The Individual and Tradition: Folkloristic Perspectives

Profiles of artists and performers from around the world form the basis of this innovative volume that explores the many ways individuals engage with, carry on, revive, and create tradition. Leading scholars in folklore studies consider how the field has addressed the connections between performer and tradition and examine theoretical issues involved in fieldwork and the analysis and dissemination of scholarship in the context of relationships with the performers. Honoring Henry Glassie and his remarkable contributions to the field of folklore, these vivid case studies exemplify the best of performer-centered ethnography.

"This book is strongly recommended to anyone interested in vernacular traditions and their re-creation in the individual imagination" --Journal of Folklore Research Indiana University Press

"[This] volume is a significant contribution to the field as well as a useful tool for teaching and research." --Journal of American Folklore

"Honoring Henry Glassie and his remarkable contributions to the field of folklore"--Backcover.

Ray Cashman is Associate Professor of English and Folklore Studies at Ohio State University and author of Storytelling on the Northern Irish Border (IUP, 2008).

Tom Mould is Associate Professor of Anthropology and director of PERCS, the Program for Ethnographic Research and Community Studies, at Elon University. He is author of Choctaw Prophecy: A Legacy of the Future and Choctaw Tales.

Pravina Shukla is Associate Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University Bloomington and author of The Grace of Four Moons (IUP, 2007).

Introduction: The Individual and Tradition

Ray Cashman, Tom Mould, and Pravina Shukla

Entering Tradition: Kim Ellington, Catawba Valley Potter

Charles G. Zug

Delight in Skill: The Stone Carvers' Art

Marjorie Hunt

The "Talking Machine Story Teller": Cal Stewart and the Remediation of Storytelling

Richard Bauman

Chief Ovia Idah: Bricoleur of Benin City and a Star for All Times

Philip M. Peek

Place Matters: A Wooden Boat Builder in the Twenty-First Century

Maggie Holtzberg

A Backdoor into Performance

Tom Mould

The Maintenance of Heritage: Kersti Jobs-Björklöf and Swedish Folk Costume

Pravina Shukla

The World of Ogre-Tile Makers: The Onihyaku Line in Hekinan, Japan

Takashi Takahara

Bringing Them Back: Wanda Aragon and the Revival of Historic Pottery Designs at Acoma

Karen M. Duffy

Artistic Courage in Small Groups: Identity, Intermediality, and Indian Country

Michael Robert Evans

Navigating the Legends of Treasure Island: Narrative, Maps, and the Material

Greg Kelley

Fluid Identities: Madame d'Aulnoy, Mother Bunch, and Fairy-Tale History

Jennifer Schacker

Counting the Stars: The Study of Creativity on a Human Scale, or How a Bunch of Cajun and German Farmers and Fabricators in Louisiana Invented a Traditional Amphibious Boat

John Laudun

On Middle-Range Structures in Heroic Epic

William Hansen

The Role of Tradition in the Individual: At Work in Donegal with Packy Jim McGrath

Ray Cashman

Customizing Myth: The Personal in the Public

John Holmes McDowell

David Drake: Potter, Poet, Rebel

John Michael Vlach

The Mother's Voice: An Analysis of the Content of Turkish Lullabies

lhan Bagöz

Contested Performance and Joke Aesthetics

Elliott Oring

Vernacular Interpretation in a Public Folklore Event: Listening to the Call of Florida Fiddlers, Three

Gregory Hansen

Georgia Decoy Maker Ernie Mills: A Folk Artist Defines His Work

John A. Burrison

Rapid Transportation

Lee Haring

Working Through Tradition: Rug Farming In Anatolia

George Jevremovi

A Few of My Favorite Things about North Carolina Pottery

Mark Hewitt

That's Where I Came In: Henry and His Teachers

Robert Cochran

At the Black Pig's Dyke and Other Writing: Crossing Borders of Art and Tradition

Vincent Woods

A Folklorist's Work: Henry Glassie's Life in the Field

Ray Cashman, Tom Mould, and Pravina Shukla

Acknowledgments

Tabula Gratulatoria

Contributors

Index