Derivation of Poha-Ba

Poo-Ha-Bah comes to us from the Shoshoni language; that language, of course, does not use our Roman alphabet. So there may be more than one correct way to spell it in English.

There is an exhibit at Idaho's South Bannock County Historical Museum called Poha-Ba, Land of Healing Waters. (You will recall that the Healing Center defined Poo-Ha-Bah as "doctor-water." ) There's not much information about the word itself, but you can read a little about the Shoshoni-Bannock people at http://www.lavahotsprings.com/poha.

The Shoshoni Online Dictionary (http://www.shoshonidictionary.com) tells us that poha means "power," and baa means water. So poha-baa would literally mean "power-water."

Corbin Harney

The Poo-Ha-Bah Native Healing Center is trying to raise some money for Corbin Harney, its founder and a prominent activist for nuclear disarmament. He is ill and needs constant personal care:

Shundahai Network: Corbin Harney needs our love, prayers and support

I, for one, am going to support the healing center by purchasing a Poo-Ha-Bah t-shirt, and a CD of "The Poo-Ha-Bah Song." Visit http://poohabah.com if you would like to do the same.

Poo-Ha-Bah

I think we have an answer to the mystery.

Yesterday I stumbled across a website for the Poo-Ha-Bah Native Healing Center in Tecopa, California. According to the site, their mission is "to provide healing and prayer service to all peoples, centered around hot mineral waters on site, and based on traditional Native American beliefs and customs."

The Healing Center was founded in 1998 by Corbin Harney; their website explains that Poo-Ha-Bah is a Western Shoshone word meaning "doctor-water." (They use hot mineral waters to promote healing, so the water takes on a "doctor" aspect.)

I don't know exactly how Bernard Beckerman discovered the word, but I think there can be no doubt that the roots of the "Poo-wa-bah" tradition are to be found here. Someone, perhaps Beckerman himself, had the idea of incorporating this Shoshone word into a pre-show ritual.

The Poo-Ha-Bah website offers a CD including "The Poo-Ha-Bah (Doctor Water) Song," and also a Poo-Ha-Bah t-shirt! You can check it out here: http://www.poohabah.com/.

Clip on YouTube

The clip from the Lost in Translation DVD featurette is now available on YouTube:

YouTube - Family Coppola Tradition

[Update 2/2/2007: The video has been removed from YouTube. However, it is still available at Pan and Scan, and there's an audio-only version here.]

Hearts of Darkness clip, at Pan & Scan

I got an e-mail from Julia Ward, the editor of Pan and Scan. She was doing her own research on the poowabah tradition, and she was "delighted" to find this site.

Pan and Scan now has its very own page devoted to the poowabah:

Like Father, Like Daughter

It features the clip I've been looking for, from Hearts of Darkness; and also the Sofia Coppola clip, which I previously posted here.

Two sources are cited at the Pan and Scan page: the Wikipedia article (which I wrote), and this blog.

Poo-wa-bah on Wikipedia

There is now an entry on Poo-wa-bah in the Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poo-wa-bah

Poo-wa-bah mp3

Poo-wa-bah.mp3

Click above to hear Sofia Coppola and her crew saying Poo-wa-bah on the set of Lost in Translation.

If you want to hear a longer clip, click here. You'll hear Sofia Coppola explaining the practice, and her first assistant director Takahide Kawakami translating into Japanese.

These clips were taken from Lost on Location: Behind the Scenes of 'Lost in Translation' — a short documentary included in the Bonus Materials on the Lost in Translation DVD.

To the best of my knowledge, I am not violating copyright law by posting these very short excerpts here.

Poowabah in Romania

Yesterday's edition of Averea, a Romanian publication, carried an article on the filming of Francis Ford Coppola's new film. Youth Without Youth, based on a novella by Mircea Eliade, is being shot in Bucharest, Romania.

And, of course, Coppola begins a typical day of shooting by saying poowabah.

So far I can't find an English translation of the article, "Coppola a facut poowabah in Romania" — so I tried my best to translate it myself, by feeding each word into the Romanian-to-English dictionary at http://www.dictionare.com/english/dictionary.htm. Obviously I don't know the Romanian idioms, but I used some guesswork and I think I'm probably close:

Francis Ford Coppola begins shooting 'Youth Without Youth' with a ritual. Coppola, you see, calls all the staff from the filming crew: transportation, costume, production department. All of them, together with the actors (or the ones at hand), in unison with Coppola say "poowabah" three times.

This word, which the director is used to saying on the theatrical stage, signifies the three wishes for a filmmaker to accomplish, according to Mediafax. According to quoted sources, the first wish is that the crew's fine work will make a good film; the second, that all the people to a fault will enjoy the filming, and take joy in working together; the third and most important is that the people, surely, on the stage should not hurt themselves in a foolish accident.

"This tradition is preserved from theatre school, for all who make films. In our family, just as much Sofia as Roman too, it's the same thing as with that crew before," he said. The filmmaker continues the tradition also of a broken plate, and each member of the crew keeps one piece. "That which we do first is the Story and the Game of acting. Every single department of our production crew is essential in sustaining these two priorities," said the filmmaker.

Then there's another paragraph that's just about the film itself.

In the past twenty-four hours, some folks from Romania have stumbled across this blog by searching for poowabah at www.google.ro. My Romanian friends — if you're reading this, and you can provide any corrections, please post here!

Eye on Events

Eye on Events, the Office of Event Management newsletter at Hofstra, alluded to the Poo-wa-bah tradition in its November 2004 issue:

http://www.hofstra.edu/Events/OEM/OEM_Newsletter_November04.cfm#article5
> For those of you who wonder what Poo-Wa-Bah is, it dates
> back to the 1950s and Hofstra alumnus Francis Ford Coppola,
> who still uses it when he starts a new film project. His
> daughter, Sofia, describes it as a magic word from her Dad's
> theater days.

Of course, we now know it goes further back than Coppola. It dates back to Bernard Beckerman's work at a Catskill resort, and possibly has its roots in the rich cultural tradition of the Catskills.

Catskills Query

I posted the following message to the board for Research Queries at the Catskills Institute:

BERNARD BECKERMAN & POO-WA-BAH
Bernard Beckerman (former chair of the drama department at Hofstra University, and a Shakespeare scholar) directed a show at a Catskill resort, one summer around 1950. That summer, he learned a tradition of chanting "Poo-WA-bah" before a performance. He brought the tradition back to Hofstra, where it remains to this day. I want to find out what resort he was working at, and (if possible) where the "Poo-wa-bah" tradition came from. If anyone remembers Mr. Beckerman working at a Catskill resort, please contact me. Thanks, Danny Pitt Stoller.

Poo-wa-bahs in the Catskills

This from Anne Noonan:

>Bernard Beckerman (former chair of the Drama and Speech
>Department of Hofstra) and a Shakespearean scholar, brought it
>back from a Catskill resort where he was directing one summer
>(around 1950) so it definitely pre-dates Coppola. Mr. Beckerman
>is deceased, but his wife does not think anyone at the resort knew
>the origin of the chant.

This clears up at least one mystery: we know that Coppola got the tradition from Hofstra, and not vice versa.

Saying Poo-wa-bah has been a Hofstra tradition for about 55 years, a Coppola family tradition for about 45 years, a tradition among Great Neck teens for about 25 years.

Now, of course, I'm intensely curious about the Catskill origin of the poo-wa-bah! I'm going to try and find out which resort we're talking about.

I have an interest in the history of culture in the Catskills, even apart from this poo-wa-bah quest. I know it was a center of culture for many people in my grandparents' generation — first- and second-generation American Jews of Eastern European origin.

My grandparents spent some time at a place called Sacks Lodge, which was around for about 50 years. (In 1997 it was turned into a tennis getaway called Total Tennis, but the original buildings are still there.) I spent some time there myself, with my grandparents, in the summer when I was eight and nine years old.

It's a delightful thought that before Levels, before Francis Ford Coppola, before Hofstra, the poo-wa-bah lived in the Catskills in the 40's and 50's. Of course its origins are still an elusive mystery...

The Poo-wa-bah newsletter

Anne Noonan was the secretary for Hofstra's Drama and Dance Department for 28 years, and is presently the editor of the Poo-wa-bah newsletter. She is writing to the former chair of the department, to find out more.

She also said she'd like to publish something about this quest in the next issue of the Poo-wa-bah! It will be great to see something in print about this.

I've written back to her, thanking her for her help, and also asking if Jim Tornatore is a Hofstra alum. (She knows both Laura and Claire. Laura, who now teaches at Garden City High School, regularly brings a class to Hofstra's Shakespeare High School Scene Competition.)

I'm also trying to figure out where I can find that Apocalypse Now making-of documentary. I assume it's the documentary Hearts of Darkness; it hasn't been released on DVD, so I'm looking around for the VHS.

I really just want to capture the clip where Coppola talks about saying poowabah; I also want the clip from the Lost in Translation DVD, where the crew says it.

Apocalypse Now

Apparently, there's a Poowabah reference in the documentary on the making of Apocalypse Now. It's the first day of shooting, and Francis Ford Coppola explains to the extras (through a translator) that they always begin a new production by saying Poowabah.

This information came from James Kolb, the Chair of Drama and Dance at Hofstra. He also wrote this to me:

> I have forwarded your question to Anne Noonan,
> who just retired after 28 years as the department's
> secretary. She will write to James VanWart (no e-mail)
> who taught in the department when Coppola was here.
> It is our belief that it was at Hofstra that Coppola
> learned about the Poo-wa-bah, but VanWart may have
> more specific memories of its origin.

Levels Chronology

Laura Rebecca started working at Levels in August 1986. I think that's when Levels folks started saying Poo-wa-bah. Laura had learned it from Hofstra, and brought it to Levels.

But it was in Great Neck before that. Jamie remembers saying Poo-wa-bah with Jim Tornatore (who directed plays at Great Neck House) as far back as 1982.

I predict that Jim also went to Hofstra, but I'm still trying to confirm that.

How do you spell POO-WA-BAH?

When I first started doing research on poowabah, I wasn't sure how to spell the word. I found the one reference to puaba, and one reference to pooaba; it never occurred to me to search for poowabah.

When I found out that Claire McCaffrey and Laura Rebecca (two former Levels staff members, probably the ones who brought the poowabah to our youth center) learned about it from Hofstra, I started searching the Hofstra web for more information. That's when I stumbled across The Poo-Wa-Bah, the Drama and Dance Department's alumni newsletter.

If it really was their tradition first, then I guess they get to decide how it's spelled. So — poo-wa-bah it is.

A Coppola Family Tradition

When I first searched the Internet for references to this tradition, this is what I found:

Lost in Translation, Questions and Answers
>In one of the Special Features on the DVD, it
>shows Sofia Coppola and the rest of the cast and
>crew fulfilling a pre-filming tradition of
>holding hands and saying a word that sounds
>like puaba three times.

Interview with Sofia Coppola
>Q: In the "Lost on Location" making-of doc,
>what's the word you and the crew chant?
>A: That's a family tradition. Ever since I can
>remember, on the first day of shooting, my dad
>and brother say pooaba three times for good luck.
>I don't know what it means, it's just a magic word
>from my dad's theater days.

Where did Francis Ford Coppola get this tradition?

Was it something he learned at Hofstra Drama and Dance? It has been a tradition at Hofstra for at least 15-20 years. But were they doing it 45 years ago, when Coppola went there?

Was it something he learned in my hometown, Great Neck? (Francis Ford Coppola and his sister, Talia Shire, both grew up in Great Neck.)

Or did Coppola find the tradition someplace else? Was he the one who brought it to Hofstra in the first place?

Welcome to Saying Poowabah

Welcome to Saying Poowabah, a place where I'll collect my discoveries about this tradition.

I learned to say poowabah (poo-WA-bah) when I was doing shows at the Levels youth center in Great Neck. We would stand in a circle, join hands, and chant the word poowabah.

In recent years, I became curious about where this tradition came from. So far, my research has led me to such diverse places as the Lost in Translation DVD and Hofstra University!

This thread began at my own online journal, Everything Shines. I decided to create a separate blog for it, to allow more discussion about saying poo-wa-bah.