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Piney
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Piney Woods Celebrate the Land Piney Woods Celebrate Holy Days and Holidays Piney Woods Celebrate Community and Heritage Piney Woods Celebrate with Food and Music Schedule
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Piney Woods Celebrations is a traveling exhibit produced by the Pine Hills Culture Program and based on fieldwork interviews and photographs from the three-state Piney Woods Regional Folklife Survey project (1998-1999.) The exhibit presents a range of events that bring people and communities together in these three states: holidays, dinners on the ground, powwows, family reunions, and hunting clubs, for example. Designed by award-winning designer Cavett Taff and built by Exhibits, Etc., it consists of 44 color and black-and-white photographs, a map of the region, and 7 text panels. Graphics are printed on doublesided formica panels in pine frames that are anchored by a small church pew and barbecue pit. A compact disk player in the barbecue pit plays 11 minutes of excerpts of oral histories and music. The exhibit was funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mississippi Arts Commission, and the Louisiana Division of the Arts. The exhibit opened at the 1999 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (April 23-25 and April 28-May 2.) Next it visited the Mississippi Heritage Festival at the Jackson Zoo (May 29-30.) In September, it will be featured at the Louisiana Folklife Festival in Monroe (September 11-12.) Piney Woods Celebrations is also scheduled for the Clark Hall Gallery at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond; the Monroe County Heritage Museums in Alabama; the Crosby Arboretum in Picayune, Mississippi; and the Library of Hattiesburg, Petal, and Forrest County. (See schedule.) In each site, the Pine Hills Culture Program works with festival or musuem staff members to create complementary public programs on different aspects of regional folklife. In early 2000, the exhibit will be permanently installed at the Walthall Culture Center in Hattiesburg's historic district. Contact Stephen Sloan at the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage for more information on Piney Woods Celebrations. Following are exhibit text panels and a small sample of photographs.
Piney Woods Celebrations was produced by the Pine Hills Culture Program of the University of Southern Mississippi in collaboration with the Mississippi Arts Commission, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, the Alabama State Council on the Arts, and the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture. It is based on folklife documentation in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana for the Piney Woods Regional Folklife Survey Project.
Funding provided by National Endowment for the Arts Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Community Folklife Program Mississippi Arts Commission Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism The University of Southern Mississippi
People in the Piney Woods share a folk culture that ignores state boundaries. This regional culture is distinctly Southern but has taken its own shape over the years. It remains vital because it is deeply meaningful to those who live here. New traditions continually emerge and become part of the cultural landscape. Celebrations, both everyday occasions and special events, are powerful displays of traditional culture. This exhibit looks at a few of the many kinds of celebrations in the Piney Woods portions of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana's Florida Parishes. Some are common to everyone in the region, and others are observed only by certain groups. Sacred and secular, large and small, these events bring people together in symbolic expressions of community.
The Piney Woods Celebrate the Land Some community festivals and fairs revolve around the ways people make their living in the Piney Woods. The timber industry is celebrated by demonstrations and contests of logging skills. Rodeos, show cattle competitions, and just-for-fun cow "dress-up" contests pay homage to ranching and dairy farming. Truck farming lends themes to many local festivals created around watermelons, strawberries, pecans, or other produce. Contests, decorations, featured foods, and often a festival queen complete the theme.
The Piney Woods Celebrate Holy Days and Holidays Church and family are central to Piney Woods community celebrations. Religious gatherings usually emphasize worship and fellowship through music, preaching, and prayer followed by sharing a home-cooked meal. Revivals, homecomings, and camp meetings are meaningful events for Protestants, as feast days are for Catholics. Italian Americans spend days cooking food for St. Joseph's Day altars. All Saints' Day is a reunion for Louisiana's Creole families as they spruce up cemeteries and decorate graves. Piney Woods families and churches often host old-fashioned barbecues on secular holidays such as the Fourth of July and Juneteenth. A young queen waves to the crowd in a Juneteenth parade in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. African Americans in many Southern states commemorate emancipation from slavery, though the date and name of the celebration varies from place to place. Juneteenth (June 19th) originated in Texas but has become popular in other places. Photo by Amy Young.
The Piney Woods Celebrate Community and Heritage Festivals celebrating cultural heritage abound in the Piney Woods. Many are nostalgic events, emphasizing "old-timey" ways and doing things by hand. Heritage festivities are especially important for smaller ethnic groups in the region. Events such as Native American powwows and Hungarian harvest festivals help groups maintain a sense of cultural identity and pride. Sports and hunting are other kinds of heritage events. Friday nights in most Piney Woods towns are reserved for high school football games when community members come out to support home teams. Hunting season openings are unofficial holidays for men and their sons and sometimes their daughters. Once work animals, horses and mules are now reserved mainly for recreation. Riding club meetings, trail rides and wagon trains, and high school and professional rodeos are important occasions.
The Piney Woods Celebrate with Food and Music Music is a fundamental part of most Piney Woods celebrations. Musical styles range from shape note (fa sol la) singing to contemporary gospel music, acoustic and electric blues, old-time fiddling, bluegrass, and country music. Making music is the reason for some celebrations. Singing conventions are becoming less common, but gospel sings take place most weekends. Competitions known as fiddlers' conventions are popular with those who like to play or listen to old-time and bluegrass fiddling. Musicians get together for informal jam sessions at volunteer fire stations, festivals, restaurants, and homes. Food, like music, is indispensable to most Piney Woods gatherings. Certain dishes are associated with the region and with festivity. Barbecued meatCwhether pork, beef, chicken, or goatCis a part of almost every special event. Chicken pie and chicken and dumplings are other traditional dishes, and everyone seems to have their own way of cooking them. For church socials, everyone may bring their specialties for others to sample. Preparing food can itself be a festive event, a chance for the cooks to visit while working.
Schedule for Piney Woods Celebrations Exhibit
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