"Giving an Altar" The Ideology of Reproduction in a St.

Joseph's Day Feast

Author(s): Kay Turner and Suzanne Seriff
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 398, Folklore and Feminism (Oct. Dec., 1987), pp. 446-460
Published by: American Folklore Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/540904 .
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KAY
SUZANNE

TURNER
SERIFF

"Giving an Altar"
The Ideologyof Reproductionin a St. Joseph's

Day Feast

The St. Joseph's altar tradition, dating back to the 16th century in Sicily,
continuesto be celebratedin a Sicilian-American communityin central Texas.
Dedicatedto the patron of thefamily and the poor, elaboratealtars are made by
womenandpresentedin the home. This woman-centeredtraditionprovidesa case
in point for understandingfolklore practiceand performancethrougha feminist
orientationthat emphasizes the ideology of reproduction.

back to the 16th century in Sicin

Sicilian-American
enclaves in Texas, Louito
be
celebrated
ily-continues
San
and
elsewhere.
California,
siana,
Giuseppi, patron of the family, the poor,
the widowed, and orphans, is honored through the creation of elaborate-literally floor to ceiling-altars composed primarily of food and traditionally
dedicated and displayed in the home.1 It is the female head of household who
"gives" the altar, orchestrating and overseeing its display in fulfillment of a
promise made to the Saint in a moment of need. This woman-centered altar
tradition provides a splendid case in point for understanding folklore practice
and performance through a feminist orientation.
What feminist theory brings to the interpretation of women's lore is a commitment to understanding lore as it arises from and promotes a woman-centered ideology. In fact, much of what we as folklorists call women's tradition
is based on such an ideology, one that we call an ideology of reproduction.We
use the notion of reproduction not in the strict Marxist sense (that is, as acts
and institutions that maintain and reproduce the social relations of capitalist
production), but in the sense derived from feminist scholars such as Alison
Jaggar (1983), Eleanor Kuykendall (1983), Adrienne Rich (1979), Sara Ruddick (1980), and Caroline Whitbeck (1983). These feminists have effectively
reclaimed reproduction as an ideological sphere separate from production.
They have asserted the potential for reproduction as maternal practice, including pregnancy, birthing, childrearing, and family nurturance. Such practice
codifies a thought and value system that is distinctly different from patriarchal
thought and value. Both productive and reproductive labor produce values
and create new needs. However, as Mary O'Brien has suggested,
THE ST. JOSEPH'S ALTAR TRADITION-dating

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"Giving an Altar"

447

the values and needs created are not . . . commensurable ... [The] productive process creates
values and needs for the producer: in any form, reproductive labour creates another and needy
human. Production in its historic development becomes socially necessary labour; reproduction
is primordiallynecessarilysocial labour. [1981:16]

This maternally derived ideology of reproduction foregrounds social practices

based on affiliation, concern for others, sharing, caring, gifting, and religious
belief. And to a great extent, as is made evident in the St. Joseph's altar tradition, the reproductive value system employs a noncoercive form of power,
power "in terms of the social development of human capacities" Jaggar
1983:282) rather than power in terms of conquest and domination.
A new conception of reproduction at the level of ideology is welcome. It
provides a means for examining the sources and subtleties of women's empowerment, even in the context of historically determined hegemonies. In this
case study of a particular community, for example, the effects of class distinctions between merchants and farmers are in evidence as is the inheritance of
classic Mediterranean patriarchal authority. Conflicts arising from such class
and gender divisions are played out in the festival we have examined. Indeed,
no traditional festival is immune to the determining contingencies of class,
caste, gender, and race. However, it is our contention that an analysis of a
woman-centered festival such as the St. Joseph's Day celebration cannot end
with these determining forces. We maintain that a full understanding of such
festival behavior must encourage analysis from the point of view of a different
ideology, one that first recognizes and in fact centers on what women themselves value: maternal practice.
We view our research on the St. Joseph's altar as a case study for illuminating
the basis of feminist folklore interpretation in reproduction theory. Our study
is based upon a four-year period of fieldwork with members of a SicilianAmerican community living in a central Texas town. We have worked with
several families, five of which have given altars that we observed. The first
section of this article constitutes a description of the altar tradition. Subsequently, we will address two well-known themes in anthropological and folklore theory: inversion and gifting. Both of these theories have been generally
approached on the basis of the way they reflect, maintain, confront, or challenge the edicts of dominance, status, and hierarchy. But the end goals of status and hierarchy usually align with those of production whereas we are committed to a rethinking of inversion and gifting as they serve the more fertile
goals of reproduction.

St. Joseph'sDay in Texas

The most salient feature of the St. Joseph's Feast Day is the symbolically
loaded altar. Sometimes referred to as a "table," the altar is constructed only
for presentation on or around the feast day, 19 March. This highly elaborated
altar tradition finds its counterpart in the maintenance of home altars made for

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(100,1987

daily use, a folk practice widespread among Catholic women of Mediterranean descent. The altar marks a site for communication between the heavenly
family and the earthly family. It bridges sacred and secular realms by providing a locus of communication, a place for the performance of belief in the
home.2 While the home altar is usually an unobtrusive, fixed assemblage in the
private quarters of the home, the St. Joseph's table is grandiose in its multitiered display of icons surrounded by mounds of cakes, fruits, cookies, pies,
and special breads-all aimed at creating a visual metaphor of abundance.
This purposeful exaggeration of abundance is no less than a profound offering of thanks-an offering to the Saint in recognition of his assistance in a
time of family crisis. Typical of the petitions made to San Giuseppi are those
for help in curing illness, rectifying financial setbacks, bringing a loved one
safely back from war, or bringing a healthy child into the world. As one of the
senior members of the community, Rose Restivo, explained, "If someone in
your family is sick, you make it for him-you ask St. Joseph-and it works.
It sure do work." In essence, St. Joseph stands as that protector of the integrity
of the family who is called upon whenever the close-knit fabric of family relations is in danger of being rent.
In Chase, Texas, the tradition of constructing an altar is at least 70 years
old, involving a community of Sicilian-Americans whose ancestors immigrated to Texas at the turn of the century. When the tradition was at its peak
(in the 1950s) as many as 20 to 30 individual altars were made in private homes.
"They used to have them all the time," altarmaker Rosalie Gullo offered. "A
long time ago we used to have so many neighbors, they had one in each house.
They get through eating at one house and they go to another." Today the tradition may be said to be dwindling in terms of the number of altars made, but
the importance placed on the event, which now occurs in three or four homes
per year, has certainly not diminished. If anything, the altars themselves have
become increasingly more elaborate, and the responsibility for maintaining
the tradition within the community assumed by individual altarmakers has become increasingly complex. A single family, for example, can count on hosting the feast for anywhere from 500 to 1000 people. Obviously, the expense
of giving an altar is not to be underestimated. However, the host family rarely
carries the entire financial burden. Gifts of time, money, and food are pledged
by other family and community members, often as promises to the Saint, in
order to insure his blessings. For example, Sally Cantarella's aunt had cancer.
To stay healthy, she promised to make eight cakes for Sally's altar. Sally continued, "Different ones will make different donations. I mean, it just all goes
together."
The desire to give an altar is based upon a private promise made between a
person and San Giuseppi, sometimes years in advance of the actual offering. A
promise can be made by either a male or female petitioner, but it is generally
the woman of the family who fulfills the promise by overseeing the construction of the altar. Once the petition has been answered, the woman begins to

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make preparations for the giving of her table. Months in advance, women in
and friends-are chosen to serve as her primary helpthe community-kin
mates, and tasks are assigned. It is at this point, too, that community members
are chosen to participate in the ceremony that accompanies the presentation of
the altar. This ceremony-a ritual reenactment of Joseph and Mary's search
for lodging in Bethlehem-requires that representatives be selected to play the
roles of the Holy Family and various other saints designated as important by
the giver of the altar. The ceremony culminates in a ritual feasting of these
impersonated saints.
The altar is constructed over a nine-day period before the day the altar will
be publically given. This period constitutes a novena, and each day of preparation is concluded with the saying of the rosary and a special oration to San
Giuseppi. Preparations are centered on the cooking and baking of the huge
quantities of special foods that will either adorn the altar or be served at the
feast itself.
Early in the preparation period the women bake certain of the fancy pastries
and cookies used to decorate the altar. Of utmost importance is the baking of
the traditional cosifigli (Figure 1)-giant fig cookies made in the shape of the
saints' identifying symbols: the lily-crowned cane of St. Joseph, the Sacred
Heart ofJesus, the rosary of Mary, and the book of St. Ann are a few examples. These will be seen in conjunction with special wreath-shaped breads, the
cucchidagli,one for each saint on the altar. In the days that follow, more per-

Figure 1. Making cosifigli, the traditional fig-filled pastries created in the

shapes of the saints' identifying symbols. [Photo: Kay Turner]

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ishable sweets such as pies, cakes, and Italian pastries including canolis and
cream puffs are made, as are dozens of different kinds of cookies. By this time
the women are spending ten to twelve hours each day in the altarmaker's
home, where extra stoves, refrigerators, and utensils have been moved in to
accommodate the massive culinary activity. While pastries are baked in one
corner of the kitchen, vegetables are chopped and fried or decorative fruits are
prepared in another.
In the largest room of the house, usually the living room, the altargiver and
her closest friends and kin begin to arrange the altar, designing it according to
the altargiver's understanding of the proper aesthetic. General knowledge of
this aesthetic (e.g., the importance of symmetry and balance) is shared by all
the women in the community, but the final details of any particular altar's appearance are negotiated among the altargiver and her closest associates (Figure
2).
The day before St. Joseph's, the men are given the task of cooking the spaghetti and gravy, a labor-intensive job that usually is done in the garage or in
a tent erected specifically for that purpose. Because St. Joseph's Day falls during Lent, meat is not allowed; in its stead, hard boiled eggs are served with the
sauce. The eggs are boiled and peeled in the large pots the night before the
feast. In order to accommodate the expected crowds with at least one egg per
helping, as many as 100 dozen eggs may be boiled. Men take shifts throughout
the night to stir and season the huge 20-gallon vats of sauce. The altargiver and

Figure 2. Friends of the altargiver work out the decorative details in the
creation of a St. Joseph's Day altar. [Photo: Kay Turner]

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her female companions maintain control over this process, coming out to the
tents every few hours to check on the seasoning, temperature, and thickness
of the sauce. According to Sally Cantarella, "The men are just the ones who
can handle [the pots]. . . . The ladies supervise."
Once the altar has been completely set-some time on the day or evening
before the feast-the parish priest comes to the house to bless the altar and the
family sponsoring it. The actual day of presentation of the altar finds hundreds
of people, most from the immediate area, participating in the feast. The celebration begins with the ritual reenactment of Joseph and Mary's search for
lodging in Bethlehem: the party of chosen "saints," led by Joseph and Mary,
must knock on three different doors of the house before they will be allowed
to enter by the host family. In days past, the saints were dressed in homemade
biblical costumes. Now the one remaining costume feature is the handmade
lily-wreathed staff carried by St. Joseph at the head of the procession. Once
inside, the saints are seated at an elegantly set table at the foot of the altar. Then
commences the ceremonial feting of the saints; it is the act of feeding and nourishing them that serves as the central ritual act. In this instance, it is the men's
role to feed the saints. The saints are encouraged to eat up to and beyond their
capacity. It is not unusual to see the male servers cutting up portions of food,
wiping dirty mouths, and even spoonfeeding the honored guests, especially
those played by young children. The men cry out, "Eat! Eat! Have just a little
bit more." According to custom, the saints must eat some of every kind of
food. The greatest emphasis is placed upon insuring that the saints are honored
through a limitless sense of culinary indulgence.
Although the men serve, it is the women who present the food as gifts to
the saints. They line up to serve plate after plate-as many as 15 or 20 separate
rounds-of various customary foods. Food is presented to the saints in a ritual
progression, each woman serving three plates in accord with the custom that
allows a wish to be made after delivering the first of three rounds. The feast
always begins with sour foods (grapefruit baskets or other citrus fruits fancifully displayed), proceeds through several courses of other fruits and traditionally prepared vegetables, then lavishes the meatless pasta. The meal culminates at the moment when the saints ask for their favorite sweets directly
from the altar. Having been grandly feted by the community, the saints are
escorted from the table and positioned in a line to receive homage from those
in attendance. Typically, people kneel to kiss the right hands and feet of the
saints as a way of receiving their blessing.
This ends the ritual procedures of the day. At this point, friends, relatives,
and community members go outside and queue up to feast on what the saints
have "left behind." Everyone is served heaping portions of spaghetti and egg.
The eating takes place beneath a huge tent. Once the spaghetti has been consumed, women attending the altar begin dispensing its contents, bringing to
the tent trays loaded with the various sweets that only recently had decorated
the sacred site. The object is to clear the altar completely by the end of the day.

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In accord with the initial purpose of the feast day-that is, to feed the poorany food that is not consumed is given to charity. Sally Cantarella explained
how, at the conclusion of her St. Joseph's dedication, she and her husband
would "box it [the leftover food] up and take it to the nursing home or the
orphanage." They always did this, she said, "because it's all blessed and it's
not to be thrown away. It's taken to the needy." Rosalie Gullo added,
". . . this (custom) was from the old country, that's where it all started
from. ... Then they used to give it to the poor, to the real poor people."
Before the representative saints leave at the end of the day they are each
given one of the fancy breads and a fig cookie made in the shape of their saint's
attribute (e.g., cane, heart, and so on). These breads and cookies are often
saved for a period of years within the saints' families and are brought out for
special display during other holiday occasions.

Exaggerationand Inversion
From the folklorist's point of view, what the observer sees are the effects of
two relatively common festival-related strategies: exaggeration and inversion.
As a religious feast, St. Joseph's Day is structured through these instruments
of exaggeration and symbolic reversal. In order for the important symbolic
content of the ritual to be revealed-that is, the gift and the necessity of gifting-the form must free up the potential for receiving that content.
On St. Joseph's Day, food is the key symbol for exaggerating woman's role
as nurturer and caretaker of the family. This elaborate feast prepared for the
Holy Family can be seen as the hyperbolic counterpart of the daily meals provided for the sustenance of the altargiver's secular family. On this special day,
food is exalted from its secular place in the kitchen to a sacred place on the
altar. The altar is loaded with food-especially fancy sweets that require traditional expertise in their baking. Icons of the saints, who have their proper
and immortal place on an altar, are visually obscured by this invasion of the
ephemeral. Food is raised high and grandly displayed via the multi-tiered, vertical thrust of the altar's construction. In fact, the highest altar is considered
best: the taller it gets, the more food it can handle.
Food on the altar symbolically represents abundance. The aesthetics of the
altar are governed by an intention to exaggerate and proclaim the altarmaker's
willingness to give, to make a sacrifice, not of blood, but of food, the symbol
of sustenance and growth. To feed the displaced Holy Family and associated
saints, and to do so in such an extravagant manner, underscores the primacy
of reproductive values in this community: love is shown through an unmitigated act of actual and symbolic nurturance.
The St. Joseph's altar also affords moments of symbolic reversal which,
along with these exaggerations, provide a window on the community's dependence upon the values of reproduction. As Barbara Babcock has suggested
in the introduction to her important collection, The Reversible World, "It is

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through various forms of inversion that culture frees itself from the limitation
of thou-shalt-nots; enriches itself with the subject matter of that without
which it would not work efficiently, and enables itself to speak about itself'
(1978:20-21). Specifically in terms of applying a feminist theory to the symbolic reversals of this Sicilian-American tradition, we want to emphasize the
way in which this altar practice "enriches (this culture) with the subject matter
without which it would not work efficiently" or at all, namely the subject mater of woman: the mother, the nurturer, the feeder, the provider. The performance of inversive rites wherein women "take charge" is a particularly effective means of asserting the reproductive basis of women's power.3 Furthermore, the inversions in the St. Joseph's tradition are accompanied by symbolic
and behavioral exaggerations that overtly acclaim the value and values of reproduction.
Reproduction and its inherent values constitute the core of behaviors, sentiments, and motivations among the women of this small Texas community.
Even though many of these women work outside the home, daily and primary
attention is given to child care, cooking, care of the sick, emotional support
of the family, and the acts of community support that assure the growth and
well-being of blood relations as well as an extended, extra-household network
of relations. But what is equally important is the reflexive nature of these behaviors. These women are engaged in constant communication about and
evaluation of the practice of caring for and nurturing others.
If the ideology of reproduction can be said to be embedded in the very heart
of women's everyday life, the St. Joseph's Day celebration and its attendant
symbolic inversions and exaggerations become instrumental in annually foregrounding the importance of this ideology. Annually occurring during Lent,
the feast momentarily overrrides this season associated with fasting and personal denial. Food display and consumption become the order of the day. On
a day dedicated to the male patron of the family, the spiritual head of the
household, it is women who take charge and women's reproductive labor that
is ultimately celebrated. As the nine-day preparation period wears on, women
increasingly take over the altargiver's house. Men occupy space on the periphery of the altarmaking scene. They willingly defer to the women's authority.
In a reversal of standard role assignments, husbands become "helpmates" to
their wives, doing whatever they are asked to facilitate the success of the event.
But this is essentially a time when women must do what they do best. The
men joke among themselves that they have "nothing to do"; they take a passive stance on the sidelines of a flurry of female activity.
The men do, however, become active on the night before the feast. You
will recall that it is their task to cook the sauce for the spaghetti and this they
do, usually out in the garage. But again we note that women have prepared in
advance all the ingredients necessary for making the sauce. In contrast to the
decorative and blessed foods for the altar, prepared by women alone, the men
are given the task of preparing the plain, unsacralized food.

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Finally, in the ceremony itself, the most salient, and for our purposes, the
most instructive symbolic reversal occurs. While women act like "kings" presenting the Holy Family and saints with gifts of food, the men become "mothers" to the saints, serving them, encouraging them to eat, and cleaning up after
them when they're finished. These days, the saints are usually played by children or young adults, making more dramatic the ceremonial moment when
men play the part of mothers.
This particular reversal is most important for understanding a key difference between the rites of inversion centered on the ideology of reproduction
and those centered on status and hierarchy. Usually when men perform women's roles as part of rites of inversion there is a high degree of mockery, extremism, and degrading behavior. In contrast, inversion in the St. Joseph's Day
ceremony briefly allows men to play the role of nurturer, which they do with
pride, affection, and love. When rites of inversion forward the ideology of
reproduction, the stakes are different.
Symbolic inversion is often viewed from the perspective of a classically
dualistic ontology. Rites of inversion are typically interpreted as cultural moments wherein the prescribed oppositions between male and female, ruler and
subject, strong and weak, are reversed to allow the brief ascendency of the
powerless over the powerful. In contrast, we view the symbolic inversions
made central to the St. Joseph's Day celebration as revelatory of a quality of
difference, not opposition, between male and female-a sense of difference
and hence a division of labor that defines both men and women as powerful
in accordance with their distinct roles. Men are considered the head of the
household, and as such their power accrues through a given sense of authority.
They are the primary breadwinners, and productive labor is the basis of their
status. Women are considered the heart of the household; their power accrues
through intimacy. They are the bread givers, and reproductive labor is the
basis of their importance.

Gifting and Sharing

If we are to fully understand the power of these tactics of inversion and exaggeration in foregrounding the value of the female, we must bear in mind the
symbolic context in which they operate: the context of the gift. For it is this
devotional act-the "giving of an altar" by a woman to San Giuseppi, which
provides the material and spiritual focus of the feast day, and which is symbolically manifest as the central metaphor of women's work in general-a kind
of work feminist Mary O'Brien has called "reproductive labour." The value
created by this type of labor is not market value, but a value that she describes
as representing "the unity of sentient beings with natural process and the integrity of the continuity of the human race" (1981:16). At the heart of this
labor is the supreme gift of all womankind: the gift of life. The exaggerations
and inversions operative during the St. Joseph's Day celebration result in a

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hyperbolic display of these life-giving and life-sustaining capacities of

women-a display that we see as a testament to the very power base of women's reproductive labor.
At the core of the St. Joseph's Day ceremony-the ritual reenactment of the
Holy Family's search for lodging-is the central gift that grounds all women's
reproductive labor-what O'Brien calls the creation "of another and needy
human being." We are referring, of course, in this instance, to Mary's labor
and delivery of the Christ Child. As the Holy Mother prepares to give birth,
the earthly mother prepares a nurturing place for the sacred birth. It is through
her capacity as caretaker and nurturer that the earthly mother is able to facilitate this most sacred of events through her gift of hospitality. Although the
day is dedicated to St. Joseph, the male patron of the family, the central story
around which the day's events are constructed focuses not on him per se, but
on the women who lodge and feed his Holy Family. The dramatic pinnacle of
the narrative enacted on this day is the moment when the altargiver finally
opens her doors to the holy pilgrims, inviting them into her home and heart.
With tears of joy in her eyes, altargiver Sally Cantarella opened the door of
her house to embrace her Holy Family and saints with the traditional words,
There is room forJesus,Joseph and Mary
This is no longer my house.

It is that ofJesus, Joseph and Mary.

In giving over her home to the Holy Family, the altargiver offers the very
heart of her own worth, and so dedicates herself to a process of life that she
shares with all womankind. Her gift of food and lodging is a gift of cooperation and collaboration with Mary, symbolically insuring the continuity of the
human race through one more generation, and the safe delivery of the Blessed
Redeemer for all time.
In Sicily, this dramatic show of hospitality and sacrifice to the Holy Family
was traditionally extended into the community with offerings of food to help
the poor and homeless (Speroni 1940:135). In Sicilian-American enclaves today, the feast is held within the Sicilian communities, yet much is made of the
fact that the doors are open for anyone to participate in the feast. Sally Cantarella explained how a cedar branch is placed on either side of an altargiver's
front gate to indicate that that house is open for a feast. "So anyone driving
down (the road) who knew of the tradition would know they're welcome."
As "strangers" from Austin, we folklorists were told how especially welcome
we were. To bring strangers into the intimate home environment is an ultimate act of hospitality made possible by the special dispensations of St. Joseph's Day.
The woman-centered nature of the gift on this feast day determines a mode
of activity that is distinctly female: women unite with other women in an extended kin network to cook, clean, bake, decorate, construct, serve, and do
whatever else is necessary to get the job done. Although the initial promise is

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made in a highly personal and individual act between a woman and her saint,
the gifting is realized as an elaborately orchestrated act of kin collaboration and
cooperation. As one altargiver put it, "When you're helping someone else
you're actually doing the labor. And it really is [labor]." The nature of this
help is fundamentally cooperative and negotiated; no one woman has expertise
in every aspect of the altar's preparation. Instead, each woman brings with her
a special talent, recipe, or other resource that is pooled, discussed, and negotiated throughout the process of altar construction. The decidedly womancentered etiquette of hospitality during this event requires that the hostessthe giver of the altar-feed, nurture, support, and encourage her kin-based
crew; her particular expertise, after all, lies not in the rules of ritual enactment
but in what sociologist Micaela di Leonardo has called "the work of kinship"
(1984:194). Sally Cantarella gave us a firsthand account of the way in which
the St. Joseph's feast promotes and celebrates this kind of women's work:
It's such a beautiful devotion, really. I feel like I did more work at Mrs. Emola's altar than I'm
doing now [at my own], because now I'm just actually sort of advising: "Where do you want
this?" "How do you want this?" and making sure they [her helpers] have all their supplies.
Everyone has a job. That's what makes us feel relaxed. Like I have certain ladies that'll be in
charge of the kitchen, of getting all the food ready to start making the plates. . . . And every day
someone furnishes lunch so you don't have to stop working.

Di Leonardo suggests that holiday celebrations such as St. Joseph's Day

serve for women as "foci of kinship power" (1984:218); the planning and presentation of holiday food and other rituals, she says, are ways in which women
extend and cement the bonds between themselves, thereby extending their
control and autonomy. The St. Joseph's celebration, in particular, cultivates a
kind of work between women that is fundamentally and necessarily nurturing
and cooperative; indeed, the work itself is part of a sacred gift of hospitality
promised by each woman who participates.
In attempting to understand the concept of gifting as it relates to the dedication of the altar to San Giuseppi, it is clear that prevailing anthropological
data on gifting provide little in the way of theoretical insights applicable to this
woman-centered tradition. For the most part, they have focused on exchange
relations hosted and governed by men; the theoretical model has consequently
derived from decidedly male-centered notions of contractual exchange (Beals
1970; Befu 1977; Foster 1961; Levi-Strauss 1969; Mauss 1954; Sahlins 1965).
Offerings to the saints, for example, are frequently described as explicitly manipulative acts designed to get the gods to help, and they are analysed, in
George Foster's terms, as part of a "dyadic contract" between a mortal and a
saint. They are said to be governed by normative rules, predicated on bilateral
relationships of power (Befu 1977:274), and ultimately concerned with negotiating positions of status and authority (Ortner 1978). Gifting, in other
words, is depicted as part and parcel of a day's work-men's work, that is,
which is centered on concerns of property, prestige, ownership, and equitable
exchange.

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TurnerandSeriff)

"Giving an Altar"

457

Gifting on the woman-centered occasion of St. Joseph's is not a competitive

or obligatory act, nor is it a public form of manipulation, propitiation, or pacification of one's neighbors or one's gods. We suggest that it must be understood, instead, as a testament to intimacy-a kind of intimacy that is predicated in the values of reproduction. The intimacy that is a central part of negotiations between a woman and her husband and children on an everyday
basis of social living is reflected in the kind of intimacy that is established between a woman and her chosen patron saints. Many women place their favored personal saints on the St. Joseph altar along with the requisite Holy
Family. For example, Sally Cantarella honored several personal patrons, including St. Anthony, St. Michael the Archangel, St. Jude, St. Theresa, and the
Guardian Angel. Of the Guardian Angel she remarked:
I haveherbecausemy daughterwas cominghome one day andit couldhavebeena terrible
accident.... I said,"TheGuardian
Angelmusthavehadherarmsaroundher."AndI said,"I
have to honor her," because I feel like the Guardian Angel really had her arms around her.

Sally's depiction of the Guardian Angel's tender protection of her daughter

reflects her intimate relationship with the divine.
Intimate relations assume the fulfillment of desires. Not only does a woman
assume her ability to give, she assumes the right to ask for what she needs as
well. In essence, the St. Joseph's Day celebration exemplifies the proficiency
of this claim that she gives what is needed and gets what she wants. The request is made to maintain the earthly family and, in turn, the gift is given to
extend the bonds of that family to include the heavenly family.
The St. Joseph's Day feast is based on a woman's wish, and the ceremony
itself gives further opportunity for women to propel this cycle of wish fulfillment. The wishes made over the plates as they are served are the province of
women, food is dedicated to the altar with wishes attached to the dedications,
and the altar itself is prepared by women as a place in the home where people,
both men and women, but mostly women, can further take the opportunity
to make petitions. Women's power to fulfill their desires is based on their understanding that they can do the labor required. The labor is the work of kinship. Their propensity to give is based on their given role as nurturers. We
suggest, then, that the goals of women's gifting and the strategies for realizing
those goals ultimately affirm the values of cooperation over competition, intimacy over authority, and the work of kinship over the desire for ownership.

Conclusion
We have tried to demonstrate that the St. Joseph's Day feast can be fruitfully
understood as being predicated on the material and symbolic display of women's reproductive power. Whereas di Leonardo (1984) makes a case for holiday
gatherings in general as a profitable realm to locate the work of kinship in action, we suggest that St. Joseph's Day can be understood as the paradigmatic

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Journal of American Folklore

(100, 1987

expression of this kind of work. Not only do women engage in this kind of
work with each other-as they do on all other holiday occasions-but on this
day they particularly forward the values and intentions underlying this labor.
The worth of a celebration such as St. Joseph's is counted in the way in which
it gives dramatic and aesthetic recognition to the sustaining values of nurturance, care, comfort, and support-the birthright of the mother.
And it is to be remembered that here religious belief is specifically wedded
with the ideology of reproduction. In other words, it is through the care and
nurturance shown to the Holy Family on this day that the importance of women's daily caretaking of the earthly family is sacralized.
Since 1980, several feminist philosophers have undertaken a revaluation of
the social relations of women's reproductive labor on its own terms. The
philosophical stance that has emerged from their writings insists upon a recognition of a gender distinction between modes of thought, patterns of relationship, and ways of being in the world. O'Brien (1981) has called this a "philosophy of birth"; Ruddick (1980) has called it "maternal thinking"; Jaggar
(1983) describes it as a noncoercive form of power that asserts "the social development of human capacities," and Carolyn Whitbeck (1983) has taken the
largest leap in proposing an entirely distinct ontology, what she calls a "feminist ontology."
Whitbeck's feminist ontology is based upon a conception of the self-other
relation that is significantly different from the self-other opposition that underlies the history of Western thought, including anthropology, sociology,
and even folklore. A feminist ontology restates the terms of being within a
framework that is neither oppositional nor dyadic. She locates this ontology
not in an abstract or reductionist theory, but in a certain type of general practice. Whitbeck herself defines this practice as "the mutual realization of people." She assumes that this practice is found in a variety of particular forms,
most, if not all of which, are discoverable in women's work and are therefore
largely ignored by the dominant culture. Among these are childrearing, nursing the sick, care of the dying, the organization of family gatherings, and a
variety of spiritual practices centered upon the well-being of the family.
But Whitbeck and the others are in the business of rewriting philosophy.
What is absent from all of their work, as O'Brien recognizes, is a more concrete sense of the specific social forms that emerge from and embody the dialectics of this reproductive process (1981:92).
Yet, we, as folklorists, immediately recognize these social forms as constituting the very content of that which we study as women's lore. What folklore
offers is the missing link between philosophy and practice. The reality of
women's lore, such as that of the St. Joseph's feast, unpacks the abstractions
of philosophy and weds them to the very content and practice of women's
lives. There is a crucial claim to be made for an ideology discoverable in much
of women's lore, which is based on Whitbeck's conception of the "mutual realization of people."

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Turnerand Seriff)

"Giving an Altar"

459

If this ideology has been obscured or simply ignored in the interests of conventional folkloristic interpretations, perhaps the time has come to reinvent
the meaning of women's lore within the philosophical context of women's
empowerment. The ideology of reproduction, as often manifest in women's
traditional religious practices, is a gift as yet ungiven in our discipline.

Notes
We would like to thankall the women and their familieswho invited us into their homes to learnthe St.
Joseph'straditionfrom them. Their graciousacceptanceof strangersaffordedus the opportunity to closely
observe and participatein this intimateexpressionof family and community life. This essay serves as an introductionto our continuing work on the St. Joseph's Day altartraditionin Texas. In order to protect the
privacyof our informants,we have here employed pseudonyms for all personaland place names.
'In some cases, it has been reportedthat the St. Joseph's Day altar traditionhas shifted toward public
display.For example, folkloristNicholas Spitzerreportsthis changein the traditionas it is producedin Louisiana. Spitzer suggests that the change from the private to the public domain has resulted in consonant
changesin the ways in which men and women participate.
2SeeKay Turner(1982) for a more detaileddefinitionof the altarsite and its communicativepotential.
3SeeTurner(1979, 1980)for furtherstudies of the relationbetween inversion and gender.
4Foran exception, see Weiner(1978), whose work focuses on women's exchange practices.

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