What Is a Whirligig?

Whirligig by Vollis Simpson of Wilson, NC, on display
in Wilmington, NC, at the Cameron Art Museum

Have you seen a whirligig recently? Everyone seems to have a particular idea of what a whirligig is and when to use the word. Simply, a whirligig is an object that spins or whirls. Individually as well as in groupings, whirligigs have become noteworthy, particularly in the American South, as an artistic form of creative expression.

A whirligig -- as fun to say as it is to see -- is a whimsical, wind-powered creation that whirls and turns on a pivot. The term dates to the fifteenth century and appears to have its roots in the Middle English word of whirlegigg, which was formed from whirlen (to whirl) and gigg (top). The term is applied to a variety of items – living and inanimate objects.

Creation by Self-Taught Artist

Small whirligig by Simpson

A whirligig is an inimitable creation by a self-taught artist who has no formal training – except for the whirligig that is a beetle, so named because it swims about in circles. With two pairs of eyes and clubbed antennae, the whirligig beetle lives on the surface of water where it spins and spins. Otherwise, whirligigs are inanimate and typically crafted by folk or visionary artists. The simplest wind-powered whirligig is a pinwheel, which demonstrates an important feature: blade surface. Although the designs of whirligigs may be simple, some are very complex, particularly when a creative artist such as Vollis Simpson of Wilson, NC, finds a “man or mule, hat or cat, hidden in any castoff sheet of steel” and fashions it into a whirligig.

Components are crafted out of wood, plastic, metal, and other materials, sometimes taken from discarded objects to recycle their parts and extend their lives, and then hand-painted to provide artistic expression. Antique whirligigs have been preserved in museums as creative expressions of earlier generations, as described in The New York Times. However, whirligigs are making a modern comeback, with credit for reviving them during the 1980s given to Ander Lunde of Chapel Hill, NC, who published eight books on how to build whirligigs.

Literary Connection

A whirligig as an artistic expression is sometimes even literary. For example, Whirligigs is the title of a collection of twenty-four short stories by North Carolina author O. Henry (born William Sydney Porter) that also includes the well-known “The Ransom of Red Chief.” In the collection, a lesser-known story, which takes the title of “The Whirligig of Life” to express the whimsical nature of life and relationships that change as the wind blows, recounts the visits of a Tennessee couple to a justice of the peace to “divo’ce” unhappily only to reunite blissfully the next day. In addition, Shakespeare uses whirlagig as a metaphor for “time” in Twelfth Night when the clown Feste states that “the whirligig of time brings in his revenges,” an expression we know currently as “you reap what you sow.” Sometimes whirligig is a label applied to a person, such as in The Gambler by Tyodor Dostoyevsky, whose character expresses concern that a stepfather “is going to marry that silly whirligig of a Frenchwoman--that actress, or something worse.”

Whirligigs stand guard over a field at the entrance to Fearrington
Village in Chatham County, NC

Cultural and Educational Destination

More often the artistic expression is visual art – and a tourist attraction. Sightseers enjoy watching whirligigs move as the wind blows and learning about the artists who created them for fun. Some whirligigs can be found at restaurants and in parks, and others adorn private gardens and yards. However, they attract more attention when massed in collections. The most famous location probably is the “whirligig farm” on Wiggins Mill Road in Lucama, NC, that had been constructed by Simpson on his land where more than thirty whirligigs, some more than five feet high, once attracted many visitors. Tourists are now directed to a new two-acre downtown park in nearby Wilson where these whirligigs have been designated to serve as a centerpiece to help shape the city’s industrial artisan district and be a cultural and educational destination. Wilson also holds an annual Whirligig Festival in November, and this event includes a whirligig building contest with Simpson as a judge.

On display at Cameron Art Museum

Small whirligig by Vollis Simpson

Cultural Recognition

Work of a junkyard poet

Whirligigs crafted by folk artists are also exclusive justification for a cultural award or recognition. Although garden shops, particularly online suppliers such as Wind & Weather and Plow and Hearth, sell mass-produced whirligigs, the ones individually crafted by folk artists such as Simpson, whose work has been profiled by Public Broadcasting System, are recognized for their cultural contributions. Although Simpson was wittily labeled a “junkyard poet” by The New York Times, he has been celebrated by organizations such as the N.C. Folklore Society for his “meaningful contributions to the transmission, appreciation and observance of traditional culture and folklife” and the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources that presented him the North Carolina Award, the state’s highest civilian honor. Southern Living has also presented a Heroes of the New South Award to Simpson for his contributions to art and culture. In addition, his work is now part of the permanent collections of the American Museum of Visionary Art in Baltimore, High Museum in Atlanta, and N.C. Museum of Art in Raleigh. 

When Simpson and his whirligigs were honored during a fundraiser at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, NC, I visited to gauge the interest and reaction of the museum’s patrons. I left with the feeling that whirligigs tell an authentic story in our regional folklife. Although whirligigs mass-produced in Asia with stamped and painted metal can be cheaply bought, the true artistic ones – only the ones that connect to culture – hold value in the American South.

Civil War Music: Themes for Yesterday and Today

Civil War music usually doesn’t enjoy the same popularity as other musical traditions of the American South. However, prominent Southerners such as Martin Luther King, Jr. have frequently used lyrics of Civil War songs to connect to our shared history as they emphasize ideas. Much like country music, blues, and gospel, music of the Civil War era can portray haunting themes of the American South with powerful language, alluring rhythms, and familiar characters.

Although Civil War music doesn’t often enjoy being the central focus of musical productions, it did when the Theater of the American South in Wilson, N.C., selected Civil War themes to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War. “The Civil War in Song and Legend,” one of the productions, featured more than 40 songs of the Civil War era. It also showcased the musical talents of Bill Schustik, who bills himself as an American troubadour and often performs as a one-person show.

For this performance, Schustik was accompanied by the 17-member Unity Choir of St. John AME Zion Church (organized in 1868 as the first African-American church in Wilson) that sang harmony as well as lead vocals, and its soprano soloists provided a sweet contrast to Schustik’s rich baritone. In addition, The Many Thousand Gone Youth Chorus added 12 local youthful voices as they boosted the rhythm with toe-tapping beats.

During the performance at the Boykin Cultural Center (built in 1919), Schustik played a variety of folk instruments such as the banjo, guitar, dulcimer, drum, harmonica, and Jew’s harp. (Choir director Bill Myers also played the flute and melodica.) As Schustik moved among the instruments and changed from one musical style to another, he wove stories with his song selections to tell the history of a nation – divided between North and South – and personal narratives of the men and women who lived through or died in the Civil War.

Some songs such as “The Vacant Chair,” written to commemorate the death of soldier in 1861, were popular in both the North and the South. This song hauntingly depicts the loss at the family table:

We shall meet but we shall miss him.
There will be one vacant chair.
We shall linger to caress him,
While we breathe our ev’ning prayer.

Other songs such as “Goober Peas” acknowledge the tough duty of a southern soldier who often had little to eat except boiled peanuts (or “goober peas”), which frequently served as an emergency ration:

Just before the battle, the General hears a row.
He says, “The Yanks are coming, I hear their rifles now.”
He turns around in wonder, and what d'ya think he sees?
The Georgia Militia, eating goober peas.

“Lorena,” an antebellum song with Northern origins, was a favorite of soldiers of both sides because it expresses the longing for a wife or sweetheart back home. In fact, one Southern officer lamented that the song reduced his soldiers’ effectiveness because the mournful lyrics made them too homesick:

A hundred months have passed, Lorena,
Since last I held that hand in mine,
And felt the pulse beat fast, Lorena,
Though mine beat faster far than thine.

“Taps,” which concludes many military funerals today, was used by both Confederate and Union forces, although it was arranged by Union Army Brigadier General Daniel Butterfield in July 1862 to replace a previous French bugle call used to signal "lights out.”

Contraditions are inherent in some songs, such as “The Ballad of Shiloh Hill,” which is about the Battle of Shiloh (a biblical name that means “place of peace”) in southwestern Tennessee that resulted in 20,000 casualties in April 1862:

It was an awful struggle and will cause your blood to chill;
It was the famous battle that was fought on Shiloh Hill.

'Twas on the sixth of April, just at the break of day;
The drums and fifes were playing for us to march away.
The feeling of that hour I do remember still,
When first my feet were tromping on the top of Shiloh Hill.

Some music has definite religious connotations. “Nearer, My God, to Thee” was played by the Confederate army band as survivors of the disastrous Pickett’s Charge in the Battle of Gettysburg returned from their failed infantry assault on July 3, 1863. Another example is “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” often used today as a patriotic song and included in many church hymnals; it which was created in 1861 by abolitionist Julia Ward Howe when she wrote new words to a military marching tune. The song’s lyrics appear in sermons and speaches of Martin Luther King, Jr. -- most notably in his last sermon “I've Been to the Mountaintop,” delivered in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968 on the night before his assassination. King's final public words, in fact, end with the first lyrics of the song, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

The Civil War playlist is rich and includes boastful, mournful, and raucous songs. More noteworthy is how lyrics and songs are used today to represent a nation healed of Civil War divisions still seeks to attain a more perfect Union, an objective evident as the two-hour show ended with Shustik singing the little-known latter verses of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

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For more resources on the Web related to Civil War music, consult the following:
American Civil War Music
Songs of the Confederacy
Music of the American Civil War