In camera roll 106, a group of Shannon County elders are teaching a few younger citizens how to make sorghum molasses. The trainees, in turn, were going to demonstrate the process for park visitors. The roll begins with a brief shot of cane being fed into a mule-powered sorghum mill. The remainder of the roll focuses on the cooking process in which the raw cane juice travels down a long pan and thickens into molasses. The process is explained by Willie Cutts, a prominent farmer and the man in charge. He talks about the importance of sorghum in the old days, describes the huge quantities they used to make, and points out that making sorghum was one of the big social events of the year. Willie Cutts was a featured character in the first Shannon County documentary, SHANNON COUNTY: HOME. He also appears briefly at a Memorial Day picnic in roll 311 of this collection. Footage shot on October 29, 1978, in Shannon County, Missouri.
Part of the raw footage recorded 1978-1979 for the 1981 documentary motion pictures "Shannon County: Home" and "Shannon County: Hearts of the Children." Located in Special Collections, Meyer Library, Missouri State University.
For more information on the Shannon County Film Digitization Project: purl.missourist...
30 сен 2024
