I’ve been fascinated with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival blog and Facebook feeds the last few weeks. Interpret “fascinated” as spending way too much time watching video clips of upcoming events and dreaming myself there! The Festival started this Wednesday on the National Mall in Washington D.C. and runs through the weekend, then it’s on again […]
One of my favorite stories in our new book, Beyond the Stones of Machu Picchu: Folk Tales and Stories of Inca Life, is “The First Hair Cutting.” It’s based on an old, old Andean custom for building a social support system around young girls. It goes something like this: When a girl is around five […]