Posts tagged culture
HiStorytelling
A FotoJo
Bastille Day Festival at Eastern State Penitentiary
Photo Source: Madagascan Woman - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Madagascan_Woman.jpg
To Adorn
Recently, I worked on a project called “The Will to Adorn: Philadelphia Stories of Beauty and Adornment” at the Philadelphia Folklore Project (PFP). It featured a screening of the award-winning documentary “Hair Stories,” (1998) by West Philadelphia filmmaker,master braider and hair sculptor, Yvette Smalls, storytelling by members of Keepers of the Culture (KOTC), Philadelphia’s Afrocentric storytelling group, and story-sharing from attendees. ”The Will to Adorn” occurred in conjunction with an effort by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, a national multi-year initiative exploring how African American identities are communicated through cultural aesthetics, arts of the body, dress, and adornment.
The program at PFP looked in-depth at how people use adornment, hair, dress, style, etc. as means of self expression and community affirmation. Narrator, C Frink-Reed, KOTC’s historian and folklorist, gave an eloquent and moving tribute to master braider, Yvette Smalls. After the screening of “Hair Stories,” storyteller TAHIRA took us down memory lane, recalling the days when we sat between our Grandmothers’ knees to get our scalps ‘scratched and greased.’ Momma Sandi told the beautiful story “Royalty,” portraying Jezebel, not as a loose woman, but as one adorned with regality.
Thirsty Roots offers this abbreviated version of the black hair history timeline from the book, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America by Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharps.
Black Hair History/Discovering our Roots…
More… Hair History
http://thirstyroots.com/black-hair-history
http://thirstyroots.com/black-hair-history/african-american-hairstyle-history
…
Indigo Chile
For my story, I chose to examine adornment as a form of resistance. During my research, I viewed a talk by Virginia Tech History Professor Beverly Bunch-Lyons discussing the methods and strategies black women used to resist slavery. She explains… To continue reading, visit: TO ADORN
(Update 8/1/12: Sadly, Kinyozi-Yvette Smalls passed away on April 16, 2012, this public appearance on March 2nd, would be her last.)
FOLK MEDICINE
Drinking
To break your husband of drinking, skin a live eel, put the skin in some liquor and give it to him. He will never drink again.
Chicken-pox
Go into the chicken house and let the chickens fly over you, or simply push the patient backward into the henhouse.
Chills and Fever
Cut a notch in a piece of wood for every chill you have had, blow on it, and throw it into a running stream where you never expect to pass again. Go home without looking back, and you will have no more chills.
Often based on religious beliefs, these practices are used to cure diseases and promote emotional and physical well being. The practice of folk medicine is usually handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. In general, this system was used because traditional medicine failed to support blacks and poor whites.
(From: Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro, 1926)
“The Workinest Pill You Ever Saw”
FOLK MAGIC - THE ROOTDOCTOR`S SHOP
*****
Seriously,
Traditional African medicine is a holistic discipline involving extensive use of indigenous herbalism combined with aspects of African spirituality.
African American pioneers in medicine—past and present.
*****
I put a spell on you
(Source: storymama)
Pepper-Pot Woman at a Philadelphia Marketplace, circa 1811. Food As A Lens. John Lewis Krimmel (1786-1821)
Food Folklore - Restoring resourcefulness and reciprocity in our communities.
Reggae version: “Everybody want to raid de barn, nobody want to plant de corn” -Anthony B.
Fairytale version: “Who will help me plant this grain of corn?” -The Little Red Hen
Food 4 Thought – Mural of Notable Residents of Historic Germantown, Save-a-Lot, Chelten Plaza, Philadelphia, Photo (2-10-12) by Denise Valentine
Food Equity/ Food Security
Germantown History Mural: “Notable” Residents
Marketplace as Metaphor
Food Emancipation
Food Folklore
I want to know whose idea it was to put a lily white representation of Germantown history, including two icons of slavery, on the wall in a predominantly black, and increasingly poor neighborhood?
See: http://storymama01.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/food-for-thought/
(Image) 1630, Africae nova descripto… Amsterdam, Willem Janszoon Blaeu.
This map, which appears in Volume X of Blaeu’s Grand Atlas…Yale Map Collection.
The International Transmission of Knowledge and Culture
In addition to our natural curiosity, certain forces have made travel and the exchange of knowledge both necessary and inevitable. Take a look at exploration, trade and conquest through maps, travelogues and stories of Ancient Exploration.
“Stories are like Roots to the Past…
and Wings to the Future.”
