Folk Culture

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Folk Culture

• Around the World

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Cultural integration in folk geography

• Interaction between folk and popular cultures
• Few folk groups escape some interaction with the
  larger world
• A lively exchange is constantly on-going between
  folk and popular cultures
• Most commonly, the folk absorb ideas filtering
  down from popular culture

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Cultural integration in folk geography

• Interaction between folk and popular cultures
• Occasionally elements of folk culture penetrate
  the popular society
• Folk handicrafts and arts often fetch high prices
  among city dwellers
• They may exhibit quality, attention to detail,
  and uniqueness absent in factory-made goods
• Some folk goods are revised to make them more
  marketable
• Popular folk items include-Irish fisherman
  sweaters, Shaker furniture, and Panamanian Indian
  molas

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Cuzco, Peru

• Cuzco, an Inca capital, is a major tourist
  destination.
• Llama wool sweaters, ponchos, and rugs displayed
  for the tourist trade.
• Woven on hand-looms

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Cuzco, Peru

• Natural wool colors or are colored with mineral
  or vegetable dyes.
• Similar products are also produced by factory
  machines using chemical dyes for trendy colors
  for appeal to mass market.

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Mountain moonshine

• Mountain folk accepted markets offered by popular
  culture but rejected its legal and political
  institutions
• By the 1950s, some 25,000 gallons of white
  lightning reached the market each week from the
  counties of eastern Tennessee alone
• In spite of numerous raids by federal
  authorities, production continued unabated
• Today, a substantial amount of illicit whisky
  still reaches markets from southern Appalachia

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Mountain moonshine

• Whiskey production, legal and illegal, in
  Kentucky and Tennessee represents an impressive
  survival of folk industry to serve a market in
  popular society
• Illegal whisky production and popular culture
  integration led to the creation of the folk
  automobile
• A fast vehicle needed to outrun the law, but
  humble in appearance
• Some have claimed these vehicles were the
  forerunners of the basic American stock car
• Stock-car racing then is considered another
  result of interplay between folk and popular
  cultures

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Country and Western music

• Upland Southern folk music had a very impressive
  impact upon American popular culture
• Derived to a great degree, from folk ballads of
  English and Scotch-Irish, who settled in the
  upland-South in colonial times
• Some have hypothesized use of the fiddle (violin)
  is an effort to recapture sounds of the Celtic
  Scottish bagpipe
• Gradually, Upland Southern folk music absorbed
  influences of the American social experience

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Country and Western music

• Entry of country music into popular culture began
  about the time of World War I
• Diffusion was facilitated by the invention of the
  radio
• Popularization brought changes
• Themes of lyrics increasingly addressed life in
  the popular culture
• Acceptance remains greatest in its Upland
  Southern core area in Kentucky, Tennessee,
  Virginia, and North Carolina
• Most performers come from this core area
• Music retains strong identification with
  Appalachian places

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Country and Western music

• Impact of migration of Upland Southern folk on
  bluegrass music
• Migrated to Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and
  Oklahoma plus the Depression era movement of
  Okies and Arkies to the Central Valley of
  California
• Provided natural areas for bluegrass expansion in
  the mid-twentieth century

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FOLK LANDSCAPES

• Folk architecture most visible aspect of the
  landscape
• Comes from the memory of traditional people
• Built on mental images that change little from
  one generation to the next
• Folk buildings are extensions of a people and
  their region
• Provide the unique character of each district or
  province
• Offer a highly visible aspect of the human mosaic

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Folk landscapes

• Seek in folk architecture the traditional, the
  conservative, and the functional
• Expect from it a simple beauty
• Harmony with the physical environment
• A visible expression of folk culture

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Folk Architecture Maasai House, Kenya

• The Maasai are pastoralists who bring their
  cattle into their circular housing compounds
  (engangs or manyattas) at night. Maasai bomas
  (houses) are built by women.
• Latticed frames are constructed with termite, ant
  and beetle resistant wood poles, insulated with
  packed leaves, and covered with cattle dung
  readily available in the engang.

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Folk Architecture Maasai House, Kenya

• A snail-shell entry inhibits entry of human or
  animal intruders.
• Lattice sleeping platforms covered with cowhide
  are attached to internal walls.
• No windows, only vents for the central fire..
• Plastic sheeting as a roof cover is a modern
  luxury few can afford.

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Building materials

• One way we classify folk houses and farmsteads is
  by the type of building materials used
• Structures tend to blend nicely with the natural
  landscape
• Farm dwellings range from massive houses of
  stone for permanency, to temporary brush thatch
  huts

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Building materials

• Environmental conditions influence choice of
  construction materials)
• Climate
• Vegetation
• Geomorphology
• Shifting cultivators of tropical rain forests
  build houses of poles and leaves

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Building materials

• Sedentary subsistence farming peoples of adjacent
  highlands, oases, and river valleys of the Old
  World zone
• Rely principally on earthen construction
• Sun-dried (adobe) bricks
• Pounded earth
• In more prosperous regions, kiln-baked bricks are
  available
• People in the tropical grasslands, especially in
  Africa, construct thatched houses from coarse
  grasses and thorn bushes

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Building materials

• Buildings of Mediterranean farmers and some rural
  residents of interior Indian and the Andean
  highlands
• Most live in rocky, deforested lands
• Use stone as principal building material
• Create entire landscapes of stone
• Walls, roofs, terraces, streets, and fences
• Lends an air of permanence to the landscape

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China
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Folk architecture China

• The Kazak practice transhumance, spending the
  summer with their horses, goats, sheep and cattle
  in high pastures of the Tien Shan (Heavenly
  Mountains) of northwestern China.
• These yurts have wooden trellis walls and are
  covered with felt which is pressed animal hair.

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Folk architecture China

• The top flap can be opened to vent a central fire
  or closed to keep out rain.
• As winter approaches, the yurt is dismantled and
  carried by pack animals to lower elevations.

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Folk architecture China

• Many Kazak now winter in Chinese style,
  mud-brick, sod-roofed houses.
• Yurts are experiencing technological change as
  wood gives way to plastic and felt to canvas.

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Building materials

• Housing in the middle and higher latitudes
• Houses made of wood where timber is abundant
• In the United States, log cabins and later frame
  houses
• Folk houses of northern Europe and in the
  mountains of eastern Australia are made of wood

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Building materials

• Housing in the middle and higher latitudes
• In some deforested regions Central Europe and
  parts of China
• Farmers built half-timbered houses
• Framework of hardwood beams with fill in the
  interstices of some other material
• Sod or turf houses typify prairie and tundra
  areas
• Russian steppes
• In pioneer times, the American Great Plains
• Nomadic herders often live in portable tents made
  of skins or wool

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Floor plan

• Unit farmstead
• Single structure where family, farm animals, and
  storage facilities share space
• In simplest form is one storied People and
  animals occupy different ends of structure
• More complex ones are multi-storied arranged so
  people and livestock live on different levels

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Floor plan

• Communal unit housing common among some shifting
  cultivators
• Multiple families live under the same roof
• Sleeping and cooking done in separate alcoves
• Living space is shared

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Floor plan

• Communal unit housing common among some shifting
  cultivators
• Example the Sarawak longhouse found on the
  Malaysian portion of the island of Borneo
• Accommodates between 5 and 8 nuclear families
• An elongated dwelling
• Raised above forest floor on stilts
• Reflect a clan or tribal social organization

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Folk Architecture Manali, India
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Folk Architecture Manali, India

• This house has been constructed by the Kullu
  people who live in the lower Himalayas of
  Himachal Pradesh. This is a steeply sloped,
  rocky and forested area and people make the best
  use of local materials.

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Folk Architecture Manali, India

• Noted for their woodwork, the Kulli carve and
  paint religious and tribal designs to propitiate
  the gods and ward off evil
• The substantial stone roof will support a heavy
  winter snowfall.
• Fodder and cattle are kept below the living
  quarters.

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Floor plan

• Most common are farmsteads where the house, barn,
  and stalls occupy separate buildings
• Example of the courtyard farmstead
• Various structures clustered around an enclosed
  yard
• Appears in several seemingly unrelated culture
  regions
• Found in Inca-settled portions of Andes Mountains
• Also found in the hills of central Germany, and
  eastern China
• Have wide distribution offer privacy and
  protection

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Floor plan

• Strewn farmstead prevails in countries where
  Germanic Europeans immigrated and settled
• Anglo-America, Australia, and New Zealand
• Buildings lie spaced apart each other in no
  consistent pattern
• Especially common in zones of wooden construction
  where fire is a hazard
• Poorly suited for defense
• Often associated with rural regions of more than
  average tranquility

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Floor plan Challenge

• What would a folk living quarters look like in
  Woodstock?
• Consider our climate, elevation, and local
  building materials.
• Incorporate 1 cultural component (what is
  important to you?)
• Draw your floor plan and label parts (with
  explanations on why)