Praise for A Sacred Feast: Reflections on Sacred Harp Singing and Dinner on the Ground by Kathryn Eastburn
“Dishes with charming names like ‘Ivalene Donaldson’s Lazy Man Fruit Pie’ beg to be tested. A Sacred Feast appears equal parts historical documentary and cookbook, with the pensive, yet lively and descriptive writing for which the author is regarded.”—Matthew Schniper, Colorado Independent
Lyrically LinkingMost of us don’t know the first thing about Sacred Harp singing. Bet you didn’t know, for example, that Sacred Harp singing doesn’t require any harps. In fact, there are no instruments involved whatsoever. Go figure. Essentially, this style of musical expression takes the form of a four-part, bellowing harmony, its tone deep and a bit dark—not your grandmother’s gospel music. Interested in learning more? Kathryn Eastburn has penned a fascinating account of the origins and modern-day incarnations of the Sacred Harp movement in A Sacred Feast: Reflections on Sacred Harp Singing and Dinner on the Ground, the freshest offering from UNP’s At Table series. Anyone interested in music, Southern culture, religion, history, or food (essentially, everyone), will want to snag a copy of this book for their shelves.
In the meantime, check out these links on Sacred Harp singing and ready yourself for the next opportunity to impress fellow cocktail-party-goers with your knowledge of this fairly obscure musical subject.
Link to this great article adapted from a segment on NPR’s “All Things Considered” for a concise, educational overview of what Sacred Harp singing is all about, a link to the on-air discussion, and full-length clips of live Sacred Harp performances: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1534280.
Visit the charmingly named Fasola Web site at http://fasola.org/, sponsored by the Sacred Harp Musical Heritage Association. Here you’ll find a great overview of Sacred Harp music, local and national gatherings, resources for learning the genre (including a summer camp called Camp Fasola!), and links to other informative sites.
If you want to hear what all the fuss is about, hop over to FloridaMemory.com, the online state archives of Florida, for MP3 files containing interviews with Sacred Harp singers and recordings of their performances at http://www.floridamemory.com/OnlineClassroom/sacred_harp/documents.cfm.
Interested in locating a Sacred Harp singing group in your area? Go to http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/regional.html for a listing of Sacred Harp groups by region. Whether you reside in Nashville or New York City, there’s a group near you!
That brings this installment of “Linking in Lincoln” to its melodious end. Don’t forget to visit us tomorrow for “This Week in History.” Until then, bloggers!
Sacred Harp singing, the topic of a forthcoming book from the University of Nebraska Press entitled A Sacred Feast: Reflections on Sacred Harp Singing and Dinner on the Ground by Kathryn Eastburn (available April 2008), was the subject of a feature in Time Magazine yesterday. Click here for the full text of the Time article and stay tuned for the publication of A Sacred Feast this April!
If you’re a scholar or devoted reader of Native American or Texas and southwestern U.S. history, you don’t want to forego the chance to read Chevato. And don’t let the subtitle—The Story of the Apache Warrior Who Captured Herman Lehmann—bias your expectations. UNP’s November addition to the American Indian Lives Series combines enthohistory with extensive traditional historical research and narrative to tell not only the story of Chevato’s life but also the much broader and complicated story of Native American resistance and survival in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Mexico, Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.
The life of the Apache warrior and shaman Chevato is at the center of the monograph in the form of oral histories told to William Chebahtah, Chevato’s grandson, by Thomas David Chebahtah, Chevato’s son. These oral histories are printed at the beginning of each chapter. Historian Nancy McGown Minor’s historical narrative follows. Based on extensive secondary and archival research, Minor’s narrative provides the detailed historical context needed for readers to fully understand and appreciate the content and veracity of the oral histories recounting Chevato’s life.
Although Chevato’s life is the genesis for Chebahtah and Minor’s historical narrative, his life story is far from the only history these author’s tell. Chevato’s life in fact became the catalyst for telling the story of Native American cultures—particularly, the Lipan and Mescalero Apaches and Comanche—under stress and attack by the forces of Mexican and American expansion into the Southern Plains and Southwest. By drawing on Chebahtah’s oral histories, published ethnohistorical accounts, and other primary and secondary sources, the authors show how the various tribes fought one another, Mexicans, and Texans to ensure their continued survival. Of particular value are the revelations these authors make about Native American practices of capturing and adopting enemies or the children of enemies (such as Herman Lehmann) to replenish tribes’ combat losses. Not all individuals taken captive were adopted, however. Many were killed out of vengeance by the families of warriors killed in combat, while others were captured for the purpose of being traded as soon as possible to other tribes or to people in Mexico.
Chevato also offers scholars and general readers significant insight into importance of community (versus individual) identity among Native American tribes and how those ties borne of communal identity made it possible for individuals and their relatives (as understood and recognized by Native Americans) to move between tribes. This is particularly important in understanding how Chevato, a Lipan Apache, became a recognized and influential member of the Mescalero Apaches in New Mexico and later of the Comanche people in Oklahoma, where through his relationship with Quanah Parker (the powerful Comanche son of another white captive, Cynthia Ann Parker), he introduced the peyote ritual and became a founding member of the Native American Church.
In spite of these strengths, the monograph has its weaknesses as well. The story/stories recounted in the oral histories included at the beginning of each chapter and what’s included in the historical narratives that follow don’t always coincide; perhaps as a result, the chronology of events recounted in the historical narrative is occasionally confusing or unclear (particularly the correlations between events recounted in one chapter and the next). Also, the content of the oral histories at the monograph’s end more often are Chebahtah’s reflections on his memories of Chevato than about Chevato. Most surprisingly, several footnotes were omitted from the text when it was printed.
Readers interested in learning more about Native Americans in Texas and the Southwest in the decades prior to Chevato’s birth in 1852 and how those events helped set the proverbial stage for the events in his life should read F. Todd Smith’s From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786-1859 (UNP, 2005). Other scholarly monographs that are likely to be interest include David LaVere’s Contrary Neighbors: Southern Plains and Removed Indians in Indian Territory (University of Oklahoma Press, 2000) and The Texas Indians (Texas A&M University Press, 2004).
L'shanah tovah
Jewish Year 5767 : Sunset September 22, 2006 to Nightfall September 24, 2006
Or "For a good year!" Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and one of the most important days of the Jewish calendar. To honor the holiday, people of the Jewish faith rest and cast off their sins. Enjoy these contemporary titles by UNP authors:
Jewish Writing in the Contemporary World Series:
Contemporary Jewish Writing in Canada: An Anthology
Edited by Michael Greenstein
"Greenstein has delivered a fine gift of some of the country's best writers." --University of Toronto Quarterly
By Brenda Serotte
"Serotte is a marvelous storyteller, and this book, one of the American Lives Series, is a profoundly moving memoir."—Booklist
Essential Readings on Jewish Identities, Lifestyles, & Beliefs:
Analyses of the Personal and Social Diversity of Jews By Modern Scholars
Edited by Stanford M. Lyma
Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Richard Altschuler & Associates, Inc./ Gordian Knot Books
"Many of the individual articles are excellent, informative, and unique.”--Jewish Book World
Emancipation through Muscles: Jews and Sports in Europe
Edited by Michael Brenner and Gideon Reuveni
Analyzes the pertinence of sports to such issues as race, ethnicity, and gender in Jewish history and by examining the role of modern sport within European Jewry. Read more here.
Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present
By Joanna Beata Michlic
A contribution to modern Jewish and Polish history, the study of nationalism, and to a new school of critical inquiry into the nature of anti-Jewish prejudices. Read more here.
Shoshanna's Story: A Mother, a Daughter, and the Shadows of History
By Elaine Kalman Naves
"Shoshanna’s Story is a powerful account of what it’s like to deal with the grip that the Holocaust continues to have on successive generations."—Montreal Review of Books
Bad Jews and Other Stories
By Gerald Shapiro
“Gerald Shapiro casts an incisive eye over his contemporaries.”—New York Times Book Review.
Holocaust Girls: History, Memory, and Other Obsessions
By S.L. Wisenberg
“Writing to be savored, to reread, to read aloud to someone else. . . . These are wonderful writings from a prolific local author whose talents deserve a large audience."—Chicago Tribune
