Folklore Program UW-Madison

03/12/2025

Love to see this happening up in Lac du Flambeau!

Lac du Flambeau Snow Snake championship, March 1, 2025. Introduced by Wayne Valliere, Mino Giizhig.

09/27/2022

We’re excited to announce that Swedish musicians Maja Heurling, Ola Sandström, and Livet Nord will be visiting campus during the first week of October. Along with a few class visits, they’ll be performing Irrbloss: Songs from the Poetry of Signe Aurell on Tuesday, October 4, at 6:00pm at Tripp Commons in Memorial Union. The performance is free and open to the public: https://folklife.wisc.edu/event/signe-aurell-irrbloss/

Signe Aurell was a Swedish woman who came to the United States in 1913, worked as a laundress and seamstress, joined the Industrial Workers of the World, and wrote poetry and essays—including her self-published poetry collection, Irrbloss (Will-o’-the-Wisp)—during her seven years living in Minnesota.

Musicians Maja Heurling and Ola Sandström collaborated to set music to a selection of poems from Irrbloss, blending folk stylings and the Swedish visa tradition together to amplify the importance and continued relevance of Aurell’s words. In doing so, the group has employed the Swedish visa tradition to interpret not just Aurell’s poetry, but also the migration histories of the over one million Swedes who came to the United States.

The performances will feature songs based on the poetry of Aurell, as well as stories from her life in both Sweden and the United States.

08/03/2022

Pejuta Ḣaka Wiŋ Red Eagle is the Science Museum’s newest anthropology fellow. She brings expertise in traditional beadwork and quillwork and collections stewardship, as well as meaningful connections to Dakota communities. Thanks to a Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage grant, she is researching objects in our Dakota collection—beaded vests, moccasins, necklaces, clothing, cradleboards, parfleche containers, and more—and the material content around them.

“Museums have not been the most welcoming places for Native people because of the history of colonization. I hope to invite Dakota community members in to see the collection and share their knowledge so that our records are more complete. I will also go into those communities. I want to stress that the museum is a steward, not an owner of these objects. If there’s anything here that they can identify as belonging to their communities, then let’s return it.”

07/20/2022

07/19/2022

04/18/2022

This Thursday at the Mills Music Library: French cultural historial and UW Folklore friend Dr. Camille Moreddu presents a talk on French folk music in the Upper Midwest. Get the details here and join us on April 21: https://www.library.wisc.edu/music/2022/04/14/talk-camille-moreddu-on-french-american-folklore-in-the-midwest/?fbclid=IwAR126A5lvij1A1HzAI1ypiFswt0GXPcPmh_d5mAi8t50yp0WH0H9MWyXIFE

Vestiges of a Vanquished Frontier: Approaches of French-American Folklore in the Midwest from 1847 to 1953 Free and Open to the Public Thursday, April 21, 2022 3:30-5:00pm Memorial Library, Room 126, 728 State St

04/18/2022

Wishing everyone a Happy Ṥmigus-Dyngus Day!
Życzymy wszystkim Wesołego Śmingusa-Dyngusa!
Śmigus-Dyngus also known as Lany Poniedzialek (Wet Monday) is a fun polish holiday celebrated on Easter Monday. It is the day when boys tried to drench girls with buckets of water. The more a girl is sprayed with water, the higher her chances are that she will get married. Traditionally, girls get their chance for revenge the next day, however now Wet Monday is usually celebrated by everyone drenching or sprinkling each other with water and it is basically free-for-all good old fashioned water fight and no one is immune or dry. The origins of this celebration are uncertain, but it may date back to pagan times (before 1000 AD) when the pouring of water symbolized springtime to cleanse and purify. Others believe that Śmigus-Dyngus represents renewal of the sacrament of baptism after Christ had risen. And there are still some, who suggests that Śmigus-Dyngus is connected to baptism of Polish ruler Prince Mieszko the First who was baptized in 966 on Easter Monday.
Originally śmigus and dyngus were two separate events, with śmigus involving the act of throwing water, and dyngus, bribing people with Easter eggs (pisanki) to escape from śmigus. Later both traditions merged.
But no matter how you look at it, it is still a super fun holiday I enjoyed so much as a kid. I still have memories of me running with friends through our neighborhood with our little egg shape water sq**rt spraying everyone in our way….at this same time avoiding water bombs coming down from the windows :)

04/06/2022

Today would be the 120th birthday of Alabama traditional singer Vera Hall, one of the greatest singers in the AFC archive, who was born April 6, 1902, and who died in 1964. Hall was recorded by several folklorists, including Alan Lomax, and she was the subject of Lomax's book "The Rainbow Sign." Her voice singing "Trouble So Hard" was the main element in the dance music hit "Natural Blues" by Moby in 1999.

At the first link find a biography from the Association for Cultural Equity:

http://www.culturalequity.org/alan-lomax/friends/hall

At the second link, find early recordings of her singing.

https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=contributor:hall,+vera&loclr=fbafc

At the third link, find her recordings from later years.

https://archive.culturalequity.org/person/hall-vera-ward

04/01/2022

Happy Friday!

Folklorist interviews Alien!

The American Folklife Center is proud to announce that AFC folklorist Wynnette Willwood has conducted the first ethnographic interview with an extraterrestrial being! Through a special collaboration with NASA, AFC sent Folklife Specialist Wynnette Willwood to the moon last year. There she encountered a small community of extraterrestrials who observe the doings of humans on Earth for their own inscrutable purposes. Willwood convinced one of these aliens to sit for an ethnographic interview. "It turns out they are big fans of human TV, especially 'Baywatch,'" she reported to her surprised colleagues at the Library of Congress.

Wynnette Willwood is the daughter of folklorist Abbott Willwood, who gained fame through his oral history interviews with Bigfoot and Chupacabras. She is the granddaughter of folklorist and linguist Otto Willwood.

Find out more about the Willwood Expedition, and encounter the first-ever ethnographic interview with an alien, at the link:

https://go.usa.gov/xzJNs

03/28/2022

The decision comes exactly 100 years to the date it was originally passed in 1922, school officials said.