Smithsonian Folklife

“I think when you live in a language, you live with a different view of life, a different philosophy,” says Dakota-Hidatsa storyteller Mary Louise Defender Wilson.

Born and raised on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, 1999 National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow Defender-Wilson grew up steeped in the Dakota language and the traditional stories of her people. A revered elder, she tells stories that vividly capture tribal ways of life, creation myths, and animal tricksters. Her tales speak powerfully to living in harmony with others and to deep connections to the land.

Through teaching and telling the old stories, she endeavors to preserve the Dakota language for the young people of her tribe and to instill a sense of pride in their cultural heritage and identity.

"The entire life I've come through so far with our stories has helped me relate to, communicate with, and respect other people because I relate to, communicate with, and respect my own culture."

In addition to creating a radio program to teach the Siouan language, Defender-Wilson has shared the art of Dakotah storytelling through the North Dakota Council on the Arts Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, delivered lecture demonstrations across the region, and guided teachers in Dakotah-Hidatsa storytelling and cultural heritage. She has noted that the true fulfillment of her work lies not in public accolades but in understanding the importance of her stories and passing them on to others.


Photo by Tom Pich

The concept of the “teenager”—along with the ideas, misconceptions, concerns, and beliefs it evokes—was officially introduced to the American public in the 1920s. Since then, American culture has not been the same.

This summer, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival brings students from the Museum of Contemporary American Teenagers to the National Mall. This local group will present performances, discussions, and demonstrations that explore topics as varied as “third spaces,” social media, fashion, slang, and coming of age. True to its values, MoCAT will also explore pressing topics such as school lockdowns and mental health, presenting them from the perspective of young advocates and activists.

Learn more about MoCAT at the Festival, and save the dates for July 2–7: https://s.si.edu/3Dq1BvW

“Our ancestors did not have the benefit of Google or David Attenborough. They had to make sense of these mountains, forests, seas. They had to make sense of tragedies.”

In Ireland, storytellers have long carried folktales as one way to sustain their language, history, and values. The result is a world of oral tradition filled with both mythical adventures and practical wisdom. The tales are so ingrained, even those non-believers will not touch a fairy tree for fear of a head of white hair—or worse.

Today, technology threatens to steal the reverence for traditional Irish storytelling, with tellers competing against video screens for the minds of audiences. Yet the craft persists, reconnecting audiences to age-old tales twisted to fit a modern world.

“I don’t think folklore is something that stays static,” says storyteller Liz Weir. “Stories change as people change.”

Read more about the evolution of Irish storytelling in Folklife Magazine: https://s.si.edu/3DItVcW

“They live in the forest. We live in the forest. So they are, like, our friends.”

In the Greater Khingan Mountains of Inner Mongolia, China’s last reindeer herders are fighting to protect their vanishing way of life. Historically, the Ewenki people hunted to survive and migrated with reindeer herds, forging a nomadic life as ruggedly demanding as it was rhythmed in nature. After multiple government relocations, only around 200 Ewenki keep reindeer today, and most herders live in government-sponsored resort towns.

But Yuguo Suo, at age thirty, keeps his family homestead in the forest, letting his reindeer roam freely in the frigid winter. He invites visitors—including fans of his TikTok account and our intern Hope Zhu—on heritage tours of his camp, including home-cooked meals and close encounters with the reindeer.

Read Hope’s account of her forest visit and more about Ewenki herder culture in Folklife Magazine: https://s.si.edu/3FH6XDv

Photos courtesy of Yuguo Suo and by Hope Zhu / Map by Taina Cunion

“The audience can’t see your performance, so they must hear it,” says Marlena Crowell, a voice-over artist and actor in Los Angeles.

Voice acting is a performing art and skill in which actors use their voice alone to portray a character, breathe life into narration, or create sound effects. Many types of media need voice acting, from audiobooks and video games to workplace training videos, animated TV shows, translated movies, and podcasts.

“When recording for a role, I do my best to remember the context of the scene, and most importantly, how my character is supposed to feel in the scene,” says Thomas Wallace, former president of the George Mason University Voice Acting Club. “One of the main difficulties of voice acting is the lack of visual feedback, so, if my character is sad, I have to try and portray that as best as I can with sound.”

Today, on National Voice-Over Day, learn more about the art and occupational culture of voice acting in Folklife Magazine: https://s.si.edu/3XwVoow

Who needs a filter when Holi does the job perfectly?

Often called "The Festival of Colors," Holi is a vibrant Hindu festival celebrated predominantly in India and Nepal, though its radiant spirit has reached people worldwide. It marks the onset of spring, celebrates the Hindu god Krishna, and is associated with several Hindu legends.

Holi celebrations take place over two days—today, Rangwali Holi, the second day, people will go into the streets to throw colorful powder and water with loved ones and communities.
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📸: Photo of the crowd with blue powder is courtesy of Poras Chaudhary. Photo of the bus in the crowd is courtesy of Chetan Soni. Both images are a part of the Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Archives.

“Find things you love and are passionate about, but don’t be afraid. Be curious, and don’t prejudge.”

After five decades of cultural heritage work around the world, Frank Proschan is full of advice for future folklorists. Now, our longtime collaborator has made a generous endowment to fund future interns in the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives.

As a teenager, Proschan attended the very first Smithsonian Folklife Festival, where he was inspired by the “potpourri of the mainstream American folk traditions.” Later, he advocated for the creation of the Archives, conducted fieldwork across Southeast Asia for our Center, and curated programs for the Festival.

Learn more about Proschan’s extensive community work and the new internship endowment in Folklife Magazine: https://s.si.edu/3R9C4Ko

Photos:
1) Proschan speaks at the fiftieth anniversary Festival in 2017. Photo by Joe Furgal, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
2) Proschan and other Center staff join Khmu participants of the 1985 Festival for a ceremonial meal. Photo by Eric Long, Smithsonian
3) Proschan sips traditional rice wine with Khmu friends in Pateung village, Thailand, 1992. Photo courtesy of Frank Proschan, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

Skilled craftspeople in the traditional building trades play a vital role in preserving our nation’s built environment and cultural heritage.

This summer, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival will feature some of the masters and apprentices who carry on this centuries-old traditional knowledge: stone carvers, decorative painters, preservation carpenters, stone masons, blacksmiths, ornamental plasterers, and many others.

“I think it’s so important that humans create beautiful things for other humans to enjoy,” says Tatum Connor, a stone carving student at the American College of the Building Arts. “It’s an expression of our human nature. It’s something that connects all of us together.”

Learn more about “Next Generation Artisans in the Traditional Building Trades,” part of the “Youth and the Future of Culture” program, and save the dates for July 2–7: https://s.si.edu/4hcOXhv

Photos:
1) Tatum Connor and master stone carver Joseph Kincannon. Photo by Lindsey Cockburn
2) National Park Service Traditional Trades Advancement Program interns restore Pueblo masonry walls at Mesa Verde National Park. Photo courtesy of NPS / Lim
3) National Trust for Historic Preservation HOPE Crew outside the restored Armstrong School in Macon County, Alabama. Photo courtesy of Jordan Lamar
4) Head stone mason Joe Alonso and journeyman stone mason and carver Brianna Castelli at the Washington National Cathedral. Photo by Marjorie Hunt, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

Deep in the rolling country hills of Ozark County, Missouri, Amelia LaMair works to grow crops and community. Her efforts are found through goats and a farm-sized garden, and a sense of community that—like the vegetables she raises—is intentional.

Her home, Flotsam Farm, is in a rugged, isolated part of the region, but it’s a destination for folks to gather: for ongoing, organized events, education, music performances, and other life-enriching moments that may not make a profit in dollars but do in quality of life.

“I feel confident that we’re doing something good in the world, and it’s a way of rebalancing things and redistributing wealth,” she says.

Read more about LaMair’s community work in a new Folklife Magazine feature by Kaitlyn McConnell, founder of Ozarks Alive and curatorial team member of the 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival program on the Ozarks: https://s.si.edu/3DoIwKo

Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell

Want to help tell the stories from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage?

Our Folklife Storytellers Workshop is an internship program that offers a professional skill-building and exchange experience for students and recent graduates interested in producing multimedia content for Folklife Magazine, the Folklife Festival Blog, and social media channels. In 2025, the workshop will focus on storytelling from the Festival program, “Youth and the Future of Culture.”

These six-month internships will be full-time and in person in D.C. from June to August 2025 and part-time September to November 2025. Applicants should express interest in one of two tracks: Social Media & Video Editing or Writing. Applications are due April 1.

Learn more and apply: folklife.si.edu/jobs

📷: Storytelling interns Ned Driscoll, Ali Ali, and Trinity Le with visual artist and skater Keith Secola, Jr. (Northern Ute/Anishinaabe) at the 2024 Festival. Photo by Stanley Turk, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

Today is more than just a date on the calendar—it's a day to honor the incredible contributions of women around the globe. This , we are highlighting 2015 National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow Mary Lee Bendolph and the other quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend.

"My mother taught me. She started me off piecing quilts. I wanted her to let me piece quilts with the machine, but she wouldn’t do that. She gave me a needle and some little pieces."

The community of Boykin, Alabama, known to many as Gee’s Bend, is home to some of the most highly regarded quiltmakers in America. These include Mary Lee Bendolph, Lucy Mingo, and Loretta Pettway, three of the chief quilters from the oldest generation of quilters who represent this profound cultural legacy. Described by the New York Times as “some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced,” the quilts are known for their improvisational and inventive quality.

Bendolph, born in 1935, learned to quilt from her mother. She split her time as a child between working in the fields and attending school.

“Folks call some of this kind of stuff “crazy quilts”—don’t know which-a-way it’s going,” Bendolph said. “I never did go by a pattern. I mostly take after my aunt Louella, but I never make a quilt altogether like anybody.”

The quilt making tradition in Gee's Bend traces back to the early 1800s, when enslaved women created bedcovers using fabric scraps. National recognition of Gee's Bend quilts emerged in the 1960s, during which time the women participated in the Freedom Quilting Bee, an initiative established during the Civil Rights movement to generate crucial income for the community.

“The Lord lead me and guide me and give me strength to make this quilt with love and peace and happiness so somebody would enjoy it,” Gee’s Bend quiltmaker Pettway said of her art. “That makes me feel happy.”

📷: Quilters of Visit Gee's Bend, Alabama: (left to right) Loretta Pettway, Lucy Mingo, and Mary Lee Bendolph. Photo by Tom Pich

“It’s in us. Family is in us. Nurturing is in us. Wood is in us. It’s all there. Fabric. It’s part of our heritage.”

Winston Andrews was one of six African American artists who spoke at the Orange County Regional History Center in Orlando, Florida, as part of a panel on “Preserving the Past Through Craft” in February 2024. The program was one of the highlights of the history center’s annual event, Honoring Black Heritage, Arts & Culture.

Andrews, a wood sculptor, joined soft-sculpture artist Darlene Allen, quilters Lauren Austin and Lisa Moore, illustrator and chain-stitch embroiderer Teighlor Johnson, and designer of doll fashions Carmen Nibbs to share how their artistry is deeply interwoven with their ancestry, family histories, and cultural legacies. Their stories, rich with connections to nature and experiences of the African diaspora, showcase the profound ways art can transcend generations.

The artists were part of a project titled Cultural Sustainability & Legacy Planning for Craft Artists, a partnership between the Orange County Regional History Center, the Craft Emergency Relief Fund, and our African American Craft Initiative. It was conceived to build connections between artist communities and local cultural institutions and to assist makers in safeguarding their stories.

Read more about Preserving the Past Through Craft in Folklife Magazine: https://s.si.edu/4buoJ8X

From left to right: Darlene Allen, Carmen Nibbs, Winston Andrews, Teighlor Johnson, Lisa Moore, and Lauren Austin.

🌙✨ Wishing a blessed Ramadan!

During the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, Muslims celebrate Ramadan—a word derived from the Arabic word alluding to heat and dryness—and embark on a spiritual journey of fasting from dawn until sunset. Ramadan is also a time for joyous gatherings, as loved ones come together to break their fast with iftars, or communal evening meals.

📷: Qalawun Complex in Cairo, Egypt

Every year, the Mother Tongue Film Festival is packed with back-to-back programming that pushes the limits to which digital storytelling can inspire and connect; the tenth year was no different!

From opening night with The Zotigh Singers’ welcome song and screening of “Singing Back the Buffalo;” to the panelist discussion on the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Human Studies Film Archive; to the poem-turned-film, “WINHANGANHA,” each of this year’s twenty-three in-person and nineteen digital on-demand screenings were moving representations of the power of film and language.

From the Mother Tongue team, thank you to every filmmaker, creator, and audience member who came together to make the first hybrid Mother Tongue unforgettable. We could not have celebrated our tenth year without you!
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The Mother Tongue Film Festival is organized by Recovering Voices, a collaboration between the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

Allison “Tootie” Montana (1922–2005) was celebrated as one of the great masters of the Mardi Gras Indian tradition. African Americans in New Orleans have been “masking Indian” on Mardi Gras since the 1880s. Montana’s great-uncle and father were Mardi Gras chiefs. He himself masked for most of his life. “I guess it was in my blood,” he said.

During Mardi Gras, hundreds of people parade through the streets accompanied by tambourines and drums, singing in call-and-response style, following groups fantastically arrayed in elaborate dress. Montana excelled at crafting legendary “suits” of beads, rhinestones, sequins, feathers, canvas, thread, and cardboard, with three-dimensional shapes that extended from the front and back. The crown alone could weigh fifty pounds. For Montana, designing and creating the “prettiest” suit was serious business.

“I want to meet every tribe on the street, and when the day is done, say I’m prettier than everyone I met.”

Learn more about Montana and other National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellows in our “Masters of Tradition” story map: s.si.edu/storymap

Photo by David Alan Harvey, National Geographic Image Collection

Ola Belle Reed (1916–2002) was a trailblazing bluegrass singer, songwriter, and banjo player.

The descendant of settlers to the New River Valley area of western North Carolina who arrived in the 1760s, Reed grew up in a family steeped in the musical heritage of Appalachia. One of thirteen children, she learned her style of clawhammer banjo from an uncle.

After her family resettled in northeastern Maryland during the Great Depression, Reed popularized her distinctive style by performing in music parks and picnic grounds for Appalachian migrants to the region. She founded the New River Boys with her brother Alex, recorded music for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, and performed at the 1969 Smithsonian Folklife Festival (pictured).

Throughout her life, Reed was a passionate performer and promoter of the mountain music she loved.

Learn more about Reed and other National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellows in our Masters of Tradition story map: s.si.edu/storymap

Photo by Diana J. Davies, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

Feeling ready for spring? Across Slovenia, these pagan spirits known as Kurenti emerge in February to chase away winter and make room for warmer weather.

In Cleveland, a growing cohort of Slovenian Americans is embracing the tradition, bringing the annual Kurentovanje Festival to the St. Clair neighborhood. Today, revelers will dress up in these beastly costumes, parade through the streets with bells clanging, and burn effigies representing carnival in the Pokop Pusta.

Although these rituals predate Christianity, many people now conflate the Kurenti with the onset of Lent. And in Ohio, they offer a way for the diaspora to strengthen their cultural heritage—and share it with their neighbors.

Read more about the Cleveland Kurentovanje in Folklife Magazine: https://s.si.edu/4kp29mr

The Mother Tongue digital retrospective ends tomorrow!

Today and tomorrow, enjoy a handful of the best films screened at the festival throughout the years since its start in 2016. We are honored to present these films once again. All selections are free and open to the public. Explore the schedule and watch now: https://s.si.edu/4hYXplB

Available today, Friday, February 28:

🎬 "Hinekura" (dir. Becs Arahanga)
🎬 "The Forbidden Strings" (dir. Hasan Noori)
🎬 "Bootlegger" (dir. Caroline Monnet)
🎬 "Mother Tongue" (dir. Eris Qian)

Available tomorrow, Saturday, March 1:

🎬 "New York, just another city" (dir. André Lopes, Joana Brandão)
🎬 "Night Raiders" (dir. Danis Goulet)
🎬 "Vaychiletik" (Juan Javier Pérez)
🎬 "Mother's Tongue" (dir. D. Wilmos Paul)
🎬 "We Are Still Here" (dir. Beck Cole, Samuel Nuggin-Paynter, Danielle McLean, Dena Curtis, Time Worrall, Richard Curtis, Miki Magasiva, Mario Gaoa, Chantelle Burgoyne, Tiraroa Reweti, Tracey Rigney, Renae Maihi)