We're continuing the Homegrown Plus Premiere series with Tlacuatzin Son Huasteco, a trio playing one of the traditional music styles of eastern Mexico, known as son huasteco or huapango music; As is usual for the series, this blog post includes an embedded concert video, an interview video, and a set of related links to explore!
Son huasteco music is built around two variants of the guitar, the jarana and the quinta huapanguera, as well as the violin and the voice. Son huasteco singing employs a distinctive falsetto style. Improvisation plays a strong role in this music, with each group adding their own lyrics and arrangements to a standard repertoire of songs. The result is acoustic string-band music that is both traditional and contemporary, with direct emotional appeal.
A photo in the Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division (known colloquially around the institution as P & P) shows white men in formal attire, sitting row upon row at tables, apparently waiting to be served. The caption, which came to us with the photo itself, is “’Possum’ dinner tendered to President-elect William Howard …
This is the third in a series of posts about folklife related to the Virginia Opossum, the only marsupial native to the United States. Find the series here! In 1910, Maggie Pogue Johnson, an African American woman from Virginia, published a dialect poem about classic African American cuisine, or what we would today call “soul food.” …
This is the second in a series of posts about folklife related to the Virginia Opossum, the only marsupial native to the United States. (Find the whole series here!) The first post looked at the history of the phrase “Awesome Possum.” Future posts will look at songs, stories, and foodways related to the animal. But …
This is the first of a series of blog posts celebrating Didelphis virginiana, commonly known as the North American opossum. (Find the whole series here!) This cat-sized nocturnal animal is the only new world marsupial that lives north of Mexico, and therefore the only marsupial native to the United States. In most American dialects of …
If you’re curious about modern holiday beliefs and calendar customs, you might be reading or doing research about them online. Chances are, you come across some stories that the presenters claim are ancient, and reach into the pre-Christian past. One popular story you might have seen recently involves the origin of the Easter Bunny. Essentially, …
Note: Some of this research, and an interview with the author, is being included in a report on CBS Sunday Morning, which should air Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016. While I was doing the research for my recent blog post on the history of the Easter Bunny, I noticed that the Library of Congress has …
The Easter Bunny, like Santa Claus, is the bringer of gifts on a popular American holiday. Throughout the country, the swift little creature is said to deliver decorated eggs to children on Easter. In some variants of this story, the bunny is even said to lay eggs, presenting a challenge to biology teachers everywhere! So what’s the story on this odd tradition? Let’s take a look. We'll examine claims that the Easter Bunny is related to a pagan goddess, Eostre or Ostara. We'll also look at the origin of the Easter Bunny in Pennsylvania Dutch and German traditions, including the Easter Hare.
In my last post, I discussed the more serious side of songs about Noah’s ark. As I mentioned, though, there are other songs too, often with more celebratory messages–or even silly ones. We’ll look at some of those Noah songs in this post. Celebratory songs tend to focus on the joy felt by Noah when …
