Smithsonian Center for Folklife & Cultural Heritage

A clear bowl filled with Italian seafood pasta sits on a table with red and green placemats.

Fra Diavolo Is a Devilish Dish for an Italian American Christmas

Fra diavolo is a spicy tomato sauce served over linguine and shellfish that roughly translates to “among the devil.

Freshly backed, round, golden brown tortas sit to cool in their crinkled metal baking tins.

Torta—Filipino Christmas Cake, I Think

For the majority of the year, I am half Filipina. But during Christmas, I try to embrace this identity fully through a few small rituals.

Three adults stand and two small children stand around a table with plated. The table is covered by a red table cloth and has a large candle in the center with food arranged around it.

Learn to Make Potatis Korv Sausage for Your Festive Swedish Smörgåsbord

I can’t remember a year in my life where my Grandma Lucille laid out the smörgåsbord and the korv was missing.

Two men with long hair, one older and one younger, perform with eyes closed on stage. They each hold a painted rattle, and the older man in the foreground also holds a microphone.

A Kumeyaay Folktale Illuminates Why the Sun and Moon Shine at Different Times

The celestial beings took a lesson from two frogs in love

Two men wearing traditional feathered headdresses stand in front of two microphones, singing and playing hand drums.

Dennis Zotigh Is a Man of Many Talents, Many Tribes

“As Native people, we have to learn to balance two different worlds.”

A row of people lines up playing flutes. Most are young students, and in the middle is an older man with a long gray braid.

A Lesson About North American Indigenous Flute and Authenticity

North American Indigenous Flute vs. “Native American Flute”: What is lost when the difference between the two traditions is blurred?

A young girl poses outside a building, wearing a dark coat, layers of skirts, and a kerchief over her hair, holding a broom in one hand and a kettle in the other. Black-and-white photo.

The Swedish Witch Trials Teach Us How to Confront Dark Heritage

At first glance, the tradition of Påskkärring, or “Easter Hags,” seems quite innocent, but deeper study reveals a dark history, one of oppression and persecution.

Digital illustration of a large mothlike figure, flying above a forested area and a single car driving down a road at nights. Its eyes are glowing red.

West Virginia's Mothman Leads Cryptid Renaissance

The creature has risen from local appearances to the national stage as a leader in the cryptid revival of the last twenty years.

Several men and women dressed in all black, standing in formation with a towering stone mountain behind them.

A Catalan Choir Reinterprets Musician Raimon’s Anti-Fascist Lyrics

The Coral Càrmina of Catalonia answers the challenge to arrange a song from the Smithsonian Folkways catalog.

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