Puppets and Tales from Appalachia

by Sara Cogswell, Curator of "About Face: The World of Puppets and Masks"

As Material Culture presenter Omope Carter Daboiku likes to say, “When you grew up in Appalachia, you learned to make puppets and toys out of anything and everything”. There will be three opportunities to enter this world of Appalachian imagination in the Material Culture exhibition, “About Face: The World of Masks and Puppets” at the 2010 Cityfolk Festival.

A professional teller of tales, Cincinnati-based Omope Carter Daboiku has been affiliated with the Ohio Arts Council as an Artist-in-Residence since 1990. Traditionally, storytelling has been the mechanism for maintaining a culture’s collective memory. Major events were held in memory by oral historians who told the highlights over and over, keeping the event alive generation after generation. Other stories taught social interaction or explained spiritual principles and creation. As an American of mixed ancestry born in the Appalachian hills of Southeastern Ohio, Omope felt stories helped her define herself. She sees herself as a griot, an African term for oral historian, and feels it is her responsibility to keep memories alive for the next generation. She will be sharing some of her tales using various types of puppets, including hand puppets and shadow puppets, as well as discussing her experience of making and telling stories with puppets during her childhood in Appalachia.

One type of Appalachian toy is a limberjack, a loose-limbed dancing puppet with hinged arms and legs which dances on a long narrow piece of wood, which the puppeteer sits on and taps. Some are simple and plain wood, while others have hinges in their wrists and ankles and are intricately painted. They can be hand-carved or cut out with a saw. However, they all have a few things in common. They all have a stick attached in the back for support, they all have a board that bounces to make them dance, they all have hinged joints, and they are all great fun!

Steven Powers, a Fine Arts Major from Sinclair College, will be exhibiting his limberjacks in the Material Culture exhibition. He first came to know and love limberjacks as a child in the rural area of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and his love for these Appalachian characters has lasted over 40 years and is still ongoing. Powers will have many ready-made examples of his limberjacks, but in addition, will have a small table saw and demonstrate how these delightful characters are created.

We are also fortunate to have Barb and Russ Childers, who perform as the duo Bear Foot. The Childers, who live in Batavia Ohio, have both received the Appalachian Heritage Awards for their annual performances at Cincinnati’s Appalachian Heritage Festival. Their presentations focus on southern Appalachian musical traditions and their historical significance. That includes a variety of things like storytelling, and songs and dance. While Russ plays a fiddle or banjo tune, Barb dances a limberjack to demonstrate how it is both a toy and a rhythm instrument, keeping the beat with its wooden feet, just the way real live clogdancers do with real live feet from the same tradition. Among the numbers we can look forward to are a story about a 3-legged chicken with a limberjack chicken; a Mule Song, with a limberjack mule; along with many other tall tales. Though the Childers did not make the limberjacks they use, they have purchased them at festivals from craftspeople, or have received them as gifts. Their collection includes everything from people to frogs, and farm animals to dinosaurs.