The Florida Folklife Reader

by Tina Bucuvalas (Editor)

Overview

Florida is blessed with a semitropical climate, beautiful inland areas, and over a thousand miles of warm seas and sandy beaches. And Floridians are every bit as colorful and diverse as the tropical foliage. The interaction between Florida's people and its environment has created distinctive mixes of traditional life unlike those anywhere else in America.

Florida's cultural foundation includes Seminoles, Anglo-Celtic Crackers, African Americans, transplanted northerners, and ethnic communities, as well as cultural syntheses developed from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries in Key West, Tampa, St. Augustine, and Pensacola. In recent decades, the state's population has been strongly impacted by large-scale immigration from Cuba, South America, Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. South Florida leads other regions in the development of a contemporary cultural synthesis, but Orlando and Tampa are rapidly evolving. Even sleepy north Florida is experiencing a significant shift.

Although several books detail the traditions of specific Florida regions or folk groups, this is the first to provide an overview of Florida folklife. The Florida Folklife Reader brings together essays written by folklorists, anthropologists, and ethnomusicologists on a wide array of topics. The authors examine topics as diverse as regional and ethnic folk groups, occupational folklife, the built environment, musical traditions, rituals, and celebrations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617031427
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	10/18/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Tina Bucuvalas, Tarpon Springs, Florida, is curator of art and historical resources with the City of Tarpon Springs. She is president of the Florida Folklore Society and served as state folklorist and director of the Florida Folklife Program of the Florida Department of State.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xi

Key Largo to Marathon A Report on the Folklife of the Upper and Middle Keys Brent Cantrell 3

African American and West Indian Folklife in South Florida Joyce M. Jackson 10

The Patronal Festival of Vueltas in Cuban Miami: "No One Loses, They Always Win!" Tina Bucuvalas 23

Michael Kernahan A Life in Pan Stephen Stuempfle 35

Folklife of Miami's Nicaraguan Communities Katherine Borland 50

Exploring Peruvian Music in Miami Martha Ellen Davis 67

The Seminole Family Camp Ormond H. Loomis 84

Sacred Steel Robert L. Stone 90

Musical Practice and Memory on the Edge of Two Worlds Kalymnian Tsambóuna and Song Repertoire in the Family of Nikitas Tsimouris Anna Lomax Wood 96

Eternal Be Their Memory! Stavros K. Frangos 154

Richard Seaman's Presence within Florida's Soundscape Gregory Hansen 161

Legacy and Meaning in the Changing Sacred Harp Tradition of the Okefenokee Region Laurie K. Sommers 178

Nativism and Cracker Revival at the Florida Folk Festival Martha Nelson 207

"The Rest Is Up to You and Me" Sunday Morning Band and Ritual Identity in the Florida Panhandle Jerrilyn Mcgregory 225

Maritime Folklife Florida Folklife Nancy Michael Nancy Nusz David Taylor Ormond H. Loomis Peter Roller Merri Belland 237

Selected Florida Folklife Bibliography 275

Appendix I Early Folklife Research in Florida 282

Appendix II Public Folklife Programs in Florida 287

Contributors 291

Index 296