Support the Folklife Festival, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Cultural Vitality Program, educational outreach, and more.
more
Material World
In many Slavic Christian traditions, the bread tells fortunes and predicts good luck and prosperity,
The New Year’s Eve revelries of my mother’s Soviet childhood were notoriously grand affairs. New Year’s Eve in my post-Soviet, Midwestern household is decidedly not.
For me, growing up as part of an immigrant diaspora has meant finding ways to connect to my culture beyond a physical space.
Traditionally, there should always be twelve meatless dishes served for svyata vecherya, or Christmas Eve dinner.
In the Appalachian Mountains, folk magic goes by many names: root work, granny magic, kitchen witchery, Braucherei, witchcraft.
Johnson unpacks her spiritual lineage through works that reclaim ancestral memory, hold space for reverence, and create a uniquely Black iconography.
Founded in 1950, the Kutztown Folk Festival claims to be the oldest continuously operating folklife festival in the country.
Folklife Magazine explores how culture shapes our lives. We publish stories about music, food, craft, language, celebrations, activism, and the individuals and communities who sustain these traditions.