John Michael Vlach

The Brazilian House in Nigeria: The Emergence of a 20th-Century Vernacular House Type

How DOES THE TRADITIONAL CHANGE? How do new traditions begin? These are questions that folklorists and other students of culture often ask and for which no simple answers can be given. We often find that the people and expressions which we study, if we study them well and long enough, are always changing. Yet old forms do persist, often scarcely changed despite their passage through years of use. We all know that traditional societies save as much as they throw away, remember as much as they forget, recreate as often as they create anew. In any society there is the pulling attraction of the modern and the tugging restraint of the past, twin forces never quite at equal strength (Toelken 1979:34-35; Abrahams 1971:27). Knowing that the balance between these two influences is bound to shift should then suggest a research agenda for the folklorist. Beyond the description of what people do and say, we need to understand the circumstances under which they may change their minds. Accordingly, we should seek people encountering cultural quandaries, people engaged in social criticism, people testing their whole scheme of inherited values. We confront in such situations not only a source of unending variation that makes life interesting, but we also may witness the way that inevitable change is slowed to a comprehensible and therefore acceptable human pace. During the 20th century the balance between tradition and change in West Africa has tipped decidedly in the direction of change. One crucial aspect of indigenous culture that has been significantly affected is domestic housing. In this paper I present an analysis of the emergence of a new vernacular dwelling among the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria (Bascom 1969:1-3). My findings should illustrate a specific strategy employed in traditional societies to make the changes required by changing times more reasonable, a technique for claiming the new as familiar. The Yoruba changed their houses, but they changed them in a way that made an imported design profoundly their own. By seeking change themselves, they were able to gain control of that process and emerge from the experience with homes they understood and accepted instead of new buildings that are but another element of the Third Worlds burden (Oliver 1971:23).

Fred B. Kniffen's Milestones in American Folklife Study

Born in Britton, Michigan, in 1900, Fred B3. Kniffen surely lived long enough to witness all of the significant events of the current century. He passed away just two years ago, on 19 May 1993. The drama of his long life was underscored by many impressive academic successes in several disciplines including not only geography, his chosen field, but also history, anthropology, archaeology, and folklore. Trained in both geography and anthropology at the University of California in Berkeley, he earned his doctorate in 1929 and immediately moved to Baton Rouge to accept a position as an assistant professor in the geography department at Louisiana State University. He remained at LSU for the rest of his life and

Kitchens, Smokehouses, and Privies: Outbuildings and the Architecture of Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic (review)

the true heart of the book rests in the innumerable clashes, compromises, and cleavages between radical and moderate evangelicals. What is most refreshing about Kidd’s work is that he paints both the development of evangelicalism and its concomitant splintering into radical and moderate factions on a geographically wide-ranging canvas. Initially charting the development of evangelical revivalism on a transatlantic scale, Kidd hones in on its dissemination throughout British North America. In boldly claiming all colonial America as his intellectual province, Kidd itinerates across the territory deftly weaving regional revivals into a cohesive narrative that emphasizes the geographic ubiquity of evangelical radicalism and the equally widespread commitment of evangelical moderates to contain the visions, signs, wonders, and leveling spirit unleashed by the revivals. In thematically connecting the stories of New England’s James Davenport, New Jersey’s Gilbert Tennent, South Carolina’s Hugh Bryan, Nova Scotia’s Henry Alline, the itinerating George Whitefield, and hosts of others in a period stretching nearly fifty years, Kidd’s narrative constructs a “long First Great Awakening” that continually oscillates between radical and moderate polarities and experiences “fits and starts” of emotional revivalism (323). Importantly, Kidd argues that, despite their differences, moderate and radical evangelicals were united by a common culture of evangelicalism—a shared acceptance of the power of the Holy Spirit—that differed only in degree. And yet, given their major differences in polity and theology, one wonders if eighteenth-century Baptists, Congregationalists, and Shakers saw through their scruples to appreciate this common evangelical culture? Moreover, while Kidd’s study aims at an inclusive coverage of evangelical groups in the period, he says little about early Methodists and evangelical Anglicans. Nevertheless, in coherently charting the meteoric growth of North American evangelical groups in the years after 1740, Kidd’s synthesis is a welcome addition to studies of the Great Awakening. Texas Woman’s University Jacob M. Blosser

By the Work of Their Hands: Studies in Afro-American Folklife

In this book the author aims to revolutionize our understanding of Afro-American material culture. Bringing to the essays his extensive research into the written, oral and material sources of Afro-American culture as well on his scholarly knowledge of folklife, social history, anthropology, and art history, Vlach presents the evidence of African influence on Black American folklife, both past and present. The 9 essays in the book are divided into three categories: folk arts and crafts, artisans lives, and black buildings. They encompass a broad range of folklife, bringing together the fragmented pieces of African as well as Caribbean influence. From South Carolina to Texas, and from Louisiana to Virginia, Vlach provides both general surveys and specific case studies, and focuses not only on artifacts, but on the artisans role as designer and maker. He examines various manifestations of African culture form direct retentions of African items to stylistic influences inherent in the creative philosophy, in the intellectual premises on which the artifact is designed. The noted stonecarver William Edmonson of Tennessee and contemporary blacksmith Philip Simmons of Charleston are featured, as well as countless other artisans from both past and present. The last 20 years have brought an increased awareness of black Americas African heritage, but the lasting influences of African tradition in material culture has been largely overlooked or denied by scholars claiming that slave owners had succeeded in divesting black people of all tangible aspects of the life they had lost. Using multidisciplinary means, Vlach has broken much new ground in this complex cross-cultural experience. He uses unconventional documents to create an alternative history and to demonstrate just how much of African culture was remembered and how rich and vibrant the tradition is.

Holger Cahill as Folklorist

HOLGER CAHILL REMAINS TODAY the most frequently cited authority on American folk art. Few books fail to mention or to quote at length his definition (Cahill 1932a:6; Lipman and Winchester 1974:12-13; Bishop 1979:9; Johnson and Ketchum 1983:vii). Yet Cahill was not, nor apparently did he ever think of himself as, a folklorist. In fact, it is difficult to find an appropriate category for him. While he held several jobs throughout his life, he always considered himself primarily a writer. Turning his interpretive and organizational abilities to folk art at the moment of its 20th-century rediscovery in the 1920s, Cahill rose to prominence as its advocate and eventually established the standards for its evaluation. Given the current enthusiasm for folk art in the

The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts

Covering basketry, musical instruments, wood carving, quilting, pottery, boatbuilding, blacksmithing, architecture, and graveyard decoration, John Vlach seeks to trace and substantiate African influences in the traditional arts and crafts of black Americans. It is a widespread tradition, he observes, readily visible in areas such as the coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia but discernible as well in places far to the west and north. Vlach not only examines the form and content of the artifacts and structures but also relates them to the complex cultural context from which they sprang - the interwoven strands of African and European influence. The book was originally published in 1978 as the catalogue to a major exhibit by the Cleveland Museum of Art, USA.