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Posts from the ‘Public Folklore’ Category

May 6

Museum Practice in Folklore Studies (a.k.a. Museum Methods): Spring 2024

There are too many things needing to be written about. Many of them are grim. Here I want to begin the work week with positivity.

This past semester, I taught one wholly new graduate course and one substantively new undergraduate course. I do not yet have confirmation from course evaluations, but I think that they both turned out well. I will discuss the graduate course separately. The undergraduate course, which covered material that is very familiar to me, was FOLK-F 406 Museum Practice in Folklore Studies (a.k.a. ANTH-A 405 Museum Methods). ANTH-A 405 has been on the books for decades but has been very rarely offered. The parallel course in FOLK was created by me prior to the pandemic, but it was only this semester that I could offer first it. This course was thus substantively new, although I drew in presenting it on past museums courses that I have taught.

As I taught these two courses jointly, I was very pleased that the two sections (ANTH and FOLK) attracted equal numbers of students. Many the participants were major or minor students in both departments, thus they—like me—have a foot in both fields and an interest in their points of intersection. Museum ethnography is one of those points of intersection. This class met no general education requirements. Students were there because they wanted to learn the material and that made for a wonderful course. In twenty years on the Indiana University faculty, I have never taught a course that was comprised mainly of majors or minors in my fields. What a joy that was! Even the students distracted by the end of their senior year and their rapidly approaching graduation, were a pleasure to engage with each week. It is gratifying that a significant proportion of the students in the course were already gaining museum experiences in concurrent museum practicum and that many are now moving on to further work in museums or in museums-related graduate programs.

As I got acquainted with the students and rose to their level, the course changed as it went. As planned, the course included museum work basics and independent research with museum collections objects, but the final course session on critical practices in museum work and museum studies shifted considerably. The topics planned remained the same, but my method moved from lecture and lecture-discussion to freer discussion of key news stories about important or exemplary developments in the present-day museum work. Many of these came from the New York Times, which has been doing particularly good work related to museums in recent months. These were in areas such as repatriation and restoration, digital practices, heritage politics, museum censorship, the finances of museums, community consultation, museum audiences/visitorship, and museums and social change. It was a pleasure to discuss and debate the big issues with these students. They arrived in the course ready and able to engage and were nearly all eager to do so. I am proud of them and thankful for the opportunity to study and learn with them. I wish all of them well and I congratulate the graduating seniors among them.

A heuristic for assessing temporary exhibitions in museums relative to the place of museum collections within them, the relevance to institutional mission, and the role of research within the exhibition.

Oct 30

Museum Anthropology Review Volume 16: Studies in Museum Ethnography in Honor of Daniel C. Swan

Social media is changing again and it seems like a good time to give Shreds and Patches more love and attention.

My collaborator and special issue co-editor Michael Paul Jordan and I are very pleased to announce the publication of a new double-issue of Museum Anthropology Review titled Studies in Museum Ethnography in Honor of Daniel C. Swan

Find the new collection in honor of Dan in Museum Anthropology Review online here: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/mar/issue/view/2153 Thanks to all of the authors, production staff, publishers, peer-reviewers, and helpers who made this collection possible.

Daniel C. Swan pictured wearing glasses and holding a water bottle while standing in front of a large building and a plaza filled with many tourists. He wears a plaid button-down shirt in blue and white and he looks towards the camera while the other people in the scene face away from the camera as they move into the plaza and the building beyond. The sky is vivid blue with streaks of high white clouds. The tile roofs of the buildings behind the subject are orange.
The above image appears in the introduction to the special collection “Studies in Museum Ethnography in Honor of Daniel C. Swan” with the following camption. “In the days following the Seventh Forum on China-US Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage and on the eve of the global COVID pandemic, Daniel C. Swan was one of 19.3 million reported visitors to the Forbidden City (a.k.a Palace Museum) in 2019. May 21, 2019. Photograph by Michael Paul Jordan.”

Sep 11

“At Home and Abroad: Reflections on Collaborative Museum Ethnography at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures”

I am happy to note the publication of a paper in Museum Anthropology reporting on, and considering, the work of two collaborative projects of the Mathers Museum of World Cultures at Indiana University. This piece is: Jason Baird Jackson (2019) “At Home and Abroad: Reflections on Collaborative Museum Ethnography at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures.” Museum Anthropology 42 (2): 62-70. https://doi.org/10.1111/muan.12210

Experiments in collaboration are at the heart of contemporary museum anthropology and museum folklore. If you are interested in issues of collaboration in museums of ethnography and world cultures, take note of the upcoming Council for Museum Anthropology (CMA) biannual meeting being held in Santa Fe, New Mexico on the theme of “Museums Different” (September 19-21, 2019). [I wish I could go!] Collaboration was also the theme of the recent conference that the MMWC co-hosted with its partners in Beijing. The program of that conference on “Collaborative Work in Museum Folklore and Heritage Studies” is available online on the American Folklore Society website (see Conference Seven here).

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I usually work hard not to publish behind a paywall. There were CMA-suporting reasons that I did so in this case. Be in touch if I can be of help on that score.

Jul 22

2019 Summer Folklore Institute: Building Capacity for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage

I have just returned from a second summer trip to China. This time I was part of an American delegation to one of the summer institutes jointly organized by the China Folklore Society and the American Folklore Society. Previous joint institutes were held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA at the School of Advanced Research (2018), in Hailar, Inner Mongolia, China at Hulunbiur University (2017), and in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China at Inner Mongolia Normal University (2016).  This year’s institute was hosted by The Institute of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. As in past years, the lead funder was the Henry Luce Foundation, which generously supports a broader program of work being pursued jointly by the AFS and CFS working together. As always, other funders and local organizations provided additional support for this institute.

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Figure 1. Participants in the 2019 Summer Folklore Institute: on “Building Capacity for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage” July 13, 2019. Photograph courtesy of The Institute of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage.

It was a great pleasure to participate in the institute, a gathering that offered a chance to connect with new American and Chinese colleagues while also reconnecting with colleagues whom I have ongoing ties (Figure 1). The institute not only strengthened ties with Chinese and American colleagues, it further helped me understand intangible cultural heritage work being pursued in China (and in the U.S.).

Staged for two days at the mid-point of the institute was a larger international conference on the same theme. This International Seminar on Building Capacity for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage included all of the American and Chinese institute participants, but added a significant additional group of Chinese participants as well as one colleague from Bangladesh and one from Japan (Figure 2). A few of the seminar participants were old friends, but most were new colleagues from whom I was thrilled to learn.

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Figure 2. Participants in the International Seminar on Building Capacity for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage. July 15, 2019. Photograph courtesy of The Institute of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage.

If you would like to learn more about the institute, there are (so far) two reports published on it (besides this one). The China Folklore Society published a report just after the institute got under way. If you do not read Chinese, you can open the link in Google Chrome and use Google Translate for a rough translation. This report is here: https://www.chinesefolklore.org.cn/web/index.php?NewsID=19023

The Institute of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage published a report at the conclusion of the institute. It can be found here. Again, Google Translate can provide a rough translation. https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/gk0KwKcHxq70ZHNXywo2Bw

The Institute of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage also published a report at the conclusion of the international seminar. It can be found here: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/eY-X2ATW7aUudqwTewXDSA

Thanks to all of the participants in these gatherings. Special thanks go to all of the organizers and faculty, to the leadership of the CFS and AFS, and to our generous hosts at Sun Yat-sen University, including Professor SONG Junhua, Director of The Institute of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Jul 3

The Seventh Forum on China-US Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage: Collaborative Work in Museum Folklore and Heritage Studies

The following is a report on The Seventh Forum on China-US Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage: Collaborative Work in Museum Folklore and Heritage Studies (第七届中美民俗学与非物质文化遗产论坛: 博物馆民俗与遗产研究的协作工作). The version of record appears on the website of the American Folklore Society. This version adds more images. You can find a copy of the conference program here. –Jason Baird Jackson (杰森. 拜尔德. 杰克逊)

During three beautiful spring days in Beijing, a group of Chinese and American scholars and cultural workers gathered to discuss practices of collaboration in folklore studies and intangible cultural heritage work, with a focus on collaborations between ethnographic museums and between such museums and other groups in society. Held on May 19-22, 2019, this was the Seventh Forum on China-US Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage, one of a long-running series of conferences organized cooperatively by the China Folklore Society (CFS) and the American Folklore Society (AFS), as part of a broader binational collaboration begun in 2007. These forums have explored various aspects of cultural heritage policy, practice, and theory, giving US and Chinese participants an opportunity to learn about the state of the field as pursued in the national context that is not their own (Lloyd 2017).

This Seventh Forum, focusing on Collaborative Work in Museum Folklore and Heritage Studies, was held at the Indiana University China Gateway office in Beijing. Meeting under the auspices of the CFS and the AFS, the conference’s program was organized by the Mathers Museum of World Cultures and the Anthropology Museum of Guangxi (Guangxi Museum of Nationalities), with extensive logistical and practical support provided by the two societies and the gateway office staff. Generous financial support was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Office of the Vice President for International Affairs at Indiana University.

Delegates to the forum came from a diversity of American and Chinese museums and universities. Chinese institutions represented included the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, the Anthropology Museum of Guangxi, the Nandan Baiku Yao Ecomuseum, Beijing Normal University, the Sanjiang Dong Ecomuseum, East China Normal University, Fudan University, the Guizhou Nationalities Museum, Minzu University of China, Shandong University, and the Yunnan Nationalities Museum. American institutions represented included the Michigan State University Museum, the Museum of International Folk Art, Texas Tech University, the Mathers Museum of World Cultures (Indiana University), History Miami, the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History (University of Oklahoma), and the American Folklore Society (Figure 1).

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Figure 1. Delegates to the Seventh Forum on China-US Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage held at the Indiana University Gateway Office in Beijing, May 19, 2019. Shu Caiqian (Guizhou Nationalities Museum), Zhang Yibing (Guizhou Nationalities Museum, Zhu Gang (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Li Mingjie (East China Normal University), Wang Wei (Shandong University), Jessica Anderson Turner (American Folklore Society), An Deming (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Luo Wenhong (Fudan University), Marsha MacDowell (Michigan State University Museum), Surna (Minzu University of China), Kristin Otto (Mathers Museum of World Cultures), Felicia Katz-Harris (Museum of International Folk Art), Sarah Hatcher (Mathers Museum of World Cultures), Yang Lihui (Beijing Normal University), Lu Chaoming (Nandan Baiku Yao Ecomuseum), Jason Baird Jackson (Mathers Museum of World Cultures), Chen Xi (Sun Yet-sen University), Carrie Hertz (Museum of International Folk Art), Chao Gejin (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Wuerxiya (Mathers Museum of World Cultures), Fan Miaomiao (Anthropology Museum of Guangxi), C. Kurt Dewhurst (Michigan State University Museum), Yang Quanzhong (Sanjang Dong Ecomuseum), He Chun (Nandan Baiku Yao Ecomuseum), Michael Paul Jordan (Texas Tech University), Wu Dawei (Sanjang Dong Ecomuseum), Ou Bo (Anthropology Museum of Guangxi), Michael Knoll (History Miami), Lan Yuanyuan (Sanjang Dong Ecomuseum), Gong Shiyang (Anthropology Museum of Guangxi), Jon Kay (Mathers Museum of World Cultures), Luo Yong (Nandan Baiku Yao Ecomuseum), Mai Xi (Anthropology Museum of Guangxi), Zhao Fei (Yunnan Nationalities Museum), Wang Yucheng (Anthropology Museum of Guangxi).

On the afternoon of May 19, the conference began with warm words of welcome from AFS Executive Director Jessica Turner and CFS Past President Chao Gajin (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), standing in for current CFS President Ye Tao (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) who was unable to attend (Figure 2). Also offering brief opening remarks on behalf of the program committee were Jason Baird Jackson (Mathers Museum of World Cultures) and Gong Shiyang (Anthropology Museum of Guangxi) (Figure 3). These remarks preceded the forum’s keynote address by C. Kurt Dewhurst (Michigan State University Museum). Extending an earlier discussion of principles for museum collaboration (Dewhurt and MacDowell 2015), Dewhurt reflected on a range of museum collaborations in which he and the MSU Museum have participated. Among the collaborations that Dewhurst addressed were earlier phases of the AFS-CFS partnership, which has included two museum sub-projects (2013-2016; 2017-2019). The first of these encompassed the Fifth and Sixth forum events, the traveling exhibition and bilingual catalogue Quilts of Southwest China (MacDowell and Zhang 2015), and numerous other elements (Lloyd 2017). In this phase, three Chinese museums and three US museums partnered together (Dewhurst and Lloyd 2019). In the more recent phase, collaborators from the three U.S. museums have joined with the Anthropology Museum of Guangxi for a program of joint research focused on textiles and intangible cultural heritage policy in two northern counties of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Central to this new phase of work are the Nandan Baiku Yao Ecomuseum and the Sanjiang Dong Ecomuseum. Thus, while Dewhurst’s keynote was a general reflection on museum collaboration, his presentation also served to orient conferees to the specific joint AFS-CFS supported projects that gave the forum its organizational context.

The keynote address was followed by a panel discussion in which representatives from the Sanjiang Dong Ecomuseum and Nandan Baiku Yao Ecomuseum described their work and the community and organizational collaborations in which they participate (Figure 4). American participants appreciated this opportunity to learn about the innovative work of these ecomuseums first-hand and drew comparisons to various kind of community-based museums in the US. While Chinese delegates were more knowledgeable about the form that ecomuseums take in China, they also appreciated the chance to engage with the ecomuseum leaders directly in a comparative scholarly context.

It was an honor that many Beijing-based leaders in the CFS and in Chinese folklore studies overall could attend these opening events, which also included a welcoming banquet generously hosted by the CFS. This gathering was enlivened further when the leaders of the Sanjiang Dong Ecomuseum introduced both Dong flute music and toasting songs to the group. For many American delegates, this was a memorable first experience with the richness of Chinese banquet customs and the beauty of Dong music (Figure 5).

The second day of the conference was a full day featuring presentations from Chinese and American delegates. In line with the goals of the forum, the presenters described specific museum collaboration projects, using them as the basis for broader reflections on the work of museum ethnography and heritage studies today. Translation for most conference presentations was very ably done by Chen Xi (Sun Yat-sen University) and Luo Wenhong (Fudan University) (Figure 6). A number of themes emerged through the juxtaposition of presentations throughout the conference. These included: (1) the nature of museum-based ethnographic and exhibition projects in urban contexts, (2) the dynamics unique to heritage-oriented fieldwork pursued across differences of language, culture, and institutional context, (3) the place of objects and material culture studies within museum collaborations, (4) the use of exhibitions as catalysts for broader collaborations and relationship building, (5) the value of older museum collections for contemporary communities and craftspeople, (6) the place of documentary video in museum ethnography, and (7) the special importance that attaches to national folk costume in diverse museum and local cultural contexts in the current era (Figure 7).

The conference’s third day featured a morning of additional presentations followed by a special outing in which conferees visited Beijing’s Shichahai historic area to learn about cultural preservation and heritage tourism activities centered there (Figures 8-9). Participants enjoyed a hutong tour and a visit to the Drum Towner of Beijing (Gulou). While she could not attend the forum, this outing was curated by Zhang Lijun (George Mason University) and drew upon her folklore research interpreting the narrative performances of hutong tour guides (Zhang 2016, 2019). The conference concluded with a banquet, hosted by AFS and featuring Yunnan cuisine. Highpoints of this concluding gathering were many individual expressions of friendship and goodwill as well as a vigorous singing competition staged between the binational groups gathered around two large banquet tables. Heartfelt singing in Dong, Yao, Mandarin, Mongolian and English brought the seventh forum to a joyful close.

References Cited

Dewhurst, C. Kurt, and Timothy Lloyd. 2019. “The American Folklore Society-China Folklore Society Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage Project, 2013-2016.” Museum Anthropology Review 13 (1): 59-68. https://doi.org/10.14434/mar.v13i1.25405

Dewhurst, C. Kurt, and Marsha MacDowell. 2015. “Strategies for Creating and Sustaining Museum-Based International Collaborative Partnerships.” Practicing Anthropology 37 (3): 54–55. https://doi.org/10.17730/0888-4552-37.3.54

Lloyd, Tim. 2017 “The Inside Story of the AFS China-US Project.” https://www.afsnet.org/news/349609/The-Inside-Story-of-the-AFS-China-US-Project.htm, accessed June 12, 2019.

MacDowell, Marsha, and Lijun Zhang, eds. 2016. 中国西南拼布 | Quilts of Southwest China. Nanning: Guangxi Museum of Nationalities. [Distributed in the United States by Indiana University Press.]

Zhang, Lijun. 2016. “Performing Locality and Identity: Rickshaw Driver, Narratives, and Tourism.” Cambridge Journal of China Studies 11 (1): 88-104. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/260292

Zhang, Lijun. 2019. “A Brief Guide to Shichahai.” Video Presentation Prepared for The Seventh Forum on China-US Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage: Collaborative Work in Museum Folklore and Heritage Studies, Beijing, China.

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Figure 2. Figure 2. Chao Gajin welcomes delegates to the Seventh Forum on China-US Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage: Collaborative Work in Museum Folklore and Heritage Studies. May 19, 2019. Photograph by Jon Kay.

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Figure 3. Figure 3. Gong Shiyang addresses delegates to the Seventh Forum on China-US Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage. May 19, 2019. Photograph by Jon Kay.

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Figure 4. Wu Dawei offers remarks on the work of the Sanjang Dong Ecomuseum during the ecomuseum panel discussion. Left to Right: Lu Chaoming, He Chun, Lan Yuanyuan, Yang Quanzhong, Wu Dawei, Luo Wenhong (translating), Jason Baird Jackson. May 19, 2019. Photograph by Jon Kay.

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Figure 5. Wu Dawei performs Dong flute music at the opening banquet. May 19, 2019. Photograph by C. Kurt Dewhurst.

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Figure 6. Zhang Yibing discusses the work of the Guizhou Nationalities Museum with Luo Wenhong providing English translation.. May 20, 2019. Photograph by Jon Kay.

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Figure 7. Carrie Hertz discusses research related to the exhibition Dressing with Purpose. May 20, 2019. Photograph by Jon Kay.

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Figure 8. Surna discusses her research on Mongol national dress. May 21, 2019. Photograph by Jon Kay.

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Figure 9. Lan Yuanyuan and He Chun begin a rickshaw tour of the Shichahai neighborhood in Beijing. May 21, 2019. Photography by Jason Baird Jackson.

Apr 8

Help! Really. The Mathers Museum of World Cultures Needs You!

An Indiana University event known as #IUDay is nearly here. Scheduled for Wednesday, April 10, 2019, #IUDay is a celebration of Indiana University. It is a day of special events, of sharing stories of the university, and for gathering together friends and supporters to work together to achieve special goals. Last year, in the days right before, and on, #IUDay, sixty-one friends donated to the Mathers Museum’s first #IUDay crowdfunding campaign. Working together, they contributed funds to enable us to launch Traditional Arts Indiana’s Indiana Heritage Fellowship program. Ours was a successful first effort. It was so successful that the Indiana University Foundation encouraged us to take on two campaigns this year, a fact that means that we are seeking to raise more than double the level of funding we received last year. This is an exciting prospect, but it is also daunting. I hope that everyone who reads this post can help us meet our goals. They are good goals. Let me describe them.

Building on the success of last year’s effort launching the Indiana Heritage Fellowship program, we are this year seeking support for its companion program, also new. This is the TAI Master-Apprentice program. The goal here is $2500 and, as of the moment that I am writing this, we have raised $567 from 11 generous donors. With two days to go, we really need your help. Please consider making a gift large or small. Last year 61 donors supported our efforts and we are eager to (=need to) increase this number this year. The good news is that, when successful, this effort will do great work across Indiana communities, providing resources and support for diverse tradition bearers to transmit their skills and knowledge to eager apprentices. This work benefits Indiana communities, the state and ultimately the whole country. If you would like to learn about the first class of TAI masters and apprentices, check out this year’s booklet and learn about the beadwork artists, netmakers, drummakers, ironsmiths, and ballet folklórico performers working together this year.

To learn more and to, if you chose, make a contribution, you can find this campaign site here: https://iufoundation.fundly.com/support-the-next-great-folk-artists

Our other campaign aims to fund K-12 field trips to visit the Mathers Museum on campus in Bloomington. Field trips are an impactful highlight for most school students, but they have become increasingly rare for most students, as budget cuts continue to take their toll. Visits to the Mathers Museum introduce students to cultural diversity worldwide and in Indiana and the US. Museum visits also introduce students to the commonalities of the human experience and to the disciplines–folklore studies, anthropology, ethnomusicology, history, etc.–that build up our understandings of human existence, past and present. As of the time of this writing, this campaign has gathered $1220 from 18 friends of the museum. Here too our goal is $2500, thus we need your help in this effort also. (This funding will enable us to provide the funds that schools need in order to come to the museum and engage with our programs and exhibitions.

To learn more and to, if you chose, make a contribution, you can find this campaign site here: https://iufoundation.fundly.com/mathers-museum-of-world-cultures

Thanks to all who have given so far. Thanks to all who will consider giving. Whether you give or do not give, please, please share these links online and urge others to support the museum’s work. When an #IUDay link is shared online it results in an average of $97 dollars in support, so even if you cannot give $10 or more dollars now, you can help the museum and these worthy projects by spreading the word.

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Debra Bolaños (left), a ballet folklórico dancer and instructor in East Chicago, Indiana, and Harold Klosterkemper (right), a fiddle player from Decatur County, Indiana, will soon be honored for their lifetime achievement as Indiana traditional artists. They will be recognized as Indiana Heritage Fellows in a special ceremony on April 27, 2019. Learn more about the event here.

 

 

Nov 15

T̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶t̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶H̶A̶U̶. Good News! The Free-to-Readers Version of The Expressive Lives of Elders

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Good news everyone. The free-to-download-and-read version of the latest title in the Material Vernaculars series–The Expressive Lives of Elders: Folklore, Art, and Aging edited by Jon Kay is now available. While I hope that you will purchase an ebook edition or a paperback edition or a hardback edition of this great new book, or that you will use the JSTOR Books or Project Muse Books edition if you have access to such from a library with which you are affiliated, it is important to make sure that everyone who needs to access this significant work can do so, hence the importance of durable (its not going to be withdrawn), free access to everyone. Remember, if you can purchase a copy or use one of the toll access, library-supported versions, you are helping Indiana University Press generate the financial resources to continue investing in free and/or open access projects such as the Material Vernaculars series.

How do you access it? Go to https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/22075 and look for the “View/Open button. That will lead you to the PDF download.

Find all of the existing Material Vernaculars titles in free PDF format here: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/21727 Find them described and ready to buy here: http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/index.php?cPath=1037_3130_10392&CDpath=3_5

If you value the work that Indiana University Press does, consider making a donation to support its work or, just browse the press’s website and purchase some great books and journals.

As I prepare this post, the Press is having a 40% off sale!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations to Jon and to all of the authors who contributed to The Expressive Lives of Elders. Thanks to the peer-reviewers, to everyone who has already purchased a copy, and to everyone at the IU Press, the IU Libraries, and the Mathers Museum of World Cultures who is supporting the Material Vernaculars series so enthusiastically.

Happy reading!

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Apr 19

The Mallet: Making a Maul in a Baiku Yao Community

This guest post by Jon Kay, Curator of Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures provides Jon with the opportunity to share the first of the documentary videos arising from work that he and colleagues pursued together in Nandan County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in December, 2017. It is the final post in a eleven-part series relating to travel in China and specific work in Nandan County that began with a post on January 2, 2018 and continued most recently through post 9, a guest post by Carrie Hertz of the Museum of International Folk Art. These earlier posts are accessible here 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

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Lu Bingzhao uses a billhook to make a wooden mallet or maul. December 15, 2017. Photograph by Kurt Dewhurst.

I was in Southwest China as part of a joint team of researchers from the United States, the Anthropological Museum of Guangxi, and the Nandan Baiku Yao Eco-Museum who were documenting basket and textile traditions of the Baiku Yao people in Nandan County, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Our team visited a home in Manjiang village to inventory the baskets collected and used by a local family. As the fieldworkers worked photographing and measuring baskets, Mr. Lu Bingzhao came into the house and picked up a mallet, which he showed everyone and then went outside. I did not speak Mandarin or the local Baiku Yao dialect, but I felt he had something he wanted to show us. I went outside and saw him lay the mallet on the trunk of small felled tree in order to get a rough measurement; it was then that I realized he was going to make a mallet. I grabbed my camera and began shooting. I didn’t have a tripod with me, so I didn’t expect to shoot the entire process, but I became enthralled with how the elder worked. Two of his grandchildren played nearby, and they often stopped to watch him work and to interact with him.  Neighbors and family members stopped by to visit as they returned home from picking greens.  Mr. Bingzhao worked steadily as people came and went. He was skilled at using the billhook. With heavy chops, he used the hook to quickly remove the excess wood. Then he delicately shaved the mallet’s handle smooth, using a pulling motion. Finally at the end of the video, just as he completes the mallet, he gives it to his daughter-in-law. Tree became tool and gift in little more than an hour.

I was told that mallets, like the one made in this video, are commonly used to pound rice straw for sandals and to set the poles for warping a loom, the later activity I witnessed the next day when a group of weavers came to the Nandan Baiku Yao Eco-Museum office, where I was staying. I am sure the mallet probably has many other uses in the daily life of the community. For sure, the young woman would find utility in the gift. This video was totally unplanned, as the shaky recording and odd camera angles reveal, but I was compelled to edit this footage into this short portrait, to document the making of this tool. Reflecting reoccurring themes in my scholarship, it also demonstrates how craft can connect an elder to his family and community.”

 

 

 

A number of poles of this type are driven through holes in the paving stones in the museum’s plaza/parking area. This large flat space is ideal for the complex and space-intensive work of winding and arranging yarn for loom weaving. December 17, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.
A Baiku Yao woman uses a mallet to drive posts used in preparing a loom for weaving. December 17, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

 

Technical Note: The video was shot with a Canon 80D camera with a RØDE stereo microphone attached to the camera’s hot-shoe mount.

Jul 18

A Peak at Two “Miao Albums” with a Group of SIMA Colleagues

(Note to readers. This post has been added to. Whether inserted into the original text or added at the bottom, additions will be shown in red.)

Working with the graduate students participating in the Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology is a pleasure. The students who are attending in order to gain skills for their own long-term research and who are doing their own collections-study projects are an obvious focus for faculty attention, but another group of student (and recently graduated) colleagues are also at the heart of SIMA. These are the collections interns—students who are usually pursuing masters degrees in anthropology and/or museum work—who help to make the student research possible through their facilitation of collections access. The regular collections management staff of the National Museum of Natural History’s Department of Anthropology are too few and have everyday tasks to attend to, thus the SIMA interns make a decisive difference in the work of the institute. They are excellent. Most days, they are occupied helping the institute participants access collection objects for research, but today they and I took a few moments to look at a couple of treasures as a group. I thank them for joining me in this quick collections adventure. (We snuck away during a seminar. Don’t tell anyone…)

What we saw together was (as I had hoped) a collection of annotated paintings of a type known in English as a “Miao album.” In American scholarship on China and its frontiers, such an album is the focus of The Art of Ethnography: A Chinese “Miao Album” translated by David Deal and Laura Hostetler with an introduction by Laura Hostetler (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006). In such books, Chinese observers (artists/scholars/officials…) documented the cultural life of peoples of the Chinese borderlands in paintings and ethnographic text. None of our group are specialists, but we knew that we were looking at something really important and that these books are inherently interesting. Here are a some images of us with these albums. We did not look at each page, but we took enough time to ooh and ahh over a few pages in each of these fragile, beautiful books. We all hope that they can be the focus of new scholarly attention soon.

One of these books is Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History E424083 and the other is E175187. (You can search them in the public database here: http://collections.nmnh.si.edu/search/anth/#new-search )

The members of our expedition (with me) were Eilanra Abdesho Kavsi, Sarah Baburi, David Gassett and Emily Cain . Herself a former SIMA intern, Emily now works full-time in the Department of Anthropology. Eilanra and David are all studying a mix of anthropology and museum studies at the MA-level at George Washington University, while Sarah has recently completed her own MA degree in these fields, also at GWU.

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Our group getting ready to peak at the first of the books on our agenda. (L-R: Emily, Sarah, David, and Eilanra)

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Even the cover is pretty great.

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Our first glimpse.

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This is the first in-person “Miao Album” painting for all of us, myself included.

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Baskets, of course.

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You can get a partial glimpse of the associated text on the facing page here.

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While we normally wear gloves, for fragile things, it is sometimes best to use clean hands.

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Our group, studying.

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Until the translation proves us wrong, we think it is a game scene. See Note 3 below for information from Qing Colonial Enterprise.

IMG_5856More baskets, of course.

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Our favorite, so far. We do not know yet why these guys are trying to fight but we admire the effort of the women to prevent it. See Note 2 below on how this scene appears in The Art of Ethnography. See Note 3 below for information from Qing Colonial Enterprise.

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Weaving inside, hair care outside. See Note 3 below for information from Qing Colonial Enterprise.

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We were pretty worried about the guy in the blue cap, as with think he might be held captive. We look forward to the finding out what the associated caption says. UPDATE. See note 1 below. Also, see Note 2 below on how this scene appears in The Art of Ethnography. See Note 3 below for information from Qing Colonial Enterprise.

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The paintings are still beautiful, but insects have done what insects do.

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Here we begin to investigate the second of the two albums (E424083), this one with wooden covers

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In the second album, the paintings span the fold and the text is integrated into the images, as seen here.

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Both albums include musicians and include images of this particular type of drum.

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More work baskets, of course. See Note 3 below for information from Qing Colonial Enterprise.

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This is a detail from a scene in which four people do something with their arms pulled inside their sleeves like this. Whatever it was, we were interested in it. We also liked the hem of her skirt. See Note 3 below for information from Qing Colonial Enterprise.

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Plowing. Do they take turns pulling? Also, see Note 2 below on how this scene appears in The Art of Ethnography. See Note 3 below for information from Qing Colonial Enterprise.

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There is always work to do, even if the illiterate museum ethnographers do not yet know what it is all about.

IMG_5877The region’s famous basketry raincoats, we think.

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Work baskets, one last time.

Updates:

Note 1 (July 23, 2017). I returned from my time at SIMA and the NMNH in July 2017 and immediately went to look at The Art of Ethnography: A Chinese “Miao” Album (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006). Regarding the picture of a person being held captive noted above (see the picture that is captioned “We were pretty worried about the guy in the blue cap…”), I note that the image shown here is almost the same as, but not the same as, Plate Number 63 (pages 126-127) in The Art of Ethnography. It will take time to sort out what is going on in this instance, but one or the other plate is clearly a copy of the other. The text in The Art of Ethnography indicates that the scene is about the waylaying of solitary travelers, placing them in a wooden yoke, and extorting them to redeem their own freedom. I checked The Art of Ethnography out of the library right before this trip and now have even more reason to read it asap.

Note 2 (July 26, 2017). In reading The Art of Ethnography, I learned about how “Miao Albums” were frequently copied (inexactly) and observed that some of the pages that we saw in the two NMNH albums appear in similar form in the album published in The Art of Ethnography. Here are three known examples (see above):

(1) The scene of the men fighting but being restrained by the women (see p. 28 (#14) in The Art of Ethnography and the E175187 scene pictured here);

(2) The scene of plowing, where a man pulls the plow (see p. 106 (#53) in The Art of Ethnography and the image from NMNH E424083 pictured here);

(3) The scene of the scene of a man being held hostage in a wooden yoke (see p. 126 (#63) in The Art of Ethnography and the image from E175187 pictured here).

Note 3 (July 28, 2017). In reading Laura Hostetler’s Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), I learned further about the re-occurring tropes linked to specific groups from those reoccurring in book after book. In relation to some of those pictured above, I can note, for instance “Women restrain men from fighting one another” is the brief description that Hostetler points to as reoccurring for Hong Miao entries (see above). Similarly, the trope table in Qing Colonial Enterprise notes (with group identifications): “A tall ladder leads from a streambed up a steep cliff. Figures appear above and below” (Kemeng Guyang Miao); “Men and Women dancing. Long sleeves cover their arms and drape down over their hands” (Lingjia Miao); “Two women play Chinese chess” (Qing Zhongjia); “Several armed men surround a Han prisoner in a cangue whom they kidnapped for ransom” (Qingjiang Zhongjia); “One woman works at a loom, another washes her hair in a basin” (Yangdong Luahan Miao); “Agricultural scene. Two men plow a paddy. No draft animal is used; instead a man pulls the plow” (Yetou Miao); (See pp. 171-174)

Sep 26

Who Cares About Craft as Traditional Knowledge?

This fall has been a particularly busy season for research-based programs at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures. An an outgrowth of our Indiana Folk Arts: 200 Years of Tradition and Innovation exhibition and our participation in classes and programs for Themester, we will have hosted, by semester’s end, a very large number craftspeople or groups of craftspeople representative of a broad swath of vernacular making in Indiana. Because of our Themester mandate to focus on questions of Beauty in our engagements with these artist-craftspeople, our discussions with them have always had an aesthetic component. We have asked, for instance, questions like: “What characteristics do you associate with a beautiful weaving [or chair, or drum, or pottery bowl, or…]?” or “When producing for the marketplace, how do you balance functional use and aesthetic impact?” Art and aesthetics are a crucial part of the human experience and of what makes cultures distinctive and meaningful.

But the objects that we curate and interpret, and the makers of things with whom we engage, are not only about art. Even while many have both aesthetic and functional purposes, many others of our museum’s objects are not reasonably framed as art and some of our interlocutors are talented, knowledgeable makers and users of things, without being artists. Our work is bigger than art, as important as art is. Aesthetic values are part of larger cultural systems and those larger wholes are our focus. Whether in China or in Indiana, our work is about local knowledge, including traditional cultural knowledge. A big part of our engagements with makers focuses on the knowledge that goes into making–craft expertise along with local environmental and contextual knowledge concerned with uses, meanings, significances.

A detailed story in last Saturday’s Independent by Amalia Illgner is a good evocation of the kinds of concern we (particularly Traditional Arts Indiana, led ably by my colleague Jon Kay) try to bring to our work with craft objects, craft knowledge, and craftspeople. (I appreciate Matthew Bradley for sharing it with me.) Read the story (“Raiders of the Lost Crafts”) here. (I note here that, despite the declensionist hook and playful title, the author is not so obsessed with authenticity discourses that she disregards fruitful rediscovery of older craft knowledge through the study of museum collections and documentary materials. The story is a rare and rather sophisticated treatment of its subject.)

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Who cares about craft as traditional knowledge? My colleagues and I do. We also like art and we also love seeing where contemporary craftspeople, including studio craft, DIY craft, and many others, are taking their passions–but documenting what people know and have long known is important and helping foster environments where those who have traditional cultural knowledge are supported and encouraged is key part of our mission. If you care about such things, you still have lots of chances to engage your interests at the museum this year. This week we will host a wonderful group of African American quilters and a talented maker of African drums. In following weeks, we offer chances to connect with Indiana limestone carvers, a hoop-net maker, a rosemaler, a pysanky artist, a Native American potter, a Zapotec weaver, and an Orthodox iconographer. Learning from such craftspeople is something we intend to keep doing as along as we can.

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