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4	Carving Out a Life: Reflections of an Ithaca Wood-Carver by Mary Michael Shelley
13	From Wild Man to Monster: The Historical Evolution of Bigfoot in New York State by Robert E. Bartholomew and Brian Regal
16	Xiao Xiannian: New Sounds for Chinese Strings by Pete Rushefsky
23	Fieldwork, Memory, and the Impact of 9/11 on an Eastern Tennessee Klansman: A Folklorist’s Reflection by Trevor J. Blank

3 Announcements 10 Upstate: The “Lore” Back to the “Folk” by Varick A. Chittenden 11 Downstate: Is Sex Play? by Steve Zeitlin 12 Songs: Tim Finigan’s Wake by Dan Milner 32 Foodways: The Bronx Seedless Grape Makalé Faber Cullen 22 Good Spirits: Tiny Feet on the Stairs by Libby Tucker 28 Still Going Strong: Juggler by Paul Margolis 29 Play: The Making of a New York Folk Hero by John Thorn 30 Reviews Cover: “Barn with Long Cloud Sky,” by Mary Michael Shelley" FROM THE EDITOR From the Fall-Winter 2009 issue of Voices: The articles featured in this issue of Voices contain a variety of voices whose messages are “traditional”—in the surprising, the comforting, and even the most alarming senses of that disciplinary keyword. In the photo essay “Carving Out a Life: Reflections of an Ithaca Wood-Carver,” self-taught carver Mary Michael Shelley describes how she responded simultaneously to her Northeastern farm family heritage, liberal arts education, and the emerging feminism of her time to claim a form of man’s work—carpentry and carving—as her own. In the article “From Wild Man to Monster: The Historical Evolution of Bigfoot in New York State,” sociologist Robert E. Bartholomew and historian Brian Regal offer us a wealth of primary source narratives of Bigfoot and other “wild man” sightings in New York State, from the early nineteenth century to the present. Pete Rushefsky’s profile of a Manhattan-based Chinese hammered dulcimer master, Xiao Xiannian, captures not only the pedagogical evolution of a virtuoso yangqin player, but also the determination of a Chinese family to survive political persecution and economic oppression by encouraging musicianship among their children. And in Trevor Blank’s honest and disturbing report, “Fieldwork, Memory, and the Impact of 9/11 on an Eastern Tennessee Klansman: A Folklorist’s Reflection,” we are challenged together, as readers, to join a young ethnographer in making sense (with Klan-buster Stetson Kennedy’s help) of an encounter with an American racist, struggling with partial—but not complete—remorse for his views and hate-group affiliation after the events of September 11, 2001. As folk artists and culture workers, we spend much time considering what speech, art, ritual, belief, music, material culture, customs, work, play, and other cultural forms may be worth remembering in New York State. We may have devoted our lives to working toward their preservation. Are there portions of “tradition,” however, which might be better forgotten than preserved or examined? Under what circumstances should the details of the political persecution of immigrants before their arrival in the U.S. be recalled, for example, and for what purpose? Does the history of hate groups in New York State, or any other part of the United States, fall into the first category or the second? Do we evolve past hate by speaking it and remembering it, sometimes verbatim—or through silence, healing, and forgetting? Or is there more involved in the process, the progress toward and beyond “tolerance”? For more on the history of hate groups in this state and across the nation, visit Alabama’s Southern Poverty Law Center web site, www.splcenter.org, and click on the Hate Groups Map, as well as What You Can Do. Voices welcomes Dan Milner in this issue. Dan’s new “Songs” column will bring the depth of his lifelong song scholarship and ballad and folksong performance experience to bear on investigating New York song texts and their histories, contexts, and meanings within and beyond New York State. Please keep your thoughts coming our way, in the form of full-length feature articles, personal essays, field notes, photography, artwork, and letters to the editor. We look forward to reading and publishing your responses to this issue. Eileen Condon Acquisitions Editor New York Folklore Society

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