Folklore 202 Final

Place

"As places animate the ideas or feelings of persons who attend to them, these same ideas and feelings animate the place on which the attention has been bestowed."

Place

"As places animate the ideas or feelings of persons who attend to them, these same ideas and feelings animate the places on which the attention has been bestowed."

Public Folklore

"Creative placemaking." Promotes economic development, makes a place feel unique and creative--i.e. not another strip mall.

Cultural Landscape

"what is visible in a place and what the visible pattern means to those living in and making the place their own." --Birdsall. Ex. tobacco, plantation south, shotgun houses/ranch-style houses. Land (raw) vs. landscape (expressive material. molds/transforms land). Land as the raw material, landscape as the expressive medium. All landscapes are cultural--product of human interaction, "layered." Influence of aesthetics (values and taste)--wildflowers in front yard not appreciated by neighbors, tobacco landscape looks patchy to those unfamiliar with routines of farming the crop (fields must be rotated, etc.)

Bricolage

(term from Claude Levi-Strauss) the ability of the artist to connect bits and pieces of culture here and there to create an integral art form. Figurative quilting. "The very complicated synthesis of old and new ideas." Consider the combining of cultural forms to create new community in Carlos Arrondondo's memorial. Comes from The Folk Assemblage of Autumn article by Santino. Used in From Sorrow to Activism as well.

Audience/Performer Collusion

- Form and content - Competence - Evaluation

Indiana State Fair Quilters

- group process - cooperation - shared aesthetic - developed in shared responses to the activity of quilting along with reactions and evaluations of finished quilts - "work" - quilting is a social work - create a product - community contributions - respect for skill and industriousness - memory and story - quilts can serve as performance of memory

Solley Family

-In Baldwin's article the Solley family, "her mother's people", are a group that serves as an example for oral narrative within the family unit. They are from Pennsylvania. Generally, it is the Solley women who remember and tell the family geneology. Sometimes the women's stories don't really have a "point," but they make sure to get the details correct. They correct the men when they tell something wrong

Performance

A mode of outward expression/communication. Marked. Emergent. An expressive activity that requires a performer, audience, participation, invites response/evaluation and heightens our enjoyment of an experience. Someone powerless can use performance as a way to gain power or change the dynamics of a situation/conversation. Involves ethnography of speaking, aesthetics and the power to change or reinforce social structure.

Shotgun Houses

A type of vernacular architecture discussed by John Michael Vlach. It is a long, narrow house typically one to three room deep with the width of only one room. Vlach saw its presence in Louisiana as a product of Haitian/African/Yoruba contributions that came through the early slave trade. Preferred housing of the working class in Louisiana at the time of popularity.

The Genealogical Landscape

Allen: Kentucky landscape. 2 Basic Elements: Kinship and place. This article outlines kinship patterns in Appalachia and Kentucky as they are related to an attachment to the land. The landscape communicates placement within a social and geographical frame. It marks the outsiders and the insiders, contributing to a sense of identity, linking names to places. Most of the people see the rural landscape divided into distinct neighborhoods. The southern "sense of place" is constructed, maintained and articulates in a distinctively regional conversational pattern that emphasizes placing people within a social and geographical frame. Many of the distinct landscapes and places shape or shaped the identity of those growing up there and those who grew up there many years ago. The people of those landscapes associate regions of actual land with family names. people, children born and sometimes even acts that were performed there. In the conversations that Barbara Allen listens to rarely were individuals named without mention of who their relatives were or where they lived and the places or properties that were invariably identified by the names of their owners. 2 Basic Elements: Kinship: Importance of being able to identify an individual's place within a kinship network is clear in all sorts on conversational contexts. Pinpointing where an individual lies on a genealogical map-- that is, in relation to other people-- reveals his or her identity. A good example of this is when "so-and-so's boy" is mentioned in a story, that "boy" could be a grown man, but since he is identified by being his parents "Bob and Jan's boy" that's how those in the community will always know him as. He is identified by his mother and father's place and identity in the community. Place: Place has a special meaning in the community beyond its usual sense of locality. it denotes a piece of property and thus implies a relationship between it and it's owner. It is also identified as where people live now and have lived in the past, a fact that is embodied in a house located on the place in the owner's name given to the place. A place is NEVER given the name of renters or tenants no matter how long they may have lived there. It is connected to the owner and/ or couple who raised their family there. If a family moves from one house to another in the same community that place is then referred to as "the old so-and-so's place". The house is not just a material structure but also an evocative symbol of human relationships--the family ties lived out in it. A sense of place is inseparable from a sense of network of relations, past and present, that bind people in a neighborhood together. History for current resident's knowledge of their neighborhood embraces the past as well as the present. This dimension deepens and enriches residents' sense of identity.

Reflexivity

Anything in the performance and surrounding contexts that reflects, looks back upon or comments upon itself.A better explanation of this can be found on page 146 in the text. Basically folklorists need to be aware of how their presence during a performance might influence things. Merely having someone from the outside watching and recording or taking notes could affect how comfortable the performers and audience members feel with presenting material.A reflexive perspective offers a critical and interpretive stance that incorporates the researcher's experience into the analysis.Reflexive discussions from the researcher's perspective as both an observer and participant can enrich the overall interpretations.

Bill Arnett

Art collector, 'discovered' Gee's Bend's quilts. Found the photographs that Roland Freeman took of Annie Mae Young and identified with the quilts he saw as art. He essentially popularized and made a commodity out of the Gee's Bend Quilters quilts. He created the concept that the quilts were art and should be showcased as a representative expression of what Gee's Bend was and the history of it's women. He organized the busing and touring of the quilts and quilters around the country to showcase their work in museums. He is a beloved and respected member of the Gee's Bend community and continues to attribute nothing of the quilt's notoriety to himself or his work, but rather gives it all to the ladies of Gee's Bend. His work however did cause some controversy in whether or not the replication of the quilts and the "marketing" or their existence and selling of the design patterns took away the authenticity of the quilts. Also who owned the rights to the quilt patterns and "art" was now up for debate after his work with the Gee's Bend Quilters. → be careful in making Bill Arnett out to be "too" beloved. Some of the ladies from Gee's Bend sued him because they thought he was making a lot of profit off of their work.

Public Art

Art that is meant for public reception and benefit. Art programming for the public - performances, artists' residencies, exhibitions, festivals, sound recordings, radio and television programs, films, videos, anything creatively based and inspired that is meant to benefit a public market. Often institutionally based, grant funded. Basically a more narrow form of Public Folklore that is art specific. Connected to creative placemaking, cultural tourism and economic development. Vollis Simpson's whirligigs are a form of public art/public folklore

Woof, a Word on Women's Roles in Family Storytelling

Baldwin: In this article, Baldwin explores the gender roles of the traditional family unit. She explains and depicts the way in which the Solley family(her mother's people), especially the Solley women, pass family history through oral narrative. Women spend much of their time in private settings, whereas men spend their time in public settings. This leads to a distancing of the men's family stories and an intention to get a point across. The women, however have no point, except for the enjoyment and the accuracy of the story. Baldwin unpacks an entire story filled with "That's not the way it happened!" interruptions between Aunt Lois, Aunt Rheva, and Uncle Roscoe, and then explains a kind of verbal contest between Rheva and Ross where they trade back and forth an imaginary chamber-pot with a golden handle. And she then includes The Indian Washbuckets, which shows this golden handle of correction being passed back and forth. Baldwin ends the article by explaining the importance of the last word. It is reminiscent of a family dog which would always bark one last time after you told it to shut-up. One last woof. "Understanding the differences between men's and women's complementary conditions of life and narrative styles helps place the dynamic, changing frames of family storytelling in their best perspectives."

Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt

Bill Arnett: From lecture: Community aesthetic: Gee's Bend women know how to quilt properly, but choose to quilt in their unique style when quilting at home. (In the sixties, they would be employed to quilt tradition, commercial patterns for places like Belk.) Everyday inspiration, often architectural, such as the housetop pattern. Difference in "energy"--traditional quilts involve scrutiny, energy spent on making the quilt perfect. With Gee's Bend quilts, energy is spent on innovation of patterns, color juxtaposition, and time management (women need to get other things done.) Gee's Bend women tend to quilt for necessity not necessarily for pleasure - they quilt to make something that they need and that will be useful to them. The context is important to understanding the Gee's Bend aesthetic. It has been influenced by things such as religion, slavery & plantations, Pettway, "rough times" Community aesthetics: innovative, adaptive, energetic, improvisational -Pettway was a last name. Loretta Pettway was the quilter who would not travel to the shows, despite being one of the better quilters. She taught herself to quilt out of necessity, as no one would make quilts for her. They would also not even sell them to her. She was also in an abusive marriage where her husband would not help her out any, so she had to be pretty self-sufficient (no electricity, indoor plumbing, etc.). -Pettway was the last name given to slaves in the area, as is still a common name among the residents of Gees Bend

Tobacco Farmers and ...

Birdsall: Birdsall talks about the changes in the North Carolina Tobacco landscape. "For me, landscape encompasses both what is visible in a place and what the visible patterns mean to those living in and making the place their own. Thus, landscape is not only how the place looks but also how that appearance echoes the aspirations, values, experiences, and shared understandings of the place's occupants." Flue-curing tobacco changed the needs of the landscape. Shift from familiar work to hired help. Tobacco prices dropped, but then was included in the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 in an effort to help farmers. The program kept supply and demand fixed to guarantee purchase. Farmers are encouraged to diversify, but soil is not good for many other crops. Farms are now typically small. Honestly, I'm not completely sure what the takeaway point was from this article. We read it before the lectures about landscape, material culture and vernacular architecture but I'm not really clear on how it all linked in. I think the point was mostly that only people who are actually from these tobacco farming areas like Wilson will understand the landscape. The landscape is reflective of the long tradition of tobacco farming and thus it is reflective of the people who live in the area. It's also about how the landscape reflects the changing nature of tobacco farming. As farmers learned new methods or consolidated their farms, the landscape itself changed in response. It's kind of esoteric in nature..could tie that into an essay.

Collaboration

Combined storytelling.

Context

Context--specific groups and settings of a performance. context of situation - place, setting, physical context context of culture - culture that fosters the performance. what makes it possible, appropriate, accepted, etc. based on history and precedent

Carlos Arredondo

Created a portable shrine of remembrance to his son Alex Arrondondo who was killed in action during his second tour in Iraq in 2004. Carlos' memorial to his son disrupted the traditional way people think veterans and the wounded soldiers should be honored and remembered, it also raised questions about how recruiters economically and strategically target or don't target certain ethnicities when signing up young men to enter the Army or Marines. The traditional concept of how men and women are supposed to grief the loss of their children is questioned in Arrondondo's memorial to his son. The markers of the memorial are also significant, the boots, flag, coffin, blown up pictures and the fact that it is wheeled from event to event to showcase and express Carlos' grief over his son's death. The markers are Carlos' way of displaying what he misses about his son, why he misses him, and what or who he has to blame for his son's tragic death.

Michelle Lanier

Director of NC African American Heritage Commission. She talked about the Gullah population mostly as a unique cultural/regional group and the efforts being taken to preserve the cultural history. I don't remember which area of Africa the Gullah people came from (I think its Western Africa, I think she mentioned Sierra Leone as one of the places), but she talked about a group of people that traveled back there and were able to feel connected to the people because the cultural traits have been so well-preserved since slavery times (she used basket-making as an example of this). Then there was the term homegoing which is a funeral tradition within African American communities focused around the idea that the spirit is going home. One of her experiences that prompted her towards folklore was somehow connected to a homegoing. This also relates to her spirit-centered ethnography style. she was the lady who talked to us on the last day of class. She talked about the Gullah population mostly as a unique cultural/regional group and the efforts being taken to preserve the cultural history. She works to preserve African American Heritage.Then there was the term homegoing which is a funeral tradition within African American communities focused around the idea that the spirit is going home. One of her experiences that prompted her towards folklore was somehow connected to a homegoing. The foods and experiences she encountered while studying the Gullah population in I think South Carolina really got her into studying ethnographic folklore. She distinctly remembers the no-see-um gnats flying around and the smells and tastes of the pot with shrimp, corn, potato stew that enlivened her sense to what was going on. This is a form of aesthetic in real life. This also relates to her spirit-centered ethnography style. She also talked about how she did a lot of work with the "African diaspora," or the spreading of African descendants around the globe that held many of the same traditions from their original homeland in Africa (e.g. the style of basket-weaving and the particular dish shared by Gullah people and people in Cote d'Ivoire, I think).

Collusion

Drawing/luring the audience into a performance: eye contact, intonation, soliciting audience input, audience appreciation. Getting them to believe you, building credibility.

Wilson County, NC

Eastern NC. Cotton and flue-cured tobacco history. "King and Queen of Tobacco" crowned every year. NC Baseball Museum. Parkers & Bill's BBQ. Also where Vollis Simpson's whirligigs are.

Intertextuality

Example: Sunbonnet Sue becomes Scandalous Sue. Knowledge of one thing allows you to understand wittiness/humor in another that plays on that prior knowledge and one's expectations. ex. Sunbonnet Sue becomes Scandalous Sue.

Vernacular Architecture

Field of study, classification of building (both "study" and "stuff," like folklore.) Vernacular architecture is responsive to its environment (class, race, etc.) The study is fundamentally humanistic--to understand objects we must appreciate the people who made them (Dell Upton & John Michael Vlach.) Other definitions: "Study of those human actions and behaviors that are manifested in commonplace architecture." (Carter & Cromley) "How people use a building/what it means." reflexive material - both a product and producer of social relations. This is what Elijah lectured about. He talked about the "Horton house" and its ceiling joists with the decorative beads that he thought were cool. They showed skill and that the people had money.

Roland Freeman

Freeman-photographer and quilt-maker who stumbled upon Annie Mae Young's quilts and had her pose with two quilts draped across a woodpile. He took a photo that ended up published in a magazine that caught Bill Arnett's attention. Also, the author of Something to Keep You Warm, in which he comments on the tradition of quilt-making. See above. He focused on the "spiritual" side of the quilt-making tradition (stuff that was sort of considered Voodoo).

Something to Keep You Warm

Freeman: The red on Grandmother Lena's quilts just might be turkey blood! Or maybe the red is Grandmother Lena's warmth embodied in the quilts. I don't know? And then there's the healing quilt! Thank god I had that in the hospital. And then I found out that the women's neighborhood quilting club was a bunch of witches.

Vollis Simpson

From Wilson County. Drafted into the Army Air Corps during WWII, stationed on island in Pacific where soldiers built windmills to generate power. Values mechanics of art. Built first windmill in 1970s in response to the energy crisis. Heated house with it for 10 years. Now constructs whirligigs as art. Abstract pieces that combine parts of old cars/machines/roadsigns/ reflectors. He's produced about 20 pieces in 10 years. "Acid park" is where the pieces are on display, but the town of Wilson is purchasing the pieces for a public park because they need to be maintained in a way that Vollis can't anymore. Some were rusting and falling apart, but Jeff Currier's project is helping re-surface, restore and repaint them as they are in the moving process to the new park.

A Coastal Virginian Thanksgiving

Herman: "A Bountiful Shore - Celebrating Thanksgiving on the Chesapeake Bay" Bernard Herman functions as both a tradition bearer, continuing his familial Thanksgiving traditions, as well as an example of reinventing tradition as each year changes slightly. This article shows an example of the dynamic and conservative components of tradition. In addition to the turkey and pies his family has oysters and celebrates with a bonfire. They are also open to adding new elements to their tradition - i.e. the pears that his wife made this Thanksgiving which they decided will become part of the yearly tradition. The tradition is also an example of locavorism as it is dependent on the specific place of the event. Locavorism is both an emphasis placed on knowing where your food comes from, appreciating food that is local over food that is mass-produced and circulated, as well as the link of food celebration and place, as shown here.

Community Aesthetics

Innovative, adaptive, energetic, improvisational.

Land vs. Landscape

Land = raw material Landscape = when land gets creatively expressed - all landscapes are cultural - a product of human intention and action - layered

Coherence

Making the story make sense culturally and situationally: including background information, concluding with an explanation summary and linking a story into conversation.

Cohesion

Making the story make sense internally: clear segueing, consistent in use of tenses, the signaling of episode shifts. Tenses (present tense often used for rising action; past tense orients the audience). Signaling episode shifts (then, what happened).

Michelle Lanier

Michelle Lanier, Director, North Carolina African American Heritage Commission. There's an extra credit portion related to what she talked about. She talked about the Gullah population mostly as a unique cultural/regional group and the efforts being taken to preserve the cultural history. I don't remember which area of Africa the Gullah people came from (I think its Western Africa, I think she mentioned Sierra Leone as one of the places), but she talked about a group of people that traveled back there and were able to feel connected to the people because the cultural traits have been so well-preserved since slavery times (she used basket-making as an example of this). Then there was the term homegoing which is a funeral tradition within African American communities focused around the idea that the spirit is going home. One of her experiences that prompted her towards folklore was somehow connected to a homegoing. This also relates to her spirit-centered ethnography style.

Food

One of the strongest markers of identity. Variations in recipes mirrors variations in traditions. Study of particular family celebrations, food events, ethnic dishes gives insight into that group's values, gender roles, sense of identity, etc. Food brings people together.

From Sorrow to Activism

Perishing and Bellinger: Carlos Arredondo- created a portable shrine of remembrance to his son Alex Arredondo who was killed in action during his second tour in Iraq in 2004. Carlos' memorial to his son disrupted the traditional way people think veterans and the wounded soldiers should be honored and remembered, it also raised questions about how recruiters economically and strategically target or don't target certain ethnicities when signing up young men to enter the Army or Marines. The traditional concept of how men and women are supposed to grieve the loss of their children is disrupted in Arredondo's memorial to his son. Arrondo mourns openly losing his son, when society normally has an image of a quiet saddened, closed, grieving father mourning his son behind closed doors. Women are usually seen as the more hard-hit and openly emotional grievers in society when it comes to losing a child. The markers or Beau Geste of the memorial are also significant, the boots, flag, coffin, blown up pictures and the fact that it is wheeled from event to event to showcase and express Carlos' grief over his son's death. The markers are Carlos' way of displaying what he misses about his son, why he misses him, and what or who he has to blame for his son's tragic death. When he brings the shrine to different places, people are often shocked at first; some people even become angry- one time a guy stole a picture of Alex from the shrine and ran off with it, and when Carlos chased him to get it back they beat him up. (For more and to see how Bricolage and Beau Geste are specifically seen in the Arrondondo Shrine see PowerPoint "Memorials" slides 6-end)

Housetop Pattern

Popular everyday architectural inspiration for Gee's Bend quilts. Image of looking up at roof/rafters from below.

Gallo-Pinto

Presten-Werner: Rice and beans, eaten by Costa-Ricans. "Innocuous" rice and beans- it's easy to talk about and not offensive. The tradition is "immediately personal and deeply political"- personal because people in Costa Rica have come to identify Gallo Pinto as a dish of their country - it is something that they hold close to their hearts as an important part of their identity; they say "I ate it for breakfast," and political because it originated from African immigrants (although some people don't like to acknowledge this). "In southern Costa Rica gallo pinto first became common, then it became familiar, and finally, it became a traditional food."

Ranch House

Ranch houses as "national model" and marker of prosperity. Even built in places where they make no sense, ex. Southwest Louisiana.

The Folk Assemblage of Autumn

Santino: Pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns are the early signs of fall and Halloween on the Eastern Shore in Maryland. Decorations help create a 'mood' for seasons and events. Santino concentrates on the social and spiritual context of the Halloween holiday and specifically the "Halloween dummy" of "Harvest Figure". Pumpkin head, straw legs, stuffed shirts, next to cornstalks. And then witches, ghosts, and seasonal vegetables. Santino advises the use of the French word, assemblage, for these three dimensional collages. This term gets at the essential nature: the combination of symbolic elements into a single frame. Assemblages have an affecting presence and real presence to the people who create and see them.

Tradition

Sims and Stephens: "The key to understanding the role of tradition is to examine what a tradition means within a particular group."

Aesthetics

Sims and Stephens: Aesthetics: ohhh-ahhh/ugh-yuck complex, engages the senses, demanding and gaining the total involvement of the person/audience, enlivens the nerves. Traditionality: expressing the conservative and recognizable aspects; must fulfill the group's definition(ex. meatloaf has to contain meat, can't be filled with cheese) Skill: individual expressive details within limits, judged by complexity/difficult-ness Practicality: some folklore texts can have a practical role in the community(ex. quilts, pots, baskets, stories with morals). Appeals to and engages the senses and engages them. Demanding and gaining the total involvement of the person. Ask what is appealing and why?

Performance

Sims and Stephens: What is performance? Performance is an expressive activity that requires participation, heightens our enjoyment of an experience and invites response. Proverbs: counting chickens, crying wolf, jump the gun. Text, texture, context. Physical and social context. Reflexivity. Emergence.

Public Folklorists

Someone who works in arts, cultural or educational organizations that are not colleges or universities.Works on performances, exhibitions, festivals, sound recordings (among many other things.) Often grant funded, for a public audience.

Emergence

Something new coming into existence as a result of the particular performance context. Think about the Halloween photo on Franklin street.

Talking Trauma

Storytelling among EMTs. An EMT recounting a story of a chasing a suspect down, climbing a fence, and catching him. Clear markers in story. A lot of hand gestures. An obvious 'performance' to his storytelling. Machoman context. The presence of the camera affects the performance.

If You Had to Work as Hard as I Did ...

Swain: "A Dialogic Ethnography of Bessie Eldreth Through Her Songs and Stories" This article discusses the roles of work, narrative and self-definition in relation to the stories of Bessie Eldreth. For Bessie, work is central to her sense of self. Social relations are defined by working WITH and FOR others. Moral worth is related to work ethic. Sawin also considers the way that Eldreth reshapes her stories depending on her audience, making them relevant to those who are listening. The association of her work as "women's work" is ingrained in Bessie's self-definition and is reflected in the way she tells stories. Work is a part of daily life, and thus is the main topic of discussion in her stories. Sawin claims that women are more likely to tell stories that emphasize cooperation and relationships, and daily or normal behavior, while men tell stories that are of isolated events that mark individual achievement and success. This is related to the repetitive nature of women's work. Bessie does the same chores and actions on a daily, cyclical pattern, which becomes apparent in her stories.

Ethnography of Speaking

The ethnography of speaking is concerned with the situations and uses, the patterns and functions, of speaking as an activity in its own right.

Relationality

The greater sum resulting from the combining parts.

Halloween Assemblage

The jack-o-lantern. Grotesque yard scenes. Giving expression to the dilemma of human experience. Juxtapositions: nature and culture, order and chaos, natural and supernatural, life and death. The jack-o-lantern is a transformation of a natural organic thing into a cultural figure.

Whirligig

The large, mechanical constructions of Vollis Simpson. The pieces were recently purchased by Wilson County and are being moved for preservation and public benefit. This project is an example of public art, public folklore, creative place-making, and an effort to improve cultural tourism and economic development. Also an example of folkart as Vollis would be considered "self-taught," the pieces are inspired by a functional skill Vollis previously possessed, and they are culturally/contextually based. He built the whirligigs out of things such as road signs; he put up about 20 pieces in 10 years

Tradition Bearer

The one who carries on the tradition. Changes over generations.

Ethnography

The scientific study of human culture. Implies contact between material and human.

Tradition

The text and the wat the text is shared. The twin-pulse: continuity and change. Invented, adapted or resurrected. A resource. It is learned in a variety of ways: osmosis, participation, instruction, disciplined learning. Behaviors and actions that give expression to values and beliefs. Patterned and repeated behaviors that link people together. Tradition is a resource. - A great summation of "tradition" (in case it is an ID style question) can be found on the bottom of page 97 in the text. "Traditions do far more than connect us to the past. They link us to family, friends, neighbors and other groups we belong to; they are part of who we are and how we define ourselves. Whether we consciously create them, join those that already exist, or ease into them when we are born, we engage in an active process of building and sharing identity every time we take part in traditions. Studying tradition (in folklore) allows us to understand not just what we care about but also how we express ourselves across the complex web of communication we share with those around us.

Creative Place-Making

combination of economic development and the desire to help a place or area express itself and appeal to the masses. Part of cultural tourism. Sub-category of public folklore.

Tradition - Definition

Tradition... is both lore and process, helps to create and confirm a sense of identity, and is identified as a tradition by the community. In a way it is ritual as performance. For some families and cultures tradition is ritualistic in that it doesn't have to take place at holidays or special events. As in the Gallo Pinto article, eating rice and beans every morning for breakfast was tradition developed out of popular then onto common ritual. Lore and process: tradition is composed of both the lore of a certain folk group and the process of communicating that lore; concept of continuity suggests the importance of time and repetition to the process of tradition Create and confirm sense of identity: participating and sharing in a group's traditions makes you feel like part of that group; Identified as tradition: groups must identify a tradition as meaningful or else what is the point of the tradition. Without meaning, it can't really be considered tradition. Tradition bearer: a specific member of a group who carries out a tradition for a group and sometimes actively teaches or shares it with others Traditions are behavior we do right now that connect us to other people in a group Traditions are both continuous and changing; on the one hand, a tradition must contain the features that a group identifies as essential; at the same time, a tradition must continually adapt as groups develop and change if it is to remain relevant. Traditions are invented, adapted, resurrected

Text

content, words, or actions. The thing being studied/performed. Can be pretty much anything, doesn't have to literally be written words. Could be a quilt, food dish, etc.

Gallo-Pinto

a Costa-Rican dish of rice and beans containing history. "Immediately personal and deeply political." Indicates African heritage in Costa Rica (rice), something many people try to ignore/fight. "In Southern Costa-Rica, Gallo Pinto first became common, then it became familiar, and finally, it became a traditional food."

Harvest Figure

a Harvest Figure has more to do with the season and practices of harvest in general and is characterized by the use of things like corn, pumpkins, and other gourds but does not particularly involve halloween symbolism like witches, ghosts, skeletons, etc. You got it; a harvest figure is more like a scarecrow with a bundle of tall grasses, etc., whereas the Halloween assemblage is more of the ghosts and gravestones in the front yard

Assemblage

a three dimensional collage created by the combining of a variety of symbolic elements within a single frame; the creation of a single aesthetic entity by grouping together disparate things. Halloween yard-scene or roadside memorial. The product of bricolage.

Spontaneous Shrines

a type of shrine that is unplanned and emergent. They draw on symbolic images to create commentary on events as well as memento mori - memorials of death. They are not taught yet people know how to create them and what is acceptable. They are tolerated by the highway department and recognized as a way of grieving unexpected and tragic death. Disrupt official discourses, insist upon the presence of absent people.

Henry Glassie

guy who talked about aesthetics. He was the one who said that it "engages the senses, demanding and gaining the total involvement of the person."

Jeff Currier

he is the public folklorist that talked to us about Vollis Simpson. He graduated with an MA in Folklore from UNC and has been working in Wilson County moving, restoring, recording, and archiving Vollis Simpson's whirligigs and their history. He interviews Vollis, records the process of restoration, and keeps track of the overall project.

Texture

literary, linguistic, or physical nuances of the text. style and ornamentation, exaggeration and embellishment, think of actual physical texture and apply to other texts

Memento-mori

mentioned briefly while discussing spontaneous shrines. simply means "memorials of death" or "memorial of the dead." more direct translation "remember your mortality" or "remember that you must die." refers most directly to a genre of artwork, but probably could be related to halloween and the jack-o-lantern and the general problem of seasonal changes functioning as a reminder of inevitable human death.

Genealogical Landscape

pattern in the linking of names and places. Importance is not in what you see, but the knowledge of it. It was part of the Barbara Allen reading called "the Genealogical Landscape and the southern Sense of Place" for Elijah's lecture. It was the story of a couple traveling through a rural Southern area and how the husband was familiar with everything, so it all had meaning and visual significance. The wife had no knowledge of the people and memories tied to space, and thus struggled to understand the relevance of the landscape. I think the major significance is just that knowledge and context produces a meaning that is not necessarily obvious to those outside of the immediate network of relationships.

Inverting

related to festivals and seasonal holidays. These events invert normal standards in an effort to reinforce that which is normal and socially acceptable. They offer a time to break social protocol, but in doing so mark standards of behavior. Example: Halloween is a time to dress and act in a way that is outside of one's normal character. Kids can go to a stranger's house and ask for treats, something they would not normally do on any other day. (Started from ancient tradition of "mumming," which involved masking/dressing up and begging for food)

Form (within performance)

rules, limitations that shape a performance. For example, performance can take the form of a joke, or a narrative, proverb, or a song. If you do not recognize the form, then there is no point. If you don't know that someone is making a joke or what a certain proverb is, then there is no way you're going to engage in the performance.

Material Culture

segment of the physical environment purposely shaped according to culturally dictated plans. The study of those human actions and behaviors that are manifested in the commonplace. The ability to find meaning in artifacts.

Beau Geste

symbols to grieve unexpected and tragic death. They bring the person corporeally into the world of the living. examples: t-shirts, stuffed animals, shoes, crosses

American Calendrical Cylce

the calendar year divided up by the holidays which occur throughout the year and the time span which it covers until the next holiday begins. The holidays transition us from one season to the next - mentioned in The Folk Assemblage of Autumn by Santino

Mrs. Eldreth

told stories, talked about how she always worked really hard; see notes above from reading "If you had to work as hard as I did".

Framing (markers)

words or techniques--can be unconscious--that note or signal a performance.

Gefilite Fish

•What is the significance of the dish to the women who prepare it? •How does this food tradition vary from generation to generation? What stays the same? •What key concern is raised about tradition in the film "Gefilte Fish"?