Bookmarks (11)

To get this session started at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Omar Nassimi got some stereotypes out of the way: that Islam is rigid. That it is thousand-year-old structures. That it is the opposite of freedom, the opposite of creativity. At the 2023 Festival program Creative Encounters: Living Religions in the U.S., a panel of young Muslims from the D.C. region challenged these stereotypes, sharing...

As Mapuche storytellers, Waikil and Ketrafe fuse  their Indigenous backgrounds with their love and passion for contemporary music. At the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, they provided a Mapuche perspective to the Indigenous Voices of the Americas program, representing a South American community comprised of nearly 1.9 million members primarily in Chile. This song “Wetruwe” addresses the Chilean government’s oppression against Mapuche activists and honors...

The Sons of Membertou bookended the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Indigenous Voices of the Americas program, with performances in the opening ceremony as well as the final featured concert in the National Museum of the American Indian’s Potomac Atrium. Austin Christmas, J.R. Isadore, John MacEwan, and Graham Marshall represented the Mi’kmaw musical group at the Festival, joined by dancer Maisyn Sock. It was especially...

The enduring influence of African American gospel music is felt across genres and artists. But gospel music traditions remain rooted in local churches and communities, where music uplifts and energizes singers and congregants alike. In 2023, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival presented the evening concert “Come Let Us Sing: Gospel Music Legacies.” As part of the Creative Encounters: Living Religions in the U.S. program, the...

“We call cedar smg̱a̱n or aam g̱a̱n, ‘the real tree’ or ‘the good tree,’ because we use it for everything.” —Kandi McGilton Red cedar is a distinct and core part of Ts’msyen traditions along the Pacific Northwest coast. It is used for clothes, houses, totem poles, and, importantly, basketry. Across all these uses, its integrity lies in maintaining the overall history and cultural heritage...

Pataxó has no direct translation in English: it is the sound of water against stone as it travels to meet the sea. Once, the Pataxó people of coastal Brazil lived freely in the forests, river lands, and tropical shorelines of southern Bahia and northern Minas Gerais. But more than 500 years ago, Portuguese settlers invaded the region, leaving legacies of trauma, violence, and environmental...

Skateboarding is a way of being in physical dialogue with the space around you, and although you can skate alone, its power is in convening and bringing community together. At the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, we sought to open such a space. So, on the corner of Jefferson Drive SW, in front of the National Museum of the American Indian, we set out a...

Halfway through their concert at the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the band Pamyua paused to throw in an Arctic game demonstration. Peter Pilak Griggs (Yup’ik and Sugpiaq), a spirited nineteen-year-old, sprawled on the floor, readied himself for a leap. Prompted by the audience’s chant of uh-oh-a, rising and falling like a seal’s wail, he sprang forward on fists and toes, channeling his Indigenous ancestors...

By the time David A. Boxley was born in 1952, Tsimshian traditions involving song, art, dance, and regalia had been outlawed or almost forgotten for nearly a century in his village of Metlakatla, Alaska. Boxley described the Anglican missionary who came to northern British Columbia in the late nineteenth century as “so very successful” in moving Tsimshian (pronounced like sim-she-ann) people away from their...

In the Indigenous Maya Mam language, the term awal translates to “the sower.” Marimba Maya AWAL, founded by Julia Sanchez and Luisa Lopez in the Washington, D.C., area in 2005, aims to sow the knowledge of their Maya ancestors from the mountainous west of Guatemala for future generations. At the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the group performed “Sal Negra,” a marimba piece traditional to...

Hālau ʻŌhi‘a traveled from the island of Hawai‘i to share traditional mele and oli (chants) with visitors at the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Indigenous Voices of the Americas program. Oli refers to both the chant culture and the vocalized components, while mele are poetic or lyrical compositions. Together, they nurture community and harmony with the natural world. Tone, rhythm, and meaning in oli are...