
SLOTY quilts

Seasons turn and times change. The harvest —

when it comes, if it comes — is too short

#6 FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND

A cow sign by farmer/artist
Ewald Klein adorns an out-
building on the Kallenbach
place in Barron County,
Wisconsin

Photo by James P. Lear

Drought, deluge, disease,
insects, frost, fires threaten.
Accidents occur. Always
there are bills to pay, and
income is never certain.
More give up farming ev-
ery year

I was visiting Max
Trzebiatowski that corn-
field afternoon in Portage
County. Born on a farm in
1902, he had farmed all his
life, raised 11 children with
his wife, Rose, and done
well. He had also had
brushes with death from a
fall in a silo, a runaway team, a falling timber, an
angry bull. But his most miserable experience
was a brief stretch in the Great Depression when
he sought cash to pay the mortgage by working
in a Milwaukee brewery

He told me a story about a young man who
was forced to leave the farm

One time there was a family. They had a
lot of boys. They didn’t need them all. So
in the spring of the year dad says, “Boys,
some of youse’ll have to go out and find
yourselves a job. There isn’t enough work
for all of us.” So one morning one of the
boys took off. And he went looking for a
job. And he went to the neighbor, if the
neighbor needed a man for the summer?
“No, no, we don’t need a man for the
summer.” He'd go to the next place. It was
the same way. “We don't need.” He tried
maybe a dozen places. And — no work
Then he — by that time he was just about

in the village

[Like the heroes of “old country” magic tales, the
youngest son sets out to seek his fortune. But
there is no beggar or helpful animal to give him
aid, and there are no workers needed on the
farms. Max took his tale to town.]

So he went into the drug store to see if
the druggist would hire him. Druggist was
hard up for help; he needed a helper. But
what did a farm boy know about a drug

store? Nothing. He didn’t know what this
is called, what this sells for. He didn’t
know nothing. But the druggist thought:
Vil keep him here for a little while and see
what he would make.

He had him there for two weeks and
the boy was getting pretty good. He knew
what this was being called, and what that
sells for. And he thought he’d hire him.
He asked the boy, “How much would you
have to have if I hired you?”

Well, the boy hesitated. He thought if
he was going to say too much, he
wouldn't be hired. If he’s going to say too
little, he'll lose out. Oh he didn’t say any-
thing.

And the druggist says: “Well, how
about a dollar an hour?”

And the boy hesitated for a while, and
he says, “No, give me fifty cents.”

Then that stunned the druggist. “Why, I
wanted to give you a dollar, you just want
fifty cents,” he says, “Why?”

“Well,” the boy says, “just in case you
wouldn’t pay me, I wouldn't lose so
much.”

The farmboy’s response, foolish by urban stan-
dards, nonetheless reflects such rural virtues as
economic conservatism and mistrust of commer-
cial middlemen. While in-town wages may be
fixed by contract, farmers’ pay depends upon the
nature of the harvest and a fluctuating market. He
who borrows against expected revenue, who
counts proverbial chickens before they hatch,
may easily “lose out.”

Family farmers as a whole have been losing
out and leaving steadily throughout this century,
a process revealed in recent jokes like the follow-

ing:

What can a bird do that a farmer can’t? —
Make a deposit on a tractor.
and

Did you hear about the farmer who was
arrested for child abuse? —
He willed the farm to his son.

Coping with an altered rural community and
an unstable economy also affects the expressive
culture of those who continue. Modern farmers
monitor the chemical composition of their soil,
breed and feed their livestock in a way that maxi-
mizes production, and follow market trends on
home computers. More than a few prefer terms
like “milk producer” or “livestock manager” to
“farmer.” Some even speak of farms as “food

Max Trzebiatowski
breaks out a social
bottle of brandy
while his wife, Rose,
readies a lunch
Portage County,
Wisconsin. Photo

by James P. Leary

factories.” But as yet this is not the prevailing
rhetoric of family farmers. To be sure, they are
astute businessmen and women; yet they are part
of a long tradition that is more a way of life than
a way to make a living, and that has more to do
with beasts and land than with products and
cash, How future farmers will deal with the tug
between agribusiness and agriculture may de-
pend upon their image of just what a farm is.
We'd better watch those bumper stickers.

Jim Leary ts Staff Folklorist at the Wisconsin Folk
Vuseum in Mount Horeb, and Faculty Associate at
University of Wisconsin, Madison. He grew up ina
dairy farming community tr northern Wisconsin and
holds his Ph.D. in folklore from Indiana University’

Citations and Further Readings

Allen, Harold. 1958. Pejorative Terms for Midwestern

Farmers. American Speech 33:20-205

Fite, Gilbert C. 1966. The Farmer's Frontier. New York:
Holt, Rinehart, Winston

Ice, Joyce. 1990. Farm Work and Fair Play. Delhi,
New York: Delaware County Historical Society.

Kammerude, Lavern and Chester Garthwaite. 1990.
Threshing Days: The Farm Paintings of Lavern
Kammerude. Mount Horeb, Wisconsin; Wisconsin
Folk Museum

Leary, James P. 1991. Midwestern Folk Humor: Jokes on
Farming, Logging, Religion, and Traditional Ways
Little Rock, Arkansas: August House

Mitchell, Roger. 1984. From Fathers to Sons: A Wiscon-
sin Family Farm. (Special issue of Midwestern Jour-
nal of Language and Folklore.) Terre Haute: Indi-
ana State University

FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND 49

Threshing Reunions
and Threshing Talk:

Recollection and
Reflection in the Midwest

During summer and early fall in every mid-
western state, public festivities celebrate agricul-
tural technology and farm life from the first half
of the 20th century. Variously called “farm ma-
chinery exhibits,” “threshermen reunions,” “steam
and gas shows,” “antique engine displays,” and
“old settlers’ reunions,” these typically weekend
events are never quite identical, but almost all
blend themes of community, historic farm tech-
nology, education, and celebration.

Threshing reunions (and celebrations with
different names that center around threshing
technologies) are perhaps the most alluring and
popular of the gatherings. The oldest reunions
started in the late 1940s and early 1950s as small
informal meetings of rural male residents who
liked to collect and tinker with “old” machinery.
Most of these men were farmers or retired farm-
ers, and their “old” machinery included the gen-
erations of threshing separators, steam engines,
and tractors largely abandoned for pull-type com-
bines and improved all-purpose tractors by 1950.
People who had used the devices as part of their
everyday operation now found themselves to
possess “historical” artifacts and information
about work processes increasingly unfamiliar to
the owners’ children and grandchildren.

small local gatherings with periodic demon-
strations have now grown into multi-activity
events lasting up to five days and attracting thou-
sands of visitors. Their complex planning and
organizing have become formally attached to
threshermen associations, engine clubs, Lions
Clubs and other fraternal organizations, Cham-
bers of Commerce, and County Fair Boards. Ex-
pansion and popularity, however, have generally
not diluted original goals. A typical statement of
the primary intentions of show organizers is the
“Creed of the Midwest Old Settlers and Threshers
Association,” adopted soon after their initial show
in 1950:

50 FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND

J. Sanford Rikoon

Knowing from experience that each gen-
eration enjoys a clean, wholesome gather-
ing of an educational and historic nature
such as ours, the Association hopes to
always keep gathering like this, where we
can meet and harvest the golden memo-
ries of yesteryear and pause in our daily
tasks each year to visit and relax, always
with a thought in so doing, to improve the
future harvests of good fellowship and
good citizenship.

In contrast to most museum displays or an-
tique shows, threshermen reunions stress work-
ing exhibitions. Visitors can often witness horse-
sweeps, steam engines, and internal combustion
engines powering grain separators of 1880-1940
vintage. Threshing typically occupies a place at
the center of the grounds or in front of the
grandstands. In addition, and depending on the
number and interests of exhibitors, there may be
demonstrations of hay baling, sawmilling and
veneer-making, silo filling, corn shelling, and
meal and grain grinding. As one Ohio show ad-
vertises, “The Steam Show offers the entire family
an opportunity to see history in action. Hundreds
of steam and gas engines, antique tractors and
equipment in use, just as they were operated
during ‘the golden age of steam.”

The celebratory and educational functions of
these events is further emphasized in the marked
absence of midways and carnival rides. “We pro-
vide a Festival Atmosphere, Not a Carnival” ad-
vertises the Miami Valley Steam Threshers Asso-
ciation in London, Ohio. As individual threshing
reunions grow in popularity and size, organizers
typically add activities they believe appropriate to
a family-oriented event. Music performances tend
to be popular country-and-western acts or old-
time fiddle contests. Food is served by local or-
ganizations, and camping is generally offered on

the grounds. Some activities are not especially
associated with agricultural tasks, but fit within
the overall historic theme; these include antique
shows, arts and craft displays, pioneer buildings
and skills, horse and antique tractor pulls, steam
railroads, calliopes, and hay and pony rides.

Expression of regional values and beliefs is an
important part of these celebrations. Many shows
include an invocation by a local religious leader,
flag raising ceremonies with the singing of the
national anthem, local beauty, baby, and other
competitions, a parade through town, Sunday
morning church services, and other activities that
reflect what a central Illinois organizer calls “the
homespun and wholesome values of the Heart-
land.” While the Midwest is, and has likely al-
ways been, a region of often competing and con-
flicting voices, the threshing reunion is in many
ways a public performance of a grassroots and
dominant Heartland middle-class ethos.

One thread of this ethos is the public presen-
tation of a regional and national patriotism per-
haps made more siginificant in recent years by
patterns of agricultural globalization and indus-
trial concentration and a belief, shared by many
midwesterners, that the rest of the country has
lost touch with basic values and sentiments. The
threshing reunion incorporates a great deal of
red, white, and blue, both explicitly in public
ceremony and implicitly in patterns of techno-
logical display and performance. Machinery on
display carries names of now-disappeared, but
once well-known regional midwestern implement
manufacturers (e.g., Aultman-Taylor of Ohio and
Gaar-Scott of Indiana) or of the present-day
giants of American farm industries (e.g., Case and
John Deere).

The heart of threshing reunions are, of course,
the machines gathered together for public dis-
play, admiration and demonstration. And the
keepers of the heart are the former threshermen,
farmers, and machinery buffs who collect, restore
and maintain the machinery. A highlight of most
events is the machinery parade, often held each
day around noon, but sometimes occurring two
or three time a day. The cavalcades provide
viewers with a procession of the tractors, steam
engines, wagons and other implements of agri-
culture during the first half of the 20th century
Simultaneous commentary by announcers point
out the year, model, and manufacturer of each
machine as well as the name and hometown of
the individual owners and restorers

The centerpieces of threshing reunions are the
steam engines that dominated midwestern thresh-
ing between 1885 and 1925. The romance of

42nd REUNION
Aug. 29 - Sept. 2, 1991

—_>—_

* Over 100 Operating Steam Engines * Over 300 Anti-
que Tractors * Over 800 Gas Engines * Electric Trolleys
* Steam Trains * Antique Cars & Trucks * Large
Working Craft Show * Antiques For Sale * Museum
Exhibits * Camping * Food and Much, Much, More!

INTERNATIONAL J.1. CASE HERITAGE
FOUNDATION ANNUAL MEETING

= ————

MIDWEST
OLD
THRESHERS

Route 1,
Threshers Rd.
Mt. Pleasant, lowa
52641

(319) 385-8937

steam is compounded by the machines’ status as
the first major manifestation of America’s indus-
trial revolution to appear in many farming re-
gions. Further, the threshermen who purchased,
used and maintained these devices were role
models for adults and children during the transi-
tion of farming from horse-power to horsepower
Threshing reunions thus expose a technological
core of midwestern rural society through celebra-
tion of mechanical power, inventiveness and
knowledge

Displays of threshing machines and the en-
gines used to run them represent more than a
history of agricultural technology and mechanical
inventiveness. For the midwesterners who used
these devices, grain separators Conjure memories
of an annual rural social and economic institution
— the threshing ring. Most rural neighborhoods
developed cooperative groups called “rings” so
that families could help one another with the
labor and equipment needed to complete each
member's threshing. This cooperation was neces-
sary because machinery used to thresh before the
adoption of pull-type combines was costly and

FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND 51

This crew is ready to thresh on the P.C. Frok farm in central lowa, 1900, Photo courtesy State Historical Society of lowa

was employed for only one to three days a year
on most farms. Steam threshing equipment was
hard to repair compared with other implements
of the time, and it needed large crews of ten to
twenty persons to bring the crop to the machine
and handle the threshed grain and straw. The
work generally took place in July and August,
and a ring’s “run” lasted between two and four
weeks

There were many variations in the way fami-
lies formed and operated a ring. Some groups
cooperatively purchased a set of machinery, but
most contracted the services of an itinerant
thresherman, who provided the equipment and
the crew to run it and was paid by the bushel
Groups also differed in how they divided the
work, figured each family’s labor contribution,
and equalized differences in acreage and labor
contributions among farmer-members. The social
life of cooperative labor was rich and usually
included a dinner (at noon) provided by the host
farmer's family and a post-harvest event, like a
picnic or ice cream social, to mark a completed
season

\t threshing reunions, one ever present,
though not highly visible, activity is what might
be called “threshing talk” by older rural residents
who participated in the last phases of threshing
rings. People may talk threshing when they meet
to admire engines and separators and watch

working demonstrations, when they eat together

52 FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND

as families away from the heat and noise of the
machinery, and in other informal contexts. The
dialogue is certainly not always on threshing
itself, although one usually hears all sorts of sto-
ries about threshing meals, job experiences, local
threshermen, good and bad crops, practical jokes
carried out by ring members, and accidents. A
group of men and women with shared experi-
ence often exchange narratives (and often the
same ones) year after year, and at reunions one
can usually find a few people with reputations as
threshing raconteurs

Outsiders may view threshing talk as reminisc-
ing. Such exchanges do provide older residents
an oral history forum, a means of repainting
some of the signposts that mark life experience.
To families retired from active farming, threshing
discussions may recall younger years, better
health, and greater energy and activity. Today’s
discussions of threshing rings often become in-
ventories of rural neighborhoods, as former
neighbors try to recall the members of their rings
and catch up on the news of area families. In this
sense, the cooperative nature of threshing rings is
a perfect vehicle for shared discussion of people,
places and experiences. The flow of conversation
is typically not chronological or bound by agri-
cultural tasks or seasons; it is rather the associa-
tions of people and places — all perhaps bound
together by shared participation in an occupa-
tional task — that provide the turns and cues for

A farmer harvests soybeans using a modern combine in southwest lowd. Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture

continued discussion.

Threshing talk also frequently educates
younger generations of rural residents, many of
whom do not farm, about farming systems no
longer practiced except among some Amish and
Mennonite groups. Reunion visitors may see ma-
chinery and exhibitions, but the technology is,
after all, inanimate and demonstrations are re-
creative in selective fashion. Embedded in thresh-
ing talk are descriptions of farm tasks, activities
and cultural landscapes, as well as verbal expres-
sions, which often seem foreign to the current
farming generation. Oral and visual history les-
sons of neighborhood processes, machinery and
occupational techniques provide the “rest of the
story” for equipment displays through specific
recollections of local and regional uses of tech-
nologies. They remind listeners of individual
values, social goals, and a degree of local control
in mechanically complex occupational contexts.

Threshing talk, however, is not simply didac-
tic, for through them participants also engage in a
debate over change and the impact of current
agricultural structures on cherished cultural and
social norms. Many farm residents do identify

their occupation as “a way of life” or “expression
of life.”. They recognize that the social life associ-
ated with a community's way of farming ex-
presses and develops dominant rural norms. And,
importantly, those men and women who have
lived through the stepped-up phases of mechani-
cal — and then chemical and now biogenetic —
revolutions often feel a sense of decline in the
quality of rural life. Quality in this sense is not
solely measured by crop yields or numbers of
conveniences or quantities of household goods,
but rather is tied to the perpetuation of subjective
social values and traditional cultural practices.
Perceptions of a declining quality of life thus
often portray a sense of loss or abandonment of
cultural and social norms.

This perception is a complex idea that should
not be confused with nostalgia or selective mem-
ory. The result of giving up important cultural
traditions can be felt like the loss of a relative or
friend; both may include emotions of denial,
anger, or remorse. Years after their last bundles
passed through grain separators, threshing ring
members accept the past and the necessary cul-
tural compromises they made to participate in

=>
FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND 99

technological change. People who talk threshing
do not associate the “good old days” of the

threshing ring with easy work or high profits. Nor

do former participants advocate returning to
horse farming or to the technologies exhibited at
these reunions. The modern, pull-type combine
resolved many farm needs, and most farmers
(and threshermen) welcome its speed and effi-
ciency.

The change from threshing ring member to
combine owner becomes more significant in the
wider context of changes in rural life, from tech-
nological developments to school and church
consolidations and the decline in the farm popu-
lation. For many older midwesterners, the thresh-
ing ring is a reminder of a time when shared
participation and local tradition were guideposts
of social activity and expectations. In contrast,
they perceive today’s rural society as fragmented
and impersonal, in part because technological
evolutions have distanced families from the land,
the lifestyle, and each other. Threshing attains
special symbolic status in conceiving this duality,
and contemporary discourse about cooperative
work becomes a form of social criticism.

According to the many midwesterners’ world
view, the present rural crisis is older than the
past decade. Events of the 1980s, however, dem-
onstrated that the disruption of long-standing
occupational patterns continues to have profound
social and cultural impacts. Many midwesterners
now feel that occupational “progress” is not syn-
onymous with social progress. And a sustainable
agriculture may not in itself stem the disintegra-
tion of many small midwestern communities. It is
not simply that “neighbors don’t get together like
they used to,” noted Dan Jones of Oak Hill,
Ohio, but that “people don't have any idea any-
more about traditions in their own places, they've
lost so much.”

To talk threshing, then, is to point to a per-
ceived historical time and regional place when
the work itself included opportunities to maintain
desired cultural and social norms. Threshing, and
the wider discussions of the period that naturally

54 FAMILY FARMING IN THE HEARTLAND

stem from the subject, declare that the agricul-
tural “way of life” has at times supported people’s
basic social needs and desired cultural goals.
Threshing ring participation satisfied the labor
needs of a complex technology, but in a way
that also fulfilled shared perceptions and values
grounded in local traditions and expectations.
Older rural residents who congregate at threshing
reunions and talk threshing tend to view current
agricultural structures and transformations in rural
life as being directed by outside influences, cor-
porate manipulations, and decisions made with
little sensitivity to or understanding of traditional
rural patterns. In contrast, threshing experiences
suggest things familiar, comfortable and shared.

J. Sanford Rikoon is Research Assistant Professor of
Rural Sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia
In addition to Threshing in the Midwest, 1820-1940
(1988), he is coeditor of \daho Folklife (7985) and
Interpreting Local Culture and History (1997)

Further Readings

Hurt, R. Douglas. 1982. American Farm Tools from
Hand-Power to Steam-Power. Manhattan, Kansas:
Sunflower University Press.

Isern, Thomas D. 1990. Bull Threshers & Bindlestiffs:

Harvesting and Threshing on the North American
Plains. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press

Jennings, Dana Close. 1979. Old Threshers at Thirty:

30th Anniversary Picture History of the Midwest Old
Settlers and Threshers Association, 1950-1979.
Mount Pleasant, lowa: Midwest Old Settlers and

Threshers Association.

Rikoon, J. Sanford. 1988. Threshing in the Midwest,
1820-1940: A Study of Traditional Culture and
Technological Change. Bloomington: Indiana Uni-
versity Press

Wik, Reynold M. 1953. Steam Power on the American
Farm, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press

1991 Seventeenth Annual Steam and Gas Show Direc-
tory. Lancaster: Stemgas Publishing Company.

FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA

Forest, Field and Sea:
Cultural Diversity in the
Indonesian Archipelago

Richard Kennedy

On the Indonesian national emblem the 14th
century Hindu-Javanese phrase, Bhinneka
Tunggal Ika, “Unity in Diversity,” appears on a
banner clutched in the talons of an eagle. The
phrase honors these sometimes contradictory
national goals, which seek to unify a complex
nation and at the same time to respect the
enormous cultural diversity of its 300 distinct
ethnic groups living on more than 1,000 islands
distributed across 3,000 miles of ocean. Indonesia
is the fifth most populous country in the world
with a population of over 180 million.

Unity is an old concept in Indonesia and the
motto, “Unity in Diversity,” was taken from texts
written under much earlier rulers. In the 9th cen-
tury and later in the 14th, royal kingdoms se-
cured varying degrees of political control over
many of the western islands. And even before
this dominion was achieved, established commer-
cial routes linked the peoples of Borneo and the
Moluccas with Java, China and India.

Today, examples of successful programs of
national unification are evident throughout the
archipelago. A vast majority of the people now
speak Bahasa Indonesia, the lingua franca of the
nation, and schools, newspapers and TV are
found in even the most remote corners of the
country. As a result, however, some of the di-
verse cultural traditions of Indonesia have a frag-
ile existence.

Modern mass communication and extensive air
travel have greatly increased the islands’ internal
unity and external participation in international
trade, information exchange and politics. In fact,
the classic Indonesian description of their coun-
try, tanab air kita, “our land and sea,” perhaps

Forest, Field and Sea: Folklife in Indonesia is part of the

Festival of Indonesia 1990-1991 and has been made
possible with the support of Yayasan Nusantara Jaya,
Garuda Indonesia Airlines and American

President Lines

now should be reformulated. This phrase, used
to underscore the major role that water and the
seas have played in traditional Indonesian life,
has lost some of its authority in the face of the
overwhelming influence of air waves, airplanes
and air mail. However, if the skies have helped
to unite the country, its distinctive lands and
waters still encourage its diversity.

Examples of cultural adaptations by people
from three Indonesian provinces to vastly differ-
ent environments can provide an introduction to
Indonesia’s great diversity — Kenyah and Mo-
dang people living in the lowland and upland
forests of East Kalimantan, Bugis and Makassa-
rese maritime people living in coastal South Su-
lawesi, and rural Javanese and Madurese agricul-
turalists living in coastal and inland East Java.
These communities also display some of the in-
digenous skills and traditional knowledge that
have developed in environments outside the
urban centers and fertile river valleys of the Indo-
nesian heartland.

Forest: Upriver People of East Kalimantan

Indonesia has one of the largest areas of tropi-
cal rainforest in the world. From Sumatra to Kali-
mantan to Irian Jaya the dense, biologically di-
verse environment of the rainforest contains one
of the most varied populations of flora species in
the world. In one small five-acre area in Kaliman-
tan, the Indonesian area of Borneo, for example,
250 species of lowland trees have recently been
identified. People who live in the Indonesian
rainforests have a complex, systematic under-
standing of this rich environment.

The human population of Indonesia’s rain-
forests represents some of the archipelago’s earli-
est inhabitants. Descendants of the earliest Aus-
tronesian peoples who arrived from the Asian
mainland tens of thousands of years ago still live
in the upland forests of Sumatra, Kalimantan and
Sulawesi. Many of these people moved inland

FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA 55

Field: Terraced fields such as these are found throughout Sumatra, Java and Balt. Elaborate irrigation
systems were introduced into Java over 1,000 years ago enabling the island to support large

Hermine Dreyfuss

populations, Photo by

Forest: (above) Dayak farmers clear and burn plots in the
forest to plant swidden fields for dry (unirrigated) rice
cultivation. Farmers plant these fields for several seasons and
then move to a nearby ple t. The swidden fields are usually
left fallou for several years until they are fertile en oh to be

planted again. Photo by Cynthia Mackie

Sea: (right) This Mandar fisherman works on a rampong

form off the coast of South Sulawesi. Fishermen sail to
[Pese I at rns 11 the evening and sleep there to Start work
the next morning. This platform floats in 6,O¢ IO foot Waters

Photo by Charle emer

DO FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA

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VIETNAM f PHitippines

PAG LEG

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MALAYSIA Jeas
KALIMANTAN

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KALIMANTAN ) suULAWEST
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SULAWESI

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LEN DTAIN OC EAN

after the subsequent migrations of other Aus-
tronesian people from China and Southeast Asia,
Hindus from the Indian subcontinent and Muslim
traders from the Middle East. These relative new-
comers settled in the coastal regions of the is-
lands and established extensive trade networks.
They maintained commercial contact with other
Indonesian islands, India and China for over
1,500 years. The earlier settlers retreated inland to
the forests where they continued many of their
beliefs and social practices well into the 20th
century. Resisting both Hindu and Muslim con-
version, many were later converted to Christianity
by missionaries.

Kalimantan has the largest population of de-
scendants of these early Indonesian settlers. This
island and especially its upland peoples have
been a target of adventurous fantasy in the West-
ern world in the 19th and 20th centuries. Often
characterized as isolated, remote and even fore-
boding, Kalimantan is, in fact, a complex society
of settled traders and farmers, with remnants of a
royal courtly life as well as numerous semi-no-
madic tribes.

Dayaks, the inland people of Kalimantan, have
been relatively isolated from most of the major
currents of regional history and the societies of
coastal peoples. Furthermore, as semi-nomads
the Dayak tribes have for centuries remained
separated from each other by language and local

AUSTRALIA

tradition. In fact, the term “Dayak” is used, some-
times pejoratively, by coastal people to refer to
all upriver people and has limited currency. Ref-
erence to individual ethnic groups such as Ken-
yah, Modang and Iban is more appropriate, but
Dayak is the only common term for the groups as
a whole.

Most aspects of Dayak social life are closely
associated with the forest. Previously, these up-
river people were primarily hunters and swidden
agriculturalists (preparing fields by clearing and
burning) who established only temporary vil-
lages. This nomadic lifestyle is changing rapidly.
A vast majority of Dayak people are now settled
farmers, and some have migrated to cities for
work with logging and oil interests that have
boomed in the past decade. However, even to-
day, when more and more communities have
established permanent homes in villages, their
culture remains rooted in the forest environment.

Many Dayaks maintain a sharply honed
knowledge of the fragile forest environment.
Although they are dwindling in number, some
remember nomadic life and carry with them a
sophisticated knowledge of the flora and fauna in
the vast tracts of uninhabited forest land through
which they used to travel and hunt. The forest
provided them with edible and medicinal plants
as well as potent poisons for their arrows.

Even within settled communities Dayaks re-

FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA 57

Schooners from throughout
Indonesia line up at Sunda
Kelapa, the port for Jakarta
Some of these ships, especially
the mighty pinissi, are still
being built by South Sulawesi
boatbuilders for trade
throughout the archipelago
Photo by Owen Franken

main minimally dependent on outside resources
Rice, pigs and chickens are raised locally; and
timber for individual dwellings or longhouses,
rattan and other fibers for weaving, bamboo for
containers and — in the recent past — bark for
cloth and feathers for decoration have usually
been available near the village

The Dayak economy, however, has always
required some contact with coastal and maritime
people. Mainstays of the inland tribal culture
such as salt, pottery containers and decorative
beads were traded with Muslim and Chinese
merchants for rattan, birds’ nests and medicinal
supplies. These commercial contacts have wid-
ened in the past decades, and national education
and medical systems have reduced some of the

isolation

Field: Rural Tradition in East Java

Religion comes from the sea, adat (custom)
comes from the hills

The coastal regions (pasisir) of the major Indo-
nesian islands have historically been the meeting
ground for indigenous and migrant peoples. Here
traders and conquerors from China, India, Europe
and Arab lands arrived and established local cen-
ters of activity and power. Some of these immi-
grants brought sophisticated methods of irrigation
and elaborate systems of dams and water catch-
ments with which they annually produced two
and three crops of rice in the rich volcanic earth
of Sumatra, Java and Bali. These yields provided

resources to support an increasing populatic Nn

55 I, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA

and a succession of powerful empires.

In the LOth century the eastern part of Java
was settled by Hindus. One center of state power
in Java remained in the eastern part of the island
for the next 500 years, but it moved to central

Java during the rise of Islam in the 15th century

and continued there under the subsequent colo-
nial rule of the Dutch. Since 1500, East Java —
especially outside the northern port cities — has
been less influenced by outside forces and the
rise Of the Islamic states to the west such as
Surakarta, Jogyakarta and Cirebon. East Java is
deep Java,” or quintessential Java, inheritor of
some of the island’s oldest traditions

Not all of the land on Java has benefitted from
the elaborate irrigation systems built over the past
1,000 years in the fertile river valleys of the is-
land. On much of the land, subsistence crops
have provided litthe surplus income for farmers.
On these lands outside the fertile river valleys,
life has been less affected by the social, eco-
nomic and cultural changes brought by empire,
commercial trade and outside cultural values. In
these marginal lands local custom is strong, even
though Islam is the faith of 90% of all Indone-
sians. Pre-Islamic traditions, Hindu and pre-
Hindu, remain powerful

Many older traditions can still be found in
communities throughout East Java and rural
Madura, For example, women in the village of
Kerek still weave their own cloth, which they dye
with natural colors. Worn as sarongs, these every-
day cloths are sturdy enough for work in the
fields. And across the strait in Sumanep on

Lumber provides income for workers in some upriver villages as well as in sawmills in larger cities of East Kalimantan
But the rapid rate of deforestation of the land is altering the fragile ecology of the region and destroying hundreds o,
f ae ) S STAs & § Ing )
plant species that have potential benefit to mankind. Photo by Owen Franken

Madura Island, Indian epic tales are still per-
formed by the local topeng (mask) dance troupes.
Kerek batik artists experiment with new dyes and
storytellers in Sumanep include tales of contem-
porary life in their repertoire, yet at the same
time, both retain traditions that embody local
values and tastes.

Sea: Coastal People of South Sulawesi
The sea unites and the land divides.

Maritime people from China, Southeast Asia
and India settled Indonesia in waves. Many
brought navigational skills and knowledge, with
which they maintained commercial and social
relationships with mainland Asia. Their skills not
only tied island with island and the archipelago
with the mainland but also enabled further explo-
ration of Melanesia and Polynesia. Navigators
who sailed from Indonesia settled most of the
islands in the Pacific more than 3,000 years ago.

The navigators and boatbuilders of South Su-
lawesi still maintain some of these skills. Bugis,
Makassarese and Mandar peoples of the Province
of South Sulawesi continue to draw their income
from the sea as fishermen, navigators and mer-

chants. For nearly 300 years Bugis and Makassa-
rese controlled much of the trade in Sulawesi and
established commercial and even political power
in ports throughout the archipelago and on the
mainland of Southeast Asia. During most of the
Dutch colonial presence in the country, the Bugis
ruled a vast commercial and political empire from
their capital at Bone, and the profits of this mari-
time trade supported an elaborate court life. At
one time, the royal rulers of the East Kalimantan
kingdom of Kutei were merchant Bugis. In fact,
coastal (pasisir) peoples throughout the archipel-
ago often have closer social ties with one another
than they have with neighboring lowland farmers
or upland tribal groups.

The tie between Kalimantan and Sulawesi
continues into the 20th century as Sulawesi mer-
chants and sailors maintain the trade in lumber,
spices and grains. Twentieth century technology,
however, has radically changed the boats which
ply the sea routes between Indonesian islands
Motors have now supplanted sails, while com-
passes and electronic monitoring have replaced
navigation by seasonal winds, wave patterns and
stars. Nevertheless, the mighty 200-ton pinissi
sailing ship or the delicate sandeq outrigger can

FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA 59

stll occasionally be seen in harbors throughout
the archipelago, and the courtly dances of the
royal cities of Gowa and Bone are still performed
in a few villages of South Sulawesi. Like a Ken-
yah farmer's intimate knowledge of East
Kalimantan’s rainforest or the tales of valor told
by a Javanese storyteller, the Bugis’ deep under-
standing of Indonesian seas is an important link
to the country’s past and may provide critical
cultural knowledge for its future identity.

Encouraging the diverse cultural traditions of
peoples of the forests, fields and seas of Indone-
sia is an important component of Indonesian
national unity. This diversity is a source of
strength and stability.

Richard Kennedy is curator of the Indonesia Program
at the 1991 Festival of American Folklife. He received
his Ph.D. in South and Southeast Asia Studies at the
University of California, Berkeley, and is presently
Chairperson of South Asia Area Studies at the Foreign
Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State

Further Readings

Allan, Jeremy and Kal Muller. 1988. East Kalimantan
Singapore: Times Editions

Ave, Joop and Judi Achjadi, eds. 1988. The Crafts of
Indonesia. Singapore: Times Editions

Copeland, Marks and Mintari Soeharjo. 1981. The Indo-
nesian Kitchen. New York: Atheneum.

Dalton, Bill. 1988. Indonesia Handbook. Chico, Califor-
nia: Moon Publication

Elliot, Inger McCabe. 1984. Batik: Fabled Cloth of Java
New York: Crown

Kayam, Umar. 1985 The Soul of Indonesia: A Cultural
Journey. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press

OO FOREST, FIELD AND SEA FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA

Lindsay, Jennifer. 1986. Javanese Gamelan: Traditional
Orchestra of Indonesia, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Peacock, James. 1908. Rites of Modernization: Symbols
and Social Aspects of Indonesian Proletarian
Drama. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ricklefs, M. C. 1981. A History of Modern Indonesia.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Sutton, R. Anderson. 1991. Traditions of Gamelan
Music in Java: Musical Pluralism and Regional
Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Volkman, Toby Alice and Ian Caldwell. 1990. Sulawesi:
Island Crossroads of Indonesia. Lincolnwood, IIli-
nois: Passport.

Waterson, Roxana. 1990. The Living House: An Anthro-
pology of Architecture in Southeast Asia. Singapore:
Oxford

Suggested Listening

Bali: Gamelan and Kecak. Explorer Nonesuch 9
79204-2

Indonesian Popular Music: Kroncong, Dangdut, and
Langegam Jawa. Smithsonian, Folkways SF40056,

Javanese Court Gamelan. Explorer Nonesuch H72044.

Music for Sale: Street Musicians of Yogyakarta. Hibiscus
TGHLG-91:

Music from the Outskirts of Jakarta: Gambang Kro-
mong. Smithsonian’ Folkways Recordings SF40057.

Music of Bali: Gamelan Senar Pegulingan from the
Village of Ketewei. Lyrichord 7408

Music of Indonesia, Vol. 1 & 2. Smithsonian/Folkways
SF4537

Music of Sulawesi: Celebes Indonesia. Smithsonian/
Folkways SF4351

Street Music of Central Java. Lyrichord 7310
Street Music of Java. Wiwi Pacific Records 1986,

Songs Before Dawn: Gandrung Banyuwangi. Smith-
sonian/ Folkways SF40055

Longhouses of

East Kalimantan
Timothy C. Jessup

Longhouses are large dwellings built by the
Kenyah, Bahau, Modang, Lun Dayeh, and other
peoples of the interior highlands of East Kaliman-
tan and surrounding areas in central Borneo.
Building a longhouse requires great expenditures
of labor and materials as well as considerable
skill in wood-working and engineering. Formerly
found widely throughout East Kalimantan, long-
houses are now built only in a few remote parts
of the province; and only in the isolated Apo
Kayan plateau are they still the predominant form
of dwelling. (Longhouses of a modern type de-
scribed below are still common in the Malaysian
state of Sarawak in northwestern Borneo. )

A longhouse (Kenyah wmag)' is actually a row
of contiguous family sections, each consisting of
an enclosed apartment on one side of the house
and an open veranda on the other. Both are cov-
ered by one roof, with a dividing wall between
apartment and veranda under a ridge-pole. Ex-
tending outward from the front and rear of some
sections are uncovered platforms used for drying
rice, and some apartments have enclosed exten-
sions at the rear to provide more interior space.
Inside are sleeping compartments and places for
cooking and eating, for storing household goods,
and for various intimate social activities.

The veranda sections joined end-to-end create
a continuous gallery along the whole length of
the house. The veranda is a place for all manner
of work and play and for meetings, rituals, and
storytelling. It is also sometimes a sleeping place
for visitors and bachelors and always for the
ubiquitous hunting dogs.

House sections are owned by the households
or families living in them, although traditionally a

' The terminology used in this article is in the Kenyah lan-
guage unless indicated otherwise; most longhouse dwellers in
East Kalimantan today are Kenyah. A terminal “q” indicates a
glottal stop, rather like a “k” in the back of the throat. The
Kayan word for house is wma, without a glottal stop

local aristocrat or chief occupying the central
section has certain rights that resemble “owner-
ship” of the house as a whole. Houses are there-
fore sometimes referred to as “the house of so-
and-so,” the aristocrat. For example, Umaq Pelen-

jau means “Grandfather Lenjau’s House” (/enjau

—‘tiger,” an aristocratic symbol and name). The
central apartment of the aristocratic family is
larger than its neighbors, and its roof is higher.
Its exterior may be decorated with murals,
wooden statuary, or roof ornaments.

Each house is also given the name of a nearby
geographical feature, such as Umaq Mudung,
“Hill House,” or Umaq Laran, “House of the
Laran Tree” (Dipterocarpus oblongifolius). Many
communities occupy, or at one time occupied, a
single longhouse, and perhaps for this reason the
word wmag (or uma) can refer not only to a par-
ticular house but also to an ethnic community.
This association with ethnic identity points to the
material and symbolic importance of longhouses
in the lives of central Borneo people.

Longhouses in the 19th century ranged up to
about 400 meters (1,300 feet) in length, with as
many as 120 apartments housing some 500 to 600
inhabitants. The width of a house was 8 to 18
meters (25 to 60 feet), and the height of the floor,
raised above the ground on great hardwood
piles, was generally 1 to 6 meters (3 to 20 feet).
Some houses were raised even higher — as
much as 12 meters (40 feet) — for defensive pur-
poses, while others were built on fortified hill-
tops. The roof rose another 8 meters (25 feet) or
so above the floor and was supported on a mas-
sive frame of columns and beams. The hewn
planks of the floor were up to 12 meters (40 feet)
long and a meter wide.

Longhouses today are smaller than they were
in the last century. Communities themselves are
smaller, in large part because many have emi-
grated to the lowlands where economic opportu-
nities are greater, and because large populations

FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA 61

The most distinctive feature of a traditional Dayak village is the longhouse, This communal longhouse in the north-

central highlands of Kalimantan accommodates more than a dozen families. Each family lives in an individual
apartment (lamin) with a kitchen extension off the back of the building
Photo by Mady Villard, courtesy of Bernard Sellato

are no longer required for defensive purposes.
Similarly, massive fortified houses are no longer
needed, as they once were, to protect against
marauding enemies. Changes in religion and
social organization, which formerly bound
people more closely to “house-owning” aristo-
crats, have also contributed to a reduction in the

size of houses.

House Construction

Houses are periodically built or rebuilt, usually

when a village group migrates. During the 19th
century, many Kayan and Kenyah communities
moved as often as once a decade, although some
remained in one spot for much longer. Since the
1930s, with the cessation of tribal warfare and
increased government control over population
movements, migration has become less frequent,
and so houses are rebuilt less often.

Pioneer migrants moving to previously unin-
habited areas, sometimes far from their former
villages, must build completely new houses.
However, when houses are rebuilt on their ear-
lier sites, or close to them, or on the sites of pre-
vious longhouses, some parts of the old houses

can often be used again. If necessary, the old

O2 > FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA

parts can be transported overland or by river.
Even heavy beams and columns can be lashed to
canoes and floated downriver to be erected again
at a new site

Each family is responsible for preparing its
own section of a longhouse, and all must contrib-
ute to the chief's central section. These prepara-
tions include selecting the various kinds of timber
and other materials needed, felling and dressing
the timber, and transporting the finished pieces
to the house site. All this can take several years,
as the work is done intermittently between agri-
cultural seasons and may be delayed by various
distractions, misfortunes, or bad omens.

The major structural elements of a longhouse
are the roof-columns, beams and floorboards. For
its various components, builders select different
species of timber trees, palms (such as the moun-
tain sago palms, Eugeissona species, whose
leaves are sometimes used as roofing material),
and rattan (used to fasten the other parts). Bor-
neo ironwood (E£usideroxylon zwageril) is prized
where durability is important, as in shingles and
piles, while lighter wood with a clear, straight
grain (such as that of Shorea species and other
dipterocarps or the coniferous Podocarpus and

The covered veranda of this Iban longhouse shows the gallery where daily activities and periodic ceremonies take place
2 § § : u
Women weave and prepare food while children play nearby, Individual family apartments open onto
this communal space. Photo from Dorothy Pelzer Collection, courtesy

National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

Agathis species) is preferred for making floor-
boards. Tropical oaks (Lithocarpus and Quercus
species) are used to make shingles wherever
ironwood is not available, as in the Apo Kayan.
Altogether a great many species are used for
building materials. A large amount of timber is
required to build and maintain a house, and prin-
cipally for this reason, villages are located wher-
ever possible near stands of old-growth forest.
Residents protect these forest reserves from over-
exploitation or agricultural clearing.

Once all the parts of the house have been
prepared and assembled at the building site, the
actual erection of the structure is remarkably
swift. The columns and beams are raised into
position by teams of men, then fastened with
mortised joints and rattan lashings or, in some
newer houses, with nails. After the framework of
the house is in place, each family, working on its
own section, lays down the floorboards and fas-
tens the lighter wallboards and shingles in place.

Until fairly recently, when saws began to be
used, the wooden parts of a longhouse were
worked entirely with a few simple tools, particu-
larly axes and adzes. Kayan and Kenyah smiths
forged these tools from locally obtained ores until

around the turn of the century, when trade steel
came into wide use. Axes and adzes are still used
in house construction, but other tools such as
planes, handsaws, and even power saws have

been added.

Architectural Variation

Longhouses differ in construction technique,
materials and architectural style. Sometimes these
differences can be attributed to the ethnic identity
of their builders, but more often they occur as a
consequence of local conditions, such as vari-
ations in terrain, the abundance or scarcity of
different kinds of building materials and (in the
past) vulnerability to or security from attack

In 1900 for example, the Dutch explorer, A.
W. Nieuwenhuis, observed differences between
longhouses on the upper Mahakam River and
those in the Apo Kayan. Apo Kayan houses were
built much closer to the ground: their remote
location and their inhabitants’ reputation as fierce
warriors made them relatively safe from attack.
Other architectural differences reflected the
availability of building materials. Here is
Nieuwenhuis’ description of the Kenyah village
of Tanah Putih in the Apo Kayan:

FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA 63

All ten longhouses in the village were built
in the usual Bahau [or Kayan] style, . . .
but they stood on posts only one to two
meters high and were made from different
materials. The reason was that the dense
population had exhausted the high forest
in the surrounding area, and the quantity
of timber necessary for the construction of
such a large village could be obtained
only from a great distance. Most of the
people therefore had recourse to bamboo
for constructing floors, and to large tree-
leaves arranged in the form of mats for
making walls and roofs. Only the houses
of the heads [i.e., aristocrats] were built
completely of wood. (Nieuwenhuis 1904-
07, v. 2:308-309; my translation, assisted
by Berthold Seibert)

Similar variations in the availability and use of
materials can still be seen among the various
Kenyah communities in the Apo Kayan.

A major innovation in longhouse construction
appeared in Sarawak in the 1970s and spread to
East Kalimantan in the 1980s. The new building
technique uses relatively light-weight, sawn
wooden members in place of heavy, hand-hewn
timbers. (It is thus similar to the transition from
framing with heavy timber to the use of the light
“balloon frame” in the United States during the
19th century). This change was made possible by
the introduction of power saws, which let build-
ers cut wood into smaller, more easily trans-
ported pieces in far less time than was spent
preparing timber by hand. The new houses also
incorporate other modifications in design such as
increased ventilation and semi-detached kitchens
(to protect against the spread of fire). These
changes were initially made at the behest of gov-
ernment officials but have since gained popular-
ity
Conclusion

A Dayak longhouse shelters a whole commu-
nity within a single structure. They are built with

O4 FOREST, FIELD AND SEA. FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA

locally available materials by skilled craftsmen,
who adapt form and construction techniques to
the Kalimantan environment and to changing
historical conditions. This adaptability can be
seen in the architectural variety of houses, past
and present, and in the structural innovations of
recent years.

Nevertheless, it is sad (especially to one of
Romantic temperament) to see the disappearance
of the last old houses, with their massive hand-
hewn timbers, their quaintly crooked lines, and
their dark and homely smoke-filled interiors.
Even more distressing is the complete abandon-
ment of longhouses that has occurred, often
through force of social pressures, in many parts
of Kalimantan. In this light, the continuing inno-
vation in longhouse construction should be wel-
comed as a way of combining economic devel-
opment (which the people universally want) with
cultural continuity and the spirit of community.

Timothy ©. Jessup ts a Ph.D. candidate in the Human
Ecology Program at Rutgers University. He is presently
working for World Wide Fund for Naturedndonesia on
long-term research and policy planning in East
Kalimantan

Citations and Further Readings

Hose, C., and W. McDougall. 1912. The Pagan Tribes of
Borneo (2 vols.). London: Macmillan

Jessup, T. C. 1990, House-building, Mobility, and
Architectural Variation in Central Borneo. Paper
presented at the First Extraordinary Session of the
Borneo Research Council in Kuching, Sarawak, 4-9
August. To be published in the Borneo Research
Bulletin

,and A. P. Vayda. 1988. Dayaks and
Forests of Interior Borneo. Expedition (special issue
on Borneo) 3001):5-17

Kelbling, S. 1983. Longhouse at the Baluy River. Sara-
wak Museum Journal 32:133-158.

Nieuwenhuis, A. W. 1904-07. Quer durch Borneo (2
vols.), Leiden: Brill

Environmental Knowledge
and Biological Diversity

in East Kalimantan

Herwasono Soedjito

Longhouses, the characteristic dwelling of
many Dayak groups, require a great many plant
species for building materials. To sustain their
supply of materials, Dayaks have always pro-
tected their forests. Today we recognize the need
for more forest cover for the earth, which may
die without it. Indeed, the need for forests and,
more importantly, for biological diversity is now
becoming obvious. This diversity is important for
people as well as nature. In the past, when Day-
aks could still practice their traditional way of
life, they helped maintain biological diversity.

Dayaks live interdependently and harmoni-
ously with tropical rainforests. But we, who arro-
gantly call ourselves modern people from devel-
oping or already developed countries, have little
regard for or appreciation of these traditional
people. We harvest tropical wood only for our
own economic benefit and thereby push the
Dayaks to abandon their culture. They often can-
not practice their culture because of moderniza-
tion and because there is no forest left.

Fortunately, on this rare occasion organized by
the Smithsonian Institution and Festival of Indo-
nesia 1990-1991 Committee, we will be able to
communicate directly with some of the Dayaks
from East Kalimantan. From this communication,
there is a chance for mutual understanding and a
hope for mutual appreciation. Dayaks will pre-
sent aspects of their valuable culture that still
have relevance and importance for contemporary
life. In this short essay I will use ethnobotany —
the study of native peoples’ systematic knowl-
edge of the plant world — to illustrate how
building longhouses, producing food, curing the
sick, and making the tools of everyday life em-
body Dayak skills for exploiting and conserving
the resources of their environment. There is con-
siderable variation in architectural styles and

building skills, as Tim Jessup discusses elsewhere
in this collection; but Dayaks’ skill and knowl-
edge of selecting building materials from natural
resources is uniformly exceptional.

Botany of Longhouses

As noted, a great many plant species are used
for building a longhouse. For example, in the
construction of one longhouse in the Apo Kayan
plateau of East Kalimantan, 48 different plant
species have been identified. These building
materials — plants of varying ages, wild and
cultivated, from recently tilled and fallow fields
— are collected from the surrounding environ-
ment, a living mosaic composed of rainforest,
fields and village. To make various parts of a
house, villagers select species of plants ranging
from herbs, vines, rattan, palms and shrubs to big
inees:

Strong hardwood, prized for its durability, is
used for making piles and shingles. The best
wood for these purposes is Borneo ironwood
(Eusideroxylon zwagerii), which is locally called
ulin. Sixteen species of large trees have been
identified that are used for the piles alone.' And
some tree species are used for making shingles
alone.? Not all parts of a tree can be made into
shingles, only those with straight fibers that allow
the wood to be split in thin sections. Not all long-
house roofs are made of shingles. Some villages
use leaves of the trees Eugeissona utilis and

‘Among these are Aglaia ganggo, Dipterocarpus
kunstlerri, Dipterocarpus spp., Elaeocarpus spp., Eugenia spp..
Hopea dryobalanoides, Ochanostachys amentacea, Ochrosia
spp., Podocarpus nertifolius, Shorea spp., Tristania
whitianum, and Vatica cupularis

* Among these are Castanopsis spp., Ficus concosiata,
Lansium domesticum, Lithocarpus spp., Quercus argentata,
and Shores spp

FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA 05

Kenyah women pound bark to extract dye for

decorating woven baskets. Photo by Cynthia Mackie

Phacelopbrynium maximum for their roofs

Lighter wood with a clear and straight grain is
preferred for making floorboards.’ A good floor
also should be properly resonant, for it is usually
used as a musical instrument played to accom-
pany dances, especially the datan julut dance. In
their performances, dancers stamp on the floor
creating loud and beautiful sounds. A longhouse
floor capable of producing the most beautiful
sounds is usually preferred for important ceremo-
nies. The same tree species used for the floors is
also used for making planks that separate long-
house apartments, or Jamin

The beams of the middle /amin that belongs
to the “owner” of the house are usually longer
and thicker than others. But the tree species is no
different. The main criteria for selecting beams
are straightness and length.* Rafters are made of
tmbers from the same species used for beams,
but the most preferred is Eugenia polyantha

Roof laths, which support the shingles, are

Among these are Agathis borneensis, Cinnamomum sp

hocarpus spp., Persea rimosa, Podocarpus imbricatus

arpus neritfolius, Polyosma intergrifolia, Schima

ealichu, and Shorea spp
he species used for beams include Dysoxylim
vandrum, Elaeocarpus glaber, Elteriospermum tapos

na sp., Ochanostachys amantacea, Ochrosia sp., Persea

sa, and Scorodocarpus borneensts

OO FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA

made of the long, straight but small stems (ap-
proximately 4 cm in diameter) of a variety of
species. There is apparently no preference as to
the species used. Villagers usually collect the
sapling stage of main canopy species (the tallest
rainforest trees) or understory species (less tall).
What they look for is straightness and durability.
Rattan rather than nails is used to fasten parts
of the building together. A large number of rattan
strips are used to fasten shingles to the roof laths.
There are dozens of rattan species used to lash
joints.” Do you know that rattan is in the same
family with the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera),
and that a single stem of one kind of rattan (Ca-
lamus caesius) can reach more than 100 meters
long? People should learn more about the rich

diversity of species in tropical rainforests.

Food Plants

The Dayak farmers carefully maintain a diver-
sity of species in their fields as well as in their
gardens close to home. Traditional tropical agric-
ulturalists diversify their production to make their
food supply as secure as possible. In one village
of Long Sungai Barang, for example, farmers use
at least 150 species of food plants, including 67
wild species. In their home gardens alone, there
were 91 species that belong to 70 genera and 38
families. All of the specimens have been identi-
fied, recorded and preserved in the Herbarium
Bogoriense, in the city of Bogor, West Java. Sur-
prisingly, for one species of rice (Oriza sativa)
alone, villagers have more than 25 local varieties,
which are specialized for certain soil conditions
such as wet soil, flat land, dry soil in slopes,
black soil, etc

Genetic diversity is very important for future
agricultural development. Many breeders stress
that we need more gene pools available because
continuous cropping of rice can lead to serious
problems like pest epidemics. This problem in
food supply may come soon because, as Har-
grove, et al. (1988) found, a large number of
improved rice varieties carry similar cytoplasm. If
we are not careful to preserve the germplasm
resources that are still in the hands of traditional
farmers, we may not be able to rebuild high yield
crops, should disease or other forms of pestilence
strike

The Dayak environment might have wild spe-
cies of crops that will be important in the future.
For example, the shoot of the Diplazium esculen-
tum fern (of the family Polypodiacede) is now

Some of them are Calamus spp., Ceratorobus concolor and

Karthalsia echinometra

harvested from a wild habitat
but in the future may produce
a vegetable as valuable as as-
paragus. And Setaria palmifo-
lia, a species of grass
(Poaceae), yields a bigger
edible shoot in formerly culti-
vated fields than in wild habi-
tats. Its evolution might be
unintentionally affected by
human agriculture. As Jackson
(1980) notes, the ancestors of
our current crops may well
have been “camp followers,”
colonizers of the disturbed
ground around human habita-
tion. Varieties of habitat and
successive forest stages — not
just jungles or primary forests
— yield valuable species for
agriculture as well as for
medicine and crafts. This
shows the importance of cul-
tural practices of Dayaks and
other forest dwellers to the
evolution and maintenance of
biological diversity

Medicinal Plants

Traditional medicine de-
rived from plants still plays an |
important role in curing dis- L
eases and wounds. In Long E :
Sungai Barang village, 37 spe- =
cies, 33 genera and 206 families
of plants that have medicinal
value have been recorded.”
These species grow in a vari-
ety of habitats: in the home
garden, in the fields, in very
young secondary forests in
primary forests and on riverbanks. At present,
many institutes and universities are hunting me-
dicinal plants in tropical forests throughout the
world that might contain a curing material for
cancer and AIDS.

Plants for Crafts

Almost all utensils and handicrafts used by
Dayaks are made from material available in the
area. There have been at least 96 species identi-
fied that belong to 74 genera and 40 families.

®’ Species that were considered especially powerful were
Callicarpa longifolia f. subglabrata, Cassia alata, Fagraea
racemosa, Kadsura scandens and Lindera polyantha

These Aobeng women who live several days upriver from the coastal city of
Samarinda, East Kalimantan, are reviving the art of weaving local fibers of
pineapple and orchid, Abandoned after World War II this weaving tradition

was revived in the early 1980s to produce materials for sale to
outside markets. Photo by Bernard Sellato

This is a very great biological diversity. They use
almost all the parts of the plants: stems, leaves,
bark, sap, fruit, branches, twigs and seeds. These
species are also found in an array of habitats —
home gardens, fields, secondary and primary
forests. Habitat diversity is very important in sus-
taining a supply of materials for the Dayaks’
handicrafts, some of which attain high artistic
value.

Biosphere Reserve

To conclude this short article, it is obvious that
the biological and ecological diversity in Dayak
villages, especially in the Apo Kayan, is very
high. This area embraces a great many species

FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA 67

useful for food, medicines, crafts, building con-
struction and aesthetic uses. It is impossible to
separate this useful diversity from the fact that
Apo Kayan farmers practice shifting cultivation,
carefully exploit the mountainous forest environ-
ment, and have cultures that enable them to live
harmoniously with nature. Accordingly, it is es-
sential to save this area from destructive eco-
nomic development. This does not mean that
local people should live unchanged or that farm-
ers should be prevented from improving the
quality of their lives. The welfare of indigenous
peoples, their role in the environment, and natu-
ral conservation are combined in a new approach
to conservation known as the “biosphere re-
serve.”

The biosphere reserve concept is more realis-
tic than earlier approaches that exclude humans,
since it includes local populations as key con-
tributors to and beneficiaries of the environ-
mental process (Tangley 1988). Jackson (1980),
for example, states that the most efficient storage
of genetic variations is in the living plants, while
seed storage in a laboratory is expensive and has
difficult requirements. Therefore, many more
species sanctuaries must be established through-
out the world (Hill 1983). Indeed, it is time to
recognize traditional farmers’ active role in ge-
netic resource conservation (Altieri, et al. 1987).
Furthermore, when not disturbed by economic or
political forces, farmers’ modes of production
generally preserve rather than destroy natural
resources,

Finally, the most appropriate way to develop
the Apo Kayan might be through the establish-
ment of a biosphere reserve to conserve ex-
amples of the world’s characteristic ecosystems,
“landscapes for learning” about both natural and
locally managed ecosystems. The Apo Kayan
already achieves one of the goals of a biosphere

OS FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA

reserve, which is to provide models for sustain-
able resource use. The Kayan needs the legiti-
mate status of biosphere reserve in order to pro-
tect the area from destructive powers before the
beauty and value of its ecological diversity are
gone.

Herwasono Soedjito is senior ecologist at Herbarium
Bogoriense, The Center for Research and Development
in Biology, Indonesian Institute of Sciences. He received
his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Human Ecology and Forest
Ecology from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New

Jersey

Citations and Further Readings

Altieri, M. A., M. K. Anderson and L. C. Merrick. 1987.
Peasant Agriculture and the Conservation of Crop
and Wild Plant Resources. Conservation Biology
1(1):49-58.

Ave, J. B. and V. T. King. 1980. The People of the Weep-
ing Forest: Tradition and Change in Borneo. Leiden:
National Museum of Ethnology.

Hargrove, T. R., V. L. Cabanilla and W. Coffman. 1988.
Twenty Years of Rice Breeding. BioScience
38(10):675-68 1.

Hill, L. D. 1983. Seeds of Hope. The Ecologist
13(5):175-178

Jackson, W. 1980. New Roots for Agriculture. San Fran-

cisco: Friends of the Earth.

Kartawinata, K., H. Soedjito, T. Jessup, A. P. Vayda,
and C. J. P. Colfer. 1984. The Impact of Develop-
ment on Interactions Between People and Forests in
East Kalimantan: A Comparison of Two Areas of
Kenyah Dayak Settlement. 7he Environmentalist 4,
Supplement No. 7:87-95.

Tangley, L. 1988. A New Era for Biosphere Reserves.
BioScience 38(3):148-155.

Whitmore, T. C. 1984. Tropical Rain Forests of the Far
East 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Craft and Performance
in Rural East Java

Dede Oetomo

The rich earth of the volcanic islands of Java
and Madura has nurtured its people for millennia:
Sundanese in western Java, Javanese in central
and eastern Java, and Madurese on Madura Island
and the northeastern coastal areas of Java. Agri-
culture directly supports nearly three-quarters of
the more than 32 million inhabitants of East Java,
a province that consists of the eastern third of
Java, all of Madura and a few smaller islands. The
vast majority of these rural villagers are landless
farm workers or peasants with little land. They
mostly cultivate rice but also grow cash crops in-
cluding tobacco, cotton, sugarcane, nuts and
various fruits.

For the last 300 years, the peoples of East Java
have generally contrasted their way of life with
that of the Javanese of Central Java, whose socie-
ties have been dominated by the kingdoms of
Mataram. The influ-
ence of this imperial
past can be seen in
the distinctions Indo-
nesians frequently
draw between a
courtly, refined style
marked by politeness
and indirection (ha-
Jus) and a rural, earthy
style marked by quick
speech and frankness
(kasar). The people
living in and around the valleys of the great East
Java rivers, the Branta and the Solo, in the so-
called Mancanegari, or “outer realm,” of the
central kingdom, are said to be more like the
Central Javanese in their refined style of speech
and behavior. On the other hand, those living in
the arid limestone regions of the north coast, in
the capital city of Surabaya, on the island of
Madura, and in the eastern region of Java are said
to talk faster and more frankly.

The people of East Java have developed a
great variety of art forms. With no royal courts in

EAST JAVA

the Province after the fall of Mojopahit Dynasty
in the 16th century, the majority of the arts re-
mained those of the common people (wong
cilik). In the towns and cities, the elite (priyayi)
continue to be connoisseurs of the high arts of
the neighboring courts, such as shadow puppet
(wayang) plays and their derivatives. These
forms are also enjoyed by common people but
mostly by those living in what was the “outer
realm” of the Central Javanese courts.

Performers from four artistic traditions have
come from East Java to the Festival of American
Folklife this year. The traditions represented are:
peasant batik from Tuban on the north coast,
which uses hand-woven cotton; masked dance-
drama (topeng dhlang) of Madura, which is based
on stories from the Indian epics, Mahabharata
and Ramayana; gandrung social dance of
Banyuwangi; and
the music and dance
performance known
as reyog from the re-
gion of Ponorogo
on the western side
of the Province. To
illustrate the rela-
tionship between
rural life and art
forms, two of these,
the batik of Kerek
and reyog of Pono-
rogo, both symbols of the continuity of the
Province’s rural heritage, are examined below.

The Peasant Batik of Kerek

To the north of the limestone hills in north-
eastern Java lie dozens of arid and rather bleak
rural districts. Kerek, a subdistrict 30 km north-
west of the coastal town of Tuban, is typical of
the region except for the type of batik produced
in several local villages.

Approaching Kerek by way of the paved road
leading into the district, one notices homespun

FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA 69

At a weekly market, women in Tuban Regency of East Java inspect cot-

ton for batik. Although some of the women wear machine-made
sarongs they all use a selendang (shawl worn over the shoulder)

of local handmade batik material to carry their

purchases. Photo by Rens Heringa

batik sarongs worn by women working in the
fields or walking along the road carrying woven
bamboo baskets supported by an equally coarse
batik selendang (a shawl-like sling worn over
one shoulder). Perhaps nowhere else in Indone-
sia can one find this kind of batik, dyed on
homespun fabric with bold, brightly-colored free-
hand birds, flowers and other more abstract de-
signs. Batik crafted elsewhere in Java is worked
on fine, factory-produced cotton or even syn-
thetic material and tends to use more muted col-
Ors

Remarkably, some women of a single house-
hold, as in the past, still grow the cotton, spin it
into yarn, weave yarn into cloth, make dyes from
plants, and design and dye the cloth into batik
Natural dyes such as indigo for blue and soga,
another vegetable dye for brown, remain the

primary colors used in the process. They work

QO FO [, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA

on each piece collectively, in be-
tween planting, harvesting and other
tasks of subsistence farming, the
major source of livelihood in the
community. Today the batik is still
valued for being sturdy enough to
wear in the fields, and some prized
pieces are handed down as cher-
ished heirlooms.

In the past, a piece of batik was
never sold as a commodity; it was
worn by a woman of the household
in Which it was made. This has been
gradually changing over the past five
or six decades. Today people often
take new or used batiks to sell on
market days at the marketplace in
Kerek. Local people have become
aware of the value outsiders place
on the material.

Batik making has recently become
part of a rural development scheme.
For the past decade the Ministry of
Industries office in Tuban, pursuing
a policy of promoting local small-
scale industries within a framework
of economic development, has tried
to assist Women of Kerek in trans-
forming batik crafting into a truly
income-generating industry. Officials
in the Ministry would like the Tuban
region to become known for a
unique craft. The new uses created
for Kerek’s batik include tablecloths,
pillowcases, modern dresses, skirts,
vests, coats and even blazers.

One labor-saving idea that has
been introduced into Kerek’s batik industry is the
use of the commercial dye naphthol. Though
some traditionalists, both in Kerek and in the
outside world, still prefer natural dyes, which
they believe last much longer, most batik crafts-
women now prefer to buy batik dyes rather than
make natural dyes themselves. These new batik
dyes include non-traditional colors such as yel-
low, green and purple. The availability of these
dyes has changed the batik tradition of Kerek,
but even some younger women who enjoy ex-
perimenting with these new colors continue to
use the natural dyes side by side with commer-

cial colors

Reyog Ponorogo
The Regency of Ponorogo is located in the

Madiun river valley near the border of Central

Java. It has been known for hundreds of years for

Above: Young men from the village near Salatiga in
Central Java perform a hobby-horse dance with a lion
figure similar to the reyog tradition in East Java

Photo by Rachel Cooper

Right: The figure of the reyog passes through the town
of Ponorogo in East Java. The procession, which
includes musicians, acrobats and clowns, re-endcts a
battle between the tiger and the forces of a king

Photo by Sal Murgiyanto

its men (and women) of prowess, the warok. In
this region, some of which was part of the “outer
realm” of the kingdom of Mataram but was often
difficult to rule, warok have until very recently
been economically, politically and magically
powerful local personages surrounded by bands
of youths in a patron-client relationship. Warok
and their followers, warokan and gemblok, per-
form reyog — a public dance drama — as a dis-
play of their power.

In any group of reyog performers, the warok
and warokan can easily be identified as the
older, more mature and fierce looking men
dressed in black, loose-fitting three-quarter length
trousers and collarless shirts. They wear a belt of
twisted cotton yarn and coarse leather slippers. A
number of them play musical instruments associ-
ated with the reyog performance: shawm (s/om-
pret), metal kettles (kenong), suspended gongs
(kempul), small drum (tipung), very large drum

(kendhang Ponorogo) and several three-tube

bamboo angklung. One or two warok or
warokan carry the heavy tiger/lion mask and
headdress that is the centerpiece of the reyog
pageant and is decorated with hundreds of pea-
cock feathers. Other warok and warokan take
different roles in the play — clowns, nobles, etc.
The gemblak, junior members of the troupe

FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA 71

who enter into patron-client relationships with
particular warok and warokan, perform the
hobby-horse (jaran kepang or jathilan) dance.
They are dressed in a more refined way, in imita-
tion of the courtly dress of Central Javanese per-
formers in wayang or kethopak plays. In the past
these hobby-horse performers were often trance
dancers. Nowadays the dancers sometimes cross-
dress and — especially in the big cities outside
Ponorogo where reyog troupes have also formed
themselves — they may even be young girls who
are not gemblak. In these big-city troupes men
dress in the traditional black attire, but they do
not seem to practice the traditional warok/
warokan lifestyle, a change lamented by purists
in Ponorogo.

In his quest for power, a person becomes a
warok by following its traditional lifestyle, refrain-
ing from heterosexual relationships. In most
cases this is a man who has accumulated wealth
in agricultural land and livestock and feels ready
to become a patron of less wealthy members of
his village and surrounding communities. A few
cases of female warok have been recorded,
though these do not seem to exist today.

Warok arrange patron-client relationships with
youths, the gemblak of the troupe. The rights and
duties of this alliance, like those of a marriage,
include economic and sexual aspects. The warok
employs a matchmaker to reach an agreement
with the parents of a particular youth. Warok
provide the parents with cows, water buffaloes,
or the use of a plot of land. A warok’s power is
proportional to the number of gemblak he can
keep. When a youth comes of age, his warok-
patron must arrange and pay for his marriage. A
few gemblak do become warok, but this is rare.

In addition to independently wealthy warok,
there have also been bands of unmarried young
men who search for power, either in the service
of a warok or not. These men are the warokan
and normally share resources to keep a gemblak
communally.

A reyog troupe did not originally perform for
money or on a special occasion. Performances
were primarily spectacular displays of prowess to

72.) FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA

villagers. Performances nowadays, especially in
urban areas, are focused on the acrobatics of
lifting the heavy tiger/lion and peacock feather
headdress and on the antics of the clowns. Some
of these performances are done for a fee.

Reyog performances may last several hours
and are usually performed during the day. They
typically involve elaborate costumes, music and a
lengthy procession of dancers and actors. There
never seems to have been a set number of epi-
sodes in a reyog performance. Particular episodes
in the performance are drawn from the following
story. King Klanasewandana of Bantarangin trav-
eled to the town of Kedhiri to ask for the prin-
cess in marriage. He was accompanied by 144
knights under the command of Bujangganong. In
the jungle, the tiger Rajawana (the king of the
woods) tried to devour the horses. Bujangganong
fought the tiger but could not defeat him. The
king asked help from the hermit Kyai Gunaresa.
After the hermit rendered the tiger harmless, the
king gave a feast that was graced by gamelan
music and dancing, including a dance by a
woman named Wayang Jopre and the clown
Patrajaya. A contemporary performance of reyog
retells this story in the earthy style of rural East

Java and provides the viewer with a glance into a

world of heroes, supernatural powers and trance.

Dr. Dede Oetomo ts a4 lecturer at the School of Social
Sciences, Airlangea University, Surabaya, East Java

Further Readings

Geertz, Clifford. 1976. The Religion of Java. Chicago:
University of Chicago.

Heringa, Rens. 1989. Dye Process and Life Sequence:
The Coloring of Textiles in an East Javanese Village.
In To Speak with Cloth: Studies in Indonesian Tex-
tiles, ed. Mattiebelle Gittinger. Los Angeles: Museum
of Cultural History, U.C.L.A.

Kartomi, Margaret. 1976. Performance, Music, and
Meaning in reyog Ponorogo. Indonesia 22 (Octo-
ber):85-130.

Wolbers, Paul A. 1986. Gandrung and Angklung from
Banyuwangi: Remnants of a Past Shared with Bali.
Asian Music 18 (1):71-90.

Boatbuilding Myth and
Ritual in South Sulawesi

Mukhlis and Darmawan M. Rahman

For many centuries before European colonial
powers came to Indonesia, trade was carried on
throughout the archipelago. Makassarese and
Buginese islanders traveled by sea throughout
Southeast Asia and even to China. Only after the
Portuguese and Dutch arrived in the late 16th
century was the sea trade lost to European fleets,
which forced local cultures to submit to the mo-
nopoly of the Dutch East India Company. Local
boatbuilding traditions adapted to the arrival of
Europeans, and they have continued to evolve to
this day. For centuries now, particular ethnic
groups have been building boats of many sizes
and sailing them in inter-island and interconti-
nental trade.

C. C. Macknight (1979) writes that there are
four principal boatbuilding traditions in Indone-
sia. The first is found among coastal peoples
living in Sumatra and on the west and south
coasts of the Malay peninsula. A second
boatbuilding tradition is found in the port towns
and fishing villages of the north coast of Central
Java, in the port of Gresik in East Java and on the
island of Madura. The third and fourth traditions
are found in the eastern part of the Indonesian
archipelago: the South Sulawesi tradition and the
tradition of boatbuilding found in Moluccas, Aru
islands, and southern Philippines. In this article
we examine the South Sulawesi tradition of
boatbuilding.

South Sulawesi boatbuilding is still connected
in the minds of many people to the following
myth of origin called Sawerigading. It is told in
the Buginese legend of I Lagaligo that one day
Sawerigading, a prince of Luwu, a kingdom in
South Sulawesi, fell in love with a beautiful girl,
We Tenri Abeng. The two lovers were to be mar-
ried, but the young girl learned that she was
really Sawerigading’s twin sister. Seeking a way
out, We Tenri Abeng suggested that her twin
look for another girl who resembled her — We
Cudai, a princess of a neighboring kingdom to
the southwest.

We Tenri Abeng had given a very difficult task
to Sawerigading, because it would take a large
boat and a long time to sail to We Cudai’s king-
dom. We Tenri Abeng showed Sawerigading a
big tree called Walenrang growing in the forest.
A boat for the journey could be made from this
tree. Sawerigading resolved to follow his twin's
suggestion. But although he tried for days to cut
down the Walenrang tree he was not successful.
In despair Sawerigading went to his grandfather,
La Toge Langi Batara Guru, who lived in heaven.
He told him what had happened. After hearing
the story, La Toge Langi Batara Guru told Saweri-
gading to return to the world and to wait by the
sea.

La Toge Langi Batara Guru used his supernatu-
ral power to fell the Walenrang tree. It disap-
peared into the earth and reappeared suddenly
on the shore, in the form of a large boat. Saweri-
gading named his new boat “La Walenrang.”
Before sailing across the ocean to find his bride,
he swore an oath that after he married We Cudai,
he would never return to Luwu.

Soon after Sawerigading arrived at his destina-
tion, he found his princess, We Cudai, married
her and settled in her kingdom.

One day he felt homesick, so he gathered his
wife and followers together and sailed his boat
back across the sea to his home kingdom of
Luwu, thus breaking the oath he had sworn.
Before he could arrive, a fierce storm smashed
his boat “La Walenrang” to pieces. All its passen-
gers were drowned. The waves beached the keel
of his boat on one of the islands to the south, the
mast in a different coastal village, the shattered
pieces of deck nearby, and the hull on a shore in
the same region.

The people who lived nearby collected all the
sea-strewn pieces of the boat. Thus it was that
from the wreck of Sawerigading’s boat “La
Walenrang,” the ancestors of the Buginese
people learned to build large boats, which they
have been building for generations ever since.

FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA 73

{bove: Sulawesi boathuilders are renown throughout
Indonesia. This boatbuilder near Majene, South
Sulawesi, works with simple tools. The dowels are
made of tronwood and the caulk of crushed coral and

oll. The large ship he ts building will carry cattle and

Passengers between Kalimantan (Borneo) and

SUulaWeSs! -hoto by Charles Zerner

eht: Sulawesi navigators have directed their boats

through the seas of Indonesia for centuries. Pua’ Haji
Samlaya, ad Mandar captain and navigator, sails to

fishing waters offshore from his home in Majene

South Sulawest. Photo by Charl ernet

ee.

This myth tells the origin of boatbuilding in
South Sulawesi. A typical prau (sailboat) from
this region has curving stem posts and a broad
hull. The mast is a tripod, easily lowered by re-
leasing the front legs so the other two legs can
pivot on pins that provide the main footing. The
sail is rectangular and slung at an angle.

The initial steps in building a boat are marked
by ceremonial and ritual activities. The tree used
for a boat must be of a specific type. When cut
down, it must topple in the direction decided by
a panrita (boatbuilding master). If the tree falls
otherwise, it should be abandoned. Before start-
ing to saw up the tree, people gather at the
boatyard for a ritual. On what will be the rear
section of the keel they put traditional Buginese
cakes including onde-onde (marble-shaped cake
with palm sugar filler), songkolo (sticky rice),
cucur (disc-shaped, wrinkle fried brown sugar
and sticky rice flour cake), baje (steamed sticky
rice with palm sugar) and bananas. The keel is
then sawn to length with a tool that has been
given supernatural power by the master crafts-
man. It must be cut through without stopping by
one man alone.

The night before the boat is launched, another
public ceremony takes place. People gather at
the boatyard throughout the evening. They are
served the traditional Buginese cakes. Everyone
who attends this ceremony also comes the fol-
lowing day to help the launch, which is led by a
punggawa (a traditional respected leader in
boatbuilding). The punggawa starts the work by
drilling into the middle of the keel for about one
centimeter. The dust from the drill is then given
to the owner of the boat, publically declaring his

identity, which was kept secret until this moment.
Then, the punggawa mounts the front deck and
gives the command to launch the boat. A song in
the local dialect is sung that encourages and
gives spirit to the people pushing the boat into
the water.

Myths and ritual in boatbuilding in South Su-
lawesi still exist in the knowledge and practice of
traditional experts, even though their traditional
ways face challenges from ever-increasing mod-
ern technology.

Darmawan M. Rahman is a professor and researcher at
the Teacher Training College (LK.1.P.) in Ujung
Pandang, South Sulawesi. He received his M.Sc. in
Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and
his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Hasanuddin University
in Ujung Pandang

Mukblis graduated from Gajah Mada University in
Yogyakarta in Central Java. He did advanced studies
in Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo,
Norway, and received his Ph.D. in Social Anthropology

from Hasanuddin University in Ujung Pandang

Citations and Further Readings

Abidin, Andi Zainal. 1974. The I La Galigo Epic Cycle
of South Celebes and its Diffusion. /idonesia
17:161-169.

Clad, James. 1981. Before the Wind: Southeast Asian
Sailing Traders. Asia 4:20-23, 43.

Horridge, Adrian. 1985. The Prabu: Traditional Sailing
Boat of Indonesia. Singapore; Oxford.

Macknight, C. C. 1979. The Study of Praus in the Indo-
nesian Archipelago. Canberra: Australian National
University.

FOREST, FIELD AND SEA: FOLKLIFE IN INDONESIA iS

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

Knowledge and Power:
Land in Native

American Cultures
Olivia Cadaval

The encounter between the peoples of eastern
and western hemispheres that began nearly 500
years ago has had a dramatic effect on the way
land and natural resources in the Americas are
thought about and used. Exploration and coloni-
zation led to land use practices foreign to those
developed by indigenous societies and compat-
ible with the existing ecosystem. Almost 500
years ago, newcomers failed to learn from those
who understood their home environment. The
European campaign of “discovery” and conquest
made this exchange impossible. Native popula-
tions of the Americas continue to pass on their
systematic knowledge about their environment,
but usually only within their own communities.
This year’s commemoration of the 500th anniver-
sary of the year before Columbus’ voyage has
been undertaken in the belief that it is possible
for our present society to learn and profit from
indigenous knowledge about the land of the
Americas. Conserving the earth in the present, as
in the past, is as much about indigenous knowl-
edge and society as it is about ecology and eco-
nomics.

Since 1492, Native American lands and ways
of life have been under siege. Native populations
were enslaved, exploited and nearly extermi-
nated, systematically driven off their lands, iso-
lated in ecologically marginal reservations and
largely disallowed social existence in the contem-
porary world except as subjects of ethnographic
studies. The colonial despoilment of lands and
resources, the cultural domination and distortion
of native societies, the extinction of entire popu-
lations and the conversion of people into second-

class citizens was a prelude to the current on-
slaught of modern economic expansionism.

Today, Native Americans continue to be ex-
ploited and their lands continue to be expropri-
ated while their cultural values and symbolic
universes are denigrated and denied.

At the core of most Native American cultures
are concepts of land, which shape all facets of
political, social, economic and symbolic life. To
Europeans, the 15th century conquest of the
Americas simply provided land to be exploited
for the enrichment of European royal states. In
contrast, Native American cultures have generally
perceived land as part of their cultural environ-
ment as well as the source of nourishment and
shelter. Land sustains Native American communi-
ties. At the 1990 Continental Conference, “500
Years of Indian Resistance,” held in Quito, Ecua-
dor, participants formally declared: “We do not
consider ourselves owners of the land. It is our
mother, not a piece of merchandise. It is an inte-
gral part of our life. It is our past, present and
future.”

The intruders’ strategies to control Native
Americans and their lands obscured the diversity
of indigenous cultures; they defined European
life as the only ethical model and classified all
Native Americans simply as “savages,” who had
no valid culture of their own and who needed to
be “civilized.” The newcomers’ lack of respect
for the land was matched by the lack of respect
they showed native cultures. Diversity was ex-
cluded, and Native Americans were categorically
called “Indians” ignoring the distinct cultures,
histories, languages and ecological circumstances

ind in Native American Cultures is co-sponsored by the

» Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American
rand bas been made possible by the Smithsonian, the Inter-American Foundation; the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia;

Ruth Mow bund, Sealaska Heritage Foundation; the Government of Chiapas, Mexico; Instituto Nacional Indigenista
Vexico and Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologia Social, and American Airlines of Quito,

kceuado

70 LAND INN ATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

that have shaped Native American
experience.

The first Europeans to come
here encountered a world popu-
lated by many ancient and com-
plex societies. The chronicler Ber-
nal Diaz del Castillo writes of
Tenochtitlan (the Aztec urban
complex that has become Mexico
City),

UNITED STATES
+ “OF AMERICA

When we saw all those cities
and villages built in the water,
and other great towns on dry
land, and that straight and
level causeway leading to

Mexico, we were astounded. + Tavehua MEXICO Cc thenelhoxs' Dae
These great towns and cues pe e0cho: aca ¢ Tenejapa oe NEOuvIA
and buildings rising from the OAXACA *San C ristébal, de PARAGUAY
water, all made of stone, San Mateo del Mar CHIAPAS queer cy
seemed like an enchanted URUGUAY
vision from the tale of Amadis. ARGENTINA
It was all so wonderful that I ECUADOR :
do not know how to describe CR
Be, : Bie aw 4Canelos Quichua
this first glimpse of things Puyo 11
never heard, seen or dreamed 2h Shae ‘
of before. (Diaz del Castillo BS PERU a
1963) = Rio Santiago Tagua de Titikaka
NN on ~
The Aztec city of Tenochtitlan a Comunidades,
had a population larger than any . "j de Jalq’a’
city in Europe at the time. CHILE }° peur
The conquest succeeded in ‘ anal

undermining political organization
but not in eradicating cultural plu-
ralism. Distinct, unique cultures continue to de-

fine the Native American landscape, in spite of tinent. So we have maize as a cultural

profound transformations caused by particular product. But maize is also diversity and

histories of colonization, imposed patterns of diversity means knowledge and experi-

settlement, missionary intrusions, and the more mentation. Diversity was the way to live

recent immigrations and forms of exploitation. near the natural environment and not to
Native horticulture has depended upon crop fight with it... . Warman 1991)

variety and genetic diversity for maintaining suc- ra :

hi aot pipers oe mae Contemporary Native Americans do not claim
cessful food production in different environ- 7
ments. At the base of both Native American cul-

ture and horticulture is the concept of living in

to have retained without change the cultures that
existed prior to the European conquest. Much

: : : ; has perished, much has been destroyed and all
harmony with the diversity of the natural world. :

The Mexican anthropologist Arturo Warman uses
the analogy of corn, which is native to the Ameri-
cas. “Maize is our kin,” he writes. Like Native
American culture, he continues,

has changed. In many cases, native Communities
have been able to absorb and restructure foreign
elements to respond to new situations. The Ma-

yan anthropologist, Jacinto Arias explains, “In our
stories we tell ourselves our way of being did not

maize was not a natural miracle; maize die; nor will it ever die, because we have special
was a human creation made possible virtues that compel us to defend ourselves from
through human intervention. Maize was any threat of destruction.” These moral virtues
the collective invention of millions of combined with thousands of years’ knowledge of
people over several millennia on this con- the land, cultural pride and struggle for self-deter-

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

Textile traditions combine creativity and ¢ OntNUMY

Weavers are inspired by dreams, legends, memories and other

textiles. Today in many communities, textile revivals have brought about a growing sense of cultural pride and Self-

worth. A group of Tzotzil Maya weavers from San Andres Larrainzar study the patterns and brocading

technique used in a ceremonial huipil, or tunic. Photo by Ricardo Martinez

mination have forged cultures of resistance
Oriented both by the Smithsonian’s overall
concern for the conservation of cultures and by
global attention focused on the meaning of the
Quincentenary, this program will be an opportu-
nity to hear the voices of members of Native
American societies that have persevered for 500
years and have maintained an ancient care for
the earth and the continuity of their own cultures
This program samples the cultural and ecologi-
cal diversity of Native American societies. The
groups selected have for centuries continuously
inhabited the regions presented. It is worthy of
note that the continuity of their land tenure has
depended in a large part on the marginality of
the land they inhabit. The Amazonian rainforest,
called by the Shuar “the lungs of the world,” are
almost impenetrable and until recently were ig-
nored by the outside world. The Andean high-
lands are harsh and inhospitable, as is the arid
desert of the Hopi in Arizona. The steep and
eroded Mexican mountains of Chiapas and
Oaxaca are a challenge even to native agricultu-

ralists. The sandy dune country of the [koods is

78 \ND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

blighted alternately by drought or flood. Al-
though rich in resources, the coastal rainforest of
southeastern Alaska is almost inaccessible from
the interior because of mountains. Communica-
tion even between communities is difficult due to
the impenetrable rainforest and has been limited
to boats and more recently airplanes, weather
permitting

The program will present Native American
knowledge about land as it informs sacred and
secular practices, which are often inseparably
intertwined. The natural and spiritual relation-
ships between humans and land are central to
the world order of many Native Americans. As
Chief Robbie Dick of the Cree Indians in Great
Whale, Quebec, succinctly states, “It’s very hard
to explain to white people what we mean by
‘Land is part of our life.’ We're like rocks and
trees.” In Hopi tradition, physical and cultural
survival derive from the unity of land and corn.
Emory Sekaquaptewa explains how the “Hopi
language and culture are intimately intertwined,
binding corn, people and the land together.”
(Sekaquaptewa 1986)

The program is about land, ecosystems and
cultural knowledge that have sustained Native
American cultures before Columbus and in the
present. Each culture represented has a vision of
the cosmos and the world as a system of dy-
namic and interconnected processes. Research for
the program examined how domestic, economic
and ceremonial processes are connected through
material and expressive culture to form a social
fabric of productivity and meaning. Agricultural
and ritual cycles often coincide in Native Ameri-
can cultures and echo seasonal rhythms of the
land.

Participants of the Quincentenary program
come from 15 cultural groups in six different eco-
logical areas, including northern and tropical
rainforests, Andean highlands, Arizona desert,
and Sierra Madre mountains and coastal dunes of
the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico.

The Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian participants
come from the Southeast Alaskan rainforest. They
represent distinct but related cultures that form
part of a broader cultural region extending from
Alaska to Washington State commonly known as
the Northwest Coast. The Canelos Quichua,
Shuar and Achuar participants come from the
rainforest region of eastern Ecuador, which forms
part of the northwestern region of the Amazon
river basin. Canelos Quichua have settlements in
this area among the foothills of the Andes, while
Shuar live in the region’s swampy lowlands,
which extend beyond the Ecuadorian borders
into Peru. The Achuar are the Shuar’s neighbors
to the east. The Lacand6n participant comes from
the rapidly disappearing rainforest region of east-
ern Chiapas in Mexico. Although different in
history, social organization and cultural patterns,
these northern and tropical rainforest societies
often parallel one another in their management
of resources and understanding of the land.

The Andes mountains rise above much of
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. They form
high plateaus where the climate is cool even at
the equator, which passes through the highlands
of Ecuador and Colombia. This region has alti-
tudes ranging from 6,600 to 14,600 feet and an
impressive diversity of terrains, microclimates and
distinct cultural groups that live here.

Andean participants in our Festival come from
three different cultural and ecological areas. The
Aymara-speaking participants come from commu-
nities in the high pampas of Tiwanaku, which
slope gradually into Lake Titikaka in Bolivia.
Members of these communities are currently
engaged in the Wila-Jawira Project to recover the
ancient raised-field or suka kollus, farming tech-

Subsistence for the Lacandon in the Chiapas rainforest depends
on a diversity of crops and the rotation of garden plots, sup-
plemented by resources from forest and river. Vicente Kin
Paniagua helps clear the growth on an abandoned

plot to prepare a new milpa, or garden
Photo by Ricardo Martinez

nology of the pre-Inca Tiwanaku society. The

Jalq’a participants, who are also from Bolivia but

speak Quechua, live in communities in a remote,
rugged mountainous area south of Tiwanaku.

Jalq’a cultural identity emerged among groups

relocated by the Inca empire to be frontier out-
posts; links with their original communities were
later completely severed by Spanish settlers. The
third group of participants are Quechua-speaking
Taquilenos, who live on the island of Taquile in
the Peruvian part of Lake Titikaka.

Hopi participants come from the high, arid
desert of Arizona. Here the land has been eroded
into buttes and mesas cut by deep canyons. Riv-
ers flow only during snow melt or after a rain-
storm, and streams flow underground. As in the
Andean highlands, people can live in this dry
region only with sophisticated agricultural tech-
niques.

Participants from the multiethnic highlands of
Chiapas in Mexico come from the Tzotzil-speak-
ing community of San Pedro Chenalho and the
Tzeltal-speaking community of Tenejapa. Com-
munities in this Mayan cultural region renown for
its textiles distinguished themselves from one
another by characteristic styles of dress. Weaving
and natural dyeing traditions in the area are cur-
rently being revitalized by state and private self-
help projects.

Like Chiapas, the state of Oaxaca in Mexico is
also multiethnic. Zapotec participants come from
the farming communities of Zoogocho and
Tenejapa in the northeastern mountainous region
of the state. They differ in culture and dialect

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 79

from the Zapotec communities to the west and
south. Ikood participants come from the fishing
community of San Mateo del Mar in the dunes on
the Pacific coast of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
Although remaining culturally and linguistically
distinct from nearby societies, they have long en-
gaged in commercial trade with the dominant
Zapotecs, who inhabit the surrounding area, and
in bartering relationships with the Chontal, who
live just north of them along the coast.

Participants will demonstrate subsistence ac-
tivities and craft skills, present parts of ritual per-
formances and narrate oral histories. These cul-
tural elements have been passed from generation
to generation and speak eloquently of the con-
nections Native Americans have constructed be-
tween land and society. Discussion sessions will
focus on some of the major issues which con-
front Native American cultures today. These in-
clude: natural resource management, traditional
technology, maintenance and destruction of eco-
logical equilibrium and questions of monocultiva-
tion, property titles, national parks, transnational
corporations, military zones, economic develop-
ment models, agrarian reform laws, foreign debt,
political repression, self determination, cultural
identity, intrusion of religious sects, fragmenta-
tion of lands and human rights.

Olivia Cadaval ts Director of the Office of Folklife
Programs’ Quincentenary Program and curator of the
Festival's “Land in Native American Cultures” program
She has conducted research and collaborated in public
programming with the Washington, D.C. Latino and
Caribbean communities for over a decade. She received
her Ph.D. from the George Washington University
Imerican Studies Folklife Program

Citations and Further Readings

Arias, Jacinto. 1990, San Pedro Chenalho: Algo de su
Historia, Cuentos y Costumbres. Tuxtla Gutierrez,
Chiapas: Talleres Graficos del Estado.

Barabas, Alicia M. and Miguel A. Bartolome. 1986.
Etnicidad y pluralismo cultural: la dindmica étnica
en Oaxacd. Mexico, D.F.; Colleccion Regiones de
Mexico, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Histo-
Ma

8Q_ LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

Bazua, Silvia. 1982. Los Hudves. México, D.F.: Instituto
Nacional Indigenista.

Buechler, Hans C. 1971. The Bolivian Aymara. New
York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, Inc.

Diaz del Castillo, Bernal. 1963. History of the Conquest
of New Spain. London: Penguin Classics Edition.

Gomez Perez, Maria. 1990. Bordando milpas. Chiapas:
Taller Tzotzil, INAREMAC.Holm, Bill. 1987. Spirit
and Ancestor: A Century of Northwest Coast Indian
Art at the Burke Museum. Seattle: University of
Washington Press.

Johnsson, Mick. 1986. Food and Culture Among Boliv-

ian Aymara: Symbolic Expressions of Social Rela-
tions. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.

Mashinkias, Manuel and Mariana Awak Tentets. 1988.
La selva nuestra vida: sabiduria ecologica del
pueblo shuar. Instituto Bilingue Intercultural Shuar
Bomboiza. Morona Santiago, Ecuador: Ediciones
ABYA-YALA.

Mexico Indigena. Mexico: Instituto Nacional Indigen-
ista No, 24(1V).

Morris Jr., Walter F. 1987. Living Maya. New York:
Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

Napolitano, Emanuela. 1988. Shuar y anent: el canto
sagrado en la historia de un pueblo, Quito: Edi-
ciones ABYA-YALA.

Pellizzaro, Siro. 1990. Arutam: mitologia Shuar. Quito:
Ediciones ABYA-YALA.

Ramirez Castaneda, Elisa. 1987. El fin de los montiocs.
Mexico, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e
Historia.

Rasnake, Roger Neal. 1988. Domination and Cultural
Resistance: Authority and Power Among Andean
People. Durham: Duke University Press.

Signorini, Italo. 1979. Los huaves de San Mateo del Mar.
Mexico, D.F.: Instituto Nacional Indigenista.

View from the Shore: American Indian Perspectives on
the Quincentenary. Northeast Indian Quarterly.
1990 (Fall).

Warman, Arturo. Forthcoming. Maize as Organizing
Principle: How Corn Shaped Space, Time and Rela-
tionships in the New World. In Seeds of the Past.
Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Press.

Whitten, Dorothea S$. and Norman Jr. 1988. From Myth
to Creation. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Wyckoff, Lydia L. 1985. Designs and Factions: Politics,
Religion and Ceramics on the Hopi Third Mesa.

Albuquerque: University of New Mexico.

Conocimiento y Poder:
La Tierra en las

Culturas Indigenas

Olivia Cadaval
traducido por Alicia Partnoy

El encuentro entre los pueblos de los hemis-
ferios occidental y oriental iniciado hace casi 500
anos ha tenido un efecto dramatico sobre la
forma en que la tierra y los recursos naturales en
las Américas son concebidos y usados. La explo-
racion y la colonizacion propicio practicas ajenas
en el uso de la tierra a las desarrolladas por las
culturas indigenas e incompatibles con el ecosis-
tema existente. Los recien llegados, hace casi 500
anos, no supieron aprender de los que conocian
su ambiente. La campana de “descubrimiento” y
conquista hizo imposible este intercambio. Las
poblaciones nativas de las Americas conservan y
utilizan su conocimiento sistematico del ambiente
aunque solo dentro de sus comunidades. La con-
memoracion del aniversario de los 500 anos del
ano antes del viaje de Colon ha sido concebida
en la creencia de que es posible para nuestra
sociedad aprender y beneficiar del conocimiento
indigena en cuanto al uso de la tierra en las
Américas. La preservacion de la tierra en la actua-
lidad, asi como en el pasado, debe basarse tanto
en el conocimiento de los indigenas y de la so-
ciedad como en el manejo de la ecologia y de la
economia.

La mayoria de las culturas indigenas considera
como conceptos clave aquellos relativos a la
tierra, los que dan forma a todas las facetas de su
vida politica, social, economica y simbolica. Para
los europeos la conquista del siglo XV fue sim-
plemente un hallazgo de tierras para la explo-
tacion en pro del enriquecimiento de sus monar-
quias. En contraste, las culturas indigenas han
concebido generalmente a la tierra de manera
mas compleja, atribuyendole tanto valores cultu-
rales como economicos.

Los conquistadores consiguieron corroer la
organizacion politica de los indigenas, pero no
lograron erradicar el pluralismo cultural. El
paisaje indigena esta marcado por la presencia de
culturas diferenciadas y singulares.

El programa de este festival se basa en la pre-
ocupacion del Smithsonian por la conservacion
de las culturas y por la significacion del quinto
centenario. En este marco se podran escuchar las
voces de los miembros de diversas sociedades
indigenas que durante 500 anos han perseverado
en conservar la tierra de sus ancestros y en pro-
teger la continuidad de sus propias culturas. Los
participantes provienen de catorce grupos cultu-
ralmente diferentes. Las seis zonas ecologicas de
origen son el bosque humedo, la selva tropical,
el altiplano, el desierto, la montana y los
meédanos costeros, Se incluyen representantes
tlingit, haida y tsimshian, del sudeste de Alaska,
canelos quichua, shuar y achuar del oriente de
Ecuador; indigenas de habla aymara de Ti-
wanaku; jalq’a de Bolivia y taquilenos de la zona
peruana del lago Titikaka; los hopi de Arizona en
los Estados Unidos; de México, lacandones del
oriente de Chiapas, la comunidad de habla tzotzil
de San Pedro Chenalho y la de habla tzeltal de
Tenejapa, zapotecas de Zoogocho y Tenejapa, y
los ikood del istmo de Tehuantepec.

El programa es sobre la tierra, sus ecosistemas
y los conocimientos culturales que han man-
tenido a las culturas indigenas desde antes de la
llegada de Col6n hasta nuestros dias. Cada cul-
tura representada tiene una vision del cosmos y
del mundo como un sistema de procesos dinami-
cos e interrelacionados. La investigaciOn para este
programa consistio en el estudio de los procesos
domésticos, economicos y ceremoniales en su
relacion cultural. La produccion y los ciclos ritua-
les coinciden en las culturas indigenas y hacen
eco a los ritmos de las estaciones. Los participan-
tes presentaran al publico diversas actividades de
subsistencia y artesanales, y elementos de sus
ceremonias rituales. Ademas, narraran historias
que han sido transmitidas de generacion en gen-
eracion y que explican elocuentemente la rela-
ciOn entre su tierra y su cultura. Las sesiones de

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 81

Vuchos indigenas americanos adoptaron el
calendario catolico de fiestas para celebrar
valores y creencias indigenas. Frecuentemente
las celebraciones empiezan y terminan en el
atrio de la ielesia Viuisicos tkood encabezan
una procesion durante la fiesta de la
Candelaria en San Mateo del Mar. Foto de

Saul Millan

Vicente Kin Paniagua talla diferentes puntas
de flecha las puntas varian segun el tipo del
animal cazddo. Foto de Ricardo Martine;

discusion se centraran en algunos de los temas tura

a intromision de sectas religiosas, la par-

principales que actualmente preocupan a los celacion de tierras y los derechos humanos
indigenas americanos. Estos temas incluyen el

uso de recursos naturales, la tecnologia tradi-

O a Ca tl es Directora del Proerama Out)
cional, la destruccion del equilibrio ecologico, los ; ihe a an dalek weet Fa liicue
problemas del monocultivo, los titulos de a : . : a od ; : la
propiedad, los parques nacionales, les corpora- oh pene lamin
ciones transnacionales, las zonas militares, los , ; nvestigaciones y ha thorado et
modelos economicos de desarrollo, las leves de } raimas publ la muridad latina \v de
reforma agraria, la deuda externa, la represion iribe de Washington, D.C. Recibio su doctorado de la
politica, la autodeterminacion, la identidad cul- ersidad de George Washington

OZ \ YIN ATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

We Live in the Amazon
Rainforest, the Lungs

of the World

Miguel Puwainchir

We live in the Amazon rainforest, the lungs of
the world. We have our our own culture, which
is threatened by the aftermath of the Spanish
conquest and by western culture. We struggle to
restore, to revalidate, the sense of our own
worth.

For us, culture is language, and land is our
existence. When the land is destroyed, we cease
being Shuar and Achuar. We declare our pres-
ence and strengthen our alliances with non-na-
tives to continue to survive on this planet.

For us there are three earth spaces: under-
ground, where a Shuar group lives; where we
live; and above, where yet another Shuar group
lives. We have learned this from our ancestors.
Therefore, we defend the underground and the
above, the air space, because our family dwells
there.

We value the land because it sustains us. We
want the land because we want to live on it, not
commercialize it. We want it to cultivate and to
give it its worth, not a price. We have no other
space where we can go. People cannot under-
stand because they think of land as a commercial
enterprise, something to divide and sell. We per-
ceive land as a collective entity. We may be the
only native group in the world which is all re-
lated. I have family wherever I go. We have or-
ganized a federation. Land must be global be-
cause we are all one family.

From the time of our ancestors, Our Warrior
parents, the Shuar woman has been a major
source of strength and support. She implored the
gods to protect the warrior, she encouraged the
warrior to go to the waterfalls in search of the
arutam spirits to gain his valor. We want our
sisters to remain in their communities to cultivate
their lands and raise their animals. Women will
be able to have their savings and get credit from
the federation. We will fight for real change in
our community and the equality between men
and women.

Our time is ours, and we depend on no one.

We educate our children in our own land, in our
community, and prepare them in order that they
will always return. That is preparing the future.
Other places have witnessed the flight of native
professionals. It is a luxury to be in New York,
Frankfurt or Paris. But it is a greater luxury to be a
professional who defends the rights of your
people, defends your own existence. That is why
we return and we will continue returning to our
communities.

The Shuar Federation is a regional organization
and co-founder of the national organization of
indigenous organizations. Within three years, we
hope to solve the problems with land litigation.
We need to expand our programs. But now there
is confusion and we need time. Governments do
not provide much support to native communities.

We need to defend the people that live in the
rainforest, people who are not graduates of the
university, but who have maintained the Amazons
for thousands and thousands of years. We must
defend people, and not the animals or the trees or
the underground resources. People know and
understand the beauty and richness of the Ama-
zons. They know how to survive in the rainforest.
We need to provide them with technical and fi-
nancial assistance and strengthen programs to
prevent their death.

We ask the government: what will you do
about the pollution of our rivers, about the de-
struction of our forests? The reforestation program
is ambiguous, political. We need more than rice,
some clothes and corregated roofs. We need train-
ing for our people, strengthening of our programs
in aviation, education, topography, civil registry,
health and all the programs organized by the
Shuar Federation. We need to defend our position
and continue fighting.

Miguel Puwainchirs is President of the Shuar and
Achuar Federation, a local organization of in-
digenous peoples located in the rainforest of east-
erm Ecuador

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 83

Vivimos en la Amazonia,
El Pulmon del Mundo

Miguel Puwainchir

Somos un pueblo como cualquier otro pueblo
del mundo con la diferencia de que vivimos en la
amazonia, en el pulmon del mundo. Cada pueblo
tiene su propia cultura y lo que hoy tratamos es
revalorizar esa cultura por que ya se esta per-
diendose. Perdiendose por que hubo influencia
de la conquista espanola y por que la cultura
occidental y la cultura shuar se tergiversaron, y
confundieron todo nuestro sentimiento cultural.

Para nosotros la cultura es el idioma y la tierra
en nuestra misma existencia. Tenemos que hacer
nuestra presencia Como seres que todavia esta-
mos en el planeta y dar un mensaje de solidari-
dad, de unidad hacia quienes no son indigenas
para fortalecer lazos de amistad, para que este
pueblo siga sobreviviendo en este planeta.

Para nosotros hay tres espacios de tierra. Hay
un espacio subsuelo en que vive un grupo shuar,
este en el que estamos ahora, y que es nuestra
tierra donde estan ubicados los shuar, y arriba
hay otro espacio en donde vive otro grupo shuar.
Esto fue una ensenanza desde hace muchos
anos, Creemos en eso y por eso que defendemos
el subsuelo por que alli vive nuestra familia. Lo
mismo cdefendemos el espacio aire por que sabe-
mos que alla vive nuestra familia.

El shuar enseno las tecnicas y ticticas de de-
fensa a la guerra. Por ejemplo los companeros
shuar que viven arriba, ellos tenian miedo a esas
hormigas dangos por que eran asesinas pero un
shuar viajo de aqui y les enseno, de que eso no-
sotros aqui los shuar comemos arangos y les
ensenaron a como cazar anangos y asi abajo en
el subsuelo. Hay una mujer, una diosa, que se
llama tsuki, la diosa del agua. Le enseno al
hombre a vivir bajo el agua, y hay vida bajo esta
tierra

Para nosotros la tierra es el elemento vital de
la existencia del pueblo shuar y achuar. Eso es
nuestra vida. En el momento de que se acaba la
tierra ya nO somos shuar, ya no somos achuar.
Por eso que nosotros luchamos. No por tener

54 LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

una finca, lo cual es muy contrario a lo que pi-
ensen los no shuar. Nosotros queremos tierra por
que queremos vivirla y no comercializarla.
Queremos tierra por que queremos producir a
esta tierra, y dar valor a esta tierra, nO precio, por
que nosotros no tenemos otro espacio donde ir.
Otra gente dira que nosotros muertos iremos al
cielo, pero nosotros tenemos la esperanza de que
el shuar nunca muere. Eso ustedes lo podran
averiguar, que el shuar no muere y si muere es
por que alguien lo ha matado. Por eso es que
nosotros estamos luchando por la supervivencia,
y eso nadie nos va a entender por que piensan
que la tierra para mucha gente no shuar hay que
comercializar; hay que individualizar y entregar
retazos de tierra a personas; mientras que no-
sotros buscamos la colectividad de las tierras.
Nuestra caracteristica fundamental creo es que
somos los unicos indigenas en el mundo de que
todos tenemos el mismo parentesco familiar, no
nos diferenciamos. Yo tengo familias, en
cualquier lugar que este, eso es la gran ventaja
que tenemos, es por eso que nosotros buscamos
y nos hemos organizado en una sola federacion.
Las tierras globales tienen que ser globales por
que es de una familia.

Nosotros hemos pensado que nuestros an-

guerra pero con el apoyo fundamental de la
mujer. Si la mujer Wjaj no imploraba a los espiri-
tus, esto podia hacer morir al guerrero. Si la
mujer no le ayudaba, o no le animaba para que
se fuera a las cascadas, en busca del ariutam, que
es el dios para nosotros, entonces el nunca podia
ser valiente. Es decir la mujer shuar es la parte
fundamental de la existencia del hombre y del
pueblo Shuar.

Queremos que todas estas hermanas nuestras
queden en su propia tierra, en sus comunidades
y que la organizacion como tal les apoye a ellas,
y que sus recursos economicos que ellas generan
se vaya ya ahorrandose en cooperativas de

ahorro y crédito que la Federacion Shuar ya va a
hacer funcionar. Nosotros tenemos fe, en el cam-
bio, un cambio economico social y politico, en-
tonces ya no va a haber ese shuar humillado.
Hay que darle importancia a la mujer que va a
tener su dinero, por la cria de chanchos, pollos,
cuyes, mani, poroto, y otros. Vamos a luchar por
que se dé un verdadero cambio en nuestro
pueblo; y una igualdad entre la mujer y el
hombre shuar-achuar.

Esta es nuestra tierra, no tenemos otra. Nos-
otros somos visitantes cuando andamos en otros
lugares, hemos tenido oportunidades y nos han
ofrecido que podamos trabajar en las ciudades
pero hemos dicho no. Podemos ganar fuera
desde mil a dos mil dolares mensuales, pero
gasto todo eso viviendo en una sociedad de con-
sumo. Pero en nuestra tierra, hay todo. Aqui yo
puedo vivir. Puede haber inflaciones, puede
haber crisis economicas al nivel del mundo, pero
no asi en mi tierra. Por que de nuestros rios po-

demos sacar peces, de la montana puedo obtener

animales, y de la tierra podemos cultivar lo que
nosotros queremos. Aqui es un paraiso. En el
campo podemos trabajar las horas que uno de-
sea, no dependemos de nadie, y podemos pro-
ducir lo que nosotros queremos, y comercializar
nuestros productos, no dependemos de nadie.
Educamos nuestros hijos en la propia tierra, en la
propia comunidad y los preparamos para que
después, ellos regresen a la comunidad y vivan o
sea, eso es preparar el futuro. En otros lados ha
habido la fuga de muchos profesionales indige-
nas. Es un lujo y un privilegio para esa gente de
estar en Nueva York, Frankfurt, o en Paris. Pero
mejor lujo es cuando, si es profesional, defender
los derechos de su pueblo, defender la existencia
de si mismo. Es por eso es que nosotros re-
gresamos y vamos a seguir volviendo a nuestras
comunidades.

La Federacion Shuar ha dado origen a la for-
maciOn y organizacion regional, y hemos sido los
cofundadores de la organizacion nacional de
organizaciones indigenas en Ecuador. Esperamos
en tres anos solucionar los problemas de lidera-
ciones de tierras. Tendremos programas que se
van ir ampliando pero habra dificultades de otra
naturaleza, ya no seran de tipo politico. Es un
proceso que tiene que darse con el tiempo, pues
es un cambio. Por que ahorita hay una confusion
total con lo cual hay la influencia de todos los
sectores. Por eso es que en estos momentos no
hay gran apoyo de parte del gobierno hacia las
comunidades indigenas.

Lo mas importante es que se debe defender al
hombre que vive en la selva, no al animal ni al

Los shuar del bosque htimedo ecuatoriano usan

leyendas mitologicas para ensenar a los jovenes sobre
su cultura y su tierra. Los shuar tienen relaciones
especiales con diferentes animales. Dicen haber
domesticado al oso que se volvio en su protector. Este
dibujo, que forma parte de una serie de dibujos
didacticos del Centro de Capacitacion en Sucud,
representa a un oso protegiendo a un shuar del ataque

de un tigre. Foto de Pilar Larriamendi Moscoso

arbol, pero a esos recursos que viven bajo tierra,
sino a ese hombre, a ese hombre que no se
gradua en la universidad, a ese hombre shuar 0
achuar que es el que vive la selva, que mantuvo
durante miles y miles de anos esa amazonia, a él
tienen que defender, a él tienen que decir hay
que darle asistencia técnica y financiera para que
los programas de salud vayan fortaleciendose, y
que ese shuar, ese hombre amazonico no se mu-
era, él sabe, él conoce la belleza y la riqueza de
la amazonia. El sabe como curarse con la selva,
él sabe como alimentarse de la selva, el sabe
como vivir en la selva y como mantener esa
selva. Es por eso que estamos preocupados y le
hemos dicho al gobierno — ;que va hacer usted
con la contaminacion de nuestros rios? — no
hablen de agua potable, por que no hay ni agua
aqui. Hablen que van a hacer cuando destruyan
nuestras selvas. La reforestacion es un programa

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 85

ambiguo y politico nada mas. No nos hablen que
no nos van a comprar con arroz 0 con ropita oO
con planchas de zinc. Nosotros no necesitamos
eso, necesitamos un algo mas alla. Hay que ca-
pacitar a nuestra gente, hay que fortalecer los
programas que dirige la Federacion Shuar como
la aviacion, la educacion, la topografia, el registro
civil, la salud y todos los demas programas que
esta dirigiendo la Federacion Shuar.

Les hemos dicho que nosotros somos ecuatori-
anos, y por eso es que cuando hablan de que los
pueblos indigenas quieren formar un estado den-
tro de otro estado es atentar contra la seguridad
indigena. Hemos sido claros no es que queramos
formar un estado, ustedes nos obligan a que haya
esa intencion de parte de los indigenas. Ustedes
se han olvidado. Parece como los pajaros kupi
que vienen del Peru en las epocas de frutas nada
mas, O sea en epocas electorales, y despucs desa-
parecen. Hablan de que somos ecuatorianos,
cantamos el mismo himno nacional, que estamos
cubiertos por la misma bandera pero después eso
desaparece. Hay que mantener nuestra posicion
y seguir luchando contra esa presencia, es una
presencia muda, por que no es nada cierto.
Miguel Puwainchir es Presidente de la Federacion
ShuanAchuar, una organizacion indigena del

oriente de kcuador

80 LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

Shuar iruntramuka chikich tarimiat aents irun-
tain najanatnniun juarkiniaiti, aintsank Ekuatur-
num iruntiamusha.

Nakaji ju 3 uwi taasdiniai jui shuaran nuja
achuaran nunke iwiarturtin. Tura ukunmaka
chikich ttinrchat takustatji. Chicham emeskamu
iruneawal tuma asamtai Ekuaturan untri imian
yainmats]i.

Tumasha nekas ayampruktinkia Aentsviti, kam-
punniunam pajand nuna, auka yajasmaka, nu-
mikia imianchaiti. Shuar-Achuar aents yaintiniaiti
takakjai, kuvtjiai tura Shuar-Achuar iruntra-
munam takak juarkimiuana aun yainkiartiniaitt,
Tuma asamtai Ekuaturan uuntri paant timiajt: ti
kampunniun emesramsha itiura iwiarattam? ti
entsari yajauch umaktajme husha itiurkattam?
aratmaktajai turutip, Saar Entsan amastajai turu-
tip, nuka wait chichamaiti, tumatskesha arus,
mamush, apachin turujirt surusaip. Iria au ini-
ankasar utsumeayi, tuma asamtai ti takatnin yain-
makta.

Ikia ERuatur aentsuitii, nu tesatai tatsuji, auka
atumek nuni anentaimprume wari waitruarum
danakaitarme, antrarum nuamtakitji tarume, ayatik
danaitiukat tusarum tumasha yamaikia penke
anentaimkiaji tuma asar takakmakir wetatji, atum
tamaka umutsuk waitra asakrumin.

Land and Subsistence
in Tlingit Folklife

Nora Marks Dauenhauer and
Richard L. Dauenhauefr

For many Native American people, subsistence
remains at the heart of traditional culture and of
contemporary folklife as well. For other cultures
of the United States, “subsistence” may be an
unfamiliar concept, but today many Native
Americans cling tenaciously and assertively to the
subsistence rights that are central to their ethnic
heritage, cultural identity, traditional spirituality
and legal standing under numerous treaties with
the United States government.

The Tlingit Indians live in Southeast Alaska,
the part of Alaska that is about the same size and
shape as Florida. It is a land of rainforest and
fiords, where few communities are connected by
road. In this spectacular setting, the natural, ma-
terial, social, ceremonial and spiritual worlds are
tightly connected in most of the activities and
artifacts of Tlingit folklife. Animals are central to
cultural identities and processes. A Tlingit indi-
vidual, following his or her mother’s line, is born
into one of two moieties: Raven or Eagle. Tradi-
tionally, one married a spouse from the opposite
moiety, so that each person’s father and a man’s
children were of the opposite moiety. Each moi-
ety includes several clans, also named after ani-
mals and using animals as their emblem, or to-
tem. We should emphasize here that these totems
are not objects of religious worship or venera-
tion, but are heraldic in nature, Often referred to
as “crests,” they indicate one’s ancestry and social
identity. Some clans of the Raven moiety and
their crests are: Lukaax.ddi (sockeye, or red
salmon), L’uknax.ddi (coho, or silver salmon),
Leineidi (dog salmon), Kiks.ddi (frog) and
T akdeintaan (snail, seagull or tern). Some clans
of the Eagle moiety and their crests are: Teikweidt
(brown bear), Dakl‘aweidi (killer whale), Choo-
kaneidi (porpoise) and Kaagwaantaan (wolf). A
person becomes a member of one of the clans at
birth and is given a personal name, which often
also describes or alludes to an animal.

The social use of resources occurs daily in

Tlingit life, especially the sharing of food. As this
article was being drafted, a Tlingit man delivered
a cardboard box of seal meat as a gift for the
mother of one of the co-authors. Seal is impor-
tant for Tlingits. The skin is used for sewing moc-
casins and vests, the meat is eaten, and the fat is
rendered into oil used to preserve other foods or
to be eaten with foods such as dried fish. Tradi-
tionally, the intestines were braided and pre-
served in seal oil, but this practice is relatively
rare today.

With spring comes the herring run in South-
east Alaska, and herring eggs are a favorite. The
best herring spawn is in Sitka, and the Sitka
Tlingit have traditionally been generous to their
friends and relatives in other communities, shar-
ing the richness of their harvest. In May the
eulachon (“hooligan” — small, smelt-like fish)
run, and people who live near the supply com-
monly share with those who live farther away.
Major summer activities are berrying and putting
up fish. Berries are picked and jarred or frozen,
to be eaten all year in social and ceremonial
uses.

Fishing has for centuries been the primary
source of food for the people of Southeast
Alaska. The summer runs are abundant, and fish
were traditionally smoked, dried and stored for
winter use. Native people of Southeast Alaska
have always been innovative, and now also use
new technology such as freezers for storing fish.
There are stories of people using hair driers and
laundry driers to preserve seaweed at times when
the weather is too rainy for drying it in the sun.
Smokehouses are not as Common as a century
ago, but many families and communities continue
to smoke and dry fish. The fish are purchased
from commercial fishermen, caught by sport fish-
ermen of the family, or are obtained on subsis-
tence permits.

Recently, two problems have emerged. Often,
areas designated for subsistence use are at con-

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 87

siderable distance from population centers, so
that fishing in these areas may cost more money
than can be afforded by those who have the
greatest economic need for subsistence. In recent
years, fish hatcheries have given fish away after
their eggs have been removed for breeding. Un-
fortunately, these hatchery fish are not firm
enough to preserve by smoking, and after freez-
ing they are too mushy to be cooked in any way
except boiling. Tlingit people are concerned
about increased reliance on fish hatcheries if
there are problems with the fish.

Tlingit people traditionally use the entire fish.
If fish are filleted, backbones are usually smoked
or boiled in soup. Heads are baked or boiled in
soup, but they may also be fermented (tradition-
ally in a hole on the beach, where they are
rinsed with each tide change). The result is a
food traditionally called kimk’ in Tlingit and af-

fectionately called “stink heads” in English. It may

be compared to the turning of milk into Lim-
burger cheese in European culture. Likewise, fish
eggs are not discarded, but are preserved in vari-
ous ways. Most often they are frozen and later
served in a soup with seaweed (which is pre-
served by drying and then reconstituted). They
may be salted (as caviar), or fermented as a dish
called kahbdakw kas eex.

Fall brings the hunting season. Sitka black
tailed deer are abundant in most areas, but many
Tlingit hunters complain that in areas of heavy
logging, there are fewer deer. The protective
cover from deep snow provided by Sitka spruce
and other tall trees in the rainforest allows winter
grazing on moss, skunk cabbage and other forest
plants. Where snowfall is heavy, there is risk of
starvation for deer. Brown and black bear are
hunted to a much lesser extent, and in some
communities and families there are cultural ta-
boos on eating bear meat. Sheep and goat are
hunted even less. Deer skin is used for drum
making and for sewing moccasins and vests.
Deer hoofs are made into dance rattles. Mountain
goat is the traditional source of wool for weaving
Chilkat blankets but is increasingly difficult for
weavers to obtain. One problem ts that wool is
best for weaving when the goats are not in sea-
son, so special permits need to be negotiated.
But throughout the deer season, the sharing of
deer meat is much in evidence. Many Tlingit
hunters consider it bad luck to keep their first kill
of the season, and often give the entire animal
away rather than keep it for themselves. As with
fishing, those who hunt typically share with those
who do not have access to the resource, and
younger hunters provide meat to elders who are

58 LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

no longer able to hunt for themselves. Also as
with fishing, this practice may put traditionally
minded Tlingits at odds with the law, because
bag limits are designed with the individual in
mind, and not the idea that a person may also
be hunting or fishing for other people.

In addition to social sharing, the ceremonial
distribution of food is at the heart of traditional
Tlingit ceremonial and spiritual life. Nowhere is
this better demonstrated — and, perhaps, more
misunderstood — than in the ceremonial called
“potiatch” in English, and koo.éex’ in Tlingit,
where many different aspects of Tlingit folklife
come together. It is called “invitation” in Tlingit
because the hosts, who have lost a clan member
through death, invite guests of the opposite moi-
ety to a ceremonial. The hosts give food and
other gifts to the guests, thereby ritually giving
comfort to the spirits of the departed by giving
comfort to the living. In Tlingit this is called du

nddawu x ix at gugatée — “he will feed his de-

ceased.” Death-bed wishes often specifically
request that subsistence foods, usually the per-
sonal favorites of the departed, be served.

Verbal and visual folk art are important parts
of this traditional ceremonial, especially the rites
for the removal of grief. During these rites, the
guests display their clan crests represented on
carved wooden hats, sewn felt beaded button
blankets, tunics, woven Chilkat robes, and other
regalia, called at.oow in Tlingit. As part of the
display of these totemic crests, designated orators
from among the guests deliver speeches to the
hosts. The purpose of the oratory and the display
of visual art is to offer spiritual comfort to the
hosts, and to help remove their grief.

The visual art becomes the basis of the ora-
tory. In the guests’ speeches the visual art is
transformed by rhetoric, especially through simile
and metaphor. The frog on the hat, for example,
is imagined as coming out of hibernation to re-
move the grief of the hosts by taking it back into
its burrow. The beaded terns on a felt blanket
(who are identified as the paternal aunts of the
hosts) fly out from their rookery, drop soothing
down feathers on the grieving hosts, and fly
away with their grief, taking it back to the nests.
Through the verbal art of the orator, the spirits
depicted in the visual art come to the human
world, give comfort, and remove the grief of the
living to the spirit world.

This interaction is also a good example of the
reciprocity or “balance” so important in Tlingit
world view. Hosts and guests comfort each other
on spiritual, physical and social levels. The hosts
feed and clothe the spirits of their departed

through gifts of food and clothing to living mem-

bers of the opposite moiety; and the guests rally
their range of spirits to give comfort to the hosts
by removing their grief. As we take care of the
living, we also take care of the departed. If we
take care of the living, the living will take care of
us. If we take care of the departed, the departed
will take care of us

Ritual distribution of food and other gifts is
explained by Tlingit elder Amy Marvin in her
telling of the “Glacier Bay History” (Dauenhauer
and Dauenhauer 1987:277). Only if food is given
and eaten with an opposite clan can it go to the
relative who is mourned. “Only when we give to
the opposite clan does it become a balm for
our spirits.” We find this passage so powerful that
we used her Tlingit words and a paraphrase
translation as the title of our book Hada
Tuwundagu Yis, for Healing Our Spirit: Tlingit
Oratory (Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1990).
The introduction to this book explains in detail
the ceremonial oratory, visual art, and distribu-
tion of subsistence food

Meals are an important part of the memorial
ceremony. Subsistence foods are especially val-
ued and are carefully preserved for ritual distribu-
tion. Menus typically include: deer stew, seal
meat (baked, boiled or smoked), salmon (as
dryfish, soup, baked or fried), halibut, seaweed
and salmon egg soup. Many families have special
pots, often inherited, for preparing ceremonial
food. At a recent memorial in Sitka, the cooking
pot for the deer stew was two feet high and three
feet in diameter!

[t is important to notice here the role of visual
art in Tlingit folklife. The totemic crests called
at.oow in Tlingit are not detached objects of art

Austin Hammond, wearing a
Sockeye Salmon Chilkat robe,
faces singers of several clans
who gathered at Chilkoot Lake
Referring to this robe, Austin
often Says, “we wear our
history.” The robe depicts clan
history and serves as claim to
the land and subsistence use
Photo by Richard Dauenhauer

abstractly displayed in static isolation, but are arts
ritually displayed in spiritual and social action in
ceremonials. To the extent that subsistence mate-
rials are needed for making art objects them-
selves, subsistence and art become linked. For
totem carving, one needs large trees; for weav-
ing, one needs spruce roots and cedar bark. For
Chilkat weaving one needs mountain goat wool,
although sheep wool is now commonly substi-
tuted out of necessity. Traditional dyes are made
from moss, lichen and minerals

Subsistence food affects the physical as well as
the social and spiritual being. Studies and articles
(Drury 1985; Kennedy 1990 a,b; Tepton 1990;
Young 1988) have been done on the nutritional
value of traditional foods and on the impact of
change in diet from Native American to European
American food. Obesity, diabetes, cancer and
heart disease have become much more prevalent.
These effects can be attributed not only to nutri-
tional content, but also to the process by which
food is obtained. The act of getting and preserv-
ing traditional food keeps one more physically fit
than shopping at a store (and using leisure time
to sit by the TV and VCR)

For reasons of health, social interaction and
spirituality, subsistence rights and activities are as
important to the cultural identity of Native Ameri-
cans as sport hunting and fishing rights are to the
individual identity of European Americans and
other citizens of the United States. Because these
pursuits lie so close to the spiritual core of all the
people involved and are so deeply rooted in their
respective folk belief systems, subsistence be-
comes an extremely emotional and highly politi-
cal issue

Commercial exploitation of land and resources

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 89

is basic to European American world view, and
people with this ethnic heritage often find it frus-
trating to see land and resources oft used for
cash profits and “development.” For Native
Americans, money has traditionally been an ab-
straction, Whereas their connection to the land
has been personal and spiritual. Theirs has been
a subsistence, not a cash, economy. Commercial
pressure also threatens subsistence. Many Tlingit
foods are highly valued by the Japanese, and
Native Americans fear commercial exploitation
will damage traditional subsistence areas.

Today the subsistence issue remains one of
the most heated legal and legislative battles in
Alaska, involving both state and federal agencies.
Natives are protesting a recent policy to deny
subsistence use in some communities because of
their size, regardless of ethnicity and lifestyle of
the residents. Natives often feel bitter that most
people making the law and setting policy in
Alaska are newcomers from “outside” who will
not retire and die in Alaska. They make laws for
others and will leave without having to live with
them. Natives feel that laws involving them are
being made by Non-natives, people from other
cultures not familiar with subsistence and often
hostile to it. Natives feel that most subsistence
laws and policies discriminate against the lifestyle
and culture of Native people. For example, be-
ginning in 1979 it took three years to get legal
permission to use traditional gaff hooks to take
salmon for subsistence use. Natives often feel
increasingly disenfranchised on their own land.

Vora Marks Dauenbauer is Principal Researcher of
Language and Cultural Studies at Sealaska Heritage
Foundation. She ts an anthropology graduate from
Vaska Methodist University and former Assistant
Professor in Alaska Native Studies, University of Alaska
Juneau. Her field of specialization is Tlingit oral

literature

Richard Dauenhauer ts Program Director of Language
and Cultural Studies at Sealaska Heritage Foundation

He ts the 7th Poet Laureate of Alaska and is widel)

recogniz 1 linguist. poet and translator. He
recetl¢ b1). from the University of Wisconsin and
has ght at Alaska Methodist University, Alaska

acific University and University of Alaska. He ts the
ct ref) ” Of SeCl eral I At IRS and has published extenstl el)

tn scholarly journals

90 LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

Citations and Further Readings

Berger, Thomas. 1985. Village Journey. The Report of the
Alaska Native Review Commission. New York: Hill
and Wang.

Brody, Hugh. 1981. Maps and Dreams. New York: Pan-
theon Books.

. 1988. Living Arctic. Hunters of the Canadian
North, London and Boston: Faber and Faber.

Cogo, Rober and Nora Cogo. n.d. Haida Food From
Land and Sea. Distributed by Mariswood Educational
Resources, Box 221955, Anchorage, Alaska 99522-
1955.

Dauenhauer, Nora Marks and Richard Dauenhauer.
L987. Haa Shuka, Our Ancestors: Tlingit Oral Narra-
tives. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

1990. Haa Tuwundagu Ys, for Healing Our
Spirit: Tlingit Oratory. Seattle: University of Washing-
ton Press,

Drury, Helen M. 1985. Nutrients in Native Foods of

Southeastern Alaska. Journal of Ethnobiology 5(2):87-
100

Edenso, Christine. n.d. The Transcribed Tapes of
Christine Edenso. Distributed by Mariswood Educa-
tional Resources, Box 221955, Anchorage, Alaska
99522-1955.

Fienup-Riordan, Ann. 1983. The Nelson Island Eskimo.
Social Structures and Ritual Distribution, Anchorage:
Alaska Pacific University Press.

Kennedy, Geoff. 1990a. Diabetes Linked to Western
Lifestyle. Tundra Times. 2 April.

1990b. Study Indicates Subsistence Foods Aid
Health. 7iadra Times. 4 June.

Nelson, Richard K. 1969. Hunters of the Northern Ice

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

1973. Hunters of the Northern Forest. Designs
Jor Survival Among the Alaskan Kutchin. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.

1983. Make Prayers to the Raven. A Koyukon
View of the Northern Forest. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press

1989. The Island Within. San Francisco: North
Point Press

Tepton, John. 1990. New Lifestyles, Diet Killing More
Natives. Anchorage Times. 6 May

Young, T. K. 1988. Chronic Diseases Among Canadian
Indians: Towards an Epidemology of Culture Change.
Artic Medical Research 47 (Suppl.1):434-441.

Clans and Corporations:
Society and Land of the

Tlingit Indians

Rosita Worl

Native Corporations

Tlingit

Belong to the land.

Free to wander anywhere
Signing pieces of paper
Village

Regional CORPORATIONS
Land in corporations
Stocks replace fish drying
Dividends replace hides curing
Corporate offices replace
Tribal houses

Voting replace storytelling
We are of the land

Not corporations

This was forced upon us
Choices were never ours
Our forefathers taught us well
WE WILL SURVIVE

WE WILL ADAPT

WE WILL SUCCEED

WE WILL THRIVE!

Sherman J. Sumdum
Chookaneidi of Hoonah

With the rich resources of their homeland in
Southeast Alaska, the Tlingit Indians developed
one of the most complex cultures in indigenous
North America. With their vast stores of surplus
goods, they extended their aboriginal commerce
along ancient trading trails through valleys and
mountain passes to the northern interior regions
of Alaska and Canada where they traded with the
Athabaskans. They traded westward with the
Eyak and the Chugach Eskimo along the Gulf of
Alaska coast in south-central Alaska. In their 60-
foot long canoes, they traveled south to the
Queen Charlotte Islands in Canada to trade with
the Haida and the Tsimshian on the mainland.

Relationship to the Land

The North Pacific Coast has always been a
complex environment, abundant in resources but
difficult in access. The indigenous population
developed knowledge of their habitat, a special-
ized technology, and well-organized productive
labor units to maximize the sustainable exploita-
tion of the environment. Elements that the native
population could not control by physical means
were appeased through spiritual rituals. An abun-
dant environment, an efficient extractive technol-
ogy, and extensive methods of food preservation
for later use allowed them to pursue a broad
spectrum of activities.

A house group consisting of a chief, his broth-
ers and their wives, children and maternal neph-
ews was the basic production unit. Male children
over the age of ten moved into their mother’s
brother’s house and received a rigorous course of
training from their maternal uncles. The house
group had a well-defined organization of labor,
which assigned its members various tasks in
hunting, fishing, gathering, preparing and pre-
serving their foods. All members of the house
were expected to work. Grandparents took care
of children too young to help, while their moth-
ers gathered and stored foods for future use. The
cycle of production was determined by the sea-
sonal availability of resources. As long as fish
were running, men harvested them, and women
hung them up to smoke or dry,

Like most American Indian tribes, the Tlingits’
relationship to nature is rooted in their religious
systems. According to the ancient beliefs of the
Tlingit, animals, like humans, are endowed with
spirits. These ideas were the basis of their behav-
ior towards animals; people felt a form of kinship
with them. But their beliefs did not prevent their
effective, sustainable exploitation of the environ-
ment and its wildlife. On the one hand, they
were skilled hunters, fishermen and foragers who
effectively utilized their environment, and on the

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 91

other hand, they revered their environment and
attributed their success in its exploitation to the
spirits and deities which abounded in their world.

The distinctive arts of the Tlingit and the
Northwest Coast Indians were visual symbols of
their relationships to one another and to nature.
They mastered the use of horn, bone, stone,
wood, skins, furs, roots and bark to satisfy their
utilitarian and aesthetic needs. Their woodwork-
ing was unrivaled among American Indian tribes.
Artistically inspired by their relationship to the
environment, Tlingit adorned their bodies and
homes with symbols of their real and supernatu-
ral world.

Historical Overview

Their rich environment and their social and
cultural strengths enabled Tlingit to confront the
initial arrival of western explorers and traders in
1741 much on their own terms. Fur trading was
conducted from the ships that frequented Tlingit
communities. Once tenuous peace agreements
had been established between Tlingit and Rus-
sians, trading posts were built in Yakutat in 1796
and then Sitka in 1799 (Krause 1956). Tlingit used
the goods they received in trade to enrich their
society,

But nothing in their shamans’ or herbalists’
repertoire of medical care could resist the waves
of infectious disease that the new visitors brought
to their shores, The Tlingit aboriginal population,
which is estimated at near 15,000, was reduced
by more than 50% after the great smallpox epi-
demic of 1835-1840 (Boyd 1990; De Laguna
1990). With several villages reduced by as much
as two-thirds, social and economic systems al-
most ceased to function.

Another significant element of their culture
was undermined, and new religions gained influ-
ence, when the Tlingit learned that their shamans
were powerless to combat the smallpox. Father
Veniaminov observed that three months before
the smallpox epidemic a Tlingit forced to submit
to the needle probably would have torn the very
flesh from his vaccinated arm. But when the
Tlingit saw that Russians vaccinated against small-
pox survived, they clamored to be vaccinated.
Once they realized its effectiveness, they also
began to accept the Russian Orthodox faith at the
expense of their own religion (Fortuine 1989).
The Tlingit who had scoffed at many of the ways
of the white men now sought the establishment
of churches and schools.

The process of social disintegration heightened
after American jurisdiction was established in
1807. Military forces brought other diseases and

92> LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

vices, but perhaps more significantly they intro-
duced a new legal system that suppressed Tlingit
customary property laws and rights and paved
the way for permanent American settlements and
economic expansion into Tlingit territory.

In 1878 two salmon canneries were estab-
lished at Sitka and Klawock followed by ten
more in the next decade (Gruening 1968). And
unknowingly, an Auk Tlingit named Kaawaa’ee
unleashed the 1880 stampede into Southeast
Alaska by showing Joe Juneau and Dick Harris —
now credited as discoverers in most historical
accounts — where gold could be found (Worl
1990). The biggest gold mill in the world was
later established in Juneau (Gruening 1968), The
United States recognized the Tlingit as the rightful
owners of the land under aboriginal title, but
ironically, did not allow them to file gold claims
on their own land because they were not citizens
of the United States. The traditional hunting and
fishing economy that had supported the rich
culture of the Tlingit was giving way to a new
economic order, which they could neither control
socially or share in economically,

Land Claims

Gathering the inner strengths that had given
rise to this proud society, the Tlingit entered the
20th century. They were undaunted by losses —
epidemics, Russian Occupation, gold rush stam-
pede, bombardments of their villages by the
Navy, depletion of fish and wildlife, and dispos-
session of their ancestral lands — which might
have demoralized other people. They strove to
learn and use the institutions of the westerners to
protect their society; but at the same time, they
retained the elements of their ancient culture they
deemed appropriate for the modern era.

They repeatedly brought their blankets
adorned with clan crests to Washington, D.C.
They showed Congressmen these blankets, which
served as their title to the land. They told the clan
stories and sang the songs that recorded the his-
tory of ownership of their territories. With a
highly developed system of customary property
laws, a powerful conviction of their inherent
rights to their land, and a strong love for their
homeland, they successfully appealed to the
sense of fairness and justice of American jurispru-
dence. They achieved an unprecedented settle-
ment with Congress and secured legal title to
their land.

From the time of their first contact with Euro-
peans, the Tlingit resisted outside claims on their
land. They did not allow the first Europeans who
set foot on their shores to leave. They removed a

cross the Spaniards left in 1775 as a sign of their
claim to Alaska. They extracted payment from the
Spanish not only for the fish they brought to
them but also for the water the Spaniards got for
themselves (Krause 1956). From the time the
United States and Russia signed the Treaty of
Cession in 1867, the Tlingit protested the foreign-
ers’ assertion of ownership. They argued that if
the United States wanted to purchase Alaska then
they should negotiate with its rightful owners.
The Haida joined with the Tlingit to pursue a
land claims settlement with the United States.
They relentlessly pursued compensation for the
land the United States forced them to surrender.

The Southeast Alaska Indians attained two
separate land settlements with the United States:
the first, a judicial settlement in 1968 through the
U.S. Court of Claims; and the second, a legislative
compact through an Act of Congress in 1971. The
Tlingit and Haida used the first settlement of $7.5
million to establish the Central Council Tlingit
and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. Its primary
function is to promote the social and educational
welfare of its tribal members.

The second settlement achieved by the Tlingit
and Haida was an unprecedented land settlement
with America’s indigenous populations. Its
uniqueness was not in the size of the settlement,
but rather in the means by which it would be
accomplished. Under the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA), Congress or-
dered that the Alaska Natives form corporations
to administer their land award. Clearly, the intent
was economic assimilation. In previous judg-
ments with American Indians, the United States
itself acted as a trustee that held land for tribes
under a reservation system

Tribal Corporations

With an entrepreneurial drive and vigor wor-
thy of their ancestors, the Tlingit and Haida ea-
gerly joined the market economy with their new
corporations. Under ANCSA, the Tlingit and
Haida Indians reclaimed ownership of 616,480
acres of land in Southeast Alaska. They were
compensated approximately $200 million for the
2 million acres of land that were not covered by
the first land claims settlement. They were re-
quired to establish regional village and urban
corporations to implement their land claims set-
tlement.

While the regional, village and urban corpora-
tions are autonomous, they are made interde-
pendent through a unique land ownership
scheme. Each village and urban corporation was
awarded title to 23,040 acres of land, but they

Fish continues to be the primary source of food for
native peoples of southeastern Alaska, However, in

recent years, Subsistence practices have been limited by
governmental regulations. Areas designated for subsis-
tence fishing may be far away from home. A subsis-
tence fisherman skillfully fillets the fish to prepare for

smoking and drying. Photo by Richard Dauenhauer

hold title only to the surface estate. The regional
corporation, Sealaska, holds title to the subsur-
face estate of all village and urban corporation
lands, in addition to its own 300,000 acres.

Each Tlingit and Haida is enrolled as a share-
holder in the regional corporation. In addition,
those residing in a village or in Sitka and Juneau
were also eligible to enroll as members of their
respective village or urban corporations. How-
ever, a large number of Tlingit and Haida were
not enrolled as members of village or urban cor-
porations because they resided outside their
home village or in the five communities that did
not receive land. They are classified as “At Large”
shareholders enrolled only as members of
Sealaska Corporation. The five landless villages
recently organized to pursue their just land enti-
tlements. These villages were unjustly denied
land on the basis that non-Tlingit and non-Haida
residents were a majority of the population in the
communities.

While the corporations were organized to be

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 94

profit-making, shareholders also asserted other
cultural values. A 1981 survey of Sealaska share-
holders indicated they felt Sealaska should be
more than a profit-making company that provides
dividends to its shareholders. They insisted that
the corporation provide jobs, educational assis-
tance, support for cultural activities and special
programs for the elders. In response, the elected
boards of directors have devoted themselves to
social as well as business matters. The regional
corporation, Sealaska, calculates that as much as
25% of its annual Operational costs are for social
programs affecting its shareholders. Many of the
village and urban corporations have organized
separate charitable foundations to promote the
cultural heritage of their shareholders. Others
have established educational endowments or
generous scholarship funds for shareholders.
Perhaps the single most important issue is the
protection of subsistence hunting and fishing.
The corporations have taken the lead in oppos-
ing various attempts over the past several years
to undermine the subsistence priority rights of
rural residents, who are primarily Native.

The corporations have been successful in vary-
ing degrees. One corporation filed for protection
under bankruptcy laws, while others have been
extremely successful and have been able to pro-
vide substantial monetary distributions to their
shareholders. Financial consultants continue to
advise the corporations that they cannot success-
fully combine business and tribal practices in
their corporate operations and focus. Tlingit and
Haida continue to develop new forms of tribal
corporations. They seek new Ways of accom-
plishing their economic objectives while at the
same time fulfilling the social and cultural re-
sponsibilities they acquired when they received
title to their ancestral lands.
Rosita Worl, Yeidiklatsok, is a Chilkat Tlingit. She is an
Eagle and a member of the Thunderbird clan and

house from Klukwan. She is a child of the Sockeye clan
Her spirit is the shark. She was trained tn anthropolog)
at Harvard University, and has lectured and published

extensively on Alaskan Native cultures

4 LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

Citations and Further Readings

Blackman, Margaret B. 1990. Haida: Traditional Cul-
ture. In Handbook of North American Indians:
Northwest Coast, ed. Wayne Suttles. Volume 7, pp.
240-260. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.

Boyd, Robert T. 1990. Demographic History, 1774-
1874. In Handbook of North American Indians:
Northwest Coast, ed. Wayne Suttles. Volume 7, pp.
135-148. Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian Institution,

Drucker, Philip. 1965. Cultures of the North Pacific
Coast. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Com-
pany.

Fortuine, Robert. 1989. Chills and Fever, Health and
Disease in the Early History of Alaska. Anchorage:
University of Alaska Press.

Gruening, Ernest. 1908. The State of Alaska. The State
of Alaska. New York: Random House.

Jonaitis, Aldona. 19806. Art of the Northern Tlingit. Se-

attle and London: University of Washington Press.

Krause, Aurel. 1956. The Tlingit Indians Results of a
Trip to the Northwest Coast of American and the
Bering Straits. Translated by Erna Gunther. Ameri-
can Ethonological Society. Seattle: University of
Washington Press.

Murray, Peter. 1985. The Devil and Mr. Duncan. Victo-
ria, British Columbia; Sono Nis Press.

Niblack, Albert P. 1890. The Coast Indians of Southern
Alaska and Northern British Columbia. Avual
Report of the U.S. National Museum of 1881. Wash-
ington, D.C

Oberg, Kalervo. 1973. The Social Economy of the Tlingit
Indians. Seattle and London: University of Washing-

ton Press

Worl, Rosita. 1990, History of Southeastern Alaska
Since 1807. In Handbook of North American Indi-
ans: Northwest Coast, ed. Wayne Suttles. Volume 7,
pp. 149-158. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Insttu-
tion

Ethno-Development
in Taquile
Kevin Healy

Peru’s Taquile Island, 13,000 feet above sea
level, is set against spectacular mountain scenery
of the Lake Titikaka basin. Quechua-speaking
Taquilenos farm steep, eroded hillsides and catch
fresh trout, pejerrey and catfish for their island
economy. Some islanders are master boatbuilders
for the Aymara and Quechua communities on the
Peruvian side of Lake Titikaka.

Taquile’s geography and vibrant folk culture
attracts rugged tourists from around the globe.
Over the past 15 years, the Island’s 1,200 resi-
dents have developed a model for Native Ameri-
can community control of tourism, frequently a
source of cultural distortions in societies the
world over. In Taquile, islander control of tour-
ism has helped them maintain a strong sense of
cultural integrity while adding economically to
their community. Their local enterprise includes
motorboat transportation, housing, restaurants,
handicraft stores, a local museum and tour guide
services. By working through local families and
community organizations, islanders maintain a
scale of tourist activity consistent with a people-
to-people approach and invite visitors to appreci-
ate their local life and cultural values. The work-
ings of this system has insured an equitable distri-
bution of the economic benefits and dynamic
practices of peasant self-management.

Taquilenos’ everyday attire attests to their
thriving weaving tradition. Combining dominant
Inca reds, Andean geometric symbols and other
fanciful designs, they are among the best weavers
in Peru. As a cottage industry weaving provides
economic benefits to everyone on the Island. On
ground looms women weave woolen belts, bags
and ponchos of all sizes, while on treadle looms
men weave cloth for peasant shirts. Men also knit
vests and stocking caps.

Through their ethno-development strategy of
tourism and textiles under Andean community
control, Taquile has changed from one of the
poorest Lake Titikaka communities to become
one of its better-off during the past 20 years.
Outside support for Taquile has come from the
Inter-American Foundation, a congressionally

supported aid agency, which supports alternative
community empowerment projects for socio-
economic change.

Kevin Healy was a Peace Corps volunteer on Taquile
Island in the late sixties. He subsequently wrote a book
about rural development in Bolivia and since 1978 as
a grant officer with the Inter-American Foundation bas
been funding alternative socio-economic development
projects in the Andes, especially Bolivia. He has degrees
from Notre Dame, Georgetown and Cornell

Weaving is a major social and economic activity on the island
of Taquile in Lake Titikaka, Peru. On a patio surrounded by
living quarters a weaver spins sheep's wool with a traditional

drop spindle. Photo by Olivia Cadaval

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 95

The Suka Kollus:

Pre-Columbian Agriculture
of Tiwanaku

Oswaldo Rivera Sundt
translated by Charles H. Roberts

The Bolivian highlands Caltiplano) lie between
the eastern and western mountain ranges of the
Andes; many valleys and profound ravines stretch
down to the Amazon jungle toward the east, and
to the desert coasts of the Pacific toward the
west. Here, people domesticated the llama and
alpaca; they followed them in their permanent
search for renewed pastures to the highlands in
the hot months and crossed the Andes to the
valleys in other seasons. The fate of Andean
peoples is inextricably bound up with that of the
South American camelidae (alpacas, llamas, vicu-
nas, and guanacos), which provide wool, leather,
meat, bones, fat, and excrement for fuel, and
which are also used as beasts of burden.

With the advent of crop farming, people be-
came sedentary. Solidarity in communal work
was fundamental to the life of the community,
which had a non-hereditary form of government.
The ayllu (a local descent group) was the basic
form of social organization; it persists in the rural
communities of Bolivia to this day. Exogamous
marriage was a unifying factor creating and sus-
taining links of kinship among the separate
ayllus

Over the centuries major changes took place
in the Andes. The vast Andean state of the Ti-
Wanaku arose. Experimentation produced an
extraordinary agricultural technology, Known as
the suka kollus (raised agricultural fields), which
were complemented by livestock production and
fishing in Lake Titikaka. One of the greatest suc-
cesses was the cultivation of potatoes; indeed,
Bolivian archeologist Carlos Ponce has called
Tiwanaku the “Culture of the Potato.” A confed-
eration of ayllus governed under a non-hereditary
council. The original Tiwanaku village became
the major city with approximately 100,000 inhabi-
tants spread across 600 hectares (about 2.5
square miles), tied to a network of other cities
and villages of Tiwanaku society. Religion en-
compassed all activities, including art.

90 LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

Beginning in approximately 1150 A.D. climatic
changes reduced agricultural yields in the Boliv-
ian highlands. The social organization of the
Tiwanaku collapsed, the state disintegrated, and
its extensive territories were fragmented. The
highlands could support only a subsistence econ-
omy; agricultural technologies were lost. The
arrival of the Spaniards, who were more inter-
ested in exploiting minerals than in cultivating
the land, was the final blow. An agricultural
people became a mining people. Ever since, the
domestic economy of the highlands has revolved
around a hunger-based agriculture.

In 1978, researchers Alan Kolata and Oswaldo
Rivera traveled throughout the vast plains of
Kohani Pampa in the Andes, beginning an arche-
ological research project which years later would
lead to the Wila-Jawira Inter-disciplinary Archeol-
ogical Project. Subsequently, geographers such as
William Denevan and others discovered ruins of
pre-Columbian agricultural works on the banks
of Lake Titikaka. The initial exploration and exca-
vation of small mounds led to archeological re-
search in the pre-Columbian area of the city of
Lukurmata. The objective of this study was to
investigate the agricultural and fish-farming sys-
tems of the ancient Andean society. This city,
considered the third leading urban center of the
Tiwanaku culture, is located near the pre-Colum-
bian agricultural systems.

During explorations of these raised fields, the
question arose as to whether these agricultural
works and ancient technology in general could
have been capable of generating sufficient wealth
for the development of Tiwanaku civilization.
Until then, their productivity had not been quan-
tified. At the same time, Ignacio Garaycochea and
Clark Erickson were conducting similar research
work in the area of Puno, Peru. They were the
first to rehabilitate and plant the raised fields.
These fields yielded a hefty crop, outstripping the
usual production of contemporary peasants.

Today native communities in the high plateau region of the Andes, with the assistance of anthropologists, archeologists

and agronomists, are recovering the ancient raised-field technology of their ancestors. Local farmers join in a

mink’a, or communal work group, to plant the raised field. Photo by Alan Kolata

In 1986 reconstruction of the agricultural fields
was begun by peasant families in several commu-
nities in the area of Tiwanaku. The peasants were
skeptical. Previous technological transfer projects
undertaken by development organizations had
led only to poor harvests and experiences of
failure. The lands near the ancient structures had
long been abandoned, the peasants did not recall
that they had ever been planted. They were
being used as pasture for livestock. Some peas-
ants told us that the seeds would rot because of
the excessive moisture of the land and that the
open fields offer no protection from frost. Never-
theless, when told about the agriculture of their
awichus (grandparents or ancestors) in the nay-
rapacha (ancient, pre-Columbian times) the ma-
jority felt a special sympathy for the project and a
pride in their reaffirmed identity. Leaders such as
Roberto Cruz from the community of Chukara,
Bonifacia Quispe from Lakaya Alta, and Martin
Condori of Kiripujo accepted the project on their
lands. In order to recover the fields, organized
groups of community members dug and rebuilt
channels and mounds, collecting the artifacts

uncovered in the process. Most of the project
effort went into the fields of Lakaya in 1987, and
the productivity obtained was 42.5 tons/hectare,
as compared to 2.5 tons/hectare obtained by the
same community members on surrounding lands
Although this figure has not been equalled, yields
continue to reflect the superiority of pre-Colum-
bian technology

The recovery of technology used in the same
place but at an earlier time is a task for rural
society. The well-being of future generations will
depend on their own involvement and effort

Oswaldo Rivera Sundt is Director of the National
ircheology Institute (INAR) in Bolivia. For 16 years he

has been research archeologist and chief executive of
the Planning Office at INAR. Since 1978, he has worked
with Dr. Alan Kolata from the University of Chicago in

the recovery of pre-Columbian agricultural techniques

He is Co-Director of the multidisciplinary archeological
project Wila-Jawira and Director of the program foi the
recovery of the pre-Columbian agricultural fields
Rehasuk, and Founding Professor of the Rural

{cademic University in Tiwanaku

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 97

Los Suka Kollus:

La Agricultura Precolombina
del Tiwanaku

Oswaldo

El altiplano esta definido por dos cadenas
elevadas de montanas a ambos lados y muchos
valles y profundas vegas que van a terminar a la
selva amazonica por el este y a las deserticas
costas del Pacifico por el Oeste.

El hombre domestico a la Ilama y la alpaca,
siguieéndolas en su permanente busqueda de
pastos renovados; subiendo a las alturas en los
meses calidos, y en otras estaciones,
trasponiendo la cordillera para llegar a los valles.
Una misma suerte une al hombre andino y al
camelido que provee de lana, cuero, carne, hue-
sos, cebo y excremento para combustible y es
tambien el animal de carga.

Con la domesticacion de las plantas, el
hombre se vuelve sedentario. La vida de la
comunidad andina se desarrolla dentro de pa-
trones de solidaridad en el trabajo comunitario,
bajo una forma de gobierno rotativo.

El ayllu fue la organizacion social basica que
germinara y perdura aun en las comunidades
rurales bolivianas actuales. El matrimonio ex-
ogamico era el factor esencial que aseguraba la
vinculacion entre ayllus y daba a la cultura una
homogeneidad de pensamiento y accion.

A traves de los siglos transcurren grandes cam-
bios en el escenario andino. Surge el vasto es-
tado andino del Tiwanaku.

Una creciente experimentacion agricola des-
emboca en una extraordinaria tecnologia, la de
los suka kollus, complementada por la ganaderia
de camelidos y la explotacion de productos
piscicolas del lago Titikaka. Uno de los mayores
exitos fue el cultivo de la papa; lo que con razon
hizo calificar al arquedlogo boliviano Carlos
Ponce a Tiwanaku como la Cultura de la Papa.
Se forma la confederacion de ayllus, gobernando
bajo un consejo de caracter no hereditario. La
aldea inicial se convirtid en una ciudad comple-
tamente planificada con aproximadamente
100,000 habitantes en una area de 600 hectareas.
Lo religioso relaciona todas las actividades in-

98 LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

Rivera Sundt

cluyendo el arte, dentro de la expresion de pen-
samiento colectivo.

Alrededor del ano 1150 se inician cambios en
el clima del planeta que da como resultado en el
altiplano boliviano un bajo rendimiento agricola.
La organizacion social del Tiwanaku se desmo-
rona, el Estado se disuelve y sus extensos territo-
rios se dispersan. El altiplano vuelve a una eco-
nomia de subsistencia y se pierden tecnologias
agricolas. La llegada de los espanoles, quienes se
interesaron mas en la explotacion de minerales
que en los productos cultivados de la tierra es el
golpe final. Un pueblo agricultor se convirtio en
minero y la economia del altiplano desde en-
tonces giro en torno a una agricultura de
hambre.

En 1978, los investigadores Alan Kolata y
Oswaldo Rivera recorren la extensa planicie de
Kohani Pampa, iniciando un trabajo arqueologico
que, anos mas tarde, formara el Proyecto Agroar-
queologico Interdisciplinario Wila-Jawira. Mas
tarde, geografos como William Denevan y otros,
descubren en las margenes del lago Titikaka los
restos de construcciones agricolas precolombi-
nas. La exploracion y excavacion inicial de
pequenos monticulos, condujo posteriormente a
los trabajos de investigacion arqueologica en el
area precolombina de Lukurmata, con el ob-
jetivo de estudiar los sistemas agricolas y piscico-
las de la antigua sociedad. Esta ciudad, consid-
erada como el tercer centro urbano de la cultura
Tiwanaku, se encuentra cerca de los sistemas
agricolas precolombinos.

Durante exploraciones de los campos agrico-
las surgio la interrogante sobre si estas construc-
ciones, y la tecnologia en general, serian capaces
de generar riqueza suficiente para el desarrollo
de Tiwanaku. Hasta ese momento no se habia
cuantificado el rendimiento. Paralelamente, los
investigadores Ignacio Garaycochea y Clark
Erickson, realizaban labores similares en el area
de Puno, Pert;y lograron asi la primera rehabili-

tacion de camellones que resulto en una notable

produccion que superaba la produccion que
solian obtener los campesinos.

A partir de 1986 se inicia la reconstruccion de
campos agricolas, trabajo realizado en varias
comunidades y familias campesinas del area de
Tiwanaku. Las malas cosechas y experimentos de
transferencias tecnologicas fracasadas, realizadas
por diversas instituciones de desarrollo, los
habian tornado incrédulos. Los terrenos donde
hoy yacen las antiguas construcciones siempre
habian estado abandonados; y los campesinos no
recordaban que alguna vez hubieran sido sem-
brados. Ahora son tierras de pastoreo de ganado.
Otros campesinos nos advertian que la semilla se
pudriria por la excesiva humedad de la tierra,
que los campos son abiertos y no ofrecen pro-
teccion a las heladas. Sin embargo, la mayoria
sentia una especial simpatia hacia el proyecto
cuando se les hablaba de la agricultura practicada
en el nayrapacha de los tiempos precolombinos
por sus awichus, sus abuelos 0 antecesores.
Sentian verdadero orgullo por su identidad reafir-
mada. Hubo lideres como Roberto Cruz de la
comunidad de Chukara, Bonifacia Quispe de
Lakaya Alta, y Martin Condori de Kiripujo,
quienes entre otros aceptaron el proyecto en sus
tierras. Los campos de Lakaya, en 1987, fueron
los mas atendidos por el proyecto logrando un
rendimiento de 42.5 toneladas por hectarea,
frente a las 2.5 toneladas obtenidas por los mis-
mos comunarios en hectareas circundantes. En

Las comunidades bolivianas en las
alta pampas del Tiwanaku que
rodean el lago Titikaka cultivan
principalmente tubérculos. Estos
cultivos incluyen variedades de
papa, ocd, habas y quinua que es
un cereal de alta proteinda. Aqui un
grupo de mujeres selecciona papas
para el consumo hogareno, para el
comercio, para preparar chuno, o
para la semilla. Foto de Oswaldo

Rivera Sundt

anos posteriores no se ha igualado esa cifra, pero
los demas rendimientos marcan la superioridad
de la tecnologia precolombina frente a la actual.

Las investigaciones arqueologicas se han for-
talecido con la incorporacion de disciplinas
cientificas, analiticas y tecnicas. Vocablos des-
conocidos como suka kollus hoy se han vuelto
palabras técnicas, creandose derivaciones como
terrenos sukakolleros. Para tratar de explicar el
fenomeno del rescate tecnologico agricola se han
ensayado una serie de conceptos, como arqueo-
logia aplicada, agroarqueologia, agroecologia,
revolucion verde del altiplano.

Se ha iniciado una investigaciOn cientifica
sobre el conocimiento del pueblo de Tiwanaku,
como alternativa para el desarrollo del altiplano.
El rescate tecnologico en el tiempo, y su transfer-
encia en el mismo espacio, le corresponde a la
sociedad rural. De su participacion y esfuerzo

depende el bienestar de las futuras generaciones

Oswaldo Rivera Sundt es Director del Instituto Nacional
de Arqueologia (INAR) de Bolivia. Durante 10 anos fue
investigador arqueologico y Jefe de Planificacion del
INAR. Desde 1978 colabora con el Dr. Alan Kolata de
la Universidad de Chicago, en el rescate de la
tecnologia agricola precolombina. Es Co-Director del
Proyecto Agroarqueologico Multidisciplinario Wila
Jawira y Director General del Programa de
Recuperacion de Campos Agricolas Precolombinos
REHASUK, y el fundador y profesor de la Universidad

Académica Campesina de Tiwanaku

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 99

Ethno-Development
Among the Jalq’a

Kevin Healy

The Jalq’a are an Andean ethnic group scat-
tered among 30 communities in the remote, rug-
ged mountainous area in the Chuquisaca region
of south-central Bolivia. Families eke out a living
from farming and pasturing and earn supplemen-
tary income from low paying work in the city.
Since 1986, this subsistence economy has
changed for a growing number of female weav-
ers (now reaching 380) and their families. To-
gether with a Bolivian organization, Antropologos
del Sur Andino (ASUR), and support from the
Inter-American Foundation, Jalq’a’s community
organizations have begun a revival of a unique
textile tradition. The Jalq’a’s animal motifs are
singular among the weaving traditions of thou-
sands of Andean communities; their djsis or
women’s overskirts depict a dreamlike world of
stylized creatures (condors, monkeys, foxes,
lions, bats and cows) in reversible images

In the past, outside commercial pressures
eroded handicraft standards, and foreign dealers
bought up the remaining fine textiles in Jalq’a
communities. In addition, drought damaged pas-
ture lands causing a drastic drop in the wool
supply

The weaving revival began as an economic
development strategy to reverse the decline in
their folk art and to increase cultural self-esteem
among the population, creating a base for social
change. Weavers together with ASUR have now
organized weaving workshops, purchased raw
material, acquired dyes, opened a store in the
city of Sucre and held exhibits in museums to
promote their work throughout Bolivia. As a
result, the market demand in Bolivia for their
ajsus has grown rapidly. The Jalq’a have learned
bookkeeping and administrative skills for their
burgeoning enterprise through ASUR’s multi-
cultural community educational program. Organ-
izational and business know-how are as essential
to their ambitious future programs as are recov-
ery of weaving skills and the maintenance of a

strong sense of ethnic identity

LOO) LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

Their weaving revival has an innovative
method of using color photographs of Jalq’a
pieces attained from private collections. Jalq’a
families use the photographs as guides to recover
their rich repertoire of cultural motifs, as they
weave for the new community enterprise to-
gether in their outdoor patios. They have been
successfully creating weavings for sale from these
traditional models and drawing inspiration from
them for new pictorial Compositions.

A Jalq'a weaver from the community of Potolo in the province of
Chuquisaca, Bolivia, weaves on her upright loom in the shade

of the enramada (arbor) in the patio of ber home

Photo by Olivia Cadaval

A statement by the Hopi Tribal Council on Hopi participation in the
Quincentenary program of the 1991 Festival of American Folklife

The Hopi people are a caring people. We are a patient people. We consider ourselves
stewards of this great land called North America. We have welcomed people to these

lands to share its resources. Through a forum of this type, we hope that others may
come to understand the Hopi people. Today's lifestyle demands a respite. The Hopi
can offer this pause in our hectic lives through the sharing of its cultural ways. We

hope that the visitors will go away with a better perspective on life...
that while life is a real challenge, life is also simple.
This is the message of the Hopi.

The Hopi Dictionary

Emory Sekaquaptewa

For the first time in its history, the Hopi lan-
guage is on the threshold of literacy. A Hopi
dictionary is being compiled today by project
teams from Northern Arizona University and the
University of Arizona in collaboration with the
Office of Cultural Preservation of the Hopi Na-
tion. It is near completion.

The Hopi language has been spoken by
people who have inhabited the areas of north-
eastern Arizona for nearly two thousand years. It
continues to be the foundation of custom, usage
and ceremonialism, which rely on oral tradition
for their continued existence. Oral tradition incor-
porates ritual and ceremonial forms, spatial con-
text, and drama to create a powerful tool that
makes an indelible mark on the minds and hearts
of those participating. The Hopi language, in
association with rituals, customs and other forms
of usage, continues to call up memories of the
past that give meaning to the present and future.
For this reason, the Hopi people feel confident
that our language is alive today.

Why then, the need for a written form of the
Hopi language? It is a proper question, whether
literacy in Hopi will enhance its viability in its
own cultural setting, or will detract from the
power of the spoken word by undermining its
use in the traditional context. It is not a technical
question whether Hopi can be systematically
written, for that has been practically accom-
plished.

But some Hopis and students of Hopi have
expressed concern about the survival of the lan-

guage in modern times because of the interven-
tions in Hopi culture by modern social and eco-
nomic institutions. Under these prevailing influ-
ences there is no doubt that the Hopi language is
threatened with extinction. New generations of
Hopis want to be, and are becoming, more and
more involved with the outside world. They seek
opportunities to meet their own goals in modern
society. This is the reality of today’s Hopi world
that justifies the writing of our language.

Those who work on and contribute to the
dictionary are deeply mindful of the implications
that written Hopi holds for the future. In addition
to important cultural-historical perspectives on
Hopi life that the dictionary can reveal, its stated
goal is to preserve the language. In so doing it
will be a reference tool for producing Hopi litera-
ture, and thereby assist the continued evolution
of the language. In this sense, the dictionary ad-
dresses the concerns of Hopi and non-Hopi
people about the survival of the Hopi language.
The dictionary is not intended to replace the oral
tradition practiced today by establishing a writing
system. Neither is it an instrument for a revival of
Hopi culture, but rather a way to new vistas for
Hopi studies beyond ethnographic approaches.

Emory Sekaquaptewa is Director of the American
Indian Studies Program at the University of Arizona,
Tucson, and lecturer in anthropology and linguistics
He is co-principal with Ekkehardt Molotki and Jeanne
Masayesva on the Hopi dictionary project

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 101

Two Entries from the Hopi Dictionary

TENT RYE eee SS yon|ta

2 ALPHABETIZER.:...2.05.2.:. yonta

3 FORM:CLEASS. cess vt.i.

4 DEFINITION: ccs es be doing s. th. for another in order to obligate the person to

reciprocate (e.g., plaque weaving, grinding corn, donating
gifts to be used at wedding).

5 ENGEISHS See

6 MORPHOLOGY. c.cs..u. yon-ta [debtor-REP]

7 UNDERLYING FORM...... / yoni -tal /

8 INFLECTED FORMG........ ~tota

9 COMBINING FORMG......

1:0: PAUSALN ee cs

11 CROSS-REFERENCE......

TO CEXANMPIEESE 3 ciszcccscacscas UNu' pumuy ~{ta}ge oovi pangsoq pumuy amungem put
yungyaput yawma.£ By taking that plaque to them (for their
use), I’m obligating them to pay me back in kind. — UNu’ ung
~{ta}nigqe oovi ungem yungyaplawni.£ | want to get you
indebted to me by weaving a plaque for you. — UHimuwa hita,
sen m’nghintsakpi’ewakw hintsakqw, hak pangsonen pep put
engem hita hintsakye’, hak pan hakiy ~{ta}ngwu.£ If someone
does something, for example a wedding, and one goes there to
do something for that person, one is obligating that person to
pay back in kind. - UPuma oovi pasat {naa}~{ta}ngwu.£ So
then they mutually obligate one another (by weaving plaques).

ASENTIRYRescicoreccseess cote yotsihanin|ta

2 ALRHABETIZERscsceee saeco: yotsihaninta

SeRORMECEASS 222s ceoncc eee vi./Vt.i.

AS DERINEHON ss icecnesccscrs be grinding corn inadequately due to inexperience, allowing
some of the large pieces to filter down or slide between
the metate and the mano.

BOENGIEISHS: sasccerstoccs accu

6: MORPHOLOGY. ..3sss. yotsi-han-i-n-ta

[push:down:into-grind:corn-Ui-£CAUS-REP]
7 UNDERLYING FORM....... / yohtsi haana -i -na -tal /

8 INFLECTED FORMG......... ~tota

9 COMBINING FORMG.......

LO: PAUSALS Sa Ss

11 CROSS-REFERENCE.....

12 -EXAMREESSS ee UI' pas okiw naat ~{ta}.£ This poor person still allows large

pieces of kernels to filter down because of her inexperience. -
UUm qa ~{ta}niya.£ Don’t grind inadequately (by overlooking
some of the larger pieces).

LO2 LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

Our Zapotec Ethnic Identity

Manuel Rios Morales

We, the Zapotec from the northern mountains
in Oaxaca, Mexico, are a group related linguisti-
cally and culturally to other Zapotec groups from
the valley, the isthmus and the southern moun-
tains. Even though our dialects differ we share
the same historical consciousness, a geographical
space and similar cultural traditions. We use our
differences and similarities to express Our particu-
lar identity in the context of our national society,
which is composed of diverse ethnic identities.

At the regional level our Zapotec identity is
recognized in language, in culture and ina
shared geography. At district levels, we, who live
in the areas of Zoogocho, Yalalag and part of
Villa Alta y Cajonos, define ourselves as the
Be’ne’xon, to distinguish from the Bene ‘xisha,
Zapotec from Talca; the Bene reg, Zapotec from
the area of Ixtlan and the Be’ne’rashe, Zapotec
from the Valley. And at the local level, our Zapo-
tec ethnic identity is defined by the particular
historical-structural conditions of our communi-
ties of birth — poverty, exploitation, dialect, local
culture.

After more than three centuries of colonial
destruction, more than a century of political inde-
pendence with its forces of social disintegration
and cultural assimilation, and a decade of over-
whelming modernization in the sixties, our iden-
tities emerge today with a new strength, a greater
awareness of self-preservation and human dig-
nity. Despite the impact of modernization, we
have maintained important parts of our culture —
such as our cosmology, our communal organiza-
tion, our language — all important elements in
sustaining our identity.

Zapotec ethnic identity has also been pre-
served by music. In our region, each town has its
own music band, small or large. Music is inti-
mately associated with community life, an impor-
tant element of social cohesion, a language with
which to express joy, nostalgia, abundance or
deprivation. The music of the region is common
to Zapotec, Mixes and Chinatec groups. It in-
cludes a variety of marches, waltzes, boleros,
fantasias, sones and jarabes. These musical
rhythms are heard in all religious festivities and
social events.

Another distinctive trait of Zapotec ethnic
identity is the social group formed for communal
work and reciprocal help known as shin-raue
and gson. Through these native institutions, the
community meets social needs and collaborates
in public works when the need arises. Commu-
nal labor is not only a way of working; it is also
a strategy for defending identity and sharing re-
sponsibility which has allowed our peoples to
survive as distinct groups.

Recent Zapotec migrations have made the
Valley of Mexico, the city of Oaxaca, and Los
Angeles, California, new spaces of conquest and
establishment of Zapotec cultures. Migration is
not only the physical removal of our brothers and
sisters, but also the transfer of traditions, values,
beliefs, feelings and patterns of day-to-day life
into the new settlement areas. Beginning in the
fifties, various migrant voluntary associations
have emerged: the Zoogocho Fraternal Union in
Mexico City, the Zoogocho Unifying Front in
Oaxaca and the Zoogocho Social Union of Los
Angeles in California.

As contemporary natives, we recognize the
great responsibility we have within the structure
of our national society. We recognize that the
problem before us is how to overcome the
contradictions inherent in every dynamic society,
such as marginalization, domination, discrimina-
tion, self-contempt and self-degradation. We be-
lieve that the essence of our identity will endure
at least 500 more years, but we also recognize
that if we do not assert our own demands, we
will continue to have the status of a minority.

Manuel Rios Morales, a native Zapotec from Zoogocho
Oaxaca, is a professor in the master’s program in
Native American linguistics, sponsored by the National
Indigenist Institute (IND, and the Center for Research
and Graduate Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS)
He is a graduate from the Research and Social
Integration Institute of Oaxaca, and received a master's
degree from the Center for Social Integration in Mexico
City. As a Fellow, be participated in the Program of
Community Development in Haifa, Israel. He ts active
in education projects for indigenous professionals and
in community development researc b

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 103

Nuestra Identidad
Etnica Zapoteca

Manuel Rios Morales

Los zapotecos de la Sierra Norte de Oaxaca,
Mexico, formamos parte de un grupo mayor em-
parentado, lingtistica y culturalmente, con zapo-
tecos del Valle, del Istmo y de la Sierra Sur. Aun-
que nuestros dialectos difieren, todos hemos
compartido una misma conciencia historica, un
espacio geografico especifico, una tradicion cul-
tural similar. Estos elementos nos han permitido
reconocer tanto nuestras diferencias Como
nuestras similitudes y expresar de esta forma una
particular identidad dentro del contexto de
nuestra sociedad nacional que esta compuesta
por diversas identidades Ctnicas.

Al nivel regional la identidad zapoteca se re-
conoce en el idioma, la cultura y una geogratia
compartida. Los zapotecos que habitamos en las
areas de Zoogocho, Yalalag, parte de Villa Alta y
Cajonos, nos autodefinimos como los be ie X07,
a diferencia del bene Nisha, zapotecos del area
de Talea; del bene reg, zapotecos del area de
Ixtlan y del be ne rashe, zapotecos del Valle. Y
en el nivel local nuestra identidad etnica zapo-
teca esta aun mas definida especificamente por
las condiciones historico-estructurales de nuestra
comunidades natales — pobreza, explotacion,
lengua, dialecto, cultura local.

Despues de mas de tres siglos de destruccion
colonial, de mas de un siglo de vida politica
acompanada por fuerzas sociales de desintegra-
cion y asimilacion cultural y una importante
epoca de modernizacion en los anos sesenta,
nuestras identidades emergen hoy con nuevas
fuerzas, con una mayor conciencia de sobre-
vivencia y de dignidad humana. A pesar del im-
pacto de la modernizacion, se mantuvieron otras
partes importantes de nuestra cultura como son
su cosmovision, su organizacion Comunitaria y su
lengua.

La identidad etnica zapoteca, tambien se ha
podido preservar gracias a la importancia que la
musica tiene entre nosotros. En nuestra region,
cada pueblo tiene su propia banda de musica,

LO4 LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

grande o pequena. La musica se encuentra inti-
mamente vinculada a la vida comunitaria, es y ha
sido el elemento de cohesion social por excelen-
cia, otro lenguaje que puede expresar alegria o
nostalgia, abundancia o carencia. La musica re-
gional es comun a los pueblos zapotecos, mixes
y chinantecos. Incluye una variedad de marchas,
valses, boleros, fantasias y, basicamente, los
sones y jarabes. Son los generos musicales que
acompanan a todas las festividades religiosas y
los grandes acontecimientos sociales de la
comunidad.

Otros rasgos distintivos de la identidad etnica
zapoteca lo constituyen el abajo comunitario y
la ayuda mutua que en nuestro zapoteco se
conocen como shin-raue y gson. Con estas insti-
tuciones indigenas el pueblo realiza las diversas
obras de caracter social y colabora cuando la
necesidad 0 el compromiso asi lo requieren. El
trabajo comunitario, por su contenido y por sus
implicaciones, constituye mas que una simple
forma de trabajo. La comunidad es una estrategia
de defensa de la identidad, un mecanismo de
autoidentidad y de responsabilidad que ha per-
mitido a nuestros pueblos sobrevivir como
grupos diferenciados.

Recientes migraciones zapotecas han conver-
tido el Valle de Mexico, la ciudad de Oaxaca y
Los Angeles en California, en nuevos espacios de
conquista y asientos culturales. La migracion no
es simplemente el desplazamiento fisico de
nuestros paisanos sino el traslado a las nuevas
areas, de las tradiciones, de los valores, de las
creencias, de los sentimientos y de la vida coti-
diana. Se dio origen a diversas organizaciones de
migrantes desde los anos de 1950 como son la
Union Fraternal Zoogochense en la ciudad de
Mexico, el Frente Unificador Zoogochense en la
cuidad de Oaxaca y la Union Social Zoogochense
de Los Angeles en California.

Los indigenas actuales reconocemos que tene-
mos una gran responsabilidad dentro de la

Los zapotecas de la sierra
oaxaquena cultivan en las
laderas del monte y crian
animales. En el pueblo de
Zoogocho cultivan cana de
azucar que procesan en el
pueblo. Después de extraer y
hervir el liquido, la melaza es
vaciada en moldes de madera
y enfriada. El azucar
endurecida se envuelve en
hoja de matz

Foto de Manuel Rios

estructura de nuestra sociedad nacional. El

Manuel Rios Morales, Nativo Zapoteca de Zoogocho

dilema que se les presenta hoy a nuestros pueb-
Oaxaca, es profesor en el programa de maestria en

los es cOmo superar las contradicciones inheren-
lingtiistica indigena, auspiciado por el Instituto

tes a toda sociedad dinamica incluyendo situa-
y Nacional Indigenista (IND), y el Centro de Investi-

3 »s Oo fenomenos tales c » la marginaci
ciones o fenomenos tales como la marginacion, gaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologia Social

la dominaci6n, la discriminacion, el autodespre- (CIESAS). Graduado del Instituto de Investigacion e

cio y la autodegradacion. Creemos que la esencia Integracion Social de Oaxaca, recibio su maestria del
de nuestra identidad podra continuar por otros Centro de Investigacion para la Integracion Social en la
500 anos, pero tambien reconocemos que mien- Ciudad de México. Bajo beca participo en el Programa
tras nO seamos Capaces de plantear nuestras pro- de Desarrollo Comunitario en Haifa, Israel. Colabora en

pias demandas, seguiremos manteniendo la con- programas profesionales indigenas y de desarrollo

dici6n de minoria en el marco de la sociedad comunitario de investigacion

plurietnica.

Cancion Zapotecz
Recopilacion del Sr. Demetrio Morales Vicente

Bene Xoon Neda Soy zapoteco

Yeshrio zito zanda De tierras lejanas vengo
Yeshrio sdun za neda de tierras desconocidas tambien
Chguanda tu bsu subiendo una cuesta
chetga tu retg bajando otra igual

Bente xen rasho quiero que me perdones

Bi gazen chura por lo que yo haga

Bente xen rasho quiero que me perdones

Bi da rish cuiro por venir a tu casa.

Tu chela, tu gurida Un abrazo y una caricia
Tu bxidze da shneba y un beso nomads yo te pido
Bente xen lasho quiero que me perdones

bi gazen shia. por lo que te digo.

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 105

Politics and Culture of
Indigenism in Mexico

José Luis Krafft Verz

translated by Charles H. Roberts

In Mexico official “indigenism” began to take
shape by the 1910s. Its development was influ-
enced by the great social movement of the 1910
Mexican Revolution. Indigenism was the political
means used by the state to attend to the develop-
ment needs of culturally distinct Mexican popula-
uons.

A system of thought known as Mexican Indi-
genism, which brings together research and so-
cial action, has become a substantial part of the
Mexican School of Anthropology. Indigenism is
also fundamental to an understanding of the pe-
culiarities of Mexican nationalism.

Mexican Indigenism has drawn from various
currents at different times in the 20th century.
Thus, the indigenist policy is not a finished, per-
fectly systematized whole. Nevertheless, it has
provided a model for government policy towards
indigenous peoples in other Latin American
countries with large indigenous populations.
Mexican Indigenism has inspired the establish-
ment of Indian institutes in several Latin Ameri-
can countries, after the First Inter-American In-
dian Congress held in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, in
1940,

The initial postulates of indigenism have been
modified in light of experience; dynamic efforts
continue to shape indigenism in response to the
particular developments in the indigenous world.
Mexican Indigenism has gone through agrarianist,
educational, and developmentalist — also known
as integrationist — phases.

In the last twenty years the outlook for the
indigenous peoples in Mexico and throughout
Latin America has changed significantly. The
indigenous movement has developed economic,
political, social and cultural organizations with a
strategic outlook. Indigenous peoples’ growing
effectiveness stems from their more decisive en-
gagement of national societies in defense of their
human rights, collective and cultural. Marginal-
ized for over 500 years from the main decision-

106 LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

making centers of government, the indigenous
resistance in recent years has produced organiza-
tions that foster respect for and understanding of
traditional values. These millenary cultures, with
a powerful wisdom, have been able to survive in
national societies in which indigenous peoples
are at the bottom of the economic ladder.

This display of organizational strength has had
an impact on the state institutional structures that
develop indigenous policy today. The National
Indigenist Institute (known as INI: Instituto
Nacional Indigenista) has abandoned the theo-
retical and practical policy of integrationist indi-
genism, adapting its actions to the organizational
renaissance of the indigenous peoples. No longer
are indigenous initiatives supplanted by state
agents who underestimate indigenous peoples’
capacity to manage their own development based
on their life experiences, plans and capabilities.

Thus, indigenous peoples play a more promi-
nent role in society. Their organizational move-
ment, which encompasses the 56 ethnic groups
that live in Mexico, each with its own culture and
language, has stated three main principles that
must be made part of the INI’s policy:

1. Indigenous peoples and communities must
participate in planning and implementation of
the INI’s programs.

2. This participation should culminate in the
transfer of institutional functions and resources
to indigenous organizations and communities,
and to other public institutions and social groups
involved in and committed to indigenist action.

3. INI must coordinate all of its actions with
federal, state and municipal institutions, and so-
cial organizations and with international agen-
Gies,

These general principles for governmental
action by the INI are motivated by a firm resolve
to break the fetters that inhibit the full and inte-
gral development of the indigenous peoples of
Mexico, The indigenous peoples number 8 mil-

In the highland communities of Chiapas, textiles represent complex cultural ideas. Designs may
represent the origin of human society or the identity and history of a local community. Petrona
Méndez Intzin, a Tzeltal Maya weaver from Tenejapa in the highlands of Chiapas, brocades on the
traditional backstrap loom of the region. Photo by Ricardo Martinez

lion in 1991, accounting for over nine percent of
the Mexican population, based on projections
from the 1980 National Census. No other country
of the Americas has as large an indigenous popu-
lation as Mexico.

The key demands raised by the indigenous
communities and their organizations include
equal justice and equality in civil rights and obli-
gations, as required by law for all Mexicans. The
National Commission of Justice for the Indige-
nous Peoples of Mexico was established by presi-
dential initiative in April 1989. This Commission,
presided over by the Director of the INI, Dr.
Arturo Warman, is charged with proposing
changes in the Mexican Constitution, after consul-
tations with indigenous and other organizations
involved in development and indigenous affairs.
These constitutional changes will lead to recogni-
tion of indigenous cultural rights for the first time
in the history of independent Mexico. This Presi-

dential initiative was presented to the Chamber of

Deputies and the Senate. Article 4 of the
Constitution is to be amended to recognize that
Mexico is a multicultural country and that indige-
nous peoples have specific rights.

Members of the Ikood, Zapotec, Tzotzil,
Tzetzal and Lacandon cultures, representing the
states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, which have the

highest density of indigenous populations and
cultures in the country, are participating this
summer in the Festival of American Folklife

This cultural exhibition will offer the public an
opportunity to learn about indigenous knowledge
and wisdom of the land and the environment.
Now that the Western world has begun to turn its
attention to the environment of the planet, the
indigenous peoples of the Americas — despite
having all institutional practices Operate against
their interests for the last 500 years — offer us
their knowledge of the harmony that must be
preserved between man and nature.

The hour of the earth has come; and it is time
to listen to the indigenous peoples of our Amer-
ica. The subjugation and discrimination of recent
centuries will be no more in the new millennium
The cultural resistance of indigenous peoples
should find expression in a full renaissance of
their indigenous abilities, for the benefit of all
inhabitants of this planet

José Luis Krafft, ethonologist, is Assistant Director fo)

Cultural Promotion for the National Indigenist Institut
(IND). He graduated from the National School of
Anthropology and History in Mexico City, specializing
in indigenous cultures of the rainforest, particularly the
Lacandon region. He has published extensively on the

indigenous cultures of Mexico

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 107

Politica y Cultura en el
Presente Indigena de
Mexico

José Luis Krafft Verz

El Indigenismo oficial en México se forma
dentro de una tradicion que comienza, por lo
menos,desde la segunda década del presente
siglo, bajo la influencia del gran movimiento
social que significo la Revolucion Mexicana de
1910, Este movimiento fue la politica disenada
por el estado para atender el desenvolvimiento
integral de las poblaciones consideradas cultu-
ralmente diferentes. Entre sus representantes
estan Manuel Gamio, Moises Saenz, Alfonso
Caso, Alfonso Villa Rojas, Gonzalo Aguirre
Beltran, Ricardo Pozas, quienes le han dado un
cariz teorico basico a ese sistema de pensamiento
denominado indigenismo mexicano. Considerado
como parte sustancial de la Escuela Mexicana de
Antropologia, por su caracter inseparable de in-
vestigacion-accion, se considera un nucleo de
pensamiento fundamental para entender las pe-
culiaridades intrinsecas del nacionalismo mexi-
cano,

El indigenismo mexicano se ha nutrido de cor-
rientes diversas en determinados momentos de la
historia del presente siglo. Esto impide mostrar la
politica indigenista como un todo acabado y
perfectamente sistematizado, pero ha contribuido
a fijar las reglas de accion del ambito estatal en
los paises del subcontinente latino-americano,
que cuentan con importantes nucleos poblacion-
ales indigenas. Ha sido base fundamental para la
fundacion de instituciones indigenistas en
naciones de la geografia mencionada, después
del Primer Congreso Indigenista Interamericano
celebrado en Patzcuaro, Michoacan, en 1940.

El indigenismo ha atravesado circunstancias
concretas habiendo asi modificado sus postula-
dos iniciales en un afan dinamico de adecuarse a
los ritmos particulares del andar indigena. Se
identifican como momentos del indigenismo
mexicano: el de corte agrarista, el educacional, y
el desarrollista, también conocido como integra-
cionista, cuyo principal exponente es el Dr.
Aguirre Beltran.

108 LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

En los ultimos veinte anos el panorama al que
se circunscriben los indigenas del pais, y en gen-
eral en toda Latinoamerica, ha mostrado modifi-
caciones considerables. La capacidad organizativa
indigena se destaca a nivel econdmico, politico,
social y cultural observandose una disposicion
estrategica. Para el mundo indigena, su efec-
tividad radica en una inmersion mas resuelta en
las sociedades nacionales que los incluyen y
absorben, y en una defensa de sus derechos
humanos colectivos y culturales. Marginado de
las instancias primeras de decision del poder
gubernamental desde hace medio milenio, en
anos recientes el poder de resistencia indigena ha
establecido organizaciones que los representen y
defiendan el respeto y comprension de sus va-
lores tradicionales. Estas culturas milenarias con
un saber poderoso han logrado sobrevivir en
sociedades nacionales en las que los indigenas
ocupan el nivel economico mas bajo.

Esta demostracion organizativa ha tenido
repercusion en las esferas estatales encargadas de
disenar la politica indigenista en el presente.
Actualmente el Instituto Nacional Indigenista ha
abandonado las direcciones teorico-practicas del
indigenismo integrador para adecuar su accion a
este renacimiento organizativo indigena. Se ha
terminado con la suplantacion de iniciativas
indigenas por parte de agentes estatales que
desvalorizaban la capacidad de gestion indigena
para desarrollar, desde su vivencia, sus proyectos
principales y las maneras adecuadas de realizar-
lc IS.

Esta “puesta al dia” del quehacer indigenista
con el movimiento organizacional mostrado por
las 56 etnias con cultura y lenguas diferentes que
habitan nuestro territorio nacional, tiene tres
principios generales de accion:

1. La participacion de los pueblos y
comunidades indigenas en la planificacion y
ejecucion de los programas de la Instituci6n Indi-

genista.

2. La participacion debe culminar en el tras-
paso de funciones y recursos institucionales a las
organizaciones y colectividades indigenas, asi
como a otras instituciones publicas y grupos de
la sociedad involucrados y comprometidos en la
accion indigenista.

3. La coordinacion con las instituciones fede-
rales, estatales, municipales, de la sociedad, y
con los organismos internacionales como un
principio permanente en toda la accion imple-
mentada por el Instituto Nacional Indigenista
(IND).

Estos principios generales de accion guber-
namental efectivizados por el INI son animados
por la intencion resuelta de terminar con las
amarras que inhiben el desarrollo pleno e inte-
gral de los pueblos indigenas de Mexico, una
poblacion dinamica que representa, en terminos
demograficos oficiales, mas del 9% del total de
mexicanos. Basada en el censo poblacional de
1980, esto significa en 1991 mas de ocho mi-
llones de indigenas. Ningun otro pais del conti-
nente americano tiene, en numeros absolutos, la
poblacion indigena que tiene Mexico.

Dentro de las demandas clarificadas por las
comunidades indigenas y sus organizaciones es
muy importante la de procurar la igualdad de
justicia en sus derechos y obligaciones ciuda-
danas, como lo demanda la ley para todos los
mexicanos. Por iniciativa presidencial, se fundo
la Comision Nacional de Justicia para los Pueblos
Indios de Mexico en abril de 1989. Esta
comision, presidida por el Dr. Arturo Warman,
Director General del INI, tiene la tarea de pro-
poner, despues de previas consultas con organi-
zaciones indigenas y de la sociedad involucradas
en el desarrollo y el acontecer indigena. Esta
iniciativa de Decreto Presidencial que fue som-
etida a las Camaras de Diputados y Senadores a
mediados de abril de 1991 que reconoce la reali-
dad pluricultural de Mexico en el articulo 4 de la
Constitucion, admitira la especificidad cultural de
los pueblos indigenas y sus derechos colaterales.
El mencionado articulo integraria el siguiente
texto:

La Nacion Mexicana tiene una composicion

pluricultural sustentada originalmente en sus

pueblos indigenas. La ley protegera y pro-
movera el desarrollo de sus lenguas, culturas,
usos, costumbres, recursos, formas especificas
de organizacion social, y garantizara a sus
integrantes el efectivo acceso a la juridiccion
del estado. En los juicios y procedimientos
agrarios en que aquellos sean parte, se to-
maran en cuenta sus practicas y costumbres
juridicas en los terminos que establezca la ley.

Maria Patistan Licanchiton, una chamula maya
tzotzil de los altos de Chiapas en Mexico, hila lana de

borrego en el patio de su casa. El borrego que fue
traido por los espanoles, era llamado “venado de
algodon por los mayads.” Foto de Ricardo Martinez

Participan este verano en el Festival de Cultu-
ras Tradicionales Americanas miembros de las
etnias ikoods, zapoteca, tzotzil, tzetzal y lacan-
dona, representando los estados de Oaxaca y
Chiapas, dos de los estados mexicanos con
mayor densidad demografica y cultural indigena
de nuestra Republica.

Con esta muestra cultural el publico asistente
tendra la oportunidad de relacionarse con el
conocimiento y sabiduria del indigena sobre la
tierra y el medio ambiente que lo rodea. Ahora
que el mundo occidental ha empezado a preocu-
parse por el cuidado ambiental del planeta que
habitamos, las culturas indigenas de las Américas,
a pesar de haber tenido todo en contra en estos
ultimos quinientos anos, nos ofrecen su cono-
cimiento sobre la armonia que el hombre debe
guardar en su relacion con el entorno natural.

Es la “hora del planeta” y tambien la hora de
escuchar al indigena de nuestro continente. Los
siglos ultimos de sujecion y discriminacion no
deben transmitirse al nuevo milenio. La resisten-
cia cultural indigena debe convertirse en el
renacimiento pleno de las capacidades indigenas
para el mejor provecho de todos los habitantes

de nuestro planeta.

José Luis Krafft, etnologo, es Subdirector del Promocion

Cultural del Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Graduado
de la Escuela Nacional de Antropologia e Historia,
especializandose en las culturas indigenas de la selva,
particularmente la region lacandona, Fue investigador
del Museo de las Culturas de la Ciudad de México. Ha
publicado extensamente sobre las culturas indigenas de

Mexico

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 109

An Excerpt From San Pedro
Chenalho: Something of its
History, Stories and Customs

Jacinto Arias

This late 19th or early 20th century episode in
the history of San Pedro Chenalho, a village in the
highlands of Chiapas, is told by one a scribe, Man-
uel Arias. As a village scribe, his role is to chron-
icle events and transmit written communications
between relatives, between community members
and between the local village and the outside au-
thorities. In this fragment, he recalls a village
scribe who abused this power and betrayed his
community, a familiar theme in the history of the
subjugation of Native American cultures.

Throughout the period of Spanish domination,
natives had to endure being treated like children
by the Kaxlanetik (the descendants of the Span-
iards), The image of the Spanish master was glori-
fied in San Pedro Apostol, father of the Pedrano
people. San Pedro is not a native but a European
god. The relationship between the patron saint
and his children crystallizes the one between
Kaxlanetik and natives during the time when they
felt like the domestic animals of the Spaniards.

For a long time after the Spanish arrived, the
Pedrano territory was free from incursions. As
early as 1850, there were only two ranches. It was
during the Porfirian era that most of the planta-
tions were established, and the Pedrano people
started to feel the brunt of slavery. To continue
working the land they had owned for generations,
peasants had also to work three days a week for
the landowners.

The central authority of the native parish (/i1)
did not allow the Kax/anetik to live in the commu-
nity. They could visit the town only as merchants
during holidays and weekends; the rest of the time
they lived in their homes in the town of San
Cristobal (Jobel). The lands surrounding this town
provided firewood only to the native parish. The
Kaxlanetik had none of the rights to the lands that
they have today.

During the Porfirian era the best ally of the
Kaxlanetik against the natives was a Pedrano
scribe named Antonio Botaz, who instead of pro-
tecting his own people, helped the Spaniards ac-
quire land within the /im to build houses and sell
merchandise, The town was thus profaned, but no

L110. LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

one protested because Botaz had a lot of power.
He threatened and abused the people exten-
sively. In a conspiracy with the Presidential of-
fice, he gave Spaniards the lands surrounding the
town.

This is when the Pedranos began to feel es-
tranged from the land that gave them their iden-
tity, security and protection. They assembled with
apprehension on Sundays and holidays, for their
authorities had not been able to defend the /um.
Before, a single Kaxlanetik gave orders, but now
many wanted power. It was not the same to take
orders from them when they lived outside in San
Cristobal, as to watch them stroll arrogantly in the
middle of the native parish. It was far less humili-
ating to carry the Spaniards’ suitcases when they
were only travelers than to carry packages for
their wives and daughters, who daily mistreated
them.

Pedranos surely felt neglected by their protec-
tors: Why — if they were gods — did they not
destroy these people who made them suffer?
Were they also weak and afraid like their own
sons? But they continued to pray at night, for the
night has hidden forces to help the neglected
Pedranos gain courage. They prayed and asked
for courage from their scribes. They said to their

gods:

If you have not given our authorities
Enough courage in their hearts,

If you have not given them

Enough cleverness in their heads,

Let someone rise among your children
With a strong heart

To face the Kaxlanetik.

Jacinto Arias is Director of the Department of Ethnic
Cultures of the Chiapanec Institute of Culture of the
State of Chiapas. His work bas been dedicated to the
defense of the indigenous cultures of Chiapas,
particularly to the preservation of language in its
written form. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology
from Princeton University. His publications include El
Mundo Numinoso de los Mayas, avd San Pedro
Chenalho: Algo de su Historia, Cuentos y Costumbres

Fragmento de San Pedro
Chenatho: Algo de su
Historia, Cuentos y
Costumbres

Jacinto Arias

Este episodio en la historia a fines del siglo 19
y principios del 20 de San Pedro Chenalho en los
altos de Chiapas, es narrado por el escribano
Manuel Arias. Como el cronista del pueblo, el
escribano mantiene su historia y facilita la comu-
nicaciOn entre miembros de la comunidad y entre
los pueblos y autoridades fuera de la comunidad.
En este fragmento, habla de un escribiente que
abuso de su poder y traiciono a su comunidad,
un tema familiar en la historia de subjugacion de
las culturas nativas de América.

A lo largo de la dominacion espanola los in-
dios tuvieron que soportar el trato de ninos que
les daban los kaxlanetik (adinos). La imagen del
ladino patron quedo entronizado en la persona
de San Pedro Apostol que es un gran kaxlan
padre de los pedranos. San Pedro no es un dios
nativo sino ladino. La relacion entre el Santo
Patrono y sus hijos cristaliza la que existio entre
ladinos y nativos en los tiempos mas dificiles
cuando éstos se sintieron como pollos, puercos o
perros, frente a aquellos.

Durante mucho tiempo, después de la venida
de los espanoles, el territorio pedrano estuvo
libre de las invasiones ladinas. Por 1850, segun
los titulos de compras que los pedranos hicieron
de sus propias tierras al Gobierno, habia nada
mas dos ranchos que estaban en las lineas
mojoneras con Pantelho y Tenejapa; por lo que
muy probablemente las haciendas se establecie-
ron en el territorio pedrano durante la jefatura
politica que estuvo en Larrainzar poco antes y
durante el porfiriato. Fue entonces cuando los
hijos de San Pedro empezaron a sentir mas de
cerca la esclavitud de parte de los duenos de las
haciendas; fue cuando las tierras que poseian los
trabajadores desde generaciones anteriores em-
pezaron a ser baldias y ellos, mozos; entonces
varios de ellos comenzaron a trabajar tres dias a

la semana para el patron con tal de que pudieran
sembrar en las tierras que sus padres les habian
dejado; 0 a servir de mozos para pagar las gran-
des deudas que tenian con el patron.

El Jum, la cabecera municipal, no habia acep-
tado la residencia de los ladinos. Estos visitaban
el pueblo solo como comerciantes durante las
fiestas, sabados y domingos; el resto del tiempo
vivian en sus casas en Jobe/ (San Cristobal). Las
tierras que estan alrededor del pueblo servian
solo para dar lena a las autoridades y demas
personas que celebraban las fiestas de los santos;
ningun ladino alegaba tener derechos sobre ellas
como ahora.

Pero el porfiriato tuvo de aliado a Antonio
Botaz, un escribano que, lejos de ser defensor de
su pueblo, se puso del lado de los ladinos. Por
unos garrafones de trago, unos manojos de carne
salada, unos cigarros y unas cuantas “tortillas
ladinas,” permitio que los comerciantes hicieran,
primero, sus galeras para vender sus mercancias,
luego, sus casas dentro del Jim. Se profano el
pueblo, pero nadie protestaba porque Antonio
Botaz era muy temido; aventajaba a los ladinos
en el maltrato a sus paisanos: al saludo reverente
de inclinacion de cabeza de los que pedian justi-
cia respondia con los pies, en lugar de corre-
sponder con la mano como es costumbre; abusa-
ba de las mujeres de los que mandaba a la carcel.

Jacinto Arias es Director del Departamento de Culturas
Etnicas del Instituto Chiapaneco de Cultura del Estado
de Chiapas. Se ha dedicado a la defensa de las
culturas indigenas de Chiapas y en particular a la
preservacion de la lengua y su escritura, Rectbio su
doctorado en antropologia de la Universidad de
Princeton. Sus publicaciones incluyen El mundo
numinoso de los mayas, » San Pedro Chenalho; Algo

de su Historia, Cuentos y Costumbres

LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES 111

Antonio Botaz supo dar mas miedo a los ya te-
merosos paisanos suyos: “Si te alzas, si sigues
hablando, si no obedeces lo que te digo, te iras
muy lejos para no regresar jamas a tu casa,” decia
a los acusados de cualquier delito. Tambien en
complicidad con el secretario de la presidencia
Jose Aguilar Rodas, fue el que dio a los ladinos
las parcelas de las orillas del pueblo.

Asi los pedranos comenzaron a sentir enajena-
cion del pedazo de tierra que les daba identidad,
seguridad, proteccion; ya con temor se congrega-
ban los domingos y dias de fiesta; su ayun-
tamiento no habia sido capaz de ser el baluarte,
el fortin, del Jam. Si, anteriormente tambien era
el secretario el que mandaba en el pueblo, pero
no era lo mismo tener a un ladino que a varios
que comenzaban a querer apoderarse de la auto-

Me muk’ xavak’be stzatzal sjol yo’onik
ti boch’otik va’al tek’el avu’une, kajval,
ak’o yaluk tal, ak’o tz’ujuk tal avuw’un
ti boch’o skotol sjol

skotol yo’on satilta sba

svalebin sba xchi’uk

ti sba avol, sba anich’one.

ridad del pueblo; no era lo mismo recibir instruc-
ciones del ladino que vivia en San Andrés 0 en San
Cristobal que ver pasearse altaneramente a varios
de ellos en el corazon del mismo pueblo; tampoco
era tan humillante para los regidores y los algua-
ciles cargar las maletas de ladinos transeuntes como
cargar a las esposas e hijas de quienes recibian
maltratos de diario.

Se sintio seguramente el pedrano abandonado
por sus seres protectores, ¢Por que, si eran dioses,
no acababan con esas personas que los hacian su-
frir? Acaso los dioses eran tambien deébiles y te-
merosos como sus hijos? Sin embargo siguieron
rezando sobre todo en las noches porque ésta, que
esconde fuerzas imperceptibles, da valor al pedrano
que se siente abandonado, rezaban y pedian valor a

sus escribanos 0 decian a sus dioses:

Sia estos no les diste

vdlor en sus Corazones,

si 0 les diste

talento en sus cabezas,

que venga, que se levante de entre tus bijos,
aleuno de corazon fuerte

para que se plante a los ladinos.

112. LAND IN NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

Se ONAN ONS Til UT'LON

1991 Festival
of American

Folklife

June 28-July 1/July 4-July 7

Co-sponsored -by the National Park Service

General

Information —

Festival Hours

Opening ceremonies for the Festi-
val will be held on the Main Music
Stage in the Roots of Rhythm and.

Blues area at 11:00 a.m., Friday, June ~

28th. Thereafter, Festival hours will
be 11:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily, with
dance parties every evening 5:30 to
7:00 p.m., except July 4th.

Horario del Festival

La ceremonia de apertura al Festi-
val se celebrara en el escenario del
Programa de “Roots of Rhythm and
Blues,” el 28 de junio a las 11:00 A.M.
A partir de ese dia, las horas del Festi-
val seran de 11:00 a.m. a las 5:30
p.m. diariamente, con baile cada no-
che, excepto el 4 de julio, de 5:30
p.m. a 7:90 P.M.

Sales

Traditional food from Indonesia,
Central and South America and the
midwestern United States will be sold.
See the site map for locations.

A variety of crafts, books and
Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings re-
lating to the 1991 Festival will be sold
in the Museum Shop tents on the
Festival site.

Press 2

Visiting members of the press
should register at the Festival Press
tent on the Mall near Madison Drive
and 12th Street.

First Aid

A first aid station will be available
near the Administration area on the
Mall. The Health Units in the Muse-
ums of American History and Natural
History are open from 10:00 a.m. to
5:30 p.m. ;

Primeros Auxilios

Una unidad de primeros auxilios se
instalara cerca del area de la Adminis-
tracion. Las unidades de salud en los

museos de Historia Norteamericana y
de Historia Natural estaran abiertos
desde las 10:00 a.m. hasta las 5:30 p.m.

Rest Rooms/Telephones

There are outdoor facilities for the
public and disabled visitors located
near all of the program areas on the
Mall. Additional rest room facilities
are available in each of the museum
buildings during visiting hours.

Public telephones are available on
the site, opposite the Museums of
American History and Natural History,
and inside ‘the museums.

Lost and Found/

Lost Children and Parents

Lost items may be turned in or re-
trieved at the Volunteer tentin the
Administration area., Lost family mem-
bers may be claimed at the Volunteer
tent also. We advise putting a name
tag on youngsters.

Personas y
objetos Perdido

Las personas que hayan perdido a
sus ninos 0 a familiares pueden pasar
por la carpa para voluntarios, en el
area de la Administracion por ellos.
Recomendamos que los ninos lleven
puestos tarjeta de identificacion con
sus nombres. Los objetos encontrados
o extraviados podran entregarse oO re-
clamarse en dicha carpa.

Metro Stations

Metro trains will be running every
day of the Festival. The Festival site is
easily accessible to either the Smith-
sonian or Federal Triangle stations on
the Blue and Orange lines.

Services for
Disabled Visitors

Four sign-language interpreters are
on site every day at the Festival.
Check the printed schedule and signs

for interpreted programs. Oral inter-
preters are available for individuals if a
request is made three full days in ad-
vance. Call (202) 786-2414 (TDD) or
(202) 786-2942 (voice). An audio-loop
amplification system for people who
are hard of hearing is installed at the
Roots of Rhythm and Blues Music

‘ Stage.

Large-print copies of the daily
schedule and audiocassette versions of
the program book and schedule are
available free of charge at Festival in-
formation kiosks and the Volunteer
tent. -

Wheelchairs are available at the
Festival Volunteer tent. Volunteers are
on call to assist wheelchair users and |
to guide visually handicapped visitors.
There are a few designated parking
spaces for disabled visitors along both
Mall drives. These spaces have three
hour time restrictions!

Evening Dance Parties

Musical groups playing traditional
dance music will perform every eve-
ning, 5:30-7:00 p.m., except July 4th.
See daily schedules for specific loca-
uons.

Program Book

Background information on the cul- /
tural traditions of Indonesia, native
people of North and South America,
family farming in the midwestern
United States and the roots of rhythm
and blues is available in the Festival of
American Folklife-Program Book, on.
sale for $3.00 at the Festival site or by
mail from the Office of Folklife Pro-
grams, Smithsonian Institution, 955
L’Enfant Plaza, S.W., Suite 2600, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20560.

Participants in the

1991 Festival of

American Folklife

Roots of Rhythm and Blues:
The Robert Johnson Era:

Home/Work/Social

Gatherings

R.P. Hunt, harmonica -
Coldwater, Mississippi

Children’s Games
Brightwood Elementary
School students

Fife & Drum

Jesse Mae Hemphill, drum -
Como, Mississippi

Napolean Strickland, fife -
Como, Mississippi

Abe Young, drum - Como,
Mississippi

R.L. Boyce, drum - Como,
Mississippi

E.P. Burton, drum - Como,
Mississippi

Bernice Evans, drum -
Senatobia, Mississippi

Otha Turner, fife -
Senatobia, Mississippi

Work Chants

“Railroad Maintenance
Workers”

Henry Caffe - Birmingham,
Alabama

Arthur James - Birmingham,
Alabama

John Henry Mealing - _
Birmingham, Alabama

Abraham Parker -
Birmingham, Alabama

Cornelius Wright -
Birmingham, Alabama

David Savage ~-Greenville,
Mississippi

Joseph Savage - Greenville,
Mississippi

Spirituals and Gospel

“McIntosh County Shouters”

Catherine Campbell -
Townsend, Georgia

Thelma Ellison - Townsend,

_ Georgia
Harold Evans - Townsend,
' Georgia

Lawrence Mclver -
Townsend, Georgia

Verti McIver - Townsend,
Georgia

Benjamin Reed - Townsend,
Georgia

Doretha Skipper -
Townsend, Georgia

Carletha Sullivan -
Townsend, Georgia

Elizabeth Temple -
Townsend, Georgia

Odessa Young - Townsend,
Georgia

“Moving Star Hall Singers”
Benjamin Bligen - Johns
Island, South Carolina
Ruth Bligen - Johns Island,
South Carolina
Janie Hunter - Johns
Island, South
Carolina
Christina McNeil -
Johns Island,
South
Carolina

Mary Pinckney - Johns
Island, South Carolina

Loretta Stanley - Johns
Island, South Carolina

Reverend Leon Pinson,
guitar - New Albany,
Mississippi

Lee Russell Howard,
keyboards - New Albany,
Mississippi

Delta Blues

Kent DuChaine, guitar -
Birmingham,:Alabama

David “Honeyboy” Edwards,,
guitar - Chicago, Illinois

Michael Frank, harmonica -
Chicago, Illinois

Frank Frost, harmonica/
piano - Clarksdale,
Mississippi

Robert Jr. Lockwood, guitar -
Cleveland, Ohio

Lonnie Pitchford, guitar -
Lexington, Mississippi

Gene Schwartz, bass guitar -
Cleveland, Ohio

Johnny Shines, guitar -
Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Henry Townsend, guitar/
piano - St. Louis, Missouri

Elmore Williams, guitar,
mouth sounds - Natchez,
Mississippi

“Mamie Davis Blues Band”
Dale Cusic, drums -
Greenville, Mississippi
Mamie Davis, vocals -
Greenville, Mississsippi
Albert Foe, bass guitar -
Greenville, Mississippi
Larry Blackwell, guitar -
Greenville, Mississippi

Family
Farming in
the Heartland

Farm Families

Arnold Family
Rushville, Indiana
(hog and grain farming)
Clarence “Jake” Arnold
Eleanor Arnold

John Arnold

Leslie Arnold

Borman Family
Kingdom City, Missouri
(dairy farming)

Harlan Borman
Katherine Borman
Kelly Borman

Timothy Borman

Cerny Family

Cobden, Illinois

(tomato, pepper, grain, and
beef cattle farming)

Anthony Cerny

Betty Cerny

Eric Cerny

Josephine Cerny

Norbert Cerny

Richard Cerny

Theresa Cerny

Thomas Cerny

Dahl Family

Mineral Point, Wisconsin

(dairy farming and
gardening)

Pascalena Dahl

Tony Dahl

Vickie Dahl

Gustad Family

Volin, South Dakota
(hog and grain farming)
Jeannie Gustad

Ordell “Bud” Gustad
Paul Gustad

Shari Gustad

Steve Gustad

Virginia Gustad

Hill Family

Imlay City, Michigan
(potato farming)
Lynnette Hill

Russell Hill

Shannon Hill
Tyrone Hill

Holmquist Family
Smolan, Kansas
(wheat and beef cattle
farming)
Darrel Holmquist
Marlysue Holmquist
Mary Holmquist
Thomas Holmquist

Jones Family

Ainsworth, Nebraska

(hog, beef cattle and grain
farming)

Brendon Jones

Carol Jones

David Jones

Lois Jones

Logenbach Family

Fremont, Ohio

(cucumber, sugar beet and
cattle farming) :

Connie Logenbach

Larry Logenbach

Mike Logenbach

Peters Family

Vallonia, Indiana

(popcorn and beef cattle
farming)

Larry Peters

Lavena Peters

Peg Peters

Ralph Peters

Simanek Family

Walker, lowa

(grain and beef cattle
farming)

Allen Simanek

Arthur Simanek

Dorothy Simanek —

Linda Simanek

Sage-Chase and Voigt
Family

Halliday, North Dakota

(Mandan Indian gardening)

Louise Otter “Pretty Eagle”
Sage

Bob “Moves Slowly” Sage-
Chase

Ann Charity “Cornsilk” Voigt

Janet “Bird Woman” Voigt

Tomesh Family

Rice Lake, Wisconsin

(dairy farming)
John Tomesh
Joseph Tomesh
Rose Tomesh
Virginia Tomesh

Crafts

Wilma Brueggemeier, quilter
- Norwood, Minnesota

Marian Day, cook - W.
Lebanon, Indiana

William Day, wooden bowl
maker - W. Lebanon,
Indiana

Deonna Green, quilter -
Remus, Michigan

Paula Guhin, corn mural
artist - Aberdeen, South
Dakota

Elnora Henschen, quilter -
Norwood, Minnesota

Gertrude Hornebrink, quilter
- Waconia, Minnesota

Arnold Ische, rug weaver -
Cologne, Minnesota

Lillian Ische, rug weaver -
Cologne, Minnesota

Harold Plate, whirligig
maker - Hedrich, lowa

Patricia Plate, whirligig
maker - Hedrich, Towa

Dale Rippentrop, corn mural
decorator - Mitchell,
South Dakota

Arthur Sayler, postrock
cutter - Albert, Kansas

Arthur Sayler III, postrock
cutter - Albert, Kansas

Beatrice Sayler, rug maker -
Albert, Kansas

Cal Shultz, corn mural artist
- Mitchell, South Dakota

Dean Strand, corn mural
decorator - Mitchell,
South Dakota

=f ay Ca

>»

Ione Todd, quilter - Remus,
Michigan

Threshing

Ronald E. Miller, Genesoe,
Illinois

Lora Lea Miller, Geneseo,
Illinois

Russell L. Miller, Geneseo,
Illinois

James Daniel “J.D.” Miller,
Geneseo, Illinois

Herb Wessel, Hampstead,
Maryland

Russell Wolfinger,

_ Hagerstown, Maryland

Henry Thomas, Washington,

DG:

Music

Old Time Fiddle Contest

Kenny Applebee, guitar -
Rush Hill, Missouri

Amos Chase, fiddle -
Grantville, Kansas

Dwight “Red” Lamb, fiddle/
button accordion -
Onawa, lowa

Preston “Pete” McMahan,
fiddle - Harrisburg,
Missouri

Kenneth Sidle, fiddle -
Newark, Ohio

Lynn “Chirps” Smith, fiddle -
Grayslake, Illinois

Tom Weisgerber, fiddle - St.
Peter, Minnesota

Michele Blizzard, fiddle -
Frazeyburg, Ohio

Midwestern Parlor Music
Styles

Art Galbraith, fiddle -
Springfield, Missouri

Paul Keller, ragtime piano -

Hutchinson, Kansas ~
Gordon McCann, guitar -
Springfield, Missouri
Bob Andresen, guitar -
Duluth, Minnesota
Gary Andresen, guitar -
Duluth, Minnesota

Farm Songs and Stories

Chuck Suchy, singer/
songwriter - Mandan,
North Dakota

Michael Cotter, storyteller - ”
Austin, Minnesota

Brian and the Mississippi
Valley Dutchmen

Brian Brueggen, band
leader, concertina -
Cashton, Wisconsin

Wilhelm Oelke, drums/
vocals - Coon Valley,
Wisconsin

Louis Allen, tuba -
McFarland, Wisconsin

Philip Brueggen, trumpet/
vocals - Cashton,
Wisconsin

Don Burghardt, trumpet/
trombone/vocals -
Sturdevant, Wisconsin

Milton “Tony” Jorgenson,
banjo - Coon Valley,
Wisconsin

Country Travellers

Lillie Anderson, bass -
Thompsonville, Illinois

Phyllis Davis, rhythm guitar/
vocals - Benton, Illinois

Willard Davis, rhythm guitar
- Benton, Illinois

Ernest Rhynes, lead guitar -
Ina, Illinois

Lloyd “Boot” Shew, fiddle -
Thompsonville, Illinois

Sidney Logsdon, square
dance caller - Versailles,
Illinois

The Simanek Family

Allen Simanek, trombone -
Walker, Iowa

Anton Simanek, tuba/ ;
baritone horn - Walker,
Iowa :

Arthur Simanek, accordion -
Walker, Iowa

Eastern Iowa Brass Band
Barbara Biles, alto horn -
- Springville, lowa
Todd Bransky, tuba - Solon,
Towa }
Beth Brooks, percussion -
Crawfordsville, lowa ~
Norman Brooks, tuba -
Crawfordsville, Iowa
Jerry Buxton, tuba - lowa
City, Iowa
Nancy Coles, coronet - Mt.
Vernon, lowa
Renee Crisman, trombone -
Solon, Iowa
David DeHoff, announcer -
Marion, Iowa
Joan DeHoff, coronet -
Marion, lowa
Lyle Hanna, bass trombone -
Mt. Vernon, lowa
Beth Hronek, coronet -
Cedar Rapids, lowa
Fred: Hucke, flugelhorn -
Cedar Falls, Iowa
Susan Hucke, coronet -
Cedar Falls, Iowa
Melissa Karr, trombone -
_ Iowa City, lowa
Steve Kinney, coronet -
Harper's Ferry, lowa
Viola Koster, coronet -
_ Marion, Iowa
Tim Lockwood, percussion -
Mt. Vernon, Iowa
Dennis Modracek, Coronet -
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
George Mullaly; baritone
horn - Iowa City, lowa
Harvey Nicholson,
euphonium - Iowa City,
lowa
Richard Rockrohr,
percussion - Mt. Vernon,
lowa

Nancy Roorda, euphonium -
Iowa City, lowa

Don Stine, conductor,
euphonium - Mt. Vernon,
Iowa

Judy Stine, alto horn - Mt.
Vernon, Iowa _

Kevin Tiedemann,
percussion - Lisbon, lowa

Robert Upmeyer, alto horn -
Solon, Iowa

Robert Warner, coronet -
“Anamosa, lowa

Conjunto Los Bribones

Juan Herrera, Jr., drums -
Defiance, Ohio

Juan Herrera, Sr., bass guitar
- Defiance, Ohio

Rudy Tijerina, Jr., guitar -
Archboid, Ohio

Rudy Tijerina, Sr.,
accordion/vocals -
Defiance, Ohio

Robert Valle, guitar -
Defiance, Ohio

Swiss American Music

Martha Bernet, accordion/
vocals - Monroe,
Wisconsin ~

Betty Vetterli, accordion/
vocals - Monroe,
Wisconsin

Moon Mullins and the
Traditional Grass

Paul “Moon” Mullins, fiddle/
vocals - Middletown,

- Ohio

Gerald Evans, Jr., mandolin/
vocals - Cincinatti, Ohio

Glen Inman, bass - W.
Carollton, Ohio

William Joseph “Joe”
Mullins, banjo/vocals -
Hamilton, Ohio

Charles Mark Rader, guitar/
vocals - Trenton, Ohio

Farm Broadcasting
Rich Hawkins, KRVN -
Lexington, Nebraska
Lee Kline, WHO - Des
Moines, Iowa
Verlene Looker, KMA -
Shenandoah, Iowa

Indonesia

East Kalimantan
H. Zailani Idris, Regional
Coordinator

Kenyah

Pangun Jalung, dancer
Peding Ajang, dancer
Buag Aring, dancer
Ngang Bilung, dancer
Peluhat Saring, dancer
Pelajama Udou, dancer
Lawai Jalung, musician
Pelenjau Ala, lamin builder
Ajan Ding, lamin builder
Dau Kirung, beadworker
Alina Ubang, weaver
Agang Merang, blacksmith

Modang

Lehong Bujai, musician

Jiu Ping Lei, musician

Djeng Hong, hudok dancer

Y. Bayau Lung, hudok .
dancer

Yonas Wang Beng, hudok
carver ;

Bit Beng, hudok dancer

South Sulawesi
Halilintar Lathief, Regional
Coordinator

Hamsinah Bado, dancer

Hasnah Gassing, dancer

Daeng Gassing musician/ ~
dancer

Mile Ngalle; musician/
dancer
Juma, musician
Jamaluddin, musician
Serang Dakko, musician
Ismail Madung, musician
H. Damang, boat builder
H. Muhammad Tahir, boat
builder > _
Martawang La Pucu, weaver
Roslina Suaib, foodways

“East Java
A. M. Munardi - Regional
Coordinator

East Java - Madura

Hosnan P. Atromu, dancer

Fauzi, dancer

Masruna, dancer/musician

Merto, dancer/musician

“Supakra” Sudjibta, dancer/
mask carver

Marzuki, musician

A.S. Marzuki, musician

Muhni, musician

Sahabuddin, musician

Sutayyib, musician

Sutipno, musician

Saleh, musician

Sunarwi, musician

Suraji, musician

Riskijah, foodways

Hadiya, traditional medicine

East Java - Banyuwangi
Astani, dancer

Supinah, dancer
Adenan, musician

RELI ‘

Praminto Adi, musician
Basuki, musician
Sahuni, musician
Sukidi, musician
Sanali, musician
Sumitro Hadi, musician

East Java - Ponorogo

Buwono, reog performer

Harjokemun al Mologq, reog
performer

Heri Suprayitno, reog
performer

Margono, reog performer

Land in Native

Marwan, reog performer
Nardi, reog performer
Saleh, reog performer
Shodiq, reog performer
Subroto, reog performer
Sunardi, reog performer
Suparman, reog performer
Kusnan, gamelan maker
Misri, gamelan maker

East Java - Tuban
Rukaiyah, batik dyer
Tarsi, batik dyer

American Cultures

Alaska

Haida

Dolores Churchill, weaver/
basketmaker

Holly J. Churchill, weaver/
basketmaker

Tlingit

Austin Hammond,
storyteller/subsistence

Ernestine Hanlon, weaver

Esther Susan Shea, beader/
storyteller

Mark Jacobs, Jr., subsistence

Nathan Jackson, carver/
dancer/subsistence

Nora Marks Dauenhauer,
dancer/singer

Steven Jackson, carver/
dancer

Tsimshian
Jack Hudson, carver/dancer/
singer

Arizona

Hopi

Fawn Garcia, potter

James “Masa” Garcia, potter

Marcus “Cooch”
Coochwikvia, silversmith

Patrick Joshvehma, carver/
katsina dolls/toys

Merle Calnimptewa, weaver/
belts

Ernie “Patusngwa-Ice”
Andrews, weaver

Pearl Kootswytewa,
basketmaker/coil

Tamie Jean “T.J.” Tootsie,

cook/piki bread
Bertrum “Bert” Tsavatawa,
painter
Hershel Talashoema,
storyteller

Bolivia

Jalq'a

Apolinaria Mendoza, dancer/
cook/weaver

Gerardo Mamani, costume
maker/dancer

Honorato Mamani, costume
maker/dancer

Juliana Rodriguez, dancer/
cook/weaver

Marcelo Cruz, costume
maker/dancer

Tiwanaku

Cesar Callisaya Yurijra,
dancer/cook/weaver

Roberto Cruz Yupanqui,
agriculture/dancer

Martin Condori Callisaya,
agriculture/dancer

Tito Flores Nina, agriculture/
dancer

Bonifacia Quispe Fernandez,
dancer/cook/weaver

Patricia Uruchi Limachi,
dancer/cook/weaver

Elena Uruchi Quispe,
dancer/cook/weaver

Benita Ranos Uruchi,
dancer/cook/weaver

Ecuador

Shuar—

Luisa Marta Tunki Kayap,
dancer

Numi Vicente Tkakimp
Atum, dancer

Felipe Unkush Tsenkush,
storyteller/hunter/
fisherman

Miguel Puwainchir,
storyteller/hunter/
fisherman

Jose Shimpu Marit-Saap,
weaver/basketmaker

Hilda Gomez, cook

Antonieta Tiwiran Taish,
cook

Jose Miguel Tsunki
Tempekat Yampanas,
musician

Mexico

Maya

Petrona Intzin, weaver/dyer

Maria Pérez Peso, weaver/
dyer/cook .

Salvador Lunes Collazo,
medicine man

Catalina Meza Guzman,
interpreter/translator

Lacandon
Vincente K’in Paniagua,
potter/farmer/arrowmaker

Tkoods
Teofila Palafox, weaver
Virginia Tamariz, weaver
Alfredo Abasolo, fisherman/
netmaker/dancer
Ricardo Carvajal, chirimia/
singer/fisherman/
netmaker
“Lino Degollado, dancer/
netmaker

Albino Figueroa, drum/turtle
shell/fisherman/net maker

Apolinar Figueroa, drum/
turtle shell/basketmaker/
net maker

Juan Olivares, narrator/
researcher/fisherman

Peru

Taquile

Paula Quispe Cruz, dancer/
weaver

Terencia Marca Willi,
dancer/weaver

Alejandro Flores Huatta,
weaver/musician

Alejandro Huatta Machaca,
weaver/musician

Salvador Huatta Yucra,
weaver/musician

Jesus Marca Quispe, weaver/
musician

Cipriano Machaca Quispe,
weaver/musician

Mariano Quispe Mamani,
weaver/musician

Zapotec

Cenorina Garcia, potter

Alberta Martinez “ria-bert”
Marcial, weaver/cooki

Angela Marcial “ria-ranc”
Mendoza, weaver/
narrator/cook

Flaviano Beltran, tanner/
leatherworker/farmer

Pedro Rios Hernandez,
chirimia/basketmaker/
dance master

Arnulfo M. Ramos, chirimia/
rope maker

Contributing
Sponsors

Family Farming in the Heartland has
been made possible by the Smith-
sonian Institution and the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture.

Land in Native American Cultures

has been co-sponsored by the Smith-

sonian Institution’s National Museum

_ of the American Indian, and made
possible by the Smithsonian, the Inter-
Americ¢an Foundation, the U.S. Em-
bassy in Bolivia, the Ruth Mott Fund,
Sealaska Heritage Foundation, the
Government of Chiapas, Mexico, Insti-
tuto Nacional Indigenista and Centro
de Investigaciones y Estudios Superi-
ores en Antropologia Social of Mexico,
the Cultural Preservation Office of the
Hopi Tribal Council, and American
Airlines of Quito, Ecuador.

Forest, Field and Sea: Folklife in Indo-
nesia has been made possible by the

- Smithsonian Institution; the National
Committee K.I.A.S. (Festival of Indo-
nesia); Garuda Indonesia Airways;
American President Lines; Regional
Governments of East Java, East Kali-
mantan and South Sulawesi; and Julius
Tahija.

Roots of Rhythm and Blues: The Robert ~

Johnson Era has been made possible
by the Smithsonian and a grant from
the Institution’s Special Exhibition
Fund and by a grant from the Music
- Performance Trust Funds.

In Kind
Contributions

General Festival Support

Bell Haven Pharmacy, Alexandria, VA

Embassy High Dairy, Waldorf, MD

Everfresh Juice Co., Franklin Park, IL

Goodlaxson Manufacturers, Inc.,
Coldfax, IA

Hall Brothers Funeral Home; Inc.,
Washington, DC

Hechinger Company, Landover, MD
Heritage Cutlery, Inc., Bolivar, NY
Jolly Time Popcorn, Sioux, City, IA
McGuire Funeral Service,
Washington, DC
National Linen Service, Alexandria, VA
Pier I Imports, Fort Worth, TX
Russell Harrington Cutlery, South
Bridge, MA
Sugar Association, Inc., Washington, DC
Tripps Bakers, Inc., Wheeling, WV
Tyson’s Tree Service, Sterling, VA
Uncle Ben’s, Inc., Houston, TX
U.S. National Arboretum,
Washington, DC
Utz Quality Foods, Inc., Hanover, PA
Wilkins Coffee, Capitol Heights, MD

Roots of Rhythm and Blues: The Robert
Johnson Era

B&O Railroad Museum, Baltimore, MD
Stephen C. LaVere

Family Farming in the Heartland
Action Al’s Tire Co., Washington, DC
Aermotor Windmill Corporation, San
Angelo, TX £
Bacova Guild, Ltd., Bacova, VA
Ball Corporation, Muncie, IN
Babson Brothers Company,
» Naperville, IL
The Botanical Gardens,
Washington, DC
Cedar Works, Inc., Peebles, OH
Curry Seed Company, Elk Point, SD
Data Transmission Network, Bluffton,
Indiana branch office
Ertl Company, Dyersville, [A
Ford - New Holland Company,
Lancaster, PA
Hoard’s Dairyman Magazine, Fort
Atkinson, WI
John Deere Company, Columbus,
Ohio branch office
Massey Ferguson Company, IA
Nebraska Plastics, Cozad, NE
Northrup-King Company, Golden
Valley, MN
Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.,
Johnston, IA
Steel City Corporation,
Youngstown, OH
The Tomato Game, Immokalee, FL
Valmont Industries, Valley, NE

- Van Wingerden of Culpepper,

Stevensburg, VA
Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry,
Manitowoc, WI ‘
Woodpeckers Ltd. of Virginia,
Monterey, VA

Forest, Field and Sea: Folklife in
Indonesia

National Arboretum, Washington, DC

National Linen Service, Alexandria, VA

Plantworks, Davidsonville, MD

Rolling Greens, Falls Church, VA

Land in Native American Cultures

American Sheep Industry Association,
Englewood, CO

Special
Thanks

General Festival
Allied Builders
Mary Cliff

~ Folklore Society of Greater

Washington
Ron Hernandez
Joyce Lamebull
Leon Leuppe
Louisa Meruvia

We extend special thanks to all the
volunteers at this year’s Festival. Only
with their assistance are we able to
present the programs of the 1991
Festival of American Folklife.

Roots of Rhythm and Blues: The Robert
Johnson Era

Rebecca Barnes

Howell Begle, Rhythm & Blues
Foundation

Roland Freeman

Maggie Holtzberg-Call

Paul Kahn

Lauri Lawson

Jim O’Neil

Martin Paulson, Music Performance
Trust Funds

Judy Peyser, Center for Southern
Folklore

Leroy Pierson

John Telfer

John Waring

Dick Waterman

Ndncy Wilson, Association of
American Railroads

Family Farming in the Heartland

Jim Brier

Robin Sproul, ABC Washington
Bureau

‘

Tina Bucuvalas

Pete Daniel, Smithsonian Institution,
Division of Agriculture and Natural
Resources

Maria Downs

Barbara Faust, Smithsonian Institution,
Office of Horticulture

Harley Good Bear ©

Martin Hamilton, University of
Maryland Extension Service

Senator Tom Harkin

Larry Jones, Smithsonian Institution,
Division of Agriculture and Natural
Resources

Lee Majeski, University of Maryland
Extension Service

Ronald Miller

Senator Paul Simon

Wayman Cobine

Herb Wessel

Dalena White

Jay Willer

Diana Winthrop

Special thanks to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, Edward Madigan, Sec-
retary, and the staff in the Heartland
states for their participation and guid-
ance in providing state information
for the Family Farm program,

Joe Antogini
Joan Arnoldi
Marti Asner
Marlyn Aycock
Tim Badger
Jim Benson
Bruce Blanton
Doug Bowers
Judith Bowers
Cameron Bruemmer
Gary Butler
Mike Combs
Morley Cook
Steve Dewhurst
Jane Dodds
John Duncan
Esther L. Edwards
Robert Fones
Alan Fusonie
Claude Gifford
Marcus Gross
Ron Hall
Eartha Harriet
Kathryn Hill
Bob Hoover
Linwood Jones
Dennis Kaplan
Sally Katt
Michael Kelly

Bud Kerr

Doug Mackenzie
Julia McCaul

Mary Ann McQuinn
Douglass Miller

Bill Mills

Chris Molineaux
Susan Nelson
Diane O’Connor,
Jack Parnell

_ Janet Poley

Vic Powell
Larry Quinn
Larry Rana
Dennis Roth
Jim Schleyer

Al Senter —
Bob Sherman
Kelly Shipp
Norton Strommen
Shirley Traxler
Larry Wachs
Ray Waggoner
Hank Wyman
Clayton Yeutter

Forest, Field and Sea: The Folklife of
Indonesia
Office of the Executive Committee,
Festival of Indonesia 1990-1991
Mochtar Kusuma Atmadja
Rahmad Adenan
Supono Hadisujatmo
Djoko Soejono
Erman Soehardjo
Nani Woejani
Anggrek Kutin/Kartika
Sahri
Festival of Indonesia 1990-1991,
New York City
Theodore Tanen
Maureen Aung-Twin
Maggie Weintraub
Festival of Indonesia In Performance
Rachel Cooper

Friends of the Festival Committee
Clare Wolfowitz

Ministry of Education and Culture
Dr. Buddhisantoso
Dewi Indrawati
Dloyana Kusumah

Yayasan Dana Bhakti Kesejahteraan
Sosial

U.S. Embassy, Jakarta
Ambassador John Monjo
Demaris Kirshshofer

Don Q. Washington :
Hugh Williams i<Foae
Michael Yaki <

U.S. Department of State

Donald Camp '
Karl Fritz, U.S.LA.

Barbara Harvey

Indonesian Embassy, Washington, DC
Ambassador Abdul Rachman Ramly

< Sjarief and Judy Achjadi

Makarim Wibisono
Giri Kartono

Raya Sumardi

1.G.A. Ngurah Suparta

East Java
Governor Sularso
Bupati Soegondo
Bupati Drs. R. Gatot Soemani
Bupati Drs. Djoewabhiri :
Martoprawiro
Bupati Djuhansah
Bupati Abdul Kadir
Sekwilda Widodo Pribadi, S.H.

South Sulawesi
Governor Prof. Dr. H. A. Amiruddin
Bupati Drs. A. Thamrin |
Bupati Drs. H. Tadjuddin Noer
Bupati Drs. A. Azis Umar
Bupati Abbas Sabbi, S.H.
Mayor Soewahyo
Former Bupati Drs. H.A. Burhanuddin
Bupati Drs. H.A. Dauda Fs
Mayor Mirdin Kasim, S.H.
East Kalimantan
Governor H.M. Ardans, S.H.
Bupati H. Said Safran

Valley Craftsmen, LTD. Baltimore, MD,
Samuel S. Robinson

Micki Altiveros-Chomits
Gene Ammarell

James Danandjaya

Eric Crystal

‘Tammy Dackworth

Jijis Chadran
Hermine Dreyfuss
Anthony Day
Alan Feinstein
Kathy Foley

Marti Fujita

Roy Hamilton

Sri Hastanto

Tim Jessup
Halilintar Latief

Renske Heringa _
Zailani Idris

- Asti Kaniu °
-Amna Kusumo
Sardono W. Kusumo
-Isabella Linser
A. M. Munardi

, David Noziglia
Judy Mitoma
Mark Perlman
Anna Rice
Widiyanto S. Putro
J. Richards
Ann Saxon
Siradjuddin ~
Bernard Sellato
Eugene Smith
Anderson Sutton
Narulita Sastromiharto
Patti Seery
Paul Taylor

Toby Volkman
Philip Yampolsky

Land in Native American Cultures
Fernando Alborta Méndez
Catherine Allen
Roy Bailey
José Barreiro
Edmmund H. Benner
Charles M. Berk -
Roy Bryce-Laporte
Robert I. Callahan
Maria Teresa Campero
Eduardo Castillo
~ Mercedes Cerdio
José Luis Coutino Lopez
- Ambassador Jorge Crespo Velasco
Mac Chapin
Roberto Da Matta
Floriberto Diaz Gomez
Herbert ‘Didrickson
Andrés Fabregas
Barbara Faust
Enriqueta Fernandez
Holly Forbes
Adolfo A. Franco
Christina Frankemont
Ambassador Robert Gelbard
Susie Glusker
“Kevin Benito Healy
Charlotte Heth
Bill Holm
Bob Johnson
Duane Johnson
David Katzeek
Charles Kleymeyer
Emilio Izquierdo
Marie Laws
Rev. José Loits Meulemans

x
Gregorio Luke
Theodore MacDonald
Enrique Mayer
Louis Minard
Sidney Mintz
Christian Monis
Walter Morris
Javier Moscoso
Rita Murillo
June Nash
Patricia Ortiz Mena de Gonzalez
Garrido >
Carlos Ostermeier
Louis Painted Pony
Philip Parkerson
William K. Perrin

_ Maria Teresa Pomar

Marion Ritchie-Vance
Charles A. Reilly
Anita Rincon

Fatima Rodriguez
Manuel Rodriguez
Teri Rofkar

Teresa Rojas Rabiela
Chris Rollins

Alberto Salamanca Prado
Calvin R. Sperlin
Raymond H. Thompson
Deborah Tuck

Marta Turok

Antonio Ugarte

Rosi Urriolagoitia
Irene Vasquez Valle
Stephen G. Velter
Noel Vietmeyer:
Freddy Yepes

Mary Jane Yonkers
Arturo Warman
David Whisnant
Norman Whitten

Friday, June 28

Roots of Rhythm
and Blues: The Robert
Johnson Era

11:00

Opening
Ceremony

11:30

12:00

Robert
Johnson
Remembered)

Fife & Drum
. Band

12:30

McIntosh
County
Shouters &
Moving Star
Hall Singers:
Spirituals &
Dance

1:00

Piano
Workshop

Women Sing

Robert Jr
the Blues

Lockwood
12-String
Blues Guitar

Children’s
Material as
Root Music

Rhythm and
Blues:
Its Living
Legacy

Henry
“Mule”
Townsend
City/Country
Blues

Johnny
Shines
Delta Blues | Songs that

Pace Work

Mamie Davis
Blues Band
Delta Blues

Comparative
Slide
Technique

5:30

Family Farming in the Heartland

Brian
and the
Mississippi
Valley
Dutchmen
Polka Music

Conjunto Los

Bribones
Mexican
American
Music

Farm Family
History

Live Radio
with Verlene
Looker, KMA

Food-
ways

Home
Office

Farm Songs
and Games
Heartland

Noonday
Meal

Czech
Feather

Chuck Live Radio

Suchey and
Michael
Cotter

Farm Songs

and Stories

Moon
Mullins and
the Tradi-
tional Grass
Ohio Blue-
grass

Midwestern
Fiddle Styles

Brian and
the Missis-
sippi
Valley
Dutchmen
Polka Music

Conjunto Los
Bribones:
Mexican
American

Music

Dance
Party:

Midwestern

Fiddlers

with Rich
Hawkins,
KRVN

Midwestern
Accordion
Styles

Live Radio

with Rich

Hawkins,
KRVN

Changing
Roles of
Women

Choosing
and Planting
Seeds

Stripping
Party

Canning
with Fruits

Learning
about Farm
Animals

Home
Office

Creating a

Cooking i g
Family Quilt

with Com

Making
Sausage

Special Demonstrations
Threshing — 12:00-12:30, 3:00-3:30
Milking the Cow — 4:00-4 30

Ongoing Demonstrations

Wooden Bowl Making ¢ Whirligig
Making ¢ Corn Mural Decorating ¢
Quilting * Rag Rug Weaving ¢ Nor-
wegian Embroidery ¢ Feather Brush
Making ¢ Rug Knitting ¢ Swedish
Wedding Crown Making ¢ Mailbox
Painting * Crocheting ¢ Fence
Making ¢ Machinery Repairing ¢
Mandan Basket Making ¢ Corn

Braiding

Learning
Center

Schedules are subject to change. Check signs in each program area for
_ specific information. Sign language interpreters will be available for

selected programs. Check the schedule and signs at each stage.
Programs that will be interpreted are marked with the symbol

Forest, Field and Sea:
Folklife in Indonesia

Dayak
Music &
Dance

Topeng
Mask Dance

Reyog
Procession

Make Your
Own
Shadow
Puppet

Madurese
Cooking

Sulawesi
Music &
Dance
Indonesian
Masks
Play
Indonesian

Gandrung Games

Social
Dance

Jamu
Herbal
Preparation

Boatbuild-
ing and
Navigation

Learn
Indonesian

Topeng,
Batik

Gamelan
Workshop

Sulawesi

Try
Cooking

Indonesian
Music &
Dance

Reyog
Procession

Dayak
Music &
Dance

Sulawesi
Music &
Dance

Ongoing Demonstrations >
East Java — Topeng Mask Carving ¢
Reyog Headdress Making * Tuban Batik
& Weaving ¢ Gamelan Making ¢ Jamu:
Herbal Preparation

South Sulawesi — Boat Building
Drum Making « Silk Weaving

East Kalimantan — Longhouse Deco-
rative Painting * Kenyah Bead Work ¢
Rattan Weaving ¢ Mask Carving ¢
Kenyah Blacksmithing

Land in Native
American Cultures

Shuar
Opening
Ceremony

Tlingit Raven
Dance/
Shuar Crafts

Shuar Music
& Dance

Shuar Screen
Painting
Haida
Weaving

Tlingit
Carving

Hunting &
Animal —
Sound

Imitations

SE Alaska
Friendship
Dance

Subsistence
Workshop

Rainforest

Dance/
Zapotec
Cooking

Jalq'a,
Carnival
Dance/
Chiapas
Weaving

pce
Ikood
Narrative/
Taquile
Weaving

Shuar
Cooking

Jalq‘a
Weaving

Zapotec
Music/
Hopi .

Cooking

Mayan
Healing

Ceremony

Ongoing Exhibition
In conjunction with the Quincente-
nary Festival program, an exhibition,
“Traditional Native American Textiles
from Bolivia,” can be seen at the S.
Dillon Ripley Center, June 28-July 7,
10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Dictionary/
Andean
Cooking

Andean
Narrative/
Hopi Loom
onstruction

Hopi
Dictionary/
Tiwanaku
Planting
Ceremony

Taquile
Dance

Tiwanaku
Weaving

Saturday, June 29

Roots of Rhythm

and Blues: The Robert

Johnson Era

11:00

Songs that
Pace Work

Fife & Drum
Band

11:30

Moving Star
Hall
Singers:
Sea Island
Spirituals

The
“Crossroads”

Myth

12:00

12:30

Children’s
Material as
Root Music

1:00
&

Vocal Styles

Robert Jr.
Lockwood:
12-String
Blues Guitar

eS)

2:00
Rhythm
and Blues:
Its Living
Legacy

Johnny
Shines:
Delta Blues

& Children’s

McIntosh
County Material as
Shouters: | Root Music
Shout
Spirituals &
Dance

2:30

3:00

Songs that
Pace Work

3:30
Henry
“Mule”

Townsend:

City/Country

Blues

4:00
Bottleneck
Slide Tech-

nique
Fife & Drum a

Band

4:30

Mamie Davis
Blues Band
Delta Blues

5:00

Sea Island
Spirituals

5:30

7:00 | Dutchmen

Family Farming in the Heartland

Suchey and
Michael
Cotter:

Farm Songs

and Stories

Moon
Mullins and
the Tradi-

Bluegrass

Conjunto
Los Bri-
bones:
Mexican
American
Music

Midwestern
Fiddle
Contest

Brian
and the
Mississippi
Valley
Dutchmen:
Wisconsin
Polka Music

Chuck
Suchey and
_ Michael

Cotter
Farm Songs
and Stories

Moon
Mullins and
the Tradi-
tional Grass:
Ohio
Bluegrass

Dance

Party:

Brian and
the Missis-
sippi
Valley

Food- | Learning
ways Center

Family Cake
Recipe

Live Radio
with Verlene
Looker, KMA

Making Hay

lHome Office

Family Oral
History
Farm Humor Projects
Heartland
Noonday
Meal
Storytelling:
Michael

Cotter Learning

: about Seeds
Live Radio

with Rich
Hawkins,
KRVN
# _ Making
Sauerkraut

Tomato
Packing

Cattle
Judging and
Showing

Live Radio

with Rich

Hawkins,
KRVN

Caring for
the Land

Mandan
Indian
Legends

Midwestern | Norwegian
Accordion | Christmas
Styles Dinner

Special Demonstrations
Threshing — 12:00-12:30, 3:00-3:30
Milking the Cow — 4:00-4:30

Ongoing Demonstrations

Wooden Bowl Making * Whirligig
Making * Corn Mural Decorating ¢
Quilting « Rag Rug Weaving ¢ Nor-
wegian Embroidery ¢ Feather Brush
Making © Rug Knitting ¢ Swedish
Wedding Crown Making ¢ Mailbox
Painting * Crocheting * Fence
Making ¢ Machinery Repairing
Mandan Basket Making ¢ Corn
Braiding

Schedules are subject to change. Check signs in each program area for
specific information. Sign language interpreters will be available for

selected programs. Check the schedule and signs at each stage.
Programs that will be interpreted are marked with the symbol

Forest, Field and Sea:
Folklife in Indonesia

Gandrung
Social
Dance

Madurese
Cooking

Topeng
Mask
Dance

Dayak Music
& Dance

Boat-
building/
Learn Fishing
Indonesian

Batik

Sulawesi
Music &
Dance

Children’s
Gamelan
Workshop
(Meet at the
Pendopo)

Reyog
Procession

Topeng
Dance Styles|

Sulawesi
Cooking

Gandrung
Social
Dance

Play
Indonesian
Games

Sulawesi
Music &
Dance

Pan-
Festival
Workshop |
Silk Weaving}

Dayak Music
& Dance

Topeng,
Gamelan
Workshop

Make Your
Own
Shadow
Puppet

Ongoing Demonstrations

East Java — Topeng Mask Carving ¢
Reyog Headdress Making ¢ Tuban Batik
& Weaving * Gamelan Making * Jamu
Herbal Preparation

South Sulawesi — Boat Building ¢
Drum Making ¢ Silk Weaving

East Kalimantan — Longhouse Deco-
rative Painting * Kenyah Bead Work ¢
Rattan Weaving © Mask Carving ¢
Kenyah Blacksmithing

All-night shadow puppet performance

9:00 p.m. - 3:00 a.m

Land in Native
American Cultures

Ikood
Fishing

Tiwanaku
Planting
Ceremony

Tlingit
Narrative _

Taquile &
Jalq'a
Hopi
Dictionary

Subsistence
Workshop

Shuar *
Cooking Zapotec
Corn

Workshop

Tiwanaku
Weaving

Hopi
Cooking

Who's The
Scholar/
Ikood
Cooking

Taquile
Dancing

Weaving &
Beading Hopi
Dictionary/
Jalq’a
Carnival
Dance

Basketry/
Andean
Cooking

Dyeing
Workshop

Shuar Crafts

Zapotec
Crafts

Tourism
(Taquile &

Mayan *
Hopi)

Healing
Ceremony

Ongoing Exhibition

In conjunction with the Quincentenary
Festival program, an exhibition, “Tradi-
tional Native American Textiles from
Bolivia,” can be seen at the S. Dillon

~ Ripley Center, June 28-July 7, 10:00 a.m

to 5:30 p.m

unday,

Roots of

Rhythm

and Blues: The Robert
Johnson Era

11:00

McIntosh
County
Shouters &
Moving Star
Hall Singers:
Spirituals &
Dance
Children’s
Material as
Root Music

12:00

Fife & Drum
Band

Johnny
Shines
Delta Blues

Henry
“Mule”
Townsend
City/Country
Blues

Robert Jr

Lockwood
12-String

Blues Guitar

Reverend
Leon Pinson:
Spiritual-
sospel Piano!

Mamie Davis
Blues Band
Delta Blues

Spirituals &
Blues

Songs that
Pace Work

Rhythm and
Blues
Its Living
Legacy

Piano
Workshop

Music in
Community/
Music as
Commodity

Sea Island
Spirituals

Children's
Material as
Root Music

Zi sn

Songs that
Pace Work

Guitar Styles

5:30

7:00

lUbalomele

Family Farming in the Heartland

Music
Stage

Moon

Learning
Center

Narrative
Stage

Live Radio

Mullins and }| with Verlene

the Tradi-
tional Grass:
Ohio
Bluegrass

Brian
and the
Mississippi
Valley
Dutchmen
Polka Music

Conjunto
Los Bri-
bones:
Mexican

American

Music

Chuck
Suchey and
Michael
Cotter:
Farm Songs
and Stories

, Midwestern
Fiddle
Contest

Moon
Mullins and
the Tradi-
tional Grass
Ohio
Bluegrass

Brian
and the
Mississippi
Valley
Dutchmen
Polka
Music

Dance

Party:

Conjunto
Los Bri-
bones

Looker, KMA

Rural Musical

Swedish
Family
R Recipe
Keeping the
Family Farm

Home
7 Office .
Storytelling
with
Michael

- Cotter
Czech

Holiday
Dinner

Settings

Children’s
Chores
Czech Card

Live Radio EY

with Rich
Hawkins,
KRVN
Cooking
with Cor

Women's
and Men's
Roles

Quilt

Piecing

Home

Office :

Live Radio #®

with Rich

Hawkins,
KRVN Tomato
Canning

Preparation

Czech
Baked

Goods

Hogs

Talking
Threshing | Vegetable

Canning

Special Demonstrations
Threshing — 12:00-12:30, 3:00-3:30
Milking the Cow — 4:00-4:30

Ongoing Demonstrations

Wooden Bowl Making ¢ Whirligig
Making * Corn Mural Decorating
Quilting * Rag Rug Weaving ¢ Nor-
wegian Embroidery ¢ Feather Brush
Making © Rug Knitting ¢ Swedish
Wedding Crown Making ¢ Mailbox
Painting ¢ Crocheting * Fence
Making © Machinery Repairing ¢
Mandan Basket Making ¢ Corn
Braiding

Schedules are subject to change. Check signs in each program area for
specific information. Sign language interpreters will be available for

selected programs. Check the schedule and signs at each stage.
Programs that will be interpreted are marked with the symbol

Forest, Field and Sea:
Folklife in Indonesia

Sulawesi
Music &
Dance

Dayak Musi
& Dance

Kenyah
Longhouse

Madurese
Cooking

Try Indone-
sian Music
& Dance

Reyog
Procession

Topeng
Mask Dance

Play
Indonesian
Games

Gandrung
Social
Dance

Sulawesi
Cooking

Sulawesi
Music &
Dance =
Make Your
Own
Shadow
Puppet

Back-Strap
Loom
Weaving

Topeng,
Gamelan
Workshop

Dayak Musi
Reyog & Dance

Procession

Gandrung
Social
Dance

Herbs &
Spices in
Indonesia

Meet the
Artists

Ongoing Demonstrations

East Java — Topeng Mask Carving
Reyog Headdress Making ¢ Tuban Batik
& Weaving ¢ Gamelan Making ¢ Jamu:
Herbal Preparation

South Sulawesi — Boat Building «
Drum Making « Silk Weaving

East Kalimantan — Longhouse Deco-
rative Painting * Kenyah Bead Work ¢
Rattan Weaving ¢ Mask Carving *
Kenyah Blacksmithing

Land in Native
American Cultures

Preparation | Tiwanaku
_ of Altar | Agriculture
(Zapotet)/ | Dance/

Preparation | Compara-

of Enramada 4
(ikoods)

Tlingit
Storytelling

Shuar Music
& Dance/
Tlingit
Subsistence

Katsina
Doll
Carving

Healing
Ceremony

Land &
Traditional
Knowledge

Ikood Music
& Dance/
Zapotec
Crafts

Children’s
Toys &
Games

Workshop/
Andean
Cooking

Tlingit
Ceremonial
Crafts

Andean
Instruments
Workshop/

Zapotec

Cooking

Painting &
Mythology/
Hopi
Pottery

Rainforest
Instrumental
(Workshop

Women’s

Songs/

fala
Ceremonial

Crafts

Hopi
- Cooking
Basketry
Workshop

Zapotec
Feast/
Shuar

Cooking Ridean

SE Alaskan Dance
Salutation

Dance

Chiapas
Weaving

Hopi
Dictionary

Ongoing Exhibition

In conjunction with the Quincente-
nary Festival program, an exhibition,
“Traditional Native American Textiles
from Bolivia,” can be seen at the S.
Dillon Ripley Center, June 28-July 7,
10;00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Monday, July 1

Roots of Rhythm
‘and Blues: The Robert
Johnson Era

Main Narrative
Stage Stage
Ta
Band

Children's
McIntosh | Material as
County Root Music
Shouters:

Shout
Spirituals &
Dance

11:00

11:30

12:00

12:30

Guitar Styles

Blues Song
Swap

1:00

Pan-Festival
Workshop:
Fife & Drum

1:30
Henry
“Mule”

Townsend:

City/Country

Blues