1969

Nuwa Sentongo, 1969

When [in approximately 1969 or perhaps 1970] I took the students in the [Indiana University] fieldwork class to Bean Blossom, I divided the tasks in the manner of mass observation. Shy students created a census of license plates, some timed and recorded (with pen and paper) the events on the main stage, others documented the events around the edges: the jams, the illicit drinking.

One time, one of the students was Nuwa Sentongo from Uganda. Since he would be the only black person there, I offered him an easy job, but, a witty, confident man, a writer and trickster, he said he would document “the living arrangements of the hilly-billies” and set out to map the campground, the gathering of tents and trailers.

He charmed the people he interviewed who passed the message up to the stage, and Birch Monroe, in a white cowboy hat, invited our friend from Africa, the bluegrass fan who had come the greatest distance, to join him. Nuwa, short, thin, in a white cap and shorts, and very dark, joined him, saying with a great smile that he felt honored to be there, and to express his delight and to repay the hospitality he had been shown, he said he would like to prepare for the crowd a tasty example of his native cuisine.

He paused, then asked if anyone in the crowd had a dog he could butcher and roast. Gasps and a horrified silence followed as he, chuckling, slipped away.

Nuwa, like I say, was a trickster at play with the world, fully aware of the nature of the western culture he enjoyed disturbing . . .

[by Professor Henry Glassie,

of Indiana University's Folklore Institute,

in a letter to Tom Adler, April 9, 2010]