Southern Heritage on Display: Public Ritual and Ethnic Diversity Within Southern Regionalism - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0817312277 ISBN 13: 9780817312275

Publisher: University of Alabama Press, 2003

Synopsis

This provocative collection draws on extensive ethnographic fieldwork to shed light on the role that public ceremonies play in affirming or debunking cultural identities associated with the South. W.J. Cash's 1941 observation that ""there are many Souths and many cultural traditions among them"" is certainly validated by this book. Although the Civil War and its ""lost cause"" tradition continues to serve as a cultural root paradigm in celebrations, both uniting and dividing loyalties, southerners also embrace a panoply of public tituals - parades, cook-offs, kinship homecomings, church assemblies, music spectacles, and material culture exhibitions - that affirm other identities. From the Appalachian uplands to the Mississippi Delta, from Kentucky bluegrass to Carolina piedmont, southerners celebrate in festivals that showcase their diverse cultural backgrounds and their mythic beliefs about themselves. The ten essays of this cohesive, interdisciplinary collection present event-centered research from various fields of study - anthropology, geography, history, and literature - to establish a rich, complex picture of the stereotypically ""Solid South."" Topics include the Mardi Gras Indian song cycle as a means of expressing African-American identity in New Orleans; powwow performances and Native American traditions in southeast North Carolina; religious healings in southern Appalachian communities; Mexican Independence Day festivals in central Florida; and, in eastern Tennessee, bonding ceremonies of melungeons who share Indian, Scots Irish, Mediterranean, and African ancestry. Seen together, these public heritage displays reveal a rich ""creole"" of cultures that have always been a part of southern life and that continue to affirm a flourishing regionalism. This book will be valuable to students and scholars of cultural anthropology, American studies, and southern history; academic and public libraries; and general readers interested in the American South. It contributes a vibrant, colorful layer of understanding to the continuously emerging picture of complexity in this region historically depicted by simple stereotypes.

About this title

About the Author

Celeste Ray is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, and author of Highland Heritage: Scottish Americans in the American South.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Alabama Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0817312277
• ISBN 13: 9780817312275
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 312
• Editor: Ray Celeste