^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Folklife Center News American Folklife Center The Library of Congress Spring 1993 Volume XV, Number 2 ISSN 0149-6840 Catalog Card No. 77-649628 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The American Folklife Center was created in 1976 by the U.S. Congress to "preserve and present American folklife" through programs of research, documentation, archival preservation, reference service, live performance, exhibition, publication, and training. The Center incorporates the Archive of Folk Culture, which was established in the Music Division of the Library of Congress in 1928 and is now one of the largest collections of ethnographic material from the United States and around the world. Administration Alan Jabbour, Director Ray Dockstader, Deputy Director Timothy Lloyd, Assistant to the Director Doris Craig, Administrative Assistant Hillary Glatt, Program Assistant Camila Bryce-Laporte, Program Coordinator Jennifer A. Cutting, Program Coordinator Acquisitions Joseph C. Hickerson, Head Processing Stephanie A. Hall, Archivist Catherine Hiebert Kerst, American Memory Project Programs Peter T. Bartis, Folklife Specialist Mary Hufford, Folklife Specialist David A. Taylor, Folklife Specialist Publications James Hardin, Editor Public Events Thea Caemmerer, Coordinator Reference Gerald E. Parsons, Reference Librarian Judith A. Gray, Folklife Specialist Administrative Office Tel: 202 707-6590 Reference Service Tel: 202 707-5510 Federal Cylinder Project Tel: 202 707-1740 Board of Trustees William L. Kinney, Jr., Chair, South Carolina John Penn Fix III, Vice Chair, Washington Nina Archabal, Minnesota Lindy Boggs, Louisiana; Washington, D.C. Carolyn Hecker, Maine Robert Malir, Jr., Kansas Judith McCulloh, Illinois Juris Ubans, Maine Ex Officio Members James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress Robert McCormick Adams, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Anne-Imelda Radice, Acting Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts Vacant, Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities Alan Jabbour, Director, American Folklife Center FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS James Hardin, Editor David A. Taylor, Editorial Advisor Timothy Lloyd, Editorial Review John Biggs, Library of Congress Graphics Unit, Designer Folklife Center News publishes articles on the programs and activities of the American Folklife Center, as well as other articles on traditional expressive culture. It is available free of charge from the Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, Washington, D.C. 20540-8100. Folklife Center News does not publish announcements from other institutions or reviews of books from publishers other than the Library of Congress. Readers who would like to comment on Center activities or newsletter articles may address their remarks to the editor. FOLKLINE For timely information on the field of folklore and folklife, including training and professional opportunities and news items of national interest, a taped announcement is available around the clock, except during the hours of 9 A.M. until noon (eastern time) each Monday, when it is updated. Folkline is a joint project of the American Folklife Center and the American Folklore Society. Dial: 202 707-2000 .................................................................. EDITOR'S NOTES Cultural Diversity The American Folklife Center (since its founding in 1976), the Archive of Folk Culture (since its founding in 1928), the American Folklore Society (since its founding in 1888-89), and the people associated with these institutions of American life have made cultural diversity a hallmark of their work--long before the term was taken up by the rest of the country. In this issue of Folklife Center News, for example, are references to programs and projects pertaining to Ukrainians, Swedes, Moroccans, French Acadians, and Italians. A number of years ago Alan Jabbour wrote an essay on the diversity of American life for presentation at an international conference in Hungary. It is offered here as a thoughtful commentary, from the folklorist's perspective, on a subject of national importance that has been much publicized and much debated during the past few years. New Display Features American Folklife In 1991, the Folklife Center issued a booklet by Mary Hufford entitled American Folklife: A Commonwealth of Cultures, a pictorial presentation of the many groups that make up American cultural life and the borrowing and sharing that takes place among them. The presentation has been adapted as a sixteen-panel display and is available from the Social Issues Resources Series, Inc., of Boca Raton, Florida, as part of a new series called "The Library of Congress Corner." The series is intended for high school, college, and public libraries, and for other such educational and cultural institutions and organizations. The Library of Congress Corner for 1993 includes "Thomas Jefferson's Legacy"; "American Folklife: A Commonwealth of Cultures"; "An Ongoing Voyage" (on the backgroud and consequences of Christopher Columbus's 1492 adventure); and "The American Cowboy," based on the Folklife Center's 1983 exhibition. Subscribers receive four Library of Congress Corner displays a year, delivered quarterly. Each display includes a supply of 250 pamphlets for distribution. Annual subscription for four displays is $600 (including shipping). The cost of the display stand is $800, FOB, Boca Raton, Florida. Additional pamphlets are $60 per thousand. Interested persons should write: Social Issues Resources Series, Inc., P.O. Box 2348, Boca Raton, Florida 33427-2348; or call toll-free 1-800-232-SIRS. Folklorists as Folk From folklorist Elaine Thatcher, we received the following letter, inspired by Francesca McLean's article about the discovery that her family was the subject of study for the Italian-Americans in the West Project ("The Folklorist Becomes the Folk," Folklife Center News, fall 1992): Francesca McLean's article revived some thoughts that I have had from time to time during my professional career. I, too, am an active member of a cultural group that is frequently scrutinized by folklorists: the Mormons (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or LDS Church). Over the years I have attempted to study Mormon folklore, and I have observed the efforts of other folklorists, Mormon, former Mormon, and non-Mormon. I specifically recall a paper I heard at a professional meeting one year. After listening to the scholar's interpretation of a particular aspect of LDS culture, I reacted defensively, feeling that my culture had not been understood or interpreted with accuracy or objectivity. I still believe that the scholar had not been careful enough in conducting research to see the full context and range of expression within the phenomenon being studied. I learned through discussions with others who heard the paper, both Mormon and non-Mormon, that their responses were somewhat similar to mine. The experience of hearing a paper which I felt unfairly represented an aspect of my culture was deeply disturbing and caused me to examine my own research in other cultures more closely. It has certainly made me more hesitant about stating conclusions based on limited experiences. It has also made me a fervent advocate of involving community members in projects, whether as community scholars, consultants, or reviewers. I have long felt that informants have the right to see either transcripts of their interviews or the copy for exhibit labels or program books in order to correct any wrong impressions that may result from reading a written version of the spoken word. (Someone studying language and verbal traditions obviously would not want to change anything, but an informant's comments on his/her own words could still be enlightening.) In my own work, I try to evaluate each objection of an informant to satisfy myself as to whether the person is trying to whitewash an earlier statement or not. In general, however, I have found that informants' clarifications help rather than hinder understanding. In public-sector work, where we often have to conduct fieldwork in a too-short period of time, a folklorist can avoid making glaring contextual errors by working with community members on a project. As we all know, folklife, which is usually observable, generally grows out of beliefs or situations that are not immediately observable or are extremely subtle. Review of our work by community insiders can help us to understand the subtleties which might otherwise escape our notice and whose omission or misinterpretation could fundamentally affect our conclusions. With more and more concern in the field about assuring in-community control of cultural phenomena, collaboration is the mode of the day. It can still fall to the folklorist to interpret the raw data as he or she sees fit, if appropriate. I have long admired the work of William A. Wilson in the study of Mormon folklore, his own culture. His work has profundity and meaning that reaches beyond one cultural group. His perspectives as a thoughtful insider are valuable to both insiders and outsiders. Increasingly, we are seeing folklorists and other scholars turning to work in their own traditions--a change which is healthy for the field. Folklorists are encouraging community scholars to get folklore training, and we are actively seeking recruits to the profession from a variety of ethnic groups. We will continue to need the perspectives of the outsider in folklore. Scholars who are not members of a community will notice things that community members will take for granted. However, in my experience, both as an insider and an outsider at various times, the dialogue that emerges from collaboration makes for more complete and multifaceted understanding of a cultural group. Elaine Thatcher Folk Arts Program Director Western States Arts Federation Sante Fe, New Mexico ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Music, Life, and Death Among the Village Minstrels of Ukraine By William Noll ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In a joint project between the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Ryl's'kyi Institute of Art, Folklore and Ethnology (Academy of Sciences) in Kiev, four hundred wax cylinder recordings are being brought to Washington, D.C., to be restored and copied, then returned to Kiev. Another several hundred cylinders may be available from other institutions in the future. The cylinders were recorded in Ukrainian villages between 1904 and 1939 and include a variety of types and styles of music. The most prominent music in the collection is that of the blind village minstrels, known in Ukrainian as kobzari and lirnyky. In addition to the cylinders, the collection includes copies of tape recordings made in the 1950s and 1960s in Ukraine. There are supporting photographs, transcriptions, and unpublished manuscripts as well as hard-to-find journals and other published sources, all of which will be brought to the Library of Congress from Ukraine. The collection also contains video and audio recordings of current practice derived from the tradition, made under the joint sponsorship of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies at the Smithsonian Institution, and the Ryl's'kyi Institute. Acquisition will take place over several years, and the collection will not be available for research in the Archive of Folk Culture until all the material has been received and processed. The first group of cylinders to be duplicated will be those containing the music of the blind minstrels whose musical repertory contained some of the most important national symbols in Ukrainian culture. They sang the epics known today as dumy, of the exploits of the Cossacks, as well as of village life, and provided the village with examples of an upright and moral life. They also carried a unique religious repertory, especially the psal'my, based on religious, non-liturgical texts, primarily of village origin. Only the blind village minstrels sang the heroic epics and only they could play special instruments, the kobza (plucked lute) and the lira (hurdy-gurdy). Their playing style and vocal ornamentation were a cross between European and West Asian music practices. Scale/mode types, ornamental flourishes, and improvisation are characteristics of this Eurasian music practice. The minstrels had their own brotherhoods or sects that controlled access to learning the music and the national symbols of Ukrainian culture (e.g., the history of Cossackdom through the heroic epics as well as a type of religious knowledge and interpretation through the psal'my). Entry into a sect was controlled by its members. Prominent features of the sects included: an apprenticeship period, examinations by sect leaders, obedience to the sect master, use of a secret language based on the slang of criminals in the Russian Empire, and a performance season from spring to autumn for most, during which they wandered village roads, performing in village markets as well as from house to house. They were not beggars but wandering performers. They had homes and families, even property, to which they returned in off- season. Early in the Soviet period, the minstrels were forbidden by the state to travel and those who continued to do so were sometimes arrested. Aspects of their repertory were either administratively censored (religious genres) or co-opted by party and government officials who helped develop texts and musical styles more in line with politically correct Soviet music practices (dumy about Lenin; heroic songs about Stalin, party, military, and state). During the Stalinist repressions, thousands of village performers were shot, arrested, and sent to labor camps, or otherwise repressed. By the 1950s most of the sects ceased to exist. Only a handful of performers survived into the 1960s, and today there are no blind village minstrels whatsoever in the Ukrainian countryside. An entire group of musicians, numbering in the thousands in the early twentieth century, has vanished. Today a single sect has re-emerged, based largely on the music and tradition of a single performer (now ninety-five years old). There are about fifteen active performers of this sect, and they can be seen performing usually on the streets of Kiev and other cities as well as in concerts. None of them is blind, but their instruments, repertory, and lives are similar to those of the older minstrel sects. These are not the bandura musicians of the conservatories and music schools that feature a standardized repertory of arranged folksongs, products of the Soviet period, a music available on commercial recordings and marketed as the "Ukrainian Bandura." This collection of cylinder recordings and supporting materials documents one of the most unique and important aspects of Ukrainian cultural history. In this collection, scholars have at their disposal primary sources for the interpretation of that history (the cylinders themselves being the most valuable part). A cultural historian can compare the music practices of these musicians with that of the Soviet period and today. Through this material it is possible to view the transformation of aspects of Ukrainian musical culture from a primarily village-based phenomenon in the nineteenth century to a village-urban symbiosis with national networks by the mid-twentieth century. It is also possible to view the horrible costs in human life and local culture that this transformation produced. What kind of shock to the fabric of society is the near elimination of an entire musical art, centuries old, that contained and perpetuated the symbols of national identity? How can one measure the consequences to a people's culture, to their identity, of such a transformation? How was it possible to perform such a transformation without the knowledge or interest of the rest of the world? Once in place and available for scholarly use, this collection should help to answer some of these questions. ................................................................. William Noll is coordinator of the Ukrainian Cylinder Project. He is research associate at both the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and at the Ryl's'kyi Ethnological Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, and lecturer at Kiev University. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ethnicity and Identity in America By Alan Jabbour ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Alan Jabbour prepared the following remarks for a conference on ethnicity and folklore, held in Hungary in 1981. They were printed in Folklife Center News, July 1981 and October 1981, as a two-part essay for the "Director's Column," and are offered again here as a timely commentary on cultural diversity, a subject currently of great national interest. A sixteen-panel display presenting many of the same views on the richness and resilience of American folklife is available from SIRS of Bacon Raton, Florida. See the Editor's Notes for ordering information. ................................................................... American civilization has for centuries intrigued and baffled its observers. Both American and foreign commentators have long been fascinated by the complex process through which a politically and culturally coherent civilization has welded itself together out of so many disparate human elements. It is a phenomenon that finds expression in the widely quoted American motto e pluribus unum. More recently, discussions of the subject have revolved around the word pluralism, used both as a descriptive term referring to the coexistence of many cultural traditions and as a prescriptive term to exhort Americans to support policies that would further the goal of a plural society. Many observers, at home and abroad, tend to gloss e pluribus unum by citing one of two simple theories. The first is that "many become one" by elimination of cultural variety. The "melting-pot theory" of American culture assumes that becoming American requires sloughing off one's homeland and values. Old World languages, customs, and symbolic forms, however quaint and attractive, must, by this theory, fall away in the face of "the American way of life." The second theory opposes the first. According to advocates of "pluralism," America is made up of many ethnic traditions, from those of the indigenous Native Americans to those of the most recent immigrant group to land on our shores. E pluribus unum means, not that the many shed their manyness to become the same culturally, but that the many ethnic groups combine as groups to constitute the larger society. Just as the geo-political units called states combine to create the federation of "United States," so the cultural units of ethnic groups coexist and cooperate in the workings of the larger society. Individuals are necessarily "ethnic," but that ethnicity is an asset and does not prohibit or inhibit their participation in the larger society. Both these theories have the virtue of simplicity, and have been widely employed. But neither, to my mind, adequately accounts for the complexity of American civilization. One must account for the American Indian powwow honoring World War II veterans; the Louisiana Cajun with an Irish surname singing a blues song in French; the Washington, D.C., Jewish family adopting current Israeli pronunciation for Hebrew words instead of their parents' Ashkenazi pronunciations; the Afro-American blues singer from Virginia who incorporates songs of the white country singer Jimmie Rodgers in his repertory; and the second-generation Hungarian steelworker who prefers the company of Irish and Slovak fellow workers to that of post-1956 Hungarian immigrants. What is needed, then, is a more elaborate and supple model for ethnicity in the United States. I shall not be so rash as to proclaim that this essay will set forth a model, but let me dwell a little upon some of its salient features. The first feature is selectivity. Not only folklorists but many other thoughtful observers have noticed that immigrants to the United States maintain some customs and expressive forms, and quickly abandon others. Presumably some kinds of folklore and folklife undergo uprooting and transoceanic migration with ease, while others cannot be transplanted. One group may maintain its aboriginal language and verbal traditions, its music, and its foodways, while dropping calendrical customs tied to life on the land in the country of origin. Another group will abandon language but maintain ancient customs relating to farming. Further, it has often been observed that, though particular folkloric traditions are maintained in America, the integrated world view and way of life into which these traditions fit in the land of origin are lost here, making the particular traditions serve more specialized and culturally fragmented purposes. A second feature, functioning in tandem with selectivity, is tenacity. Americans partake amply in the custom of bewailing the loss of customs. The fact is that, within the parameters of selectivity, ethnic traditions maintain themselves very well and for long periods in the United States. Once selected for maintenance, traditions are clung to with surprising vigor, belying the predictions of those who assume they will vanish in a generation. Rural-based traditions seem especially tenacious. Although there seems to be more historical flux in urban-based traditions, even there we find that selective tenacity is a factor to be reckoned with. A third characteristic is the recombinant development of symbolic forms (to borrow a term from genetic theory). The selective tenacity, one might say, functions not by clinging to expressive forms frozen in time as a memory of some past cultural life, but rather by maintaining a vigorous creative continuity which encompasses new ideas, new elements, and new genres. Foodways are freely and creatively adapted, not only to accommodate available foodstuffs, but to integrate old and new customs and patterns of eating. Musical forms and genres, which tend to fare quite well in the mill of "selective tenacity," exhibit continuing creative recombination. Recombinant development--that is to say, creativity--must be regarded as fundamental to the concept of tradition everywhere; but on the American scene, with its extraordinary flux and interaction, recombinant development is so conspicuous and continuous that it must be regarded as a special hallmark. The fourth feature of ethnicity in America is individual versatility. Scholars whose concern for tradition inclines them to deal with society in group terms need to remind themselves that individuals are not always wed eternally to the ethnic group into which they were born. Particularly in the United States, the symbolic forms associated with ethnicity are available to many as a matter of choice. Interethnic marriage is absolutely commonplace on the American scene, and historical evidence suggests that this has always been the case. It is a common American experience for a child to grow up within a family where the father is from one ethnic tradition and the mother from another. Just as frequently, further ethnic traditions are immediately available to the child within his community or neighborhood. They may in some cases present stark "either/or" choices, but more typically afford the possibility of "picking and choosing." When we speak of an ethnic group in the American context, we are talking about a somewhat amorphous abstraction comprising a cluster of cultural options available to individuals in intimate contact with the "group." One may consider oneself a member of a group in certain ways and contexts, but a member of other groups in other contexts. Beyond ethnic grouping, there are other means of grouping: geographical (neighborhood, community, town, state, region), occupational (including not only occupations for earning a living but important recreational occupations or hobbies), and religious. Thus, an individual may choose his ways of expressing himself culturally from more than one ethnic option, as well as from a variety of nonethnic options. No account of ethnicity in America that ignores individual versatility can present a realistic picture of the relationship of ethnicity to human identity in the American context. If these four elements--selectivity, tenacity, recombinant development, and individual versatility--are indeed crucial to the profile of ethnicity in America, then ethnicity is clearly not the fundamental organizing principle in the building of identity in the United States. Instead, it functions along with other cultural organizing principles--region, occupation, religion--in providing optional social networks, cultural traditions, and symbolic expressive forms from which an American may choose. Is ethnicity therefore diminished? Is it reduced from a fundamental birthright to a cultural bauble? Are the folkloric forms identified as "ethnic" trivialized in their symbolic meaning and in the cultural freight they carry? Many people believe that the answer to these questions is an unequivocal yes. My own answer is, perhaps, but only sometimes. Detached from a unifying world view and way of life, certain folkloric expressions are doubtless maintained in the United States for more specialized, and one could even say trivialized, reasons-- particularly as mementos of the Old World and old ways of life. But these types of folklore tend not to be maintained very long; a generation or two may be their maximum life expectancy. Other kinds of folkloric expression both endure and prosper creatively on the American scene; but what endures must have enduring relevance. The American cultural process generates a multitude of interlocking, overlapping, and constantly changing categories of human organization. A fact of American life is that everyone born in America is a citizen. Another fact of life is that few ethnic groups permanently control and exclusively identify with a particular segment of the land, though many develop attachments to areas shared with other ethnic groups. A further fact is that American political boundaries crosscut ethnic geography, from the state level down to the local towns and communities. Once ethnicity is severed from the identification with turf--particular segments of land, rural or urban--then it must compete with crosscutting groupings such as region, religion, or occupation in the cultural marketplace where Americans select the elements of their interlocking identity. To understand the special creative functions of ethnicity in America, then, we must search more closely into the relationship of ethnicity to the land and to the larger civilization's cultural patterns and rhythms. As illustrations of the American cultural process, let us look at a single moment in American cultural history, using music as our focal art. The time is a brief span of years after World War II, perhaps 1947 to 1955. Many cosmopolitan Americans regard it as an era when "nothing was going on," a sort of dead period culturally speaking. From a national vantage point that may have been the case, but it does not follow that nothing was going on at all. On the contrary, the post-World War II period was a time of intense fermentation at the grassroots level of culture, if the evidence of folk music is to be believed. In the Upper South and in urban areas to which Appalachian migrants moved, a new British-American style called bluegrass suddenly took shape just after World War II. It is characterized by singing in the classic British-American style and use of acoustic stringed instruments--in conscious opposition to the more broadly popular singing style and electrified instruments already becoming standard in country music at the time. Instruments typically include fiddle, banjo, acoustic guitar, and double bass. Thus bluegrass taps the most conservative stylistic preferences of British-American folk music. At the same time, it borrows repertory and stylistic elements from African-American music. And from jazz and popular music it borrows such devices as "breaks" featuring different instruments in turn--devices unknown in earlier hillbilly string bands. In short, bluegrass is a striking new synthesis for British-American culture in the Upper South, expressing both longstanding values and the new experiences of the post-World War II world in Appalachia and in cities like Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Detroit, where Appalachians migrated. During the same period, but quite independently, the contemporary African-American style known as rhythm and blues was quickly taking shape in the Deep South and in urban centers where large numbers of blacks had migrated--particularly Chicago. The chief characteristic of the new style was that it was plugged in. Amplified guitars and other stringed instruments symbolized the new urban experience of Deep South blacks. At the same time, amplification permitted creative extension of the traditional slide-guitar technique that had already become a hallmark of the older country blues style. Plugging in thus proved to be a deeply traditional innovation, simultaneously embracing new cultural experiences and asserting deeply held older values. One might surmise from the parallels between bluegrass and rhythm and blues that both reflected a larger cultural fermentation in the South, which is the cultural home region for both. The American South comprises a vast and complex region, peopled by a variety of regional and ethnic groups, which, for over a century, has consistently engendered new musical styles at the grassroots level and exported them into the stream of popular music at the national level. This long-standing pattern of cultural flow might account for bluegrass and rhythm and blues in the period after World War II. But there are further parallels beyond the South. The period following World War II also saw the development of the contemporary American Indian powwow in Oklahoma and throughout the American Plains. The musical style is pan-tribal, in contrast with the separate tribal repertories and stylistic preferences that preceded it. It probably evolved first in Oklahoma, whence it spread quickly through the entire Plains region, and it continues to spread into other tribal gatherings further west and east. An alternative singing style soon developed in the Northern Plains, but it too is pan-tribal and functions in the contemporary powwow ceremonial context. Tribal traditionalists fret about the intrusion of the powwow style into older traditional ceremonies, but it clearly represents a new pan-Indian experience and world view, and it clearly has strengthened Native American identity throughout a vast swath of America. Why did three contemporary traditional styles--bluegrass, rhythm and blues, and the Plains powwow--evolve suddenly and simultaneously in the decade following the conclusions of World War II? And what is the significance of their development? First, all three newly evolved styles evince, in the elements synthesized into the styles, a reaching out by an ethnic tradition to embrace neighboring traditions, as well as elements of the general American experience. Yet they simultaneously re-emphasize certain fundamental stylistic elements of the group's traditional art. Second, they suggest by their simultaneity that such creative evolution of traditional symbolic forms does not occur wholly within an ethnic or regional group's internal cultural chemistry but is catalyzed by forces and rhythms in the larger civilization. It may require the group's inner chemistry, but that chemistry alone does not suffice to explain the phenomenon. Third, there is an interesting relationship between recombinant development at the group cultural level and individual versatility at the personal level. An energetic symbolic form like bluegrass or rhythm and blues tends to be both culturally aggrandizing in embracing elements from other cultural traditions, and personally aggrandizing in that it attracts new adherents beyond the source group as narrowly defined. It is a process that, in a real sense, redefines a group and its boundaries. One might assert that the fluidity of cultural process exemplified by bluegrass, rhythm and blues, and the powwow style is in fact characteristic of all cultures around the world, and is thus not an American phenomenon in an distinctive sense. When one contemplates culture as a human phenomenon, it is doubtless true that cultures change, and that a chief cause of change is contact with other cultures. Yet I believe there are differences in the cultural development of ethnicity American-style, and that the differences might be not only of degree (a faster rate of change, for example) but of kind. In Europe, ethnicity is often regarded as more fundamental than cultural attributes associated with, say, region, religion, or occupation. One studies a given ethnic group, and as sub-categories one studies that group in a particular region, or in particular occupations, or in religious practices. Similarly, in general social discourse, ethnicity and nationality seem to be conflated in a way sometimes perplexing to an American. Can a Gypsy in Hungary be both Gypsy in ethnicity and Hungarian in nationality? Or does the term "minority" imply a kind of categorization that excludes ethnic minorities from national life in a way fundamentally different from the American experience? The key difference in the way ethnicity is regarded in Europe and in this country, I am coming to believe, lies in the neutrality of the land itself--or rather, in the neutrality of Americans' perception of their relationship to the land. Our nation is very large and encompassing, and there is still plenty of space for people by almost any comparative standard. Within those spacious bounds the population moves and shifts with an ease and an alacrity unparalleled in recent European history. With the exception of some of the Southwest and West and a few scattered pockets elsewhere, land in America does not seem so permanently tied to the sole ownership of single ethnic groups. Nor do ethnic neighborhoods in urban areas prove permanent in their composition, despite both anxiety about ghettos and short-term pride in the positive aspects of ethnic neighborhoods. The long-term pattern seems to favor fluidity over community stability, individual choice over permanent domain. Some will find this invigorating; others will see it as culturally dangerous. But, whatever its virtues or defects, the pattern of life on the American land certainly tends to define ethnicity not as the fundamental cultural organizing principle but as one cultural dimension among many. It parallels or competes with family, geographical community, region, occupational networks, and religious affiliations in a complex of options available to every American. Yet the phenomena of bluegrass, rhythm and blues, and the modern powwow style should remind us that ethnicity thus defined is not therefore doomed to extinction. Rather, it remains a potent creative factor in American culture, but a factor which seems to be most creative when it combines selectivity, tenacity, recombinant development, and individual versatility in a fluid synthesis of the old and the new in the arts and lives of Americans. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Leif Alpsjo and the Music of Uppland By Christine Kalke ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Leif Alpsjo, musician and teacher of traditional folk music in the province of Uppland, Sweden, gave a concert and demonstration at the Library of Congress on October 26, 1992. Best known for his popular courses in the playing of the nyckelharpa (most often translated as the key fiddle), he also plays fiddle and traditional wind instruments such as spil†pipa and n„verlur. To hear him play a lullaby on a cow horn, which he says is called locally tjuthorn (howling horn), is an experience not easily forgotten. Born in 1943 in Uppsala, Uppland, Leif Alpsjo learned the traditional folk dances of his region as a child and heard the music of many traditional fiddlers. Although he played violin as a child, he soon became interested in Dixieland music and took up the banjo instead. Eventually, he returned to the fiddle and then began playing the nyckelharpa. During these early years, he had contact with many of Sweden's famous fiddlers, including Uppland's Viksta Lasse, as well as dancers and folksingers. While the nyckelharpa is unfamiliar to most people outside of Sweden, it is considered by many Swedes to be the national instrument. The nyckelharpa is said to have originated in Uppland in a simpler form more than five hundred years ago. It is similar in some ways to the hurdy-gurdy that developed on the European continent at the same time. The nyckelharpa is played with a bow, and in the earliest forms, the melody was played on one string with two or three others serving as drones. By the 1600s, the instrument had acquired resonating strings, strung parallel to the melody strings but lower, so that they are not touched by the bow. The resonating strings increase the fullness of the sound of the instrument. What most distinguishes the nyckelharpa from other instruments is the means by which the strings are stopped to produce different notes. Under the strings and perpendicular to them are narrow strips of wood--the keys--that are pressed against the strings when pushed by the fingertips of the left hand. The instrument is hung by a strap from the player's neck and rests against the stomach; the bow is moved back-and-forth, perpendicular to the strings. The nyckelharpa has existed as a continuous living tradition in Uppland from the time of its origin through this century. The master musician and builder of the nyckelharpa in Uppland, Erick Sahlstr”m (1912-1986), contributed greatly to the growth in popularity of the instrument in other regions of Sweden. According to Leif Alpsjo, in 1965 there were only five hundred of the instruments known to exist in private homes and museums. Of those, only about fifty were actually being played. Today there are over twenty-five thousand nyckelharpa, most of them built by individual craftspeople. It is estimated that seven thousand are in active use in Sweden, Europe, and the United States. Nickelharpa players in Sweden learn to play by ear, playing with other musicians at home or in workshops such as those Leif Alpsjo organizes. Playing together at fiddler's gatherings or courses remains an important part of the tradition. The tunes commonly played on the nyckelharpa are mostly for dancing; a small percentage are processional tunes and an even smaller number may be called ceremonial. The dance tunes include the older polskor, particularly tunes for the bondpolska, (farmer's dance), also called stigpolska, (step dance), a form of polska traditional to Uppland, as well as tunes for the newer waltzes, polkas, and schottisches, introduced into Sweden in the nineteenth century. .................................................................. Christine Kalke is a program officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as a fiddler and teacher of Scandinavian folk dance. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Folk Archive Donor Recounts Experiences among the Sephardic Jews By Henrietta Yurchenco and Judith Gray ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In 1492, Spain financed the voyage of the Italian-born seaman Christopher Columbus, in his attempt to reach the Far East by sailing west. In the same year, Spain defeated the Moors at Grenada and then expelled the Jews living within her borders. All three events had political, social, economic, and cultural consequences that echoed across the centuries. Last year's quincentenary observances focused primarily on the "New World" contacts, but examination of the other events of 1492 also provides many opportunities for assessing the power and implications of cultural encounters. Henrietta Yurchenco has explored musical repercussions of 1492 on both sides of the Atlantic. As producer of special music events for WNYC radio in 1939-41, she was a pioneer broadcaster of folk music from all parts of the world. Her fieldwork experience began in 1942 in Mexico and Guatemala, where she recorded traditional music in Indian communities; her trips were sponsored by the Library of Congress and the U.S. Department of State, as well as the Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico, the Department of Fine Arts of Mexico, the Departments of Education of Mexico and Guatemala, the Inter-American Indian Institute, and the governments of Chiapas and Michoacan. In 1953, she began work in the western and central provinces of Spain, the Balearic Islands, and later in Morocco. On April 22, 1993, Yurchenco spoke about her work at an event cosponsored by the American Folklife Center, the Quincentenary Program, the Hispanic Division, and the Hebraic Section of the African and Middle East Division, all of the Library of Congress. The presentation focused on the traditions of the Sephardic Jews, descendants of the people forced from Spain in 1492. In the late winter of 1956, Yurchenco boarded a Dutch ship in New York harbor and sailed for Spanish Morocco to record the music of the Jews of Tetuan and Tangier. It was a difficult time for these people. Since 1492, they had lived in Morocco but had now decided to move. In search of peace and security, they were soon to disperse to Israel, Spain, France, Canada, and the west coast of the United States. The songs and ballads Yurchenco recorded in 1956 were the pride of the Morroccan-Jewish community. Preserved since the expulsion from Spain in 1492, they were a reminder of the Jews' distinguished Spanish past. Sung only by women (in Spanish), they are also a source for understanding the moral climate of the Middle Ages--and its persistance in our time. .................................................................. Henrietta Yurchenco is professor emerita of the City College of New York. Since the 1950s, she has conducted field research in Mexico many times (as recently as January 1993); begun a study of women's songs in Galicia, Spain; and conducted fieldwork in Puerto Rico, South Carolina, and Ireland. She has produced a series of records, published by the Library of Congress, Nonesuch, Asch, and Folkways. Her field recordings are housed in the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center. ................................................................ Folklife Center News -- Spring 93 -- PHOTO CAPTIONS Cover: Detail, blind kobzar in or near a marketplace. Painting by Serhii Vasyl'kovskii Blind kobzar in or near a marketplace. Costumes are authentic, from eastern Ukraine. Painting by Ukrainian artist Serhii Vasyl'kovskii, from late nineteenth century Blind kobzar Ostap Veresai, the most famous of nineteenth-century kobzari. Photo about 1875 On the evening of December 8, 1992, the American Folklife Center presented an illustrated lecture at the Library of Congress entitled "Music, Life, and Death Among the Village Bards of Ukraine," featuring William Noll and Valentyna Borysenko, chief archivist of the Ryl's'kyi Ethnological Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and lecturer at Kiev University. At the event, a donation of $10,000 was presented to the American Folklife Center for the Ukrainian Cylinder Project by Maria Yasinsky Murowany, representing the Maria Yasinsky Murowany Foundation of Greenville, Delaware. Pictured here with a cylinder machine and sample cylinders from the collection are (left to right) Center director Alan Jabbour; Maria Murowany; William Noll; Valentyna Borysenko; Oleh Bilorus, ambassador of Ukraine to the United States, who delivered opening remarks at the event; the ambassador's wife, Larysa Bilorus; Joseph C. Hickerson, head of acquisitions for the Center; and Bohdan Yasinsky, Mrs. Murowany's brother and a Ukrainian specialist in the Library's European Division. Photo by Yusef El-Amin Puerto Rican festival in Lowell, Massachusetts, August 22, 1987. Such public events enable groups to define and celebrate their shared identities through music, dance, and foodways, while at the same time sharing their traditions with others in a multicultural setting. (original in color: LFP-MM-C007) Photo by Mario Montano Cambodian musicians Sokhm Bun on the banjo, Chorb Chan on troe ou, and Nhak Chann on the takee, playing in the home of Sorn Veuk in Lowell, Massachusetts, September 1987. Introduced by African Americans, now played almost exclusively by white musicians, the banjo has been adopted by this traditional Cambodian ensemble. (LFP-DD-B320-30) Photo by Doug DeNatale Singers at the 1983 Omaha Powwow, Macy, Nebraska. (FCP-21-4061-3- 13) Photo by Carl Fleischhauer Jean Kay holds a tray of "pasties," Iron Mountain, Michigan, 1981. Brought to the United States by Cornish immigrants, the meat-and- vegetable-filled "sandwich" was readily adopted by Finnish immigrants when they moved in large numbers to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Photograph by William G. Lockwood Leif Alpsjo demonstrates the Swedish nyckelharpa (LC-102692-2-28) Photo by Jim Higgins Leif Alpsjo explains the use of the cow horn, which can be made into a three-hole musical instrument. It is sometimes used to warn of wolves and bears and to call neighbors to assembly. (LC-102692- 2-17a-18) Photo by Jim Higgins Henrietta Yurchenco at a reception following her talk at the Library of Congress, with University of Maryland graduate student Sergio Navarrete Pellicer. For his master's thesis in ethnomusicology, Navarrete is working on Guatemalan ritual dramas, using Yurchenco's recordings in the Archive of Folk Culture as a major source. He has also compiled an index to her Mexican and Guatemalan recordings that will assist other researchers. Photograph by David A. Taylor Mainiacs plus one: After a meeting of the Folklife Center's Board of Trustees, February 26, members of the board and the staff presented Senate majority leader George J. Mitchell of Maine (center) with a copy of the National Park Service's draft report on Acadian culture in Maine, based on the Center's 1991 field research and subsequent report. From left to right, Center director Alan Jabbour; board member Carolyn Hecker, Deer Isle, Maine; Senator Mitchell; board member Juris Ubans, Portland, Maine; and Center folklife specialist David A. Taylor, a native of Fairfield, Maine. Hecker and Ubans were appointed to the board by Senator Mitchell. Photo courtesy of U.S. Senate Center archivist Stephanie Hall; Rep. John A. Spratt of South Carolina; William Kinney, chairman of the Folklife Center's Board of Trustees; Center director Alan Jabbour; and board member Judith McCulloh, in the Folklife Reading Room, May 7. Invited to visit the Folklife Center by his South Carolina constituent William Kinney, Congressman Spratt questions Stephanie Hall about the South Carolina collections after examining a finding aid on the subject. Photo by David A. Taylor On May 7, Center Board of Trustees member Penn Fix (right) of Washington State visited the Capitol Hill office of Speaker of the House Thomas S. Foley to deliver a copy of Old Ties, New Attachments: Italian-American Folklife in the West to the Washington State representative. In the book is an article by Jens Lund on Italian-Americans in Walla Walla, Washington, and the famous sweet onion they produce, which has become a marker of Italian-American cultural life in the region. Old Ties, New Attachments is available from the American Folklife Center for $29.95 plus $2.00 (book rate) or $4.50 (first class) per book for postage and handling. The selection panel at work on preliminary balloting for the 1992 edition of American Folk Music and Folklore Recordings: A Selected List, an annual publication listing the best folk recordings of the year. The panel met at the Library of Congress on March 8 and 9 to review over 350 submissions. Seated around the table from left to right: Horace Boyer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Dick Spottswood, WAMU-FM, Washington, D.C.; Charlotte Heth, University of California, Los Angeles; David Evans, Memphis State University; and Philip Schuyler, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Standing is project coordinator Jennifer Cutting; seated to the left behind panelists is project assistant Ann Hamilton. Again this year, the Folklife Center received a grant from the Education Committee of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc., to assist with the publication of the list. Photo by Yusef El-Amin ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^END FCN TEXT^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^