Folk Traditions: Hand-Me-Downs (1970s)

for many years the house on the hill was a dream for the old pharmacist when the house was finished and the furniture moved in the new owner decided to spend the first night sitting for the fire and rocking in his chair and smoking his pipe he hadn't any more than lighted his pipes he heard a strange sound it was a sound he hadn't heard for a long time like a rolling of carriage wheels and the clippity-clop of horse's hooves but before he could do anything about that he heard another sound coming from the garden it was sound of digging he grabbed his big flashlight and ran to the garden window and opened it it was nothing he said to himself on the way back to the chair well couldn't be the wind because this is a quiet winter night and i've just trimmed the branches around the house that brush it must be my imagination but he hadn't any more than taken another puff till there was another sound and this time it was the sound of men's footsteps not just one man but several men coming up the cellar steps he grabbed the poker and ran to the salvador and opened it blackness nothing no one maybe my imagination is playing tricks on me he sat back in the chair began puffing on his pipe again there were no other songs for a while finally god drowsy went to sleep then there was a big sound a big crash like rocks coming out of the ceiling from sacks and dropping on the floor he got up and switched on the light and looked everything was just as he had left it the hole in nothing on the floor this happened for a week the same sounds every day every night finally he decided to sell the house he drove into town to do it and when he got back to the house he found that it was burned completely to the ground ghost story north carolina has hundreds why are they still around and where did they come from ghost stories are part of our tradition [Music] when i was a little boy my grandfather used to tell me stories all the time i remember used to sit by the fireplace and he'd tell me ghost stories and scare me half to death and then my kids were little i used to tell them the same stories now my grandchildren and they get just as scared as i did when i heard them the first time had a cake patty cake baker's man bake me a cake as fast as you can roll it and toss it and mark it with b and put it in the oven for a baby and me had a cake patty cake baker's man traditions are things handed down from parents to children and then to the children's children things passed [Music] we first hear traditional rhymes and songs when we are very young later on we use these sayings ourselves the early bird always gets the worm a doctor a day keeps the apple away apple a day keeps the doctor away two heads are better than one dumb counts chickens before the hatch some of our traditions are rhymes and games [Music] [Music] shake shake shake and turn myself [Music] when our great great great great grandparents came to north carolina they brought their traditions with them these traditions were passed from place to place and from person to person sometimes a song or a story changed a little as it was passed along or a new song or story might be made up songs helped to pass the time while someone was working if the work was fast the song was fast if the work was slow so was the song some made-up songs were about things that really happened [Music] and now you're bound to die [Music] hang [Music] now some of north carolina's old stories have been made into plays one play tells the story of the lost colony it was the time of the corn harvest when we arrived and the friendly indians were giving thanks unto their god this is the first english child to be born in the new world and here god willing beginneth a new nation in this hour no ships shall leave england for the colony gentlemen a spanish armada is set to sail against us and now to arms god save us this means the end of the colony it will die and down the centuries that wait ahead there'll be some whisper of our name some mention and devotion to the dream that brought us here and now into the hand of god we commend us traditions are still part of our lives but today we learn about many of these traditions by watching television some of us spend more time watching television than we spend talking to other people of course when i was a little boy we didn't have television but my dad and some of the older people around he used to tell us kids some great stories i remember going on a hunting trip with my dad and he'd tell me those old jack tales that jack was always getting into something of course i like to read good stories too and we used to love to sing and dance we'd all get together at the community house and have big dances the first time i met my wife was at one of those dances i thought she was the prettiest girl i'd ever seen later we got a radio which was a miracle in those days all kinds of music stories and then of course television and more entertainment grandchildren have seen television ever since they were tiny i reckon they think television has been around forever but you know my grandson still likes to sit up on my lap and hear me tell stories sunbrella peace course sandpaper please not all our traditions are spoken or sung some are things we do with our hands crafts these crafts are also passed down from parents to children crafts are harder to learn than songs or stories like playing the piano or flying a plane learning a craft takes time and it takes skill to do these things well why were crafts started and why do people still do craft work a craft used to begin when people needed something and the only way they could get it was to make it themselves the first people in north carolina needed jugs and bowls they couldn't buy these things but they could find clay and make their own today people in north carolina still carry on the traditional craft of pottery [Music] making people have always needed furniture and our area has always had many forests so early people used wood from these forests to make their furniture later furniture would be made in factories but some craftsmen still build furniture the traditional handmade way early north carolinians had to make most of the things they needed and almost all these things were made at home [Music] families don't have to make their own quilts anymore but some people still enjoy the craft of quilt making a hundred years ago many people in north carolina spun wool and cotton into thread dyed the thread and then used a hand loom to weave the thread into cloth some people still weave cloth on a hand loom using the same designs and patterns their great great grandparents used today most cloth is made on machines in huge factories what used to take a craftsman months to make now can be produced in minutes most of the things we use today are sold in stores and the things we buy are the same things early people had to make themselves should we weave cloth for towels and sheets should we make our own furniture instead of buying it in a store because we don't need to make these things some of the old crafts are disappearing but we are learning about other crafts in new ways now we don't need to make furniture or quilts or weave our own cloth but we do want to know how these things can be done by hand we want to make things for ourselves we want to learn the stories and songs our grandparents learned we want to know about traditions [Music] [Music] so [Music] you