Community-wide craft sounds have faded as basket making declines among younger generations.

Evidence

When John was a kid the sound of log pounding was heard all through the community. Walking home from school, he could tell who was out working by the sound of their swing. Uncle Chester was a hard, fast crack, crack, crack. From across the hedgerow he could hear Grandma Bell’s slow thuds separated by long pauses while she caught her breath. But now the village grows quieter and quieter as elders walk on and kids seem more interested in video games than in tromping through the swamp. So John Pigeon teaches any who will come, to pass on what he’s learned from his elders and the trees. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 496

Categorization

• XREF: A community defined and read by its soundscape — this is a textbook Soundscape-course passage on how acoustic signatures encode social life and decline.
• CANDY: Identifying neighbors by the rhythm of their ax work is a lovely, tweetable detail of a craft-based acoustic community.