Folk Geography

The cultural makeup of most societies includes elements of: folk, ethnic, & popular cultures

Folk Culture: the collective heritage of institutions, customs, skills, dress, and way of life of a small, stable, closely knit, usually rural community

Made up of people who maintain the traditionalold-fashioned wayStrong family or clan structure

folk geography: defined as the study of the spatial patterns and ecology of folk-life.

Folk Culture in the U.S.

The Old Order Amish in the U.S.

Perhaps the only folk equivalent in U.S.German-American farmersLargely renounces devices of the industrial ageHorse-drawn buggies still used, and faithful own no autos or appliancesCentral religion concept of demut, humility Rarely marry outside their sectClustered around Pennsylvania & Ohio (in 17 total states)

Old Order Amish

The Amish: Relocation Diffusion of Folk Culture In Europe the Amish did not develop distinctive language, clothing, or farming practices and gradually merged with various Mennonite church groups.

Several hundred Amish families migrated to North America in two waves.

Amish Settlements in the U.S.Fig. 4-4: Amish settlements are distributed through the northeast U.S.

Folk Building Traditions

Mali: dogon

Folk Architecture: The Maasai are pastoralists in Kenya who bring their cattle into their manyattas at night

Maasai houses are built by women

Constructed with termite, ant, and beetle resistant wood poles, insulated with packed leaves, and covered with cow dung

Inside a Sarawak longhouse (Malaysia)An Iroquois longhouse (upstate NY)A longhouse in Washington state

House Types in Western ChinaFour communities in western China all have distinctive house types

Irish folk building styles

Folk Housing in North AmericaFew folk houses are being built today

Popular culture with its mass-produced, commercially built houses has overwhelmed folk traditions

House TypesTraditional American house types:

New EnglandMid-AtlanticSouthern Tidewater

What are folk building materials dependent upon???

From log cabins towood framed houses.

Yankee New EnglandDogtrot (or saddlebag)

Folk Culture Regions

Folk Cultural Region: folk customs are distinctively identified with an area long inhabited by a group.

Ex: Pennsylvanian folk region has an unusual Swiss-German type of barn

Folk Clothing Cuzco, Peru (an Incan capital city) is a major tourist destinations. Native llama and alpaca wool sweaters, ponchos, and rugs are displayed for the tourist trade.They are hand woven on hand-looms and colored with mineral or vegetable dyes.

Folk handicrafts and arts often enter popular culture

Folk Drinks: Mountain moonshineHome manufacture of corn whiskey in the Upland South has been going on since the 1700s.

Corn whiskey is very persistent in the folk diet of Appalachia.

Entered popular culture through whiskeys such as Jack Daniels (a sour mash). The government began to tax alcohol

Illegal whisky production and popular culture integration led to the creation of the folk automobile

A fast vehicle needed to outrun the law, but humble in appearance.Some have claimed these vehicles were the forerunners of the basic American stock car used in NASCAR racing.

Folk Music: BluegrassBluegrass emerged in the 1930s in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina.

What popular music tradition is Bluegrass going to influence???

Folk Games: Petanque in Quebecpetanque is a bowling game played with metal balls.

Diffused to Canada with French immigrants in the 16th century. It has persisted as one aspect of a Quebec French folk region.

Western plains ranching folk culturethe beef wheel, a windlass used during butchering

Folk Hunting:Blowgunslong, hollow tube through which a projectile is blown by force of breath

Geographer Stephen Jett mapped distribution of blowgun

Found among folk societies in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres

Used from the island of Madagascar to Amazonian jungles of South America

I've hit many squirrels with this store-bought 6' .38cal blowgun and wire darts, but this is the only one I ever killed. I shot out my window, and hit him in the brain with my first shot.A successful rabbit hunt with my blowgun

Folk Religious StylesGreat Mosque of Crdoba, Spain

Islam

Buddhism

Hinduism

Judaism

Shinto Temple

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