- It must have been in about nineteen sixty two or sixty three.
A period during which I visited him a number of times
and I mentioned it earlier in connection with
his lectures to peace corp volunteers, that kind
of thing. And when he agreed that
he wanted to sell to me some of these objects, we
put together a package. And this was one of about
twenty or twenty five objects. I think maybe he would've
had a second one of these. He didn't seem the least bit
concerned that he was letting it go.
I guess there were several reasons I considered it
kind of more meaningful than others. Relatively few of the wooden
objects relate as much to females as they do to males.
And yes, almost certainly this was carved by a male
carver. But it does celebrate, in usage,
this one celebrates the skills and the smoothness
and the acceptable quality that the whole village wants
to depend on them for. Organizing the orchestra
for a celebration, preparing the food for the celebration,
the plum wine or whatever else is gonna be drunk.
To celebrate. For some reason, it just fit
with the memories of my own mother.
- [Mary Jo Arnoldi] What was your mothers name?
- Mildred Grace Lee and then she married a Davis.
- (female voice repeating the name) - Yes.