Day Six: Top Ten Photos
The sound of conch horns and chants filled the National Museum of the American Indian as we began the last day of this year’s Festival. In the Potomac Atrium, Hālau ‘Ōhi‘a and Hālau o Kekuhi prepared for the return of Kānepō, a volcanic pōhaku (rock) on loan to the museum from Volcanoes National Park for the past 20 years. Since 2004, Kānepō has represented the Hawaiian people and the westernmost reaches of the hemisphere at the museum as one of its cardinal direction stones. Through ritual dance and song, including a spontaneous appearance by Tlingit storyteller Gene Tagaban as Raven, we wished Kānepō a safe journey home to Hawai’i later this summer.
“Why have we made such a big fuss over a rock?” asked Kumu Hula Kekuhi Kealiikanakaoleohaililani, leader of Hālau ‘Ōhi‘a. “Because we want to make a fuss over all the rocks. Because they are the people under the soles of our feet.”
This year’s Festival ended rather symbolically—with a display of unity, uplifting the voices of Indigenous peoples for all to hear—with our final featured concert. Celebrating Canada Day, Mi’kmaw band Sons of Membertou, from the east coast of Nova Scotia, performed in the Potomac Atrium.
“This would be the first time, to my knowledge, that we have Mi’kmaw music being sung on the National Mall or at the National Museum of the American Indian,” founder Graham Marshall said.
The event welcomed Kirsten Hillman, ambassador of Canada to the United States, and marked the start of a collaboration of Sons of Membertou with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, which will soon reissue the band’s 1995 album, Wapna’kik: The People of the Dawn.
Even though our Festival was shorter this year, we managed to fill six days with just as much fun from beautiful music to delicious food, awe-inspiring art pieces, and enough stories to last a lifetime. Now we all have the responsibility of sharing those experiences, because as Gene Tagaban says, “We are all storytellers.”
We’ve loved bringing you the Top Ten this week, but we would be remiss if we did not give a shoutout to our amazing photographers, many of whom volunteer their time to the Festival documenting each special moment. Thank you to Grace Bowie, Julie Byrne, Kalia Chesley, James C. Dacey, Joshua Davis, Bill Douthitt, Craig Fergus, Ralph H. Johnson, Karen Kasmauski, Stephen L. Kolb, Phillip R. Lee, Daniel Martínez González, Carys Owen, Mark Roth, Stanley Turk, Ronald Villasante, Josh Weilepp, Mary Yee, Mark C. Young, and last, but certainly not least, lead photographer Sonya Pencheva.
And thank you! We’re so happy to have been able to share the Festival with you, whether it be on the National Mall or online from anywhere in the world. While the Festival has ended, the transmission of cultural traditions lives on, and we hope you’ll check out the participants’ individual platforms, our recipes page, or our Festival Blog for extra videos, photos, articles, and more over the next few months.
This is Team Top Ten signing off. See you in 2025!
Molly Szymanski is a media intern with the 2024 Folklife Festival. They are from Baltimore and currently live in College Park, Maryland. Elisa Hough is the editor and web content manager for the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.