Folklore Program UW-Madison

As an inheritor of the bamboo-pole sailing tradition, which made China’s National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2019, Yang Liu began to practice the skill at age 7.

Wishing everyone a Happy Ṥmigus-Dyngus Day!
Życzymy wszystkim Wesołego Śmingusa-Dyngusa!
Śmigus-Dyngus also known as Lany Poniedzialek (Wet Monday) is a fun polish holiday celebrated on Easter Monday. It is the day when boys tried to drench girls with buckets of water. The more a girl is sprayed with water, the higher her chances are that she will get married. Traditionally, girls get their chance for revenge the next day, however now Wet Monday is usually celebrated by everyone drenching or sprinkling each other with water and it is basically free-for-all good old fashioned water fight and no one is immune or dry. The origins of this celebration are uncertain, but it may date back to pagan times (before 1000 AD) when the pouring of water symbolized springtime to cleanse and purify. Others believe that Śmigus-Dyngus represents renewal of the sacrament of baptism after Christ had risen. And there are still some, who suggests that Śmigus-Dyngus is connected to baptism of Polish ruler Prince Mieszko the First who was baptized in 966 on Easter Monday.
Originally śmigus and dyngus were two separate events, with śmigus involving the act of throwing water, and dyngus, bribing people with Easter eggs (pisanki) to escape from śmigus. Later both traditions merged.
But no matter how you look at it, it is still a super fun holiday I enjoyed so much as a kid. I still have memories of me running with friends through our neighborhood with our little egg shape water sq**rt spraying everyone in our way….at this same time avoiding water bombs coming down from the windows :)

Today would be the 120th birthday of Alabama traditional singer Vera Hall, one of the greatest singers in the AFC archive, who was born April 6, 1902, and who died in 1964. Hall was recorded by several folklorists, including Alan Lomax, and she was the subject of Lomax's book "The Rainbow Sign." Her voice singing "Trouble So Hard" was the main element in the dance music hit "Natural Blues" by Moby in 1999.

At the first link find a biography from the Association for Cultural Equity:

http://www.culturalequity.org/alan-lomax/friends/hall

At the second link, find early recordings of her singing.

https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=contributor:hall,+vera&loclr=fbafc

At the third link, find her recordings from later years.

https://archive.culturalequity.org/person/hall-vera-ward

Happy Friday!

Folklorist interviews Alien!

The American Folklife Center is proud to announce that AFC folklorist Wynnette Willwood has conducted the first ethnographic interview with an extraterrestrial being! Through a special collaboration with NASA, AFC sent Folklife Specialist Wynnette Willwood to the moon last year. There she encountered a small community of extraterrestrials who observe the doings of humans on Earth for their own inscrutable purposes. Willwood convinced one of these aliens to sit for an ethnographic interview. "It turns out they are big fans of human TV, especially 'Baywatch,'" she reported to her surprised colleagues at the Library of Congress.

Wynnette Willwood is the daughter of folklorist Abbott Willwood, who gained fame through his oral history interviews with Bigfoot and Chupacabras. She is the granddaughter of folklorist and linguist Otto Willwood.

Find out more about the Willwood Expedition, and encounter the first-ever ethnographic interview with an alien, at the link:

https://go.usa.gov/xzJNs

New Orleans public schools lift century-long ban on jazz music and dancing The decision comes exactly 100 years to the date it was originally passed in 1922, school officials said.