Abstracts for Individual Presentations 1999 AFS Annual Meeting

LAFFERTY, Anne (Lesley College) REASONS FOR THE REVIVAL OF DEATH RITES. This paper examines reasons for the revival and creation of rituals for remembering and honoring the dead among Neo-Pagans. My informants say that the existing death rites of the larger culture are inadequate. Work by ethnographers and scholars interested in the psychology of grieving supports this point of view. Scholarly work also documents that continued relationships with the dead are common in Western cultures. Neo-Pagan death rites are a way of acknowledging and honoring those relationships. (7-6)

LANGLOIS, Janet L. (Wayne State University) ANGELIC ENCOUNTERS AND ALIEN ABDUCTIONS: ETHNOGRAPHY IN A NEW AGE. Sociologist James McClenon stated that he had to distance himself from parapsychologists for credibility while studying accounts of altered states that he sees as the basis for religious beliefs; investigative reporter C.D.B. Bryan stated the same, that he had to define himself differently from ufologists in his study of the M.I.T. conference on alien abduction. But folklorists, who have done similar ethnographic research, appear not to have explicitly expressed the same risk factors, for example, in Out of the Ordinary: Folklore and the Supernatural. This paper will explore these apparent differences, following the lines of "new" ethnographers who ask for researchers’ "vulnerability". (3-5)

LANZENDORFER, Judith Mara K. (Arizona State University) MARGERY OF KEMPE: SPIRITUALITY THROUGH ORAL HISTORY. Some Medieval texts like The Book of Margery Kempe, suggest orality and may be interpreted to highlight these elements. To accomplish this goal, I examine several theories of orality, discuss why Margery chose to "write" in an oral format, identify the elements of orality in the structure of the text, and examine the thematic treatment of spoken/written language. After a review of these structural and thematic elements, one is in a position to categorize the text as oral in nature, more specifically, as oral history. (2-11)

LASSITER, Luke Eric (Ball State University) "FROM HERE ON, I WILL BE PRAYING TO YOU": INDIAN CHURCHES, KIOWA HYMNS, AND CHRISTIANITY IN SOUTHWESTERN OKLAHOMA. In this paper, I explore how the use of tribal language in speech and song has brought about a unique Christian practice that situates Indian churches specifically within an American Indian experience on the Southern Plains. I focus in particular on how understanding the deeper meanings of Kiowa hymns open a window into the multifaceted intersection between the institution of Christianity and American Indian experience. With this in mind, I ask why anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, and folklorists have written little about Indian hymns and how we might enhance our understanding of Native American Christian identity through the study of song. (9-5)

LAU, Kimberly J. (University of Utah) COMING OF AGE IN SUBURBIA: EAST/WEST AND WEST/EAST FLOWS IN AN ASIAN AMERICAN HOME. This paper focuses on the political dimensions of personal experience by investigating east/west and west/east cultural flows through introspective ethnography. It asks what these cultural flows mean to a young woman–half Chinese-American and half Japanese-American–"coming of age in suburbia" as a way of pondering how the effects of such flows get worked into broader (inter)cultural, (inter)disciplinary, and theoretical "dialogues across diversity". (6-9)

LAUDUN, John (University of Southwestern Louisiana) "AND OVER TO HIS SON HE SAID YOU DON’T CARE IF I CALL YOU SON DO YA SON?": DIALOGUE AS INTERTEXTUALITY, DIALOGUE AS TEXTUALITY. Dialogue has, of late, been a central concern for students of culture, in both literary and ethnographic settings. This paper seeks to contribute to this confluence of inquiry by focusing on a particular dimension of reported speech, its eminent textualizability, which, I argue offers us a paradox: some texts draw their textuality from their overt intertextuality. Drawing on research which examines oral historical discourse about a murder that took place in the Midwest a half-century ago, I consider several instances where the form and content of a narrative is a constructed dialogue, or reported speech. (3-3)

LAWLESS, Elaine J. (University of Missouri) CRY HOAX: THE VIABILITY OF THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR. Examines the negative academic responses to Black Elk Speaks, The Teachings of Don Juan, and I, Rigoberta: An Indian Woman in Guatemala through a folkloric lens--one that relies on community belief and collective notions of truth and reality toward a better understanding of how we should "read" and respond to these texts, as well as explain why these works are revered as respectable, even sacred, works. Calls for re-thinking the academy’s response to texts that cannot be easily categorized or that ask us to re-think "truth". (1-4)

LAWRENCE, David Todd (University of Missouri-Columbia) EXTENDED CONTEXT AND COMPOSITE ETHNOGRAPHY IN HURSTON’S MULES AND MEN AND THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD. This paper will examine the ways in which Zora Neale Hurston’s creative approach to the cultural representation of folkloric performances not only legitimizes her work as acceptable ethnography, but makes Mules and Men and Their Eyes Were Watching God superior ethnographies. An examination of these two works will reveal that Hurston’s extended contextualization of performance and her composite modeling of the events themselves greatly increases the utility of those events for representing a wide range of characteristics of performance in African American culture. (4-2)

LEARY, James P. (University of Wisconsin) FIELDWORK FORGOTTEN OR ALAN LOMAX GOES NORTH. Folklorist, ethnomusicologist, sound recordist, and fieldworker, Alan Lomax has been honored rightly at century’s close by the massive, well-annotated reissue of this field recordings of traditional music. Yet Lomax’s 1938 excursion through Wisconsin and Michigan remains peculiarly forgotten. Why? Perhaps the "foreign" sounds of this northern region’s Ojibwes, Finns, French-Canadians, and Slavs departed too radically from canonical notions of American folk music? This presentation draws upon Lomax’s sound recordings and film to sketch the 1938 trip, offers supplementary information from the author’s follow-up fieldwork, and concludes with speculations on why Alan Lomax’s northern exposure remains fieldwork forgotten .(9-4)

LEE, Daniel B. (Penn State-Dubois) HERE A RAH, THERE A RAH, EVERYWHERE A RAH, RAH! COLLEGE FOLKLORE AND THE CREATION OF SOCIAL SOLIDARITY. "Collegiate folklore" refers to the unique traditions, rituals, myths, and symbols held in common by the students of a particular college. In this paper, the author analyses the folklore of Dartmouth College. At Dartmouth, folklore integrates the students into a relatively coherent society. Folklore helps members of the "Dartmouth Family" think, speak, and act as if they shared social solidarity, despite their diverse social backgrounds. The College’s administrators take a direct interest in the marketing and reproduction of folklore. Folklore at colleges such as Dartmouth significantly influences how students experience their education. (6-6)

LEJEUNE, Keagan (University of Southwestern Louisiana) MAKING THE HOMEPLACE SACRED: ONE WOMAN’S ACQUISITION OF VOICE THROUGH THE PRODUCTION OF RELIGIOUS CENTERPIECES. Some scholars have considered the present use of home altars and lawn statuary in relation to the necessity of mixing the sacred and profane in Louisiana’s past. This paper analyzes one woman’s artistic manipulation of this altar tradition. It discusses her creations’ method of non-verbal communication and the opportunity they provide for verbal expression. Slides of centerpieces celebrating Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday, and Mercy Sunday illustrate Mrs. LeJeune’s use of her arrangements to display her beliefs and values and to provide her an opportunity for voicing her own desires and concerns. (4-3)

LEVY, Morris (Indiana University) "10-2-6-10": THE MUSICIANS’ UNION AND THE RECORDING INDUSTRY IN NASHVILLE, 1945-1970. Folklorists interested in occupational folklore have often seen union membership as just another venue from which a particular folk group draws communal identity. However, the American Federation of Musicians Local 257 in Nashville represents a different kind of union member than the coal miners, firemen, or Pullman porters previously studied. In this study of the narratives of studio session musicians who worked in Nashville between 1945-1970, I will examine how the presence of a musicians’ union affected the way sessions were organized and how the musicians saw themselves as part of the music industry. (8-7)

LEWIS, Rachel (Indiana University) GERSHON LEGMAN: AN UNCENSORED SCHOLAR. In the first volume of Rationale of the Dirty Joke: An Analysis of Sexual Humor, Gershon Legman issued a friendly challenge: "This is my favorite joke. Analyze away!" (Legman 1968: 582). This paper seeks to honor the memory of the extraordinary Gershon Legman by examining his life and work through the window of that favorite joke. Not surprisingly, it is joke that speaks to several of Legman’s core issues: scholarship, censorship, and what he called "oragenitalism". (7-5)

LINDAHL, Carl (University of Houston) AGONS OF PLAY AND EXPECTATION IN THE CAJUN COUNTRY MARDI GRAS. Cajun Mardi Gras presents a number of playful conflicts, in which, for example, capitaines whip masked revelers and anonymous clowns charge the houses of their hosts. Although such surface drama rivets the attention of outsiders who witness it, insiders find the whippings and charges significantly less divisive that the seldom ritualized clash of the various players’ personal visions of what the perfect Mardi Gras should be. (7-3)

LINDQUIST, Danille Christensen (Indiana University) UNPACKING A "HOT NEW TREND": CONTEMPORARY SCRAPBOOKS AS SITES OF SOCIAL PRODUCTIVITY AND INVENTIVE TRADITION. Contemporary "scrapbooking" can be considered both a creative variant on an established precedent and a social behavior that is encouraged by commercialization, but not necessarily degraded by it. This presentation focuses on a group of female scrapbook-makers in Bloomington, Indiana. It investigates how individual agency, social relations, commercial products, and traditional processes interact to result in both "social. . . [and] material productivity" (Ice 1997:221). In particular, it addresses how women establish social "scrapbooking" networks in order to display personal creativity, express shared values, exchange ideas, and subvert commercial marketing strategies. (6-7)

LINZEE, Jill (Strawberry Banke Museum) QUIT BEEFIN’, EAT LOBSTAH: NARRATIVE AND THE CONSERVATION OF CULTURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN NEW ENGLAND. This paper will consider both the meaning and political implication of local narratives of people whose lives and livelihoods are tied to the forests and seacoasts of New England. These regions are home to local cultures that find themselves under considerable economic, political, and environmental pressure to undergo dramatic change as we approach the end of the twentieth century. In this context, they become what would appear to be the inevitable loser in what folklorist Mary Hufford describes as the resulting "battle of narratives". By adopting a strategy of placing their local narratives within a larger public dialogue-through the use of media such as radio, television and other publications-members of the New England forest and maritime communities can begin to become, not only a more equal partner in the dialogue with national and corporate narratives, but also begin to effect the content of those larger narratives. We find in fact, when we examine meaning in the local narratives, which are by definition tied to place, that they have much broader implications-politically, environmentally, spiritually. (1-8)

LOHMAN, Jonathan (University of Pennsylvania) PLAYING THE WALL: CONNECTIONS TO PLACE AND PAST IN A SOUTH PHILADELPHIA SCHOOLYARD. The concrete "Schoolyard," in the heart of an Italian-American South Philadelphia neighborhood, provides a most unique setting for one of the oldest running softball leagues in the country, with its uphill incline to first, irregular dimensions, and its jagged stone wall, which protrudes well into center field. The players compete under the critical gaze of the "old-timers," former players of past generations, whose criticisms of the players’ inability to "play the wall" springboard into discussions about the younger generation’s diminished connections with the neighborhood and the perceived disintegration of the "close-knit" Italian community. (8-11)

LONG, Lucy (Bowling Green State University) CONTESTED AESTHETICS IN IRISH DANCE (Aesthetic Issues in Traditional Dance). The recent popularity of Riverdance has swelled the enrollment in Irish dance schools in the U.S. and has introduced new public performance venues to this historically ethnic form. These new participants and performance contexts are, in some cases, challenging the traditional aesthetics of Irish dance. Through an ethnographic analysis of a Midwestern Irish dance school, this paper examines the conflicts and negotiations occurring between teachers, students, parents, and the organizations governing Irish dance competitions and teacher certification around the nature of aesthetics of Irish dance. (7-9)

LOOMIS, Ormond (Florida State University) BRIDGES BETWEEN FOLKLORE AND COMPOSITION STUDIES. During the recent reassessment of our field, some folklorists have advocated building interdisciplinary, or "trandisciplinary", alliances with scholars in other disciplines. My work in rhetoric and composition suggests that we will find sympathetic souls in composition studies. In increasing numbers over the last three decades, specialists in the teaching of rhetoric and composition have taken an interest in cultural communities, traditional of students’ language and expressive narratives, and writing as a performance. The study of folklore offers insights for compositionists, and folklorists could gain insights from the directions that compositionists are taking with student’s folk traditions. (7-7)

LUSTER, Michael (Louisiana Folklife Festival) MUSIC OF THE ARK-LA-TEX. The musical traditions of the Ark-LA-Tex represent a mingling of those of African-American and Anglo-Scots-Irish-American residents in adjacent portions of Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas. Musically, the region’s principals city is Shreveport with important additional contributions from Texarkana, and Tyler, Texas. In Shreveport, the staging and broadcast of the Louisiana Hayride between 1948 and 1960 made it an important center for the creation and dissemination of hybridized forms of American vernacular music, such as western swing, honky tonk, and rockabilly, as well as for distinct forms of African-American blues and gospel. (1-7)

MACDANIEL, Elizabeth (Clarion University) "WHEN I WALKED THROUGH THE DOOR, I SAW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, PEOPLE WHO LOOKED LIKE ME": PERSONAL EXPERIENCE NARRATIVES ABOUT ADOPTION. In this paper, I examine what happens when an individual’s understanding of himself or herself and his or her place–in family as well as in society at large–is based on narratives about adoption. By analyzing the rhetorical strategies and narrative techniques used by tellers of adoption stories, I examine patterns in performance. I also explore the functions that these narratives provide for individuals and for the family as a whole. (9-10)

MAGAT, Margaret (University of Pennsylvania) ON FERTILIZED DUCK EGGS, ORAGENITALISM, AND FILIPINO/FILIPINO-AMERICAN MALE SEXUALITY. The enormous appeal of fertilized duck eggs called balut has been described by some as being as "popular in Manila as hotdogs in the United States" (Maness 1950: 10). The love affair of Filipinos with balut has been carried by those emigrating to the U.S. Why ingest something that already has bones, feathers and a beak? Perhaps one reason why balut is believed to be an aphrodisiac lies in the way it is consumed. The act of sucking out the juice of the balut can be interpreted as an act of sexual nature. In Gershon Legmans’ Oragenitalism, oragenital acts "are the expression of a profound psychological urge, and intended to satisfy the erotic needs of the partner" (1969: 13). This paper will explore how the eating of balut can be symbolically interpreted to illustrate Filipino male sexuality. (7-5)

MAGLIOCCO, Sabina (California State University-Northridge) MAKING THINGS WHOLE: NEO-PAGAN SACRED ART AND ALTARS. This paper explores the sacred art and altars of contemporary Pagans in an attempt to understand the movement’s developing iconography and aesthetics. I argue that Neo-Pagans create their own oppositional iconography by focusing on five themes in Pagan art: the immanence of the diving in nature; the connection between humans and the natural world; the presence of the feminine in the divine; the incorporation of motifs and images from historical and non-Western art; and the principle of egalitarianism. (8-5)

MAGOULICK, Mary (Indiana University) FOLKLORISTIC LITERATURE OF NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURAL RENEWAL: LOUISE ERDRICH’S THE ANTELOPE WIFE AS MYTH. Native American culture, especially in the Ojibwe world, is currently undergoing a resurgence or renaissance of culture. Louise Erdrich’s novel The Antelope Wife includes many mythological elements (primordial twins, animal spouses, etc.). As a whole it stands as a myth for the rebirth of Ojibwe culture appropriate to contemporary Ojibwe worldview and experiences. Erdrich realizes a folkloristic principle of dynamic convergence between individual, willed creativity and communal resources. The novel/myth offers images of mediation between fundamental, inherent dualities (past/present, male/female, Native/non-Native, city/wilderness, etc.), as Levi-Strauss explains as a fundamental aspect of myths.(9-7)

MARCUS, Laura R. (Oregon Folklife Program) UNIFYING INNER JANUS OR THE VIEW FROM A DOUBLE-FACED FOLKLORIST: BRIDGING THE PUBLIC ACADEMIC FIELDS IN ONE CAREER. Public folklore versus academic folklore: Must we choose between the two in pursuing a career? Educational training for either is congruous, as is fundamental grounding in ethnographic fieldwork and a focus on traditional expressive arts. Yet public and academic folklorists seem to operate in separate worlds, with little communication or understanding spanning the two. Drawing upon a meandering professional path and "fieldwork" among academic and public colleagues, this presentation will explore possibilities for crafting a career that combines both academic and public work, and for fostering a meeting place where professional divergence and affinity may be channeled into a productive dialogue.(7-1)

MARVIN, Lee-Ellen (University of Pennsylvania) TRADITION AS AN EXPORT ITEM: SAVING EASTERN TRADITIONS FROM THE FIRE. The motives for the collection of Indian folktales beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing into today, by insiders, outsiders, and non-resident nationals, will be examined from the position that one of the flows from the West to the East is the ideology of "loss of tradition." The simultaneous methods for rescue of tradition will be examined, including laments for the loss of tradition, story collections following the Grimms model for young middle-class readers, the transformation of sacred narratives into comic books, and the organization of a storytelling revival. (4-9)

MARZOLPH, U. (Enzyklopadie des Marchens) TRANSCULTURAL NARRATIVES IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD. The migration of narratives and the implied mechanisms of adaptation constitute one of the basic theoretical principles of traditional folk narrative research. Modern media, while essentially relying on traditional channels of communication, nave accelerated the flow of information considerably. Thus, they have also facilitated the rapid migration of narratives across cultural boundaries, resulting in narratives being de-contexted and placed into incongruous cultural contexts. The presentation will analyze two narrative representing opposite directions of cultural transfer: The tale of Aladdin in its Disney version; and the tale of Little Red Riding Hood as related by a Persian pupil in Germany. (4-9)

MATHISEN, Stein R. (Finnmark College, Norway) DANGEROUS BORDERS IN THE NORTH. The Russian/Norwegian border was closed during the period of the Cold War, but opened again after the fall of the Soviet Union. Russians started visiting Norway. The new situation produced narratives and media presentation. The basic pattern in these narratives is similar to most xenophobic narratives. Russian visitors are generally depicted as a threat to Norwegian society, as representatives of the Russian Mafia bringing criminality to Norway, as prostitutes destroying the moral standards of local communities and as a dangerous carriers of contagious diseases. (3-6)

MAY-MACHUNDA, Phyllis M. (Moorehead State University) BUILDING CHARACTER AND LEADERSHIP THROUGH AFRICAN AMERICAN CHEERLEADING. During the late 19^th - early 20^th century initiative to provide a sound liberal arts collegiate and secondary education to African Americans, Black educators adopted extracurriculum to supplement their beliefs in educating the whole person. By advocating that education should take place both inside and outside classes, recreational activities became key educational experiences. An organized cheerleading tradition evolved within African American academic communities in their efforts to develop well-rounded leaders. The interactional performances of African American cheerleaders and spectators at games transformed cheerleading from an activity of leadership by direction into one of leadership through aesthetic performance. (4-6)

MCANDREWS, Kristin M. (University of Hawaii-Manoa) POKE: A DISH IN TRANSITION. For this presentation, I will concentrate on the significance of a traditional Hawaiian dish which has metamorphized during the past twenty years from a rather simple food of raw fish or octopus, limu (seaweed), oil and slat to a rather complex folkloric practice which transcends social classes in Hawaii. The food has become popularized recently by local chefs who specialize in Pacific Rim cuisine and who have created the Poke Festival, a celebration of the flavors and textures of poke. (3-4)

MCCARTHY, William Bernard (Pennsylvania State University) DIALOGUE WITH THE DEAD: TRANSLATING FIELD-COLLECTED TEXTS OF AMERICAN FOLKTALES. The translator mediates a dialogue between modern readers of standard American English and the long-dead storytellers whose tales were collected by now dead collectors, often in dead and forgotten dialects. The issues faced in translating New World French and Hispanic folktales will be illustrated by the example of Juan Bobo tale (Mason 67; AT 851A/554) collected in Puerto Rico about 1910 as the author has translated it for a proposed collection of American folktales. (8-9)

MCENTIRE, Dee (Indiana University) TRADITIONAL MOON BELIEFS AND PRE-INDUSTRIAL FARM TECHNOLOGY IN SOUTHERN INDIANA. Traditional beliefs concerning the influence of the moon upon living and non-living things and human activities on the Earth persist today among people in southern Indiana who are familiar with the old way of life in the countryside. This paper is concerned mainly with those moon beliefs that involve the technology of the traditional farm community and will seek to set them apart from beliefs not a part of that complex of activities. My thesis is that moon beliefs having to do with technological strategies and tactics of farm work are generally taken more seriously than those dealing with less concrete subjects. Those beliefs that are technologically oriented are specific, practical, and result-oriented: intended to be used as guides to achieve prosperity for the family and community. The author concludes these beliefs recognize the importance of our connection to the natural world, that our lives are part of an interrelated system of cycles that form our concepts of time and order. (4-8)

MCENTIRE, Nancy C. (Indiana State University) "THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS": A HOOSIER BALLAD IN CONTEXT. In 1984, the well-known Indiana ballad singer, Lotus Dickey (1911-1989), wrote "The Spirit of St. Louis" in honor of an African American nurse, Vera Hollinshed. This paper reveals the dramatic circumstances of the ballad’s composition and focuses on statements from Ms. Hollinshed, now retired from nursing and living in St. Louis, Missouri. The paper further explores the psychological power of this lively, contemporary example of folk poetry.(4-4)

MCGRATH, Jacqueline (University of Missouri-Columbia) "THE SAME DAMN STORIES": EXPLORING A VARIATION ON TRADITION IN SHERMAN ALEXIE’S THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO FISTFIGHT IN HEAVEN. This paper outlines an approach to Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (New York: Harper Perennial, 1994) and aims to prevent both the incorrect and casual identification of folklore in literature as well as a preemptive dismissal of the possibility of folklore’s presence in literature. I argue that a combination of Native American literary criticism and folklore studies yields clues to the ways in which Alexie tries to evoke orality and performance, and I posit that Alexie’s work might be seen as a kind of written variant of an oral traditional way of speaking. (1-4)

MCGREGORY, Jerrilyn (Florida State University) "YOU DON’T HAVE TO SING LIKE AN ANGEL": DOWNHOME GOSPEL. This paper focuses on aesthetic communication by African Americans in Wiregrass Country. Besides enactments by Sacred Harp singers, other performance communities to be explored include a more neolithic version of the shape-note singing convention, Baptist union meetings, and a federation of gospel singers. Each cultural performance engages both consonance and dissonance. In addition, not only do performers select from a repertoire of songs, but each reciprocal support network maintains its own musical sensibility. (9-5)

MCHALE, Ellen (New York Folklore Society) and BROWN, Pamela (New York University) INVENTING SHARON SPRINGS. Sharon Springs, New York is a spa patronized for its healing waters. Its sulphur, magnesia, or iron cures have attracted patrons since the eighteenth century. This presentation discusses a project begun in 1995 by the Schoharie County Arts Council which paired folklorists with an archivist to document twentieth century Sharon Springs. In documenting the resort, these researchers found that layered and conflicting representations and interpretations of the village existed. This layering of interpretations upon an historical locale and the peeling back and documentation of the layers by a team of folklorists and historians will be addressed in this presentation. (3-1)

MCNAMARA John (University of Houston) "NAKED FOR SPIRITUAL COMBAT" IN EARLY CHRISTIAN SAINTS’ LEGENDS. Until recently, it has been almost universally accepted that early and medieval Christians sought to deny the flesh as a necessary condition for cultivating the spirit. The body was a constant source of temptation to sin, and it was seldom represented unclothed except for images of Adam and Eve awkwardly trying to cover their nakedness after the Fall. What this view overlooked, however, were the numerous representations of nudity in the legends of the saints and how nudity was used to highlight their spiritual heroism in different ways according to the gender of the saint depicted. (5-11)

MECHLING, Jay (University of California-Davis) CHILDREN’S FOLKLORE, CHILDREN’S BRAINS. In the 1970s folklorists, developmental psychologists, and linguists briefly collaborated on an understanding of the dialectic between children’s folklore (stories, riddles, jokes, etc.) And the child’s developing mind. That collaborative disappeared by the 1980s as the discipline went separate ways, but the rise of cognitive and brain sciences demand that we revisit the old questions to see if there are new answers. This paper reviews some of the relevant research on memory, belief, and the child’s theory of mind with the aim of rebuilding that collaboration. (2-9)

MELIA, Daniel F. (University of California-Berkeley) THE OLDEST JOKE IN THE WORLD. The satiric 12^th century Irish text, " The Vision of MacConglinne", contains an elaborated version of a joke readily collectible from children in contemporary American elementary schools. The joke involves tricking a tapeworm our of someone’s gut by offering it food. It seems unlikely that the modern joke is derived from the medieval text. Does this parallelism allow us to infer directly that 12^th century Ireland had a genre, "the joke", structurally and socially comparable to the modern North American genre? This paper will argue that indirect comparative medieval evidence does allow for such an inference. (2-11)

MICHAEL, Jennifer (University of California-Berkeley) PLAYING WITH THE PARK SERVICE: NARRATIVE STRATEGIES AT NICODEMUS NATIONAL SITE. Nicodemus, Kansas, is the only western town settled by ex-slaves that is still inhabited by descendants of those settlers. Five historic buildings in Nicodemus were dedicated as a National Historic Site in 1998. This paper examines how the descendants of Nicodemus use a legend about its early settlers to shape their dealings with the National Park Service and to imagine how their aging community might endure into the 21^st century. (8-7)

MIEDER, Wolfgang (University of Vermont) THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF COMMON PROVERBS IN EUROPE. In addition to the many proverbial stereotypes still current among the European nations, there is also a large repertoire of common proverbs based on four primary sources: the proverbial wisdom of Greek and Roman antiquity, the proverbial sagacity of the Bible, the European wisdom expressed in medieval Latin, and modern sapiential texts disseminated throughout Europe by means of the mass media. Many modern proverbs are loan translated from the American language, and as the European consciousness is ever more influenced by a new spirit of solidarity and unity, a "Europeanization" of existing proverbs as well as the creation of new common European proverbs is starting to take place (3-7).

MILLER, Eric (University of Pennsylvania) VIDEOCONFERENCING FOR FOLKLORISTS. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the medium of videoconferencing to folklorists. The paper suggests some possible ways that folklorists might use the medium. The paper also discusses how videoconferencing has been used, since 1993, by a traditional people (the Warlpiri of Australia). The paper presents videoconferencing both as a means for ethnographic study and as an object of ethnographic study. What, one may ask, could videoconferencing possibly have to do with folklore? Folklore has been defined as "artistic communication in small groups" (Dan Ben Amos). In the case of videoconferencing, small groups of individuals can be co-present and can communicate artistically via electronic representations of their bodies and voices, rather than via their actual bodies and voices. It is an argument of this paper that under certain conditions, folkloric activities can be conducted via videoconferencing. (3-5)

MILLS, Margaret A. (Ohio State University) FOLKLORE EDUCATION INITIATIVES: CENTRAL ASIA. Aga Khan Humanities Project for Central Asia will train humanities faculty from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kirghizstan to research, analyze and teach oral traditions. Ethnographic approaches to oral traditions encourage teacher-student collaboration and redefine academics’ understanding of traditional genres. This project also assesses feasibility for a UN-sponsored regional oral tradition research center, using comparative folkloristics to mitigate ethnic chauvinism threatening former Soviet states and promote civil society. Initial project experience (summer 1999) invites re-thinking nationalist theory (post-Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities) and Soviet historical creation of ethnic states in Central Asia. (1-5)

MINARD, Antone (University of California-Los Angeles) AND ALL THE TORTURERS SING: BRETON AND CORNISH DRAMATIC HAGIOGRAPHY. Alone of the Celtic countries, Brittany and Cornwall have left us a corpus of dramatic hagiographies in the vernacular. Poorly known even among Celtic scholars, most of these works are published only with defective translations. This paper situates these publicly performed dramas within the larger context of Celtic hagiography, from Latin prose lives to folk legends. I will pay particular attention to the problems of understanding the performative aspects of what remains to us as mere text. (6-11)

MITCHELL, Carol (Colorado State University) WISDOM AND THE GODDESSES. From Greece through Mesopotamia to India there are goddesses of wisdom. While the motifs of these goddesses are different from each other, the general pattern shows these goddesses being subordinated to the patriarchal Indo-European and Semitic gods. The juxtaposition of male and female in myths about wisdom might be interpreted theologically to indicate the androgyny of wisdom, but politically these myths reinforced power in patriarchal societies. The multiplicity of myths of goddesses of wisdom and of myths showing women’s wisdom being subordinated to male deities seems to acknowledge a belief that women’s wisdom was understood as coming from a goddess in the prehistoric world, and as wisdom was power, this power needed to be shown as inferior to the god’s. Thus it was impossible just to say that wisdom came from the god; the goddess’s wisdom had to be acknowledged while it was being made secondary. (4-11)

MOE, John (Indiana University) TRACING THE BOUNDARIES: AN EXAMINATION OF THE SELF-IMPOSED LIMITS OF POWER IN THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN FOLK COMMUNITY. Within the traditional folk society of the African-American community, there are several points of power and influence where individual members of that society impose limits on their exercise of power. This paper seeks to examine the ways in which individuals choose to limit their power through self-imposed boundaries. This paper will compare this phenomenon in rural and urban traditional Black communities using fieldwork from rural Mississippi, and urban areas of Indiana and Ohio, as well as selections of the Ohio landscape from the fiction of Toni Morrison. Finally, this paper will trace the boundaries at the conjunction of religious and secular community institutions. (4-10)

MOISE, Leslie (University if Southwestern Louisiana) OBJECTS MADE OF WORDS: METAPHOR IN FAMILY NARRATIVES. Metaphor provides a useful tool for interpreting family narrative, and a means of identifying the patterns people use to connect with each other. One family’s courtship stories, ancestor tales, and anecdotes of daily life reveal ways in which family narrative transforms fragile or explosive emotions. For example, a family that fears sexuality might share honeymoon tales to explore this sensitive subject. When interpreted metaphorically, narratives from a family’s canon reveal the themes embodied in the stories, and the canon as a whole. The metaphors revealed by family narrative provide examples of how family members should believe, behave, or be. (6-3)

MORRISEY, Larry (Mississippi Arts Commission) MAINTAINING "MAMA’S DREAM WORLD": DILEMMAS OF THE ETHEL WRIGHT MOHAMED MUSEUM. Ethel Wright Mohamed of Belzoni, Mississippi was acclaimed for her unique needlework art that memorialized her family’s stories. Brought to national attention through documentation by folklorists and her participation in festivals, Mohamed converted her home into a personal museum that has been maintained by her family since her death in 1992. In this presentation, I will investigate the interpretation of the museum by the family members and contemplate the role of folklorists in the preservation of sites commemorating artists who are no longer living. (5-7)

MORTENSEN, Camilla (University of Oregon) MISSING PEOPLE, MISSING BODY PARTS: A CONTEXTUAL, STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO THE INTERPRETATIONS OF LEGEND. This paper is an attempt to study legend by combining structural folkloristics with a feminist narratological approach. I will use a 19^th century Danish legend of bjærgfolk and secondly a contemporary legend of organ theft disseminated via the Internet. The legends come from two different eras and extremely disparate contexts; both legends are concerned with illness, specifically with danger to the body. I believe that it is possible to interpret legends of illness using a flexible structural approach that recognizes context because such an approach is able to incorporate the tensions and oppositions that actants and tellers have against alterity. (3-10)

MORDOH, Alice Morrison (Indiana University) THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY AND SENSE OF PACE IN ISSUES OF DISPLACEMENT. The application of the concepts of sense of place, topophilia, and rootedness to the issues of community and displacement in conjunction with folklife research provides a new dimension to the contentious issues surrounding the destruction of communities and subsequent displacement of their residents due to governmental projects such as the formation of national parks, dams and reservoirs, etc. A current case study focuses on the controversial proposed Highway I-69 through Indianapolis, Bloomington and Evansville, Indiana and Memphis, Shreveport and Houston to the Mexican border. (7-2)

NAITHANI, Sadhana (Jawaharlal Nehru University) TALES UNTOLD. THE UNRECORDED HISTORY OF FOLKLORE COLLECTION IN COLONIAL INDIA. Colonialism drained not only material wealth but also intellectual labor of many. This is an aspect that has acute implications for the vast amount of folklore collected "by" British colonial administrators in the 19^th century India. Published versions mention "Indian assistants" whose role remained unspecified. The paper will discuss and contextualize the mammoth collection of folktales and translations by one such Indian scholar whose work survived in manuscript form in London since 1896. (4-9)

NARAYAN, Kirin (University of Wisconsin-Madison) NARRATING SELVES IN THE SOUTH ASIAN DIASPORA. The border between personal narratives and cultural narratives has been called into question by scholarship indicating that personal narratives are culturally shaped, and cultural narratives are personally adapted. How do these insights translate into a diasporic situation? I draw on life-stories of second generation South Asian Americans to explore how narratives identified as "Indian", or "Pakistani" are adapted within the horizon of American lives. I argue that even when these narratives are not fully known, are stripped of cultural nuance, or are fused with American motifs, they are key ingredients in asserting multi-cultural selves bridging "East" and "West". (5-9)

NEULANDER, Judith S. (Indiana University) THE CROSS-CULTURAL ESTER: ECUMENICAL QUEEN AND SAINT. Using slides of traditional and folk arts, we will follow Queen Ester from pre-biblical Greco-Persian antiquity, into the Hebrew canon; through her Catholic life as an apotheosis of the Virgin Mary (and her subsequent starring role in Spanish colonial folk theater), to her current veneration in three American contexts: Ashkenazi-Jewish Hispano-Catholic, and African-American Protestant. (8-5)

NEUMAN, Abraham J. A. (University of Oregon) "NOW LET ME ASK YOU SOME QUESTIONS...." THE DIALOGIC POSSIBILITIES OF THE SCHOLAR AS BOTH SUBJECT AND OBJECT. A consideration of the interpretive and performative possibilities of the multiple processes of dialogue and exegesis that constitute the reflexive ethnographic mode, this paper explores the boundaries of representation in belief studies. It reflects upon the manner in which recognition of the terrain upon which reflexive ethnography is conceived, i.e. "The field," is altered when the dialogic interaction between interviewer and interviewee is reversed, and the scholarship is done to rather than by the scholar. Also considered is the necessity of including the personal voice of the believing scholar in any representation of the highly personal and experiential processes of belief construction, as illustrated by two specific instances of role reversal and mediation from the author’s own field experience. (8-3)

NEWELL, Jasmine (University of California-Los Angeles) PLAYING WITH DANGER: THE OUIJA BOARD RITUALS PERFORMED ALONE. During adolescent folklore events such as slumber parties, girls are often introduced to Ouija boards and then sometimes begin to play it in other contexts. This custom may then develop into a personal ritual performed by one girl alone. Using the board alone is a dangerous endeavor, for it leaves the individual vulnerable to evil forces who may act through the board. This paper will describe how the Ouija board is used as a personal ritual and will explore the reason why adolescent girls delve into this dangerous realm. (1-9)

NHLEKISANA, Brankie R. O. (University of Pennsylvania) WAY TO GO: DOING ETHNOGRAPHIC WORK AMONG MY PEOPLE. This paper argues that doing ethnographic research in one’s own community is different from doing it in a foreign environment. The ethnographer already knows the language, behavioral norms, societal ethics and etiquette. All these put him or her at an advantageous position from a foreigner. In addition, these directly affect the results or outcome of the interview session(s). It further argues that the question and answer method is reliable and yields valuable information just like any other research method. This paper will be based on research conducted in Tlokweng and Mochudi, villages in Botswana in 1994. (1-5)

NIXON, Elisabeth (Ohio State University) "I’M NOT A VEGETARIAN, I JUST COOK THAT WAY": THE SYMBOLIC PERFORMANCE OF FOOD IN ESTABLISHING VEGAN IDENTITY. Ethnic, regional, and religious groups are socio-culturally identified through a codifying system of beliefs and values; such outward displays of identity allow their foodways to be inferred. However, for vegans, the opposite is true: the foodways define the culture, and give no outward sign of cultural membership. Vegans exclude others from their peer group by their choice of diet; simultaneously, they exclude themselves from "mainstream" society in the same way. The personal narrative ands discussions in this paper illustrate how food functions to organize vegan attitudes and behaviors as well as to develop and maintain cultural identity in the negotiation of social boundaries. (3-4)

NOONAN, Kerry (University of California-Los Angeles) MAY YOU NEVER HUNGER: FOODWAYS IN DIANIC WITCHCRAFT. Dianic Witchcraft, a subgroup of the larger feminist spirituality movement, is composed entirely of women, and focuses solely on the Goddess/es. I examine this emerging tradition using Deborah Heisley’s theories about the perceived gendered nature of food, as well as the thinking of Susan Starr Sered on the role of food in female-dominated religions. By analyzing the food practices at a large, Dianic community holiday ritual in Los Angeles and through interviewing two members of Dianic covens about their personal religious practices involving food, I propose some preliminary findings about the role of food in this growing spiritual tradition. (3-4)

NOYES, Dorothy (Ohio State University) BREAKING THE SOCIAL CONTRACT: VIOLENCE AND PRODUCTION IN THE CATALAN MOUNTAINS, CA. 1900. The paper examines the interplay between bourgeois and working-class narratives of rupture in a context of emerging capitalism. Count Arnau, a ballad revenant damned for having failed to pay his servants’ wages, became in bourgeois accounts a Nietzschean hero whose sexual, environmental, and economic transgressions opened up dead enclosures and gave new life to the nation. The industrialists’ reseeding of oral tradition with accounts of the sinner’s redemption at the hands of his victims met with violent refusal to reproduce the story. (4-5)

NUSBAUM, Philip (Minnesota State Arts Board) RESEARCHING AND FUNDING MINNESOTA POLKA FESTIVALS: DIFFERING RESEARCH STYLES FOR DIFFERENT OUTCOMES. Through micro ethnographic perspective, the paper shows that improvising the group one belongs to is an important ingredient in sociability at polka festivals. That group might be an ethnic connection, or one negotiated through conversation. The paper will also contrast such micro research with research leading to public funding of folk arts: One outcome of research leading to public funding is that folk artists have their day in the sun. Another outcome is that the scope of research is influenced by the focus not on communities, but on artists. (1-7)