see “final DT cover“ for cover design€¦ · Weevily Wheat Instructions ..... 23 After the Program .....24 Finding Out More Talking About It Showing What They’ve Learned Program

see “final DT cover“ forcover design

Dancing Threads: Community Dances from Africa to Zuni2

This guide accompanies the four-partinstructional television series DancingThreads: Community Dances fromAfrica to Zuni, a production of KET,The Kentucky Network.

Teacher’s Guide Writers:Anndrena BelcherNancy CarpenterArden KucatePaula LarkeMargaret Norman

Production Photography:Dave Crawford

Our thanks to Susan Booker of theLexington Public Library, Lexington, KY,and Dr. Charles Joyner of CoastalCarolina University, Conway, SC,for their help with information onresource materials.

© Copyright 1995KET Foundation, Inc.600 Cooper DriveLexington, KY 40502-2296(800) 354-9067

ISBN 1-881020-22-3

The KentuckyNetwork

3Teacher’s Guide

Program 3: Weevily Wheat

Context ................................................. 20Bonnie Prince CharlieOver the River To Feed My Sheep

Before the Program ................................. 22Weevily Wheat Instructions ..................... 23After the Program.................................... 24

Finding Out MoreTalking About ItShowing What They’ve Learned

Program 4: Zuni Harvest Dances

Context ................................................. 25The Zuni PeopleHarvest Dances in Zuni Culture

Before the Program ................................. 26For Multicultural UnderstandingPreparing for the Dance

Zuni Harvest Dances Instructions ........... 27After the Program.................................... 28


Pulling It All Together ................... 30

Connecting the Lessons toStudents’ Lives

Creating Your Own DancesFor Teachers and Older Students

Some Resources You Might FindHelpful ................................................ 32

About the Presenters

Anndrena Belcher ........................... 33Arden Kucate .................................. 36Paula Larke ..................................... 37

Table ofContents

Introduction .............................................. 4About the Series ........................................ 5How To Use This Series ............................. 6Where To Use This Series .......................... 7

Program 1: Goin’ to Boston

Context ................................................... 8What Is a Play Party?

Before the Program ................................. 10Dances Today and YesterdayBritish Isles Immigrations and

Settlement in the New WorldGoin’ to Boston Instructions ................... 11After the Program.................................... 12


Opportunity for Teachers ......................... 13

Program 2: Little Johnny Brown

Context ................................................. 14Chain of TransferenceThe Story of Little Johnny BrownImages in the Song

Before the Program ................................. 15African Settlement in AmericaGames People PlayMaking the Blanket

Little Johnny Brown Instructions ........... 16After the Program.................................... 17


About Ring Plays ..................................... 18


The fun thing about living today is thatwe can view the past and the culturalteachings of the ancients and carry thoseteachings forward to the benefit of ourselvesand our world. Urban lifestyles may not holdas many opportunities for rural-basedcommunity dances, but these dances can beenjoyed in urban as well as rural settings. Ifyoung people do not have their own com-munity-supported dances and gatherings,that’s all the more reason to introduce thedances in the classroom. Students can thentake them out into the community andmake a place and a way for them to flourishin their particular home environments.

The dances and play parties included inDancing Threads come out of the ruralcultures of the Southern African-Americans,the ancient Zuni Indians of New Mexico, andthe Appalachian mountain folks of EasternKentucky. The series is designed to provide aconnecting thread to each specific culturethrough the dancing and oral history of thedance leader, while connecting each cultureto the others through the common threadsof dance and rural-based economic histories.Each dance can be integrated into units onthe history, culture, economics, art, cos-tume, oral literature, music, architecture,geography, and politics of yesterday andtoday.

The main thing is: Have fun dancingand see what you feel by participating in oneof the most powerful forms of the demo-cratic process in the land!

Introduction

By Anndrena Belcher

Jean Ritchie, Paula Larke, Arden Kucate,and I all come from cultures rooted in thenecessity of a reciprocal relationship withthe land and the air and the waters. Ourpeople have worked the small farms of NewMexico, Alabama, and Kentucky. Each of uscomes from a culture rich in the arts; forstories, songs, dances, games, and themaking/crafting of tools, clothes,housewares, and personal ornaments were,and still are, a part of everyday life.

The Zuni tribes of Arden’s New Mexicohomelands were threatened with extinction,both by the Spaniards and by the white man.Old-time Appalachian mountain farmersstruggled to survive and raise their familieson what they could grow and gather fromthe rugged and hauntingly beautiful landthey lived on. Nor was life easy for theAfrican-American rural folks of Paula’sAlabama childhood community. She didn’tlearn all the old games and stories from theold people who tended to her, but what shedid learn was their “way,” their “essence,” asshe calls it.

It is the “way” of each of the ancientcultures represented in Dancing Threadsthat gets passed on through the stories,songs, games, riddles, sayings, and commu-nity dances. And it is the “way” of these oldcultures that very well may help us see ourway into human understanding and mutualcultural and generational respect. As LittleTree’s grandmother in Forrest Carter’s bookThe Education of Little Tree advises, “If it isa good thing, pass it on!”

5Teacher’s Guide

In each program, students in thetelevision studio follow step-by-step instruc-tions and then participate in each game ordance as a group. This segment is followedby a short interview with the artist about thehistorical and cultural contexts out of whichthe dance sprang. The game “WeevilyWheat,” for example, refers to an individualby the name of Charlie, a reference toBritain’s “Bonnie Prince Charlie” of the1700s.

Anndrena Belcher hosts two of theprograms, teaching traditional Appalachiangames brought from the British Isles byearly settlers. A noted storyteller, Anndrenais featured prominently in the popular KETseries Telling Tales. African-Americanmusician and storyteller Paula Larke andZuni dancer/storyteller Arden Kucatecomplete the talent for this series.

Because the series was created forstudents of all ages, this teacher’s guideoffers a broad range of suggestions foractivities to expand on what students havelearned from the tapes. Please adapt thediscussion questions and activities to anappropriate level for your students.

About theSeries

Dancing Threads is a series of four half-hour programs featuring outstandingperformers—African-American, NativeAmerican, and Appalachian—teachingtraditional dances and games, some centu-ries old.

The activities are all “communitydances,” involving patterns of singing,dancing, poetry, mimicry, and play acting,used in olden days to teach social customs toa whole community. Some are courtingdances; some are for play after comingtogether to work; some are used to celebrateseasonal accomplishments such as theharvest. People of all ages have enjoyed themand passed them on for generations.

Dancing Threads gives young people amulticultural and historical perspective,encouraging them to value their own andother cultural traditions. The programs alsoshow students that they don’t need expen-sive things to have fun. As host AnndrenaBelcher says, “You’ve got rhythm in yourfingers and your hand claps; you can jump;you can make motion; you can create it all.And because the dances and games are old,it’s another way of recycling what we’ve hadthat worked.”


perform the dance, you can play each part asmany times as necessary until they arecomfortable with it. Students will enjoy andappreciate the dance much more if they havepracticed enough to feel comfortable withthe motions. Then dance the entire dance.

If you are working with students olderthan those featured in the programs, youmay want to use the instructional portion toteach yourself the dances and then teachthem, without the video, to your students.

The final segment, the 10-minuteinterview, can be used at any time and withall ages to give students insights into thecultures and traditions featured in the series.

The Dancing Threads programs areclosed-captioned. If you have a decoder, youcan use it to show the song lyrics on screen.

Finally, don’t be too demanding of yourstudents. You’ll notice that Anndrena, Paula,and Arden all approach the dances with arelaxed attitude and enthusiasm for thestudents’ participation. As Anndrena says,“Have fun!”

How To UseThis Series

While an instructor on tape can neveroffer the warmth of a real live visitor in yourclassroom, this electronic resource doeshave its advantages: Through the magic ofvideotape, you can introduce your studentsto these top-notch experts as your schedulepermits. With your VCR, you can start, stop,rewind, and review the tapes as often as youlike.

We recommend watching each half-hour program all the way through the firsttime. You may wish to reset your counter to“0” when you begin and make note of anysegments you expect to review.

You may want to begin your instructionby showing your students the entire set ofinstructions and the final student perfor-mance of the complete dance in one sitting(about 20 minutes) so they will know howthe complete dance will look.

When you are ready to have students

7Teacher’s Guide

Dance and Physical Education

Ears, feet, hands, and eyes all worksynchronistically in the making of the musicand the dance. Right- and left-brain activi-ties are integrated with clapping of hands,turning, reversing direction, switchinghands, and passing partners and oppositesright shoulder/left shoulder. Harmonic useof space and respect for the individual playerin each set builds self-esteem with groupsupport. These dances build community andcultural identity as well.

Visual Arts

Moving in lines and circles and turn-arounds all require visual imaging, whichcan be used to express visual representationsof design and story.

Drama

Singing/dancing games require suspen-sion of disbelief as each person enters thetraditional community dance arena as aplayer enacting harvest, courtship, or otherlife and ritual dramas. Each dancer/playerprovides rhythm, music, and character.

Where To UseThis Series

Social Studies

Every human being has a story which isconnected to every other human being inthe making of history. Each communitydance is tied to a whole cultural history.Each culture is tied to an ancient land-basedeconomy. The links to geography areobvious in the specific cultures representedin the series; a map charting various migra-tions and geographic changes as a result ofconquering or being conquered would bechallenging.

Language Arts

Archaic forms of the English languageand the ancient language of the Zuni/Shiwiare represented in the singing and dancingas they are integrated in the DancingThreads games. We find linkages to thepoetic and beautiful worlds of long ago andthe cultures of today in the music’s syntax—so different from mainstream standardizedEnglish.


Frontier community gatherings oftenfocused on play parties as an occasion forpeople of all ages to come together and havefun. With limited access to musical instru-ments and special equipment, early settlersfound play parties a rich source of entertain-ment in their sparse surroundings.

The Handy Play Party Book goes on tosay:

“Pioneer life was often difficult and fullof challenges. Sometimes there was ascarcity of food. Often there was isolationand loneliness. Light-hearted fellowship andrecreation was a much-needed tonic, yetreligion frequently stood in the way. Quak-ers, Disciples, Methodists, Baptists, orPresbyterians might differ as to creed, butthey were united in their belief that dancewas a wicked sport and the fiddle an instru-ment of the devil. The singing games of theyoung people, however, seemed innocentenough, being time-honored and unsophis-ticated. So it came that these charmingdances, carefully referred to as ‘play parties,’brightened life on the American frontier.”

For a time, the Appalachian Mountainsserved as the frontier. Some new settlerslearned from the native tribes along theroutes of migration. Others, eager to makeway in the “New World” for their ownsettlement, took on the role of Indianfighter, and, as Leonard Roberts tells us inthe introduction to his book of tales called

PROGRAM 1

Goin’ toBoston

featuring:Anndrena Belcher, host and instructorJean Ritchie, guest

“The play party games took place largelyaround harvest time, around the work, youknow—planting time, harvest time, corn-hoeing time. And, on weekends, it was thereward for working all during the week.Some family would let the children all comein and play games. You had to call it ‘playinggames’ because you didn’t call it dancingsince dancing was sinful. My mother saidshe always had to say to her mother not, ‘I’mgoing to run sets’ or ‘I’m going to a dance.’She always had to say, ‘I’m going to theplays.’ And so it got to be called a ‘playparty.’”

—Jean Ritchie

Context

What Is a Play Party?

The Handy Play Party Book, publishedby World Around Songs, Inc., gives thisdefinition of a play party:

“The play party is one of America’s mostimportant contributions to the world of folkdances and folk games. It is rooted in thecustoms of the old countries from which theearly settlers came. Defined simply, a playparty is a kind of country dance done to asinging accompaniment. The songs andfigures of our early play parties hearken backto Scottish, English, Irish, and German folktraditions.”

9Teacher’s Guide

Greasybeard: Tales From the CumberlandGap, this natural pass between the moun-tains became “one of the important passes inwestern civilization.”

As he writes about the settlement ofeastern Kentucky, Roberts recounts themigration routes of the pioneers:

“The American Revolution over, ourpeople poured across the Northwest Terri-tory. To the south they skirted the southerntip of Appalachia and settled in the CottonBelt. From the middle reservoirs of popula-tion in southern Pennsylvania and PiedmontVirginia and North Carolina the pioneersthreaded their way into the ShenandoahValley and converged on the CumberlandGap by way of Boone’s Wilderness Trail. Thismovement began in 1775. By 1780 a thou-sand were able to hold the Great Meadowagainst constant Indian siege. In the sameyear 800 Kentucky and Tennessee frontiers-men marched off to King’s Mountain todefeat the British. The 1790 census listednearly 75,000 people in the region, enoughto make it the fifteenth state in 1792. Almost4,000 Kentuckians fought with Mad An-thony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbersin 1794. Here they finally defeated thenorthern Indians who barred the way to theMidwest.”

Do you wonder what games and songsand dances the Indian children were playingand singing and dancing at this time? TheBoston Tea Party was a fairly recent event.Did the new settlers’ children sing about“goin’ to Boston” referring to Boston,Massachusetts or Boston, England? Did theyplay the singing game around the campfiresat night?

Jean Ritchie of Viper, Kentucky is alegendary singer, songwriter, storyteller, anddancer; her family is well known for itsmusic. Jean shared some of the backgroundof “play parties,” having learned them as partof everyday living in Knott County, Ken-tucky.

“Children played games on the schoolground,” she says. “The singing games gotstarted when you were a little child going toschool and at recess and dinner time—you’d

go out and play on the school yard and inthe twilight around the houses, aroundhomes. The younguns would get togetherand play the children’s games just anytime.But when you got up to courtin’ age, theplaces we played play party games were atpie suppers and in homes on weekends, atparties.”

Jean’s family lived on what she calls a“semi-subsistence farm,” and the play partiesserved as a great reward for working hard allweek.

According to Jean, the play party gamestook place “largely around harvest time,around the work, you know—planting time,corn-hoeing time.” The adults knew theyoung folks had to have a way to get to-gether and have some wholesome fun, andthe courting couples needed a time andplace to get to see each other. The playparties allowed both as well as supervision bythe older folks. When Jean asked her motherhow they let the young folks get away withplaying those kissing games and thosedances, her mother replied, “Well, youngpeople gotta have fun. If you don’t let ’emhave fun, they’ll do something worse.”

The churches disapproved of dancingand of the fiddle, but the play parties didn’tseem so worldly. “Some family would let thechildren all come in and play games. Andyou had to call it games because dancingwas sinful,” Jean explains. It was called“going to the plays,” and so it got to becalled a “play party”—a party where peopleplayed.

The play parties included the older folks,the young ones, and the little bitty ones, too,she says. “You start goin’ when you’re a babyand you watch until you’re big enough totoddle and big enough to get out there andtry to join in…. I’ve seen, even today, peopledo that. They carry a little youngun with ’emwhen they’re dancin’ so it feels like it’sjoinin’ in.”

Where did these parties come from?“From the countries that the people camefrom,” says Jean. “England, Scotland,Ireland, Wales … [and] some of them weremade up after they got here.”


Has the role of dancing in everyday lifechanged from parent to student?Compare the kind of clothing worn fordancing today to the kind worn in theirparents’ dancing “youth.” What is therole of dancing in courtship today (withstudents)? What was its role during theirparents’ generation? What are commu-nity dances like today? How do theycompare to community dances whentheir parents were growing up?

3. Have students go back another genera-tion and conduct an oral history inter-view with their grandparents and great-grandparents (if possible), or with anolder member of the community.

Questions they could ask during theinterview:• What dances did people of this

generation do?• Where did people dance?• What kind of music did people

dance to?• What role did dancing play in

community celebrations?• Were special clothes worn for these

dances?

British Isles Immigrations andSettlement in the New World

1. Have students find Boston, Massachu-setts on a map of the United States. Nowfind Boston, England on a map of theBritish Isles. Trace immigration routesfrom the British Isles to the New World.

2. Ask students if they’ve ever wonderedwhat the early settlers did for entertain-ment. Ask them to employ their re-search skills to find out what songs,games, and dances the British settlersbrought with them to this continent.What songs, games, and dances were inexistence among the Native Americanshere at the time?

The play parties, along with othergames, stories, and ballads, served tochronicle and reenact or “play out” thehappenings of the times. Communitycharacters and dialogue, propriety andcourtship rituals—all get interwoven inthe dancing and mimicking and pretendceremonies of a culture based on self-sufficiency in terms of relationship withthe natural environment. These early whitesettlers farmed, gathered food, and madetheir own clothes, tools, houses, warmth,music, literature, education, and dance.Listen to the words and know that theactions represent people and doings of thetime. The games represent a culturalviewpoint at a point in time. The play partyrepresents an important community gather-ing activity—a thread in the weave ofidentity.

Before the Program

Dances Today and Yesterday

1. Have students bring in tapes or CDs oftheir favorite dance music. Ask eachstudent to play a favorite cut on therecording and move to the music. Havestudents note which movements developwith various music pieces.

How would this music be classified?How do people move to this music?What is the ideal environment fordancing to it? What role does dancingplay in the everyday lives of peopletoday? How would you define “dancing”?

2. Ask students to bring in tapes, CDs, orrecords of music their parents listenedto when they were the same age as yourstudents are today.

What are the differences and similaritiesbetween this music and the music thestudents chose for themselves? Whatabout the environments in which thetwo sets of music are/were danced to?

Program 1 (continued)

11Teacher’s Guide

3. Have students trace their own ancestryand find which countries their peoplecame from. When did they arrive in theNew World? Do students know theirown families’ personal connections withthe American Revolution?

Goin’ to Boston Instructions(See the video for a demonstration.)

4. Discuss migrations of settlers fromcolonial America into the AppalachianMountains. Can students find out aboutthe beliefs and attitudes toward dancingof early white settlers?

Movements

Start with couples set in two lines facingeach other, ladies on one side and gents on theother. The couple at the top of the line is thehead couple.

Circle left all around to home. All joinhands; line becomes a circle and circles oncearound to home. Return to lines.

Promenade right, all the way around tohome. Each gent takes his partner’s righthand in his right hand and her left in his leftand travels in a circle counterclockwise,returning home and falling back into theinitial lines.

Head couple sashays down to the bottomof the set and back. Head couple joins bothhands straight across and sashays down to thebottom of the set and back to the top, betweenthe two lines. Folks on sidelines clap and sing.

Grand right and left to opposite line. Headcouple faces each other. The ladies’ line willfollow the head lady; the gents’ line will followthe head gent. Head couple joins right handsin a handshake position, passing each other byright shoulders; then they extend their lefthands to the next lady or gent in the oppositelines. This continues, passing right hand, thenleft, until they weave the whole line and comehome to their original positions and fall backinto their lines.

Lyrics

Good-bye girls, we’re goin’ to BostonGood-bye girls, we’re goin’ to BostonGood-bye girls, we’re goin’ to BostonEarli in the mornin’

Saddle up girls, and let’s go with ’emSaddle up girls, and let’s go with ’emSaddle up girls, and let’s go with ’emEarli in the mornin’

Get out of the way, or you’ll get run overGet out of the way, or you’ll get run overGet out of the way, or you’ll get run overEarli in the mornin’

Rights and lefts will make it betterRights and lefts will make it betterRights and lefts will make it betterEarli in the mornin’

Hand your hands just a little bit fasterHand your hands just a little bit fasterHand your hands just a little bit fasterEarli in the mornin’

(continued on next page)



Chorus:Won’t we look pretty in the ballroom?Won’t we look pretty in the ballroom?Won’t we look pretty in the ballroom?Earli in the mornin’

Optional addition (demonstrated in thevideo):

Johnny, Johnny, gonna tell your pappyJohnny, Johnny, gonna tell your pappyJohnny, Johnny, gonna tell your pappyEarli in the mornin’

Arm right and left (the reel). Head coupleswings each other by their right arms one anda half turns, then turns loose and gives leftarms, or elbows, to the next lady or gent in theopposite line and swings. Head couple meetsin the center of the set to swing each otherone half turn, then out to next lady or gent.Continue alternating swinging opposite lineand partner in center one half turn until headcouple is at bottom of set. In one variation,head couple stays at the bottom of the set anda new head couple is now at the top of the set.In the video, Anndrena adds on another verseand set of steps, as follows.

Sashay to the top of the set and cast lines.Head couple, now at the bottom of the set,joins both hands straight across and sashaysup to the top of the set. They release handsand turn out. The lady leads her line down tothe bottom of the set, and the gent does thesame with his. When the head couple arrivesat the bottom of the set, they join their handsabove their heads in a V shape to make abridge. Ladies and gents behind the headcouple join hands as in the promenade andtravel under the bridge to re-form their lines.The head couple stays at the bottom of the setand a new head couple is at the top.

Continue dance until each couple has hadan opportunity to be the head couple.

After the ProgramFinding Out More

1. Research the economic conditions inthe early 1900s, when Jean Ritchie’sparents were raising their children. Howdo students view economic conditionstoday? How do economic conditionsinfluence dance, music, art, recreation,and community celebrations?

2. How did the mountain people of EasternKentucky preserve some of the tradi-tional dances and songs from the BritishIsles? What other nationalities of people

wound up settling in the Appalachiansafter the Indian wars? What Indiantribes live(d) in the part of the countrywhere your students live?

Talking About It

1. In the interview, Jean says play partieswere organized to celebrate workcompleted. What do people do today as areward or celebration for working hard?

2. How is “Goin’ to Boston” different fromthe games young people play today?How is it similar? How does the com-munity today involve young people intraditions and celebrations?

13Teacher’s Guide

3. Ask students to think about the contem-porary dances they shared beforelearning “Goin’ to Boston.” Are anymovements in the “Goin’ to Boston”play party carried over into dances oftoday? What are they? What happenswhen you dance all the movements fromthis play party? Instead of singing “Goin’to Boston,” perform the dance steps todifferent kinds of music. How does the“feel” of the dance change?

Showing WhatThey’ve Learned

1. Have students teach the dancing gameor play party to another group ofstudents.

2. Have students draw or paint a visualrepresentation of the key images ordesigns of this dance. To prompt re-sponses, take a movement fromthe dance—casting the line, for ex-ample—and ask students to think abouthow they might represent this move-ment graphically (as a design).

What would happen if this design wereused for clothing? For jewelry? Couldyou make a mask or other ceremonialtrapping incorporating this design? Whywas this particular design important toyou? What does it say to you or aboutyou?

3. Have students draw or paint a three-partpicture representing images of dancingfrom their lives today, from the lives oftheir parents’ generation, and from thelives of their grand- or great-grandpar-ents’ generation.

4. Let students dance to these threegenerations of music. Invite parents andgrandparents into the classroom to talkabout dancing as they knew it when theywere growing up. Can they showphotographs of dances? Perhaps one ofthem would volunteer to teach studentsa dance from their generation.

5. Have students produce a performancepiece dedicated to the history of dance asthey have learned about a part of thishistory from their parents and grand-parents. Include information abouttoday’s dancing and music. Perform thepiece with music to start. Then talkabout whether it could be performedwithout accompaniment other thansinging and hand clapping. Try it! Doesthe performance change in tone if it isperformed outdoors with no lightingother than natural light?

Opportunity forTeachers

East Tennessee State University inJohnson City, TN has a great deal of archivalmaterial dealing with the British Isles-to-Appalachia connection, including an ex-change program each summer which bringsScottish studies to Appalachia and takesAppalachian studies to Scotland. Thisprogram is accredited. Universities in yourarea may sponsor similar programs.


“I noticed at once how the youngAfrican-American and Native Americanmales took to the old-fashioned ‘courting’that makes the game so inviting to evenolder youth,” Paula says. “When I asked Guywhere he’d learned it, he told me that JanieHunter of Johns Island, one of the SeaIslands off the coast of South Carolina, hadshown it to him. In later conversation Ilearned that Mrs. Hunter had learned it fromBessie Jones of St. Helena, farther down theSouth Carolina coast.

“It turns out that Mrs. Jones had visitedJohns Island as part of an extended residencywith the Penn Center Heritage Program andshown the game to senior citizens andchildren. She spent enough time with thefolks on that island to discover a differencebetween the rhythms and styles of her folks,from St. Helena, and those of the JohnsIsland folks. The rhythms of the two com-munities were different enough that Mrs.Jones and Mrs. Hunter had trouble singingtogether. Amazing! Such a little bit of waterseparating the two communities and such alarge difference between their rhythms.Shadows of the days of relocation andreadjustment! Can you imagine how difficultit was to communicate from language tolanguage when you’d been torn from yourfamilies and anyone who spoke your lan-guage?

“Anyway, from the specific rhythms ofthe Johns Island traditions to this urbanversion with electric bass and contemporarytonality, ‘Johnny Brown’ still delivers asackful of messages to be carefully andhonestly weighed,” says Paula. “I had funplaying it and watching its beautiful kaleido-scope of flirtations.”

The Story of Little Johnny Brown

This story of Little Johnny Brown waspopular among African-Americans living onthe islands off the coast of South Carolinaand Georgia:

Though small in stature, Little JohnnyBrown felt big and important because he wasso good at picking cotton. He was mighty

PROGRAM 2

Little JohnnyBrown

featuring:Anndrena Belcher, hostPaula Larke, instructor

Generations of black Americans trans-planted from Africa have enjoyed playing“Little Johnny Brown” as a courtship dance,as a vehicle for teaching values, and as asource of lively fun. Participants with eventhe slightest theatrical bent enjoy the fun ofimprovising when asked to “show off y’motion.” All dancers enjoy the freedom ofexpression in an atmosphere of groupsupport.

Context

Chain of Transference

Paula Larke first saw “Little JohnnyBrown” played at the Highlander Center forResearch and Education in Knoxville, TN.Folklorist Guy Carawan was showing it to agroup of young leaders-in-training at theannual Summer Youth Workshop.

15Teacher’s Guide

Before the Program

African Settlement in America

Have students study the Slave TradeTriangle: Goods were taken by boat fromEurope to West Africa. After the goods weresold, European traders filled the empty boatswith slaves they bought to take to theAmericas. They sold the slaves along the eastcoasts of North and South America (wherelocal native populations had been devastatedby diseases from Europeans). The tradersthen filled their boats with American goodsto take back to Europe for sale. Have stu-dents draw a map of the triangle and write abrief description of its significance.

Games People Play

1. Ask students to list their favorite gamesof today. Why do they like these games?Is there a winner? A loser? A team? Isthere support from a group? Is there ahero? Describe a winner. What do thesegames teach individuals about how to behuman to one another? Who teachesgames of today? What role do thesepeople have in teaching children aboutcommunity?

2. Ask students to interview older familymembers about games they played aschildren. Where did the family membersgrow up? Who influenced their games?Their stories? Their music? Their work?

3. Have students teach a game theirparents or grandparents handed down. Ifthere are no parents or grandparents toshare games, have students interview anolder person in the community (at thecommunity center or senior citizens’center or a nursing home). Ask theperson to tell about games from thepast—singing games, work games, andothers. Compare the old games togames of today.

proud to lift his heavy bags onto the scale soeveryone could see how much he’d picked.And he was mighty angry when the boss toldhim his bag weighed only 20 pounds whenJohnny knew it weighed 30, or 40 poundswhen Johnny knew it weighed 50.

Determined to get back at the boss,Johnny began tossing bricks and stones anddead animals and whatever else he foundinto the sack with the cotton. If the bosscheated Johnny, Johnny would cheat theboss in return.

When Johnny’s mother got wind of thescheme, she told him to lay his blanketdown on the ground and pour out thecontents of his cotton sack so she could havea look. She was not pleased. She explained tohim that while the man might cheat Johnnyout of his money, no one could cheat Johnnyout of his soul. If he maintained his ownsense of values, he would grow up to be anhonest man—and a better man than theboss who stole.

Images in the Song

To “lay your blanket down” doesn’t justrefer to the story of Little Johnny Brown. Italso means to show your true self to yourpartner.

“Lope like a buzzard” gives the dancers achance to cut loose and have a little fun. Atthe same time, it gives the lead dancer achance to see whether his partner will goalong and imitate his actions for the fun ofit, or look down her nose and give it onlyhalf a try.

The image of loping like a buzzard alsorefers to a tradition dating back to the daysof slavery. Sometimes a slave would die inthe field and get dragged off to the side so asnot to slow down the work. At the end of theday, the other slaves would find their friendand perform a dance with the motions of abuzzard, escorting their friend’s spirit as itsoared up to heaven.


Making the Blanket

Working with your school art teacher ora local artist, have students design andcreate blankets to use in the dance. Possiblemethods include tie dyeing, simple weaving,


block printing, etc. Have students learnabout indigo, which was grown on the SeaIslands and along the coastal mainland (andwas the original dye for blue jeans!). Stu-dents may wish to color their blankets usingindigo-colored dye.

(See the video for a demonstration.)

Materials: You will need four squares ofcloth, large enough to see from around theroom (approximately two feet square).

Participants: Start with four individualsin search of excellence. They are also lookingfor good partners with whom to share theirwork and play.

The game begins with four players in acircle/square, holding up their “blankets”

(squares of cloth). These four “Johnnys”begin the dance. They will choose partnersfrom the large circle of friends surroundingthem.

The following directions for one circle offour dancers can easily be multiplied. Just besure to leave enough people in the sur-rounding circle to provide partners for allthe original “Johnnys.”

Lyrics

Little Johnny BrownLay your blanket downLittle Johnny BrownLay your blanket downNow y’ fold one corner, Johnny Brown

Now y’ fold another corner, Johnny BrownNow y’ fold another corner, Johnny BrownNow y’ fold another corner, Johnny BrownNow y’ go pick y’ partner, Johnny BrownNow y’ go pick y’ partner, Johnny BrownNow y’ go pick y’ partner, Johnny BrownNow y’ go pick y’ partner, Johnny BrownNow y’ lope like a buzzard, Johnny BrownNow y’ lope like a buzzard, Johnny BrownNow y’ lope like a buzzard, Johnny BrownNow y’ lope like a buzzard, Johnny BrownNow y’ show off y’ motion, Johnny BrownNow y’ show off y’ motion, Johnny BrownNow y’ show off y’ motion, Johnny BrownNow y’ show off y’ motion, Johnny Brown

Movements

Players pick up the squares.Players lay squares down.Players pick up the squares.Players lay squares down.Each player folds one corner of his/her

cloth into the center of the fabric.Each player folds next corner.Each player folds third corner.Each player folds fourth corner.Each player takes cloth and gives it to a

chosen partner in audience. Partner followsdancer back to circle with cloth. There will beeight dancers in each circle.

All eight dance around in a circle flappingtheir arms like buzzards, loping towardimaginary prey.

Each “Johnny” creates a move his/herpartner must imitate.

“Johnny” hands the blanket to his/herpartner.

Little Johnny Brown Instructions

17Teacher’s Guide

Movements (continued)Lyrics (continued)

Original four dancers return to the largecircle, and the four new “Johnnys” start fromthe beginning of the song. When it’s time to“go pick y’ partner,” the four will choose newdance partners. So the dance continues.

Now y’ go join the circle, Johnny BrownNow y’ go join the circle, Johnny BrownNow y’ go join the circle, Johnny BrownNow y’ go join the circle, Johnny Brown

After the Program

Finding Out More

1. Talk about the secret ways African-American people had to live and educatethemselves in the early days of ourcountry. Why did they teach theirchildren double talk, riddles, jive,hambone, and folk songs? How manyhad double meanings—one level ofunderstanding for whites around themand another for family and friends?

What are some words, games, talk,gestures, or phrases of today that helppeople in a group (ethnic, racial, agegroup, gang) communicate with oneanother without others knowing exactlywhat’s going on?

2. Listen to some of your students’ favoritemusic of today. Are there carry-oversfrom or parallels to the rhythms ormovements in “Little Johnny Brown”?What is the difference between rural andurban lifestyles of young blacks today?What about African-American peoplewho lived in the cities and on farms oneor two generations ago? Discuss.

Draw images of rural life for AfricanAmericans before 1940. What role didWorld War II play in changing life forAfrican Americans? Study the civilrights movement. Have students makevisual representations of their families’lives at the time of the civil rightsmovement, whatever their race.

3. Have students study buzzards and otherscavengers of the land, sea, and air whoclean up the planet. What would ourworld be like if there were no animals toperform this noble service?

4. You and your students learned “LittleJohnny Brown” from Paula Larke, wholearned it from a man in Tennessee, wholearned it from a woman on JohnsIsland, SC, who learned it from a womandown the coast in St. Helena, SC. Thatprocess is called a “chain of transfer-ence.”

Ask students to ask their parents, otherrelatives, or friends (even church orscout leaders or babysitters) where theylearned traditional songs, dances,stories, and games. Have students seehow far back they can trace the passingalong of these treasures.

Ask students to list all of the traditionalsongs, dances, games, etc. they canremember learning as children. Canthey remember how old they were whenthey learned them? Will they teach themto their own children or children forwhom they might babysit?

Talking About It

1. Some say, “Honesty is its own reward.”Ask the students how they feel abouthonesty. Would they rather have anhonest friend or one who hates conflictand covers up his/her failings?


2. Paula says Johnny brags so much thatnobody pays attention to him anymore.Ask students how they feel aboutbragging. Why do people brag? Is itmore important to impress other peopleor to feel confident within yourself?

3. Paula explains that dancing in a circlesignifies “a unity of forces—a gatheringof forces.” Ask students to think of otherimages represented by a circle (e.g., awedding ring, the circle of life, theOlympic symbol of five rings).

Wise Ol’ Bird Lesson #1: Don’t repaydishonesty with dishonesty. You’ll blow yourreputation.

Wise Ol’ Bird Lesson #2: Choose yourfriends, sweethearts, business partners, etc.carefully. Don’t base your loyalty on theirgood looks, fun, personalities, fine clothes,or car. Choose them on the basis of theirgoodness—and pay them with the samerespect.

Showing What They’ve Learned

1. Ask students some things that canhappen to those who try to “get even”with the system. Have them interviewtheir parents or grandparents, askingthem to share any personal stories aboutinjustice. Encourage students to write astory about injustice, changing thenames and any other details if necessary,so other students won’t know the realpeople involved in the story.

These stories could form the basis of adiscussion about such issues as• positive ways of dealing with

injustice,• revenge and “getting even,” and• people who have dealt with injustice

in an inspirational way.

Have the students come up with slogansagainst injustice, then create postersdealing with injustice.

2. Paula advises students to pay attentionto the way their partners fold theblankets. Is he or she neat and particularor sloppy? She also suggests thatstudents notice how their partnersrespond when asked to “show off y’motion.” Are they willing to go along forthe fun of it, or are they stuffy andreserved? What do these signals tellstudents about the way their partnersmight be as friends or sweethearts?

Some women say, “I like a man who’srough with me.” How do the studentsfeel about that perspective? Some menwant to put their women on a pedestal.What about that perspective?

Ask students to list qualities they hopeto find in a mate. Post a list of all thequalities suggested and talk about eachone. Have each student decide whichquality is most important and write thatword in large fancy letters on construc-tion paper or poster board, then cut itout. Paste the words on a large posterboard in the room.

About Ring Plays

By Anndrena Belcher

Teachers interested in learning moreabout ring plays will enjoy reading Step ItDown: Games, Plays, Songs and Storiesfrom the Afro-American Heritage by BessieJones and Bess Lomax Hawes, whichincludes “Little Johnny Brown” and manyother games. Bessie Jones taught thesinging games, plays, and stories of theGeorgia Sea Islanders until her death in1984. Doug and Frank Quimby, who are kinto her, still travel the world, teaching thetraditions of the Sea Islanders.

Hawes, knowing that her own whiteperspectives were different from Jones’ blackperspectives, gives great insights into whywhite people found it hard to understand theconcept of “play.” She tells about the impor-


19Teacher’s Guide

tance of the democratic elements of gamesand songs and how they differ from whitegames and play, which usually involvecompetition instead of cooperation.

In her introduction, Hawes writes:“Folklorists have often reported the

Negro use of the noun ‘play,’ where a non-Negro might say ‘game.’ [This is the same inAppalachian culture, where Jean says ‘go tothe plays.’] This had never seemed especiallysignificant to me; I assumed the terms wereinterchangeable.… Checking back throughmy taped interviews, I discovered that Mrs.Jones did, indeed, use the nouns ‘play,’‘game,’ and ‘dance’ to refer to different itemsin her repertoire and in a logical and defin-able way.”

Hawes uses the term dance to describeabstract, or “non-mimetic,” movementpatterns. Game refers to movementsinvolving “conditional sequence of actions.”She gives the example of “Bob a Needle,” inwhich players who pass the needle alongsuccessfully pay no forfeit, but players whoget caught with the needle do. She uses theterm play in two ways, referring to activitiesperformed both for fun and for drama.

When the Sea Islanders “played,” shesays, “they were constructing over and overagain small life dramas; they were improvis-ing on the central issues of their deepestconcerns: They were taking on new person-alities for identification or character; theywere acting.”

This same definition of play, I think,applies to the yard games, the games that wein the mountains called “play like,” and tothe dancing and singing games. There wasan aspect of acting when a person took on acourting posture, made gestures, or wascalled upon to go into the center of the ring,make up a gesture or a character, mimic, oreven, in one of the old dances, dance withthe broom as a partner.

“Little Sallie Walker,” “Ring Around theRosy,” and “London Bridge” require “playlike,” as do “Old Bad Wolf” and “RottenEggs,” which require the learning of veryspecific dialogue. These would definitely beconsidered dramas.

We use the term ring play to describe agroup, standing in a circle, playing, singing,and musically supporting a single characterwho acts out his own brief drama on centerstage before choosing another to take hisplace.

Hawes and Jones recall, “The notion of aring has always had a quality of magic:during play it is, literally, a ‘charmed circle.’It includes and excludes at the same time. Itsurrounds and enfolds while it walls off andrepels.” Having neither beginning nor end, aring has no leader, no head couple, nowinners and losers.

Says Hawes, “The Islanders found italmost incomprehensible that I wanted anexplanation of the ring plays before I wouldtry them myself. ‘Come on, it’s just a littleplay!’ they would urge. The power of thering, for them, was unbroken. They knewthat the surrounding group would supportthe shy or the awkward just as strongly as itwould the bold or the graceful…. [F]orthem, the ring play seemed to be the ulti-mate opportunity for personal reassurance,for feeling the warmth and support of atight-locked and indestructible circle withinwhich they could act out all their feelingswithout any fear of rejection or shame.”


PROGRAM 3

Weevily Wheat (also called “Over the River, Charlie”)

featuring:Anndrena Belcher, host and instructorJean Ritchie, guest

This Appalachian dance with twothemes is known by several names. It’scalled “Weevily Wheat” because it speaks oftaking wheat to the miller to be ground intoflour, alluding to a fear that the wheat mightbe infested with the beetles known asweevils. The song is also known as “Over theRiver, Charlie” or simply “Charlie” becauseof its many references to Scotland’s BonniePrince Charlie.

Context

Bonnie Prince Charlie

Who was this Prince Charlie thatchildren would sing about him for 200years? A book of songs and games collectedby the teachers of Alamance County, NorthCarolina refers to a play party called “CharlieOver the Water,” saying, “Charlie is identi-fied as Charles Edward Stuart, the YoungPretender. He rallied the Scottish clans in1745 and was defeated in the Battle ofCulloden in 1746. The present song is,therefore, the descendant of his rallyingsong.”

Charlie was the grandson of James II,King of England and Scotland, a seriousRoman Catholic convert for whom the KingJames Bible is named. Most of England was“sorely” anti-Catholic and feared that Jameswould try to reestablish the Catholic faith asthe official religion. King James was ousted

from the English throne in the mid-1600s(about the time the Pilgrims hopped onboats to get out of England) and moved,with most of his family, to France. Hisdaughter, Mary, and her husband, William ofOrange, took over the throne. William andMary College in Virginia is named for them.

King James had a son, also namedJames, who tried unsuccessfully to reclaimthe English and Scottish throne. He came tobe known as “the Old Pretender,” from theFrench word pretendant, which refers to onewho claims something. In 1720, James had ason, named Charles, who came to be knownas “the Young Pretender”—and as “BonniePrince Charlie.”

In a letter describing the young prince,his cousin wrote, “He could, at the age of sixand a half, read fluently … ride, fire a gun,and … take a cross bow and split a rollingball ten times in succession.” He spokeFrench, English, and Italian perfectly andlater learned enough Gaelic to hold aconversation with his Highland troops.

Charlie invaded Scotland in 1745, ralliedthe support of the Highland clans, occupiedEdinburgh, defeated the army of GeneralJohn Cope at the Battle of Gladsmire, andthen made the mistake of turning south intoEngland. His army did not succeed inEngland and headed back to Scotland. Histroops dwindled, and he was chased by theEnglish Duke of Cumberland. The duke,who had a reputation as a ruthless man, waswell fed, well armed, and had plenty ofsoldiers fighting for him.

21Teacher’s Guide

Since a lot of the Scottish troops hadgone by the wayside, Irish soldiers joined theBonnie Prince’s band. Charlie was advised tofight the duke on April 16, 1746 at a placecalled Culloden. Learning that the 15th ofApril was the duke’s birthday, Charlie’s armyrode toward the duke’s camp with plans tocatch his men off guard after too muchcelebrating. But then the commandersrealized that the army couldn’t make it tothe camp in time. The troops turned aroundand marched back to the field at Culloden,arriving exhausted, starved, and under-equipped. The duke showed up as originally“scheduled” with 9,000 men and proceededto slaughter the prince’s army, then beganburning Scottish homes and killing ScottishHighlanders wherever he and his men couldfind them.

Prince Charlie escaped the battlefield,hidden by his faithful Scots as he made hisway toward the boat that took him toFrance. He left the country without thecrown and died in Rome in 1788.

Many of the Scots, Irish, and Englishwho had gone to Northern Ireland to findbetter lands migrated to America. TheLowland Scots who migrated to Ireland andto the colonies were later called the Scots-Irish or Scotch-Irish. Many arrived in the1840s, when the potato famine forced themto leave their homelands.

The Scots-Irish brought with them theirways, their tales, and their dances andstories. Lowland Scots and Highland Scotswere different, but they shared the commonhistory. They were adaptable and inventive,creating what they needed to live, whetherthat be something carved from wood,hammered on the blacksmith’s anvil, orgrown on the steep blue hillsides of this newcountry. They entertained themselves withthe old songs, stories, and singing gamesthat tell the tales of historic connectionsbetween this new country and the lords,ladies, servants, kings, queens, giants, andprinces of the Old World from which theycame.

Over the River To Feed My Sheep

By Anndrena Belcher

What is it that makes one person searchso hard to find his or her own origins andanother have no interest in history, gene-alogy, or the past? I have to admit, I am anincurable romantic: I have always had a keendesire to know where I come from, to knowmy story and how I fit into the making ofhistory. Maybe that drive to know came frommy own uprooting, or migration experience,in the 1950s, when my family moved fromthe mountains of Kentucky to the skyscrap-ers of Chicago.

Many years later, after I settled back inthe mountains, my Granny Leon Belcherused to take car trips back to Chicago withme. Just the two of us, we’d ride and talk.Granny would tell me things about her lifeand we’d sing. My Grandpaw Rudy never wascrazy about music, so my Granny didn’t singa lot unless he was out of the house.

As we drove the hills, we also rode thejourney of time as my Grandmother remem-bered bits and pieces of old songs. She’dforgotten a lot of the songs because she “fellout of practice,” not singing them as often asshe used to. But it didn’t take a lot to whetmy imagination. Images of love (often falselove), death, deception, and murder stuck inmy mind’s eye never to be erased!

She sang about a “bird in a silver cage”hangin’ in the tree branches, a man named“Lovin’ Henry” down on his knee, a “browngirl,” a “little finger,” a “knife through herheart and her heart’s blood did flow.”

The past has had a hold on me since Iwas a little girl. I have the images of myGrandmother Mollie’s homemade dressesand my Grandaddy Glenn’s overalls andsweat-stained Stetson hat in my mind, butalso in my body and soul.


Before the Program

1. Have students find Scotland andEngland on a world map. On a smaller-scale map, find some of the placesnamed in Prince Charlie’s story. LocateCumberland Gap and the AppalachianMountains in the United States,Culloden in Scotland, Westminster inEngland, and Ulster in Ireland.

2. Make a list of the places students wereborn, places they have lived, and placesthey have visited. Have students find outwhere their parents and grandparentswere born, lived, worked, visited, orserved in the military. Locate thoseplaces on a map. How did CumberlandGap in Kentucky get its name?

3. Have students write down where theirheroes were born or where they live orwork today. Ask them where they wouldlike or not like to live. Why or why not?Talk about the people who live in thoseplaces.

I used to eat Wheaties for breakfast. As Isat at the table in the little apartment onMontrose and Magnolia avenues in Chicago,I stared at the Milnot cream can, which heldits place by the coffee cups each morning.There was a picture of a can on the can label.Inside that can was another can, and an-other can, and another can! It went onforever! I could never see to the very last canin the picture, but I swear I never stoppedtryin’.

So it is with history, with music andsong and dance. So it is with Charlie! When Iasked Jean Ritchie where the play partygames and old singing games came from,she answered, “Oh, I suppose the countriesthat the people came from. England, Scot-land, Ireland, and Wales. But some of themwere made up after people got here, I guess.”Aha! More stories of migration! She contin-ued, “‘Over the River To Feed My Sheep’—this harks back to Bonnie Prince Charliefrom Scotland.”

Children of Jean’s family and families inother mountain communities were playinggames and making songs and dances thatcarried over the traditions of the British Islescultures from which their families, neigh-bors, or playmates came. So it is that thechildren of Jean’s family danced and sang anold song for the Bonnie Prince as they sang,“Charlie’s neat and Charlie’s sweet, andCharlie he’s a dandy.…”


23Teacher’s Guide

Weevily Wheat Instructions(See the video for a demonstration.)

Lyrics

Charlie’s neat, Charlie’s sweet,Charlie he’s a dandyCharlie he’s the very ladThat stole my stri-ped candy.

Chorus:Over the river to feed my sheepOver the river, CharlieOver the river to feed my sheepAnd to measure up my barley.

My pretty little pink, I once did thinkI never could do without you;Since I lost all hopes of youI care very little about you!

Repeat ChorusDon’t want your wheat, don’t want your

cheat,and neither do I want your barley—But I’ll take a little of the best you’ve gotTo bake a cake for Charlie!

Repeat ChorusRepeat lyrics from the beginning.

Movements

Join hands and circle left.Continue.Circle right.Continue back to original positions.

Grand right and left, head couple leading.Continue until dancers are back in place. (Youmay have to repeat the chorus.)

Head couple sashays down to bottom of setand back.

Grand right and left, as before.Cast lines: Head lady leads off to left, and

other ladies follow her. Head gent leads off toright, and other gents follow. Head couplemeet at bottom and make an arch with theirarms. Other couples go under, then back up tohead of set. Head couple stays at bottom.

Grand right and left, as before.Same dance, now with new head couple.



1. Who are the most important people inthe making of history? Ask students tothink about people they might besinging about when they are 30 yearsold. Have students make up songs ordances about their heroes.

2. Have students choose a current songwith a message about today that theythink they will be singing ten years fromnow. Why has the song about BonniePrince Charlie lasted as long as it has?

3. After reading about Prince Charlie, dostudents think there might be anyremains of some old culture in theirfamily history, language, sayings, andtraditions? Have the class work togetherto compile a list of questions to askfamily members about their traditions,family gatherings, dances, language,stories, work, wars, community service,and talents.

What are the most important thingstheir families taught them? What willthey think is important enough to teachtheir children someday? Do they thinktheir answers to these questions willchange as they get older?

After the Program

Finding Out More

1. Did any students in your class (or theirancestors) migrate from the mountainsof Appalachia? From what other places,inside and outside the U.S., did studentscome? Are any students Native Ameri-cans? Who are their heroes? Are theydifferent from the heroes of the whitesettlers in this country? Are theydifferent from heroes of students whomoved to the U.S. from other countries?How many students can dance a tradi-tional dance from their own culture?

2. Do the students’ families have anyspecial costumes, artifacts, jewelry, orphotographs that help them celebratewho they are? Ask students to bring inphotographs or items unique to theircultures.

Talking About It

1. Ask students to tell what they think astereotype is. Where do stereotypescome from? Why? Are heroes stereo-typed? Are family heroes stereotyped? Bywhom? What are some of the stereo-types of a hero? What are some of thestereotypes of students? Of familymembers? Of the places they live?

Did the English stereotype the High-landers? What was the stereotype theygave them? Did the Highlanders stereo-type the English? What images in thestory about Bonnie Prince Charliebecame stereotypical?

2. Who were the heroes in Charlie’s story?Who were the villains? Why? Tell thesame story from an English perspective.


25Teacher’s Guide

Context

The Zuni People

The Zunis (Ah-Shiwi) are Pueblo Indianswho live on the Zuni Reservation in thenorthwest part of New Mexico. They mi-grated to the general location of the currentreservation about 1,000 years ago. Many ofthe early sites were abandoned as tribesmoved from one area to another in search ofbetter opportunities for farming and hunt-ing.

The Zuni people first came in contactwith non-Indians in 1539 when Fray Marcos,a Spaniard, took possession of the Indianprovince in the name of the king of Spain.The following year, a Spanish army led byCoronado subdued the Zuni villages knownthen as the “Seven Cities of Cibole,” thoughtto be the fabled seven cities of gold.

Many Zuni pueblos, or villages, werescattered so far apart and in such remoteareas along the Rio Grande and ColoradoRiver that the Spanish made very littleattempt to colonize the area. They did,however, attempt to convert the Zunis toCatholicism, establishing a mission atHawikuh, the main Zuni village in the early1500s. One mission built in another Zunivillage is still in use today.

Spain maintained control of the regionfrom 1539 until 1821. Then Mexico ruledthe land until 1848. At the close of theMexican War, the Zuni land became part ofthe United States. The Zuni Reservation wasestablished by executive order of the U.S.government in 1877.

In prehistoric times, social, religious,and economic life were integrated, and thedominant authority was vested in thereligious group known as Casiques. TheSpaniards established a new system with aPueblo Council, consisting of a governor, alieutenant governor, and six officials calledtenientes, to regulate civil affairs. Theseofficers were appointed by the religiousleaders until 1935, when provisions of theIndian Reorganization Act directed that new

PROGRAM 4

Zuni HarvestDances

featuring:Anndrena Belcher, hostArden Kucate, instructor

Arden Kucate teaches students twodances performed in the traditional ZuniHarvest Dance, an annual tribal celebration.In Zuni tradition, singers, dancers, anddrummers practice for four nights, withguidance from elders of the tribe. Thistraining serves an important role in preserv-ing and passing along traditions of the tribe.During the four days, a great deal of workgoes into preparing costumes for the danceand food for the feast to follow.

On the day of the dance, as many as 500visitors and members of the tribe watch the500 performers of all ages present four setsof dances, with breaks between. While theycelebrate the harvest, members of the tribealso enjoy making new friends and renewingacquaintances.


leaders be elected by the vote of the people.Present Zuni government was based on thestructure of the United States government.An elected tribal council represents mem-bers of the Zuni Pueblo on all tribal matters.

The Harvest Dancein Zuni Culture

After harvesting all the crops that havegrown over the summer, the Zuni people areready to celebrate a productive growingseason and the end of many months of hardwork. Kiva (religious) leaders meet to decideon a date for the Harvest Dance. In thisdance, the Zuni people honor the earth andgather the community for a celebration ofthe harvest.

After setting a date, kiva leaders choosethose who are to be in charge of invitingyoung and old dancers and preparing danceregalia for the female dancers. During thenext four days, the people in charge of thedancing make plans and invite the dancersto meet and prepare for the dance. Theygather at a kiva, an underground roomgenerally used for sacred rituals and specialmeetings.

Participants gather at the kiva everynight to recite all the songs they will danceto and to practice dancing. The older menpatiently teach new dancers how to moveand how to keep in step with their partnersand work with new drummers who needhelp keeping the beat. After each night ofpractice, the men in charge make sure thegirls are taken home, since they are respon-sible for them.

These evening practice sessions areimportant not only for learning the songsand dances, but also for learning to sitpatiently and listen carefully. Dancers mustlearn the drum beats and the breaks byheart, a process that helps participants reallyenjoy the spirit of dancing on the actual dayof Harvest Dance.

Daytime is busy, too, as those respon-sible prepare all the dance regalia for thefemales’ headdresses and any other itemsneeded for the dance. The male dancers

usually gather their own things for thedance.

After four days of preparation and nightsof practice comes the day of the actualdance. Everyone taking part comes to thekiva, dressed in their finest jewelry, hand-woven dance dresses, and kilts. Singerspractice their songs as they wait for everyoneto arrive.

When it’s time to go dance, they formtwo lines inside the kiva, placing all thedancers in their appropriate places beforethey go out into the plaza.

People congregating at the plaza talkand laugh as they prepare for the feast. Oncethe singers and dancers reach the plaza, thedance begins. There are usually four sets ofsongs/dances with breaks in between. Afterthe dancers come out for the fourth time,the families bring all sorts of food to theplaza for everyone to feast on. Before anyonestarts eating, though, the religious leadersand others there give bits and pieces of foodto Mother Earth as offerings for another yearof prosperous crops and longevity.

After the feast, the dancing continuesthrough the afternoon until the leadersdecide it is time to end the dance.

Before the Program

For Multicultural Understanding

Have students talk about the commonstereotype of an American Indian. In whatways is it accurate? In what ways is it not?Do all Indians wear war bonnets and live intepees? How do students feel about stereo-types?

Study the cultures of several differentgroups, including Appalachians, AfricanAmericans, and Native Americans. What isunique to each? (Their habitats? Food? Art?)What basic needs are common to all people?What characteristics are common to allpeople? What’s good about our similarities?What’s good about our differences?


27Teacher’s Guide

Preparing for the Dance

1. Have students learn about crops grownin New Mexico and the challenges ofraising crops in a dry area. What cropsare grown in your region? When arethey harvested? Do the students’ parentsor grandparents have any storiesconnected to a successful harvest?

2. Have students make shakers fromgourds that grow in their area or othersource materials. Be sure to incorporatedesigns from nature, such as the starand flower images Arden describes.

3. Have students make the flower bundlesfor the girls to carry in the dance.

Zuni Harvest DancesInstructions(See the video for a demonstration.)

The Line Dance

This Zuni harvest dance is a social dancein which participants form two lines,preferably lined up boy/girl, boy/girl, facingeach other. After the three initial drumbeats,everyone starts dancing in place—1-2-1-2,to the beat of the drum.

The first male dancer in each line leadsthe rest of the dancers in his line. When thelead dancers are ready to start their linesmoving, they move their right arms forwardand rattle their gourds steadily (like thesound of a rattlesnake) to signify that it istime to make a half turn.

Now that he is facing the oppositedirection, he steps forward and beginsdancing sideways to his left. All of thedancers in his line will dance up to the placewhere their lead made a turn, then turn andfollow him down the other side. When theline leader stops dancing sideways, turns,and begins dancing back the other way, theothers in his line will continue dancingsideways to that spot, then turn and followthe leader.

Once lead dancers reach their originalpositions, they can dance in place until thesong is over.

Lyrics for Line Dancein Zuni/Shiwi

Note: Arden Kucate wrote this song inhonor of his visit to Kentucky. He sings inShiwi, the language of the Zuni people.

(,) indicates a break between drumbeats (___) indicates where dancers take four

steps into the center and four steps back out

First Verse

Ooh-we-na-ha-yea-we-na-ha-yea-eeh,chim-dee-ya-dow-kwa-yee-p,

Meh-eh-lee-kya-ah-t/sana-ha-swiw-ah-one-deh-na-wok-kya-oh-dee-weh-

Hey-na-ya-aye-nah-ah-hey-ha-ya-aye-na-ah, ___

Chim-dee-ya-dow-kwa-yee/p, meh-eh-lee-hya-ah-t/sana-ah-shiw-ah-one-deh-na-

wok-kya-oh-dee-weh-hey-na-ya-aye-na-hey-na-ya-aye-na,

Second Verse

Hee-ya-eh-luu-ooh-na-ya-eh-luu-ooh-ya-aye-na-aye-na-aye-na-ya-aye-na-aye-na-aye-na-way,-ah-ha-ah-ha-ha-ah-e-he-yee-he-yee-hey-ya-i-yee-yea-i-yee-

ya-hey-ahh-ah-ha-way-ah-ya-yo-oh-ho-wei-na-ya-ah-ee-ehh-meh-ehh-ah-hey-na-hi-oh-wee-na-ha-yeh-ehh-oh-wee-na-ha-yea-we-na-ha-yea-eh,-wee, na, yeh.

Dancing in Place

Dancers again form two lines, facingeach other, four to six feet apart. Once again,Arden will give three drumbeats to indicateit’s time to start dancing in place. In thissecond song, when dancers hear theirleaders shake the gourd in a steady rattle,they will all dance toward each other.


Dancers need to listen carefully for fourdistinctive strong beats, which tell them toshake their gourds or flowers four times,each time farther away from their bodies,toward the other line and slightly down.

They also need to listen carefully forvariations in the drumming rhythm orspeed.

Lyrics for Second Dancein Zuni/Shiwi

(,) indicates a break between drum-beats

(*) indicates synchronized full armmovement forward during drum breaks

(^) indicates arm movement to theside of the shoulder up and down four times (___) indicates that dancers take foursteps into the center and four steps back out

Oooh-hu-hu-wah*, -eh-heh-eh-lu-ooh*, -ooh-hu-hu-way-ha-way-ah-haweh*,

Ah-hey-ah-ha-way-ah-hay-ah-wee-yah*—ya-ya-ah-ya-weh-ya*, -ah-heh-nee-ya*, -

Wee-yah*-ya-ya-ah-ya-wey-ya*, -ah-hey-nee-ya*, -^hey,-iya,-hey,-ah-ah-ha-

Ha-way-ah-ha-ah*, -i-ya-lulu-she-yee*, -I-ya-lulu-she-yee*, -iya*, -hey*, -

Ah*, iya*, hey-ah*, -ha-wey*, ___ah-hey-ah-ha-way-ah-hay-aaah-hay-ah-

ya-yey-ah-aah-ha-ha-ee-yee-he-he-yea-he-yea.

After the Program

Finding Out More

1. In the Harvest Dance, line leaders givethe other dancers instructions withoutusing words. What are the advantages ofusing a gourd rattle for communicationin this context? How else might a leaddancer communicate with other dancersin this kind of setting? Have you everwatched the motions of a field referee ina football game? Think of some othersituations in which non-verbal commu-nication would be preferable to talking.

2. In his brief history of the Zuni people,Arden says that the Spanish conqueredseven Zuni villages thinking they werethe “Seven Cities of Cibole,” thought tobe the “seven cities of gold.” Havestudents find out more about theseseven fabled cities.

3. Go to a nursing home or invite elderlymembers of the community to yourclassroom to talk about life when theywere growing up. Ask them to relatesome of their traditions and values. Howhave things changed? What do theythink the future holds?

Talking About It

1. How do most Americans get food today?What did the Zuni people have to do toget food in the early days? What kind oftime and labor were involved in produc-ing food? What kind of natural risks didZuni farmers face? How do modernfarmers harvest crops? How did the Zunifarmers harvest their crops? Aftermonths of planting, nurturing, andprotecting their crops, how do you thinkthey felt to finally harvest them for saleand storage? Would you be ready tocelebrate?


29Teacher’s Guide

2. How are traditions and values handeddown from generation to generation ineach student’s culture? In other culturesthey have studied?

3. Ask students whether they rememberthe story Arden told about the signifi-cance of the gourd. How do Zuni boysget their gourds? Ask students todescribe ways in which they think Zunichildren show respect for their parents.How do American kids show respect fortheir parents? Why is respect important?


1. Arden talks about fetishes—smallwooden or stone figures representinganimals and plants sacred to the Zunis.According to America’s FascinatingIndian Heritage, published by theReader’s Digest Association, “The Zunisbelieved that animals and plants had thepower to act as mediators between manand the forces controlling the universe.These powers also resided in representa-tions of the living things, fetishes theZunis decorated with symbolic markingsas well as animal sinews and feathers.”Have students study more about thespecific significance of various plantsand animals in Indian culture, thencreate their own fetishes sculpted ofsoap or formed of clay.

2. In the biographical information at theend of this book, Arden talks about howhis grandfather makes fetishes tobarter—to trade. Have students studythe barter system in general and Indian“potlatches” in particular. Have themmake various items (food, jewelry, craftitems, etc.) to swap among themselves.

3. Arden talks about the sacred colors ofthe four directions. Have studentsresearch the significance of color amongNative American tribes. Do all tribesplace the same significance on the samecolors? What colors convey specificmeanings in our culture? Talk aboutwhich colors represent specific holidays.Have students collect examples ofcommon expressions using color toconvey an idea (e.g., green with envy,feeling blue, or tickled pink).


Can students make this dance into aring dance, with the whole class stand-ing in a circle while each student takes aturn in the middle? Incorporate words,hand claps, or other rhythmic accompa-niment from the group. What kind of“music” would best suit the dance?

2. Have students make up a dance called“What I’m Going To Do To Shape MyAmerica” in which they take turns goinginto the ring to act out what they wantto do to help make America the countrythey want it to become.

The student in the middle can go toeach person in the circle, face thatperson, and make up a motion to letthat person know what to do to helpmake America better. For example, ifyou want someone to help you get aneducation, you can pretend to bereading a book or working a problem.Once the student demonstrates amotion, everybody in the circle mimicsthat motion. The leader then goes backinto the center of the circle and namessomething else that would help makethe country better—building a house,for example. The leader goes to anotherperson in the circle, creates a motion,and gets that person and everyone elsein the circle to mimic the new motion.Continue around the circle until theleader has approached each person inthe ring. Then take turns letting otherstudents go into the center of the ring.

This dance can be done with one largegroup or several smaller groups. It ismore “community-effective” with onebig group.

Pulling It AllTogether

Connecting the Lessonsto Life

1. Ask students to think about all fourdances they have learned. In what waysare they similar? In what ways are theydifferent? Does one feel any more“natural” than another? Describe whatyou mean.

2. Have students reflect on the threecultures they’ve studied and write adescription of each. Help them make alist of cultures represented in yourcommunity. Invite representatives ofsome of those cultures to speak to yourclass about their history and traditions.Would they be willing to teach a tradi-tional dance, game, or song?

Many traditional songs and dances areassociated with food—in celebration,often of the harvest, or simply in sharingfood at a large social gathering. Helpstudents put together a celebration ofcultural diversity complete with food,music, and dance.

Creating a Dance of Your Own

1. Have students make up a dance called“The Dance of My Self.” They shouldcreate movements to tell about them-selves and their families, their work andplay. They could portray any interestingcharacters in the family or portraythemselves as they will be at age 25, 35,or 75! How will they look? Walk? Move?

31Teacher’s Guide

For Teachers and Older Students(High School)

Read Song of Solomon by ToniMorrison, Plume, published by the PenguinGroup, 1987.

The main character in the novel is ablack boy named Milkman who starts outafter one kind of treasure and discovers adifferent treasure of much greater value.

In trying to figure out why his parentsbehave as they do, Milkman starts piecingtogether his family history. His father’ssister, Pilate, is a strong woman who makesand sells wine. She will defend her daughtersand her household with a butcher knife ifshe has to. Pilate has a sack hanging overthe doorway from the kitchen; Milkman’sfather says there’s gold in it. At the urging ofhis father, Milkman and his best frienddecide to steal the sack and split the profits.Inside the sack, Milkman finds secrets fromhis father’s and his Aunt Pilate’s childhood.

Milkman travels from the Michigan citywhere he was born and raised to the hills ofVirginia, where his father and aunt hadcome from. He gets into all kinds of trouble,goes through culture shock and an initia-tion, and finally pieces together the truth ofhis own story as he watches a group of smallblack children singing, acting out, anddancing a game which retells the story ofMilkman’s great-grandparents and of thosenamed in his family who go back to the timeof slavery.

Thinking he has been betrayed,Milkman’s best friend comes to take hisrightful share of the gold from Pilate’s sack.The money no longer matters to Milkmanbecause he finally knows who he is. He canfly!

This novel is a powerful example thatparallels “Weevily Wheat” in attesting to theroles folklore, games, and “acting out” or“playing” have had in preserving the cul-tures of the “underdogs.” The children ofeach time and society have, in many ways,taken on the role of intergenerationalguardians of the characters, events, andattitudes of life around them. “Out of themouths of babes!”


SomeResources You

Might FindHelpful

Books and Articles

Ain’t You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?(second edition), Guy and CandyCarawan

Celebration of Life, Geordie MusicPublishing Company

The Complete Book of Indian Crafts andLore, W. Ben Hunt

Dancing Is, George Anacona (for youngerchildren)

Down by the Riverside, Charles JoynerExploring the Roots of Appalachian English,

Center for Appalachian Studies andServices, East Tennessee StateUniversity

Flowering on the Cumberlands, HarrietteArnow

Greasybeard: Tales from the Cumberlands,Leonard Roberts

Handbook of American Indians North ofMexico, Fredrick W. Hodge

Handy Play Party Book, World AroundSongs, Burnsville, NCAnHan

Here Is Your Hobby … Indian Dancing andCostumes, William K. Powers

Hullabaloo and Other Singing Folk Games,Richard Chase

The Jacobite Rebellion, Robert McKinnonJean Ritchie’s Swapping Song Book, Jean

RitchieThe Last Stuart: The Life and Times of

Bonnie Prince Charlie, David DaichesThe Laura Ingalls Wilder Songbook,

Eugenia Garson

“Now and Then,” The Appalachian Maga-zine, Summer 1992, Volume 9,Number 2

Sally Go Round the Moon, Nancy and JohnLangstaff

Seedtime on the Cumberlands, HarrietteArnow

Singing Bee, Jane HartSinging Family of the Cumberlands,

University of Kentucky PressSouthern Highlander and His Homeland,

Horace KephartSquare and Folk Dancing, Hank GreeneStep It Down: Games, Plays, Songs and

Stories from the Afro-American Heri-tage, Bessie Jones and Bess LomaxHawes

Zuni Atlas, T.J. FergusonThe Zuni Man-Woman, Will RoscoeThe Zunis, Katherine Dougherty

Recordings

The McLain Family Band Country DanceAlbum: Dances from Appalachia(includes “Goin’ to Boston”)

Childhood Songs by Jean Ritchie

33Teacher’s Guide

there in the store at dinner time and afterschool, too, while waiting on the buses, andthey played the jukebox and danced.

Well, I liked the jukebox music and Iliked to dance, so I put in one nickel afteranother and I danced. I loved it! The big kidsdanced with me, taught me the turns andall. I danced away dinner hour and mywhole week’s lunch money. Danced itA-WAY! Needless to say, Ms. SubstituteTeacher had done the right thing witheverybody else’s money, and every student inmy class except me had a meal ticket for awhole week. Me, I had a whole week’s worthof fun, a worried look on my face, and a sickstomach as I rode the school bus home,knowing I had to tell my mother what I haddone.

My daddy was hauling coal for a living atthe time, and that week’s worth of fun costme dearly knowing that my folks had to findsome more money to give me for the nextfour days of meals. The guilt hung aroundmy neck like an old dead bird. My motherand father were very kind about the wholething, but I knew I had done wrong.

I never pulled that trick again, but I didwait for the third school bus home, andmore than once I waited out the timedancing in that little snack shop with thejukebox blaring out the rock ’n’ roll androckabilly tunes of the day! Even though Iwas shy, when I was dancing nothing elsemattered. I was carried off somewhere else.Play and pretend were part of our daily lives,and dancing was a certain kind of pretend-ing. It didn’t require dialogue, but there wasa degree of bringing forth another self, abeautiful free self, when the music playedand I danced.

My Mamaw Mollie was a member of theOld Regular Baptist Church, and she did notencourage dancing, but she did encourage“play.” She sang and played the concertina,the harmonica, and the organ. She acted outwhatever characters popped into her mind atthe moment, and she gave these characterslife and form with her voice, her gestures,and with the very belief in her eyes—a belief

About thePresenters

Anndrena Belcher

I am from PikeCounty, Kentucky. Iattended the 1stgrade and the firsthalf of 2nd grade atElkhorn CitySchool in ElkhornCity, KY. I alwaysliked school, butmy sister Sherry

and I were kind of bashful. I was always alittle nervous about things. One day, whenmy usual teacher was absent, we had asubstitute teacher and I worried all morningabout whether or not she would know whatto do with the money we were to give herthat day for our weekly lunch tickets. Iremember reminding her several times thatshe was to hand our lunch money over tothe person down in the cafeteria, and thatperson should give each of us a ticket as wewent through the line for this first day’smeal.

Ms. Substitute seemed smart and able,but as dinner time neared I just could notfeel confident about handing over myMommy and Daddy’s hard-earned money toa strange woman. Instead, I held onto mymoney, and when lunch time came I walkedon over to Snead’s Snack Shop (an old storebuilt by the side of the road next to theschool, built up on poles, like a lot of otherstructures in Eastern Kentucky), and I spentmy money on a hot dog with chili, a bag ofpotato chips, and a bottle of pop! I had somemoney left, and I asked for my change backin nickels. I wanted nickels because thejukebox took nickels. The big kids gathered


in magic! A belief which she passed on to uschildren.

My Adkins cousins were great at play. Iloved going to their house down at BeaverBottom, by the Big Sandy River. They maderafts, they swung from trees, they acted outtales in the cornfields. On Sundays, my AuntMarie filled our plates high with green beanspicked and snapped that weekend and sentus to the cellar to tell “scary” tales. Seatedon the potato bins, the least of us wouldlisten as one of my cousins would start in on“Old Raw Head and Bloody Bones”: “Step bystep, inch by inch …” Old Raw Head wouldget closer and closer until we could notstand it any longer! Out the door we ran,into the light, to check and see if we still hadhide. Our imaginations were alive!

We played Smack Hands, Clubfist, RingAround the Rosy, Car, Rotten Egg, and OldBad Wolf. All the games we played incorpo-rated movement, dialogue, dramatic inter-pretation, singing, and “play like,” orpretend. Each game or “play” required asuspension of disbelief. My Mamaw Molliemay not have believed much in dancing, butshe did teach us mimicking and music. Shetaught coordination and helped us developour motor skills using a crochet hook and afine little piece of thread which we learnedso feebly to hold wrapped around our littlepinkie fingers.

My Granny Belcher let us play downunder the little house built on stilts atBelcher, KY. We could use the teensypotatoes from her garden when she dug thebig potatoes out, and she gave us her bestold beat-up metal cooker with water forwashing and peeling our tiny treasures, forwe were playing house. Flat rocks for stoveand kitchen table, old rags, a piece ofclothesline, linoleum in the “island,” all wasfine. Our imaginations were keen!

I was in the second half of 2nd gradewhen my mother and father left me and mysister Sherry with our Mamaw andGranddaddy Mullins and went north toChicago to find work. They both got jobs inthe city and found a little apartment to rent

in a neighborhood called Uptown. Thisneighborhood lay right behind the lakefrontand was easy to get to for incoming mi-grants from all over the world. At one point,out of 90,000 people in the neighborhood,statistics showed that 60,000 were eitherSouthern or Appalachian rural-to-urban “in-migrants.”

After settling into their jobs a little bit,Mother and Daddy came back to the moun-tains to fetch me and my sister and take usto our new place. We waved goodbye to ourold beloved grandfolks and twisted our wayout of the holler road, out to the hardtopand up Route 23, north to the plains, lakes,and concrete streets of one of the mostpowerful industrial centers of post-WorldWar II America.

It was here, in this new environment,that I realized that my family and I were“hillbillies.” The talk of my grandparents—“vittles, vessels, coal drag, and lollygag,”“I hain’t got nary’n,” “There’s a scrimptonof …,” “Don’t be briggity!” and “It vexes mymind”—rang juxtaposed to the standardizedEnglish of the inner-city classrooms. It was“get,” not “git,” and “guitar” with theaccentuation on the second syllable, not“git-tar,” I was told.

Hillbillies come in all colors and nation-alities. I found that out right away! Myfriends from the world over related stories ofhome in the mountains of Puerto Rico,Colombia, Japan and Hawaii, China andThailand, Jamaica and Mexico. Blacks fromthe deep South and from the south side ofChicago—everybody was moving, everybodywas in this city looking for work, hoping fora better life, for an opportunity to be freeeconomically, politically, and racially. Wewere all different from the mainstream,standardized, textbook English language andculture. We were told that we “had to adjust”in order to be successful in this new world.We learned to become bicultural andbilingual! We read, wrote, and spoke thegrammatical structures taught us at school.Then many of us went home and danced,sang, and remembered home in our own

35Teacher’s Guide

farmers, and coal miners. It was obvious tome that these old people knew a lot, yet itappeared that these people were not valuedby the new “standardized” world I was livingin.

My mother and father kept a bunch offamily pictures. On Sunday, when they werenot at work in the factories, we sat in theafternoons and we looked at the pictures andtalked about the past. My sister and I wantedto know the names and stories of the peoplein the photographs. How was it to grow upin a coal camp? What was it like when GreatGrandmaw Susanna ran off on that horsethey gave her for her 13th birthday andmarried Great Grandpaw Tan Stewart? Howdid people make a living farming before thecoal mines ever came into existence? Howwas it that white people came to settle inEastern Kentucky? Where did they comefrom? Which Indians were here before thewhite settlers of my own ancestry? Howcome Great Grandmaw Coleman’s skin wasso dark? Stewarts, Colemans, Vances,Mullinses, Blackburns, Hurlys, Justices,Spears, Belchers—these are the people Icome from. Their words and sayin’s, theirphysical features, their “ways” are a part ofme. And where did they all come from?

Liddy, Nettie, Mollie, Leon, Lena,Susanna, Clara—these are women of mytribe, my clan. These people were part of theland, the mountains where I was born; buttheir ancestors came from some othercountry, most of them, so they, too, comefrom histories of migration. The land theyfarmed wasn’t really “their” land, for nobodycan really “own” land, just as nobody canown the moon. But I realized through myhunger to know my place that I was a part ofa long history of migration and wars andland deals that goes back—way back!

I decided at the age of 12 years that Iwould complete my formal education inChicago, if my family hadn’t moved back tothe mountains, and then I’d return toEastern Kentucky. My high school guidancecounselor told me about a scholarship toBerea College for which I could apply since I

native tongues, accents, and dialects. Welived in two worlds—or more!

Children of all different nationalities andcolors played together. The games anddances came from around the world. We allsang together, “I was goin’ to Kentucky, Iwas goin’ to the fair, I met a señorita with adiamond in her hair! Oh, shake it, shake it,shake it, shake it if you can, shake it like amilkshake, then shake it once again!” Handsheld together in a circle, black, white, red,yellow, and brown found some commonground in the games and dances from home.

My family drove the 600 miles fromChicago back to Pike County at least once amonth. I have probably been up and downRoute 23 and Route 75 about a milliontimes. We left Friday night after my fatherand mother got off work. We drove all nightto get to the wood cookstoves, warm kitch-ens, and front porches of our kin. My sisterand I got to play the old games with ourcousins and then, with souls refueled, weheaded north on Sunday so that my folkscould get back to work in time for theirshifts in the factories.

Summers saw me and my sister playin’in my Mamaw Mollie’s yard, sniffin’ theflowers over in the little orchard as myGranddaddy sat beneath whitewashed appletrees and smoked—his dark, leatheredhands locked into finger cages as he lookedout on the blue mountains of that darkholler.

Home was the mountains! We lived inthe city, but home was Laurel Branch, myMamaw’s house, and the strip of land downby the river at Belcher, where my Grannykept Bleedin’ Hearts and yellow bells andpeonies on the little scratchy bank down offunder the curve of the road that led toElkhorn City and the Breaks of the moun-tains between Virginia and Kentucky.

As a “shook-up” hillbilly child tryin’ tounderstand where I belonged and who I was,I had a strong desire to look back—back tothe mountains; to the pictures, words, andways of my mother and father; back to mygrandparents, who were old-time poets,


was an Appalachian “transplant.” I appliedand was awarded a scholarship from the W.Clement Stone Foundation. I was thankfulfor an opportunity to “go home.”

Berea was not exactly the mountains,but it was in Kentucky. Loyal Jones, recentdirector of the Appalachian Studies Center atBerea College, says that when he talks aboutme he says, “Yes, Anndrena was the one whocame to Berea and didn’t like it!” He alsoremembers me as being feisty, something Inever identified myself with. But, alas,dancing! Berea College held regular folkdances and tryouts for the country dancers. Iwas not good enough at those dances to be aperforming country dancer, but one thingthat really impressed me at Berea was awonderful folksinger, performer, and EasternKentucky songbird named Jean Ritchie.

I saw Jean at one of the concerts in thechapel. She reminded me so much of thesinging and of the ways of talking of myMamaw Mollie and my Grannie Leon. Shetook me home in her songs, and once sheand her sister, Edna, got some people up onstage and they demonstrated a “play party.”

I really liked the singing games butdidn’t learn any of them until I moved backto the mountains in 1976 and startedmaking the acquaintance of Tom Bledsoeand Rich Kirby. Tom and Rich traveledaround together in a band (JohnMcCutcheon was a part of that band for awhile) and taught the play parties they hadlearned from Jean Ritchie and Edna RitchieBaker. I guess they saw these played atFamily Folk Week at Hindman SettlementSchool in Knott County, Kentucky. Oh,dancing!

This was dancing to singing accompani-ment, and this dancing could be donewithout a jukebox … and without money …and without what so many churches named“the devil’s instrument,” that dreaded tool offrivolity, the fiddle. The dances reminded meof London Bridge, Ring Around the Rosy,Little Sally Saucer, and Goin’ to Kentucky,yet I had never heard of them being playedaround where I lived, at least not by myfamily.

As I found ways to incorporate the playparties into teacher and student workshops,I got more and more requests for the gameson video. Since many people never have theexperience of attending a community danceor festival which teaches the old dances andplay parties, there seemed to be a need toput these old-time community gatheringactivities into a medium which could beshared by modern-day folks everywhere.

People who dance together, people whosing together, play an important role inbuilding a new world community. Playinggames and dancing in one cultural commu-nity pulls together the individuals in thatcommunity. People of different culturalcommunities who get together and learnone another’s dances and games are thread-ing together these various world communi-ties into a common, yet distinctly fibrous,human community weave. This is whatDancing Threads is all about!

Arden Kucate

I was born inZuni, New Mexicoin June of 1956.Shortly after, mygrandparents tookme under their carebecause of mymother’s poorhealth.Grandmama and

Grandpapa were living at a nearby farmingvillage called Nutria.

Back then, in Nutria, we had no electric-ity and no running water. While I wasgrowing up, I saw how everyone was alwaysbusy—tending to their gardens, cornfields,wheat fields, bean fields, and taking care oftheir horses and livestock. I can remembermy grandmother picking me up on her backand taking me to her garden in the morning.I would stay there ’til noon while she andGrandpapa worked in their garden.

37Teacher’s Guide

Nowadays, in our modern environment,I continue to carry on traditional practices inour family. In order for our children torecognize and appreciate these traditionalvalues, they must see them within our familystructure. This structure seems to diminishamong the younger generations due to themodern influence. Then again, there wereprophecies indicating the earth wouldbecome old when children of every ethnicrace would no longer care for the world.

I always am involved with traditionalactivities like my forefathers were. I teachyoung people who really want to learn abouttheir culture and religion so that they, too,can walk in beauty with a clear sense of theiridentity.

I’ve come across opportunities to go outand give presentations to schools. My mostrecent trip was to Kentucky and Virginia,where we did cultural presentations forAppalachian communities. I have a full-timejob here in Zuni, while I continue practicingtraditional life. I am also a fetish carver whenI have time to sit down and work at it. Otherthan that, I like to go hunting and fishingwith my kids.

Paula Larke

Paula Larkedescribes herself as“a witness to thescripture: ‘Theharvest is great butthe laborers arefew.’” And, sheadds, “It’s time totrain up some morelaborers.”

Whether using rap to stop violence andself-destructive attitudes or stand-up comedyto tease a stubborn citizenry out of age-oldprejudices, Paula is running at full speed,spending time and money in every direction.

In Lexington, KY, she is advising a teamof young people interested in starting andrunning an ecumenical, intercultural

When I was about 4 years old,Grandpapa would take me to the corn orwheat fields on horseback or by wagon. Hewould explain to me that every crop we grewhad a meaning and that these plants shouldbe cared for just as we would take care of ababy—talking to them to help them grow aswe took care of them. We always had aprosperous crop.

During our wheat harvest, we wouldround up several horses. We would placewagon loads of wheat on a nice clean roundsandstone area. The horses would go aroundand around until the wheat was cleanedfrom the chaff. These crops could be used tobarter for things we needed.

Of course, in the winter time we wouldgo back to Zuni during the winter solsticefor our religious ceremonies. The elderlypeople used to congregate after supper backthen. I can remember sitting nearby,listening to the grandpas talk about everyaspect of life they had endured and theongoing changes that would come about forthe land and its people.

This is where I learned a lot of ancientphilosophy. To this day I feel very fortunatethat I was able to grow up among the elderlypeople (some of them actually lived to bemore than 100 years old) to learn myculture and religion deep within my soul.

When I was about 6, my mom came outto Nutria and told my grandparents that itwas time for me to go to school. That meantI had to move to Zuni. This was the hardestpart of my life, since I was so used to livingout in the country. The very worst part wasthat I had to go to a school where almostevery aspect of what I learned from myelders was forbidden. Anything relating toour Native American religion and belief wasconsidered bad, from their perspective. Wewould be punished if we didn’t abide by theirman-made rules.

As I grew into my teens, I went with mygrandfather on trips to other tribes to barterfor items with his fetishes. Grandpa couldnever pick up English, but he was able tospeak at least four other languages.


coffeehouse—though coffee is not thesubstance but the concept; they will prob-ably serve juices or herb teas.

Not satisfied with the model of adult-runyouth activities, Paula is forming a team ofbusiness and education community volun-teers to teach and monitor the operation.Parents are major players in the design, butonly as aware and involved supporters. Theyoung people are running the show;grownups are the helpers.

In addition, she is “Mama” to a teentutoring center, recommending tutors andholding “attitude-adjusting” culture circlesof discussion and learning for the teenparticipants.

A native of North Carolina, Paulaspreads herself thin, monitoring programsand performing throughout the country forChristian youth groups, schools, communitycenters, museums, and festivals.

“My popularity is God-given,” saysPaula. “It amazes me that so many peopleagree with my message, yet find so few

artists able to put it across to children andadults alike. There is a hunger for commonsense and exhortations to righteous living.But few people, it seems, have contemplatedthe difference between righteousness andbeing self-righteous.”

Whatever the reasons, Paula is on theroad more than she would like, taking thelove and joy found in her journey andsharing the pain and frustration all peoplefeel in their daily efforts just to “get along”with each other.

“My family in Alabama rarely sees me,”Paula says. “But we talk frequently thanks tothe telephone. That’s more than my grandfa-ther could do with his family back in theteens and ’20s.”

39Teacher’s Guide

Documents

see “final DT cover“ for cover design€¦ · Weevily Wheat Instructions ..... 23 After the Program .....24 Finding Out More Talking About It Showing What They’ve Learned Program