WLM | art
By Ellen Sue Blakely
Images provided by Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation
W
hen we were kids and all the cousins gathered
for the annual Fourth of July ice cream and
watermelon feast, our great aunt Kate kept
all of us in line by expounding on a “haint” she called
“Rawhide and bloody bones.” For years, we assumed
Aunt Kate had made up this scary haunt of a creature.
It turns out that Kate had borrowed and adapted
“Rawhide” from an Irish tale — probably one she had
heard as a child from her grandparents who had come
from the Emerald Isle. Aunt Kate is long gone; but,
to this day, her scary rendition still brings chills and
laughter to the now-aging cousins.
That’s the power of story. If you have ever sat around
a campfire and told (or listened to) ghost stories or
tall tales, you know its spell. Those who study stories
as an art form say telling stories is the oldest art form;
and from it grew poetry — rhyming was a way of
remembering a longer story.
Although there has not been an organized effort at
preserving Wyoming’s stories in recent years, our
people have always been inveterate storytellers.
Mountain men told plenty of whoppers when they
gathered at the fur-trading rendezvous. Music and
storytelling were common in the Native American tipis,
cowboy bunkhouses, farmhand shacks and homestead
cabins. It still is. Given half a chance, today’s outfitters,
hunters and fishermen will regale listeners with tales
about the “ones that got away.”
This year, Wyoming is taking a step to share our longstanding storytelling tradition at “Hear Me Now,” the
state’s first organized Storytelling Circle. (The concept
of a “storytelling circle” harks back to those days of
campfires and tipis.) The event is part of the Big Horn
Basin Festival, August 6–7, 2016, in Hot Springs State
Park, Thermopolis. “Hear Me Now” is sponsored
by Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation with a
ThinkWyoming grant from the Wyoming Humanities
Council. Additional support comes from the National
Endowment for the Arts, Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund
and Wyoming Arts Council.
“Hear Me Now” will be moderated by Spencer
Bohren, nationally known musician and storyteller.
Although Bohren now lives in New Orleans,
Wyomingites still claim him as their own since he
grew up in Casper, and his family still lives and plays
music there. Bohren maintains strong ties with the
state, presenting educational programs in the schools
and public performances in Wyoming communities
throughout the year.
Professional storytellers telling tales throughout the day
are Michelle King, Basin; Catherine Ringler, Powell;
“Hear
Me Now”
Wyoming Storytellers
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Wyoming Lifestyle Magazine | Late Summer/Fall 2016