Extant dry-stone walls, built without the use of mortar or any binding agent, can be dated as far back as 3500 BCE.

Mamoni Chitrakar started singing. I held my breath. We were watching the unveiling of a traditional painted scroll called patachitra, months in the making.

We sing Christian hymns in a vocal style better fitting a frontier camp meeting in the early 1800s—or a punk show—than a mainline church today.

The defining moment of my career came in 1985 when I came to work at the Washington National Cathedral.

“Aquí se podría encontrar una cura para la angustia y la soledad de estar lejos de su hogar porque, bueno, era su hogar”.

Onggi evokes an image of traditional lifestyle for many Koreans, but it is also an item that is so humble that few recognize it as something important.

Here in Baile an Fheirtéaraigh (Ballyferriter Village), the language is not some abstract entity, but embedded in the world around us.

“Here you could find a cure for the heartbreak and loneliness of being away from home because, well, it was home.”

Smithsonian Folkways director emeritus shares stories, photos, and videos from his field work in Chile, which coincided with Pinochet’s coup d’état.

Stewart Stevens found his calling washing windows at the White House for every president from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush.