dorson_folklore & fake lore

8/10/2019 Dorson_Folklore & Fake Lore

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F O L K L O R E N D F K E L O R E

During 1M past two tkatks, tAt IJ Ih j l of Amnictm foll(Jorr Nu fIIOlonly wontire altnllion of O i ~anti f r t aerukmicUms Ina It4s 1I/.sJo Il1 1J IVitksprNd

inJm.sI amo,., tIte~ 1 muJiIrr

prdJlic. IIR

mniJ.s mbcQIer tmJinati01l.

Dr. [Jo,IOIt, WM Iuatitmsnumy o f t k ~ ~ s O f l f o l J c . l o r ris mUnendyqulifod 10 tUscu.ss 1M Slllljet:t. He is 1US0C iIIk profnsor o f ~ IIistory IIIMidlit tm Sute Colkrt.lI1tIllk.1UJwr ofJooatban Draws the Loog ,Bow, acollectiott o f New &till olJt lllks. }tmJeJ SIePt:ru is one of l most tespUtl. a popuIMWl ikrs offolJc.lore. PerluJps Iris best ~ w nbook ~ Paw BunyanII"' . Mattock, but he Iuu wriJIm IuJIf I d o z m ~

been falsified, abused and op l .and the public deluded withBunyan nonsense and claptraplectioDS Wit .hout stirring fromlibrary, money-writers have suefully peddled synthetic heroand saccharine folk tales as the stof

the people. Americans mayin.sutIiciently posted on their.hisand culture, as the famous NewTimes survey indicated, but tknowledge of these subjects is etion, compared with what they

I N A democratic society the values offolkJore rank especially high. Folko ~ study builds bridges from the

intellectuals to the unlettered, fromthe native-born to the foreign-born,from one nationality group to another. t can dispel our ignorance of

America's many cultural traditions,and restore faith and pride to minorities smarting under the 'stigma ofalien backgrounds. ~ a 6dd forgraduate students it offers fresh andfruitful opportunities in grass-rootshistory and popular 1 i t e r a ~to~ p l a c e. the fetid dissertations thatreshufHeold bones.

In recent years folklore h s boomedmightily, and reached a wide audiencethrough best-selling books concertand cabaret folksingers, even WaltDisney cartoons. But .r from fuI-6lling, its high promise, the study has

about their own folklore. The sadaspect of this fraud is that the sp .... article is so dull and thin, andgenuine material so salty and rich

Take the Paul Bunyan businThe idea that the giant lumberj krepresents the only indigenous Ameri-can myth, trumpeted on every blurbthat commends the newest Bunyan

HS


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P O L J t L o a B N D PA K B L O a B 337

doings the true American exuberanceand extravagance. But taU-taleheroes thrive in the folklore of manypeoples. The Finns possess a duplicate

hero in B.ig Matt,

who rull5 throughthe same course of literary adoption.The Chippewa storyteller lagoo, re-

o ported by Schoolcraft, draws a famil-iar long bow. I have hear


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' T i l t w : a I C A N W C O a T

formed sevual yean ago to merchan-dise his folklore. To reach the Russimmarket (this ,was four years ago), Mr.Newton included the Russian peoplein his d e d i ~ t i o nand declared thatPaul emanates from Ilya Murometz- who was a medieval Russian dragon-slayer.

The straight Bunyan formula canbe varied by giving. the oversized

lown different names - Davyrockett, Mike Fink John Henry,ony Beaver, Old Stormalong - andilling the book as a gallery of native

igods.t St tms not to matter that t h ~

roes are either largely dreamed upe Tony Beaver, or that they belongquite disparate traditions. John

enry is lifted from a Negro tragiclad and Davy Crockett from pre-vi] War comic almanacs, but they

easily put through the manglepressed into Paul Bunyan snape

the kids. A local writer invents arnish Paul Bunyan right out of. htad, Angus Murdoch puts himBoom COPP , Grace u e Nute

O M Murdoch in uk Superior.a new fake hero j s born - theoctal Dick -BUller with the

n-mile voice. Carl Canner evenk the legendary New Orleans

whore. Annie Christmas, and set herto a syrupy bedtime story. in a

hero-book designed to elevate andnstruct American youth.

Some compilers, riding the vogue forcomic heroes and tall taJes have latelytaken to rummaging through old andnew books and magazines and pastingtogether large albums vended asAmerican foWore. The treasuries ofBen Botkin and Ben Clough stretchthe. term folklore out of all meaning,and shrink the definition of Americanto old stock Anglo-Saxoru.

h ~ editors snip busily in alldirections, gathering in old jokes,fiction stories, biographical anecdotes,newspaper artides. travellers' jottings,and even lJOme folklore. They use agreat variety of ready-at-band sources,excepting the most difficult and valu

able, the ante-bellum newspaper, a.ndthe most obvious, the folk themselves.They purport to cover America whena man in his lifetime can bardy knowthe lore of a county. The solid folklore of one coun ty or one town willnot sell, of o u ~ in such numbers a Jan omnibus with American in itstitle. Having succeeded at the boxoffice with his Tn tIsury o mericanFolklorr, Me. Botkin now embarkson a series of regional t r e a s u r i ~ .Inthi.5 program he never budges fromthe library, like the dude fishermanwho buys his catch at the market.

Professional folk.lorists have donelitde systematic field work in theUnited States, apart from folksong


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O L E L O I N D . . . . . E L O I 339and the lack cannot be overcome byculling from OOItalgiC antiquarians orlocal color journalists. Printedfor folklore can, withiri limits andwith pains, be rewardingly used, andfield collecting a l n be easiJy abused.But ultimately, to get the full-bodiedIQre, someone somewhere along theline must talk to the folk, and i f tberesults are to be worthwhile, he musttalk intelligently and purposefully.He needs _to probe the community,

to locate the master nory-tellers, towin confidences, to strike the motherlode. He must have careful plans inmind, and yet be resourceful enougbto fuUow unsuspected leads and undUcovered veins. He has to sort outtradition from gulf, to capture tangy

pasonalities, to collect with pedanticcare and l i ~ up his find.. with theexcitement that belongs to livingmatter. Then, perhaps, we can tellwhat the lore is, wbere it lies. whoposse_s it, who are the folk.

Mr. Botkin's treasuries teU U5 none

of these things. Does lore differ forsocial c.lasst:s, fur men of the seventeenth .nd twentieth centuries, for aMaine islander and a Rhode Islandtextile worker, for a Yankee and -anItalian? Because his sources cannotaid him, he gives us no close-ups ofstory-telling action or folk societies.Because we cannot trust them, wenever are sure how much is realtradition, or what has been left out.

I can testify that his bulkycoUcctionsbarely graze the country's folkloreweal tho His Anglo-Saxon sources provide an endless suffocation of taUtales and gags, but not a single instance of the blood-stopping cbarm, orthe dialect yam, or the perJOnal 5aga- since tbese are unreponed forms,though widespread, known only tothe folk. Mr. Botkin ddines folklore,fairly enough, as tile stuff ttravels and the stuff tbat sric

But this is not the same a.. the stthat is shoveled together t o fillbargain volume.

I I I

The exclusive nativism of the Amcan folklore soLd in anthologies

taught in schools does both socialcultural i o j u s t i ~I fail tothe English witch deserves a prioin Anlerican folk tales over theman },at . the Irish banshee, the It~ a the Jewish golem. the FfIOiu the NOl Wegian ni.sse L :te Po

cu:rowtUf4 and other demonic beiintimatety known to millionsAmericans. One fourth of Amen Ipeople are foreign-born or first-gencion. and in the dense Northern sthe figure rises to one half. Yetmarvelously rich lore of EuropeAsia thus planted on our shores.folk heritage no other country < lremotely equal, re.rnains in shadow.More than t h t ~it is scorned aod

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340 T H B A M B a l e A N M B cua

erided by the pressures of School andociety, until the immigrants' chilren fed shame for their family culure, for their second tongue, . forheir own names. Wheh the kids inchool heard me speaking Flemishhey poked fun a me and said I

wasn't American, a newspaper editorold me. So I have never spoken

Flemish since. Thdma James ofayne University tells the story ofe rich Americanized Lithuanianso hid their parents in an upstairsm and let them come out only atht. when their oddity of dress andg u ~would not be noticed. When

professor paid the old couple aia visit. to record their folk-

.gs, the children regarded themh a new respect, and thereaftertted them out in broad daylight.

e nativLSts miss many good bets.Grimms' classic fairy tales con*

e to hold Ame.rican readers, butversions in many nationality tra-ns can be procured here and

, versions often showing newrican impacts. For example: inwell known tale of the Bight

the dragon, the hero throws'c articles in his path ~ i c him

the monster; the tWt becomesrest, the stone a mountain. But

lliterate old TretHe Largenesse ofMarquette, Mich., gives his hero abar of soap and a rusty razor; thedragon sputters and chokes in a moun-

ttin of soap, nd CUD himsdf fatallythC3Shing throup.. a sky-higb pile ofoLd rawn.

Each ethnic group prius its ownpopular heroes and saina and epicvictories. This folk history makesgood listening, and often it synchroniu:s with democratic traditions.Jussi the Workman, known to theFinns a major stock in Michigan andMinnesota) as the migratory champion of the oppressed p e a s ~ n t smocked and undermined the l nd*lords wherever he hired out. I giveone tale. Jussi, ploughing in the fields,took ill with cramps and left his workto relieve himself in the woods. Hismaster bawled him out for leavingthe job. Next day Jussi took up atract alongside the public road, wearing only a shirt, and followed theplough steadily all day, fertilizingthe field as he went. When passers-byasked him why he did this, he replied,

Our master is so mean he will notgive us time for s g. Jussi com

bines the propaganda talen ts of TomPaine and the rdonning instinct ofHenry Gmrge. You'll BOt find himor his many counterparts, in UnitedStates folk collections.

IV

The nativists, the juvenilists and thedabblers market folklore as childstuff, arch and droll, quaint andshimmery, bygone and dmuny. While


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P O L E L o a N ~ E B L o a

their fare may be more prefenblereading tOr children than the bloodandthuncler comic books of the newsstand, it is not folklore. 1be fOlk mind is tough and earthy, and DOtunaware of the facts of life. Adultstell fairy tales, to adults, althoughthe maudliniud and castrated sampies in print belie the fact.

Mr. Botkin clips tender superstitions on cobwebs and chickweedand lilac p e t a l s ~( I f it goes downsmoothly. the-dabbler in magic criesout, 'He loves me'; if she chokes ather floral food, she must say sadly.'He loves me not.' ) . He includesnothing like the Italian folk belief int h e i f Q I t U 1 Qwhich an Italian saloonkeeper told me in a sweat.

A maD with evil power can makeyou impotent. In the Old CountryJohn Berdino could not ra Ue an erecrion on his wedding night, and knewhe was under the/atlUTa He told hiswife to pad out her stomach with apillow, a little more each o n ~

Finally a man stopped him on thestreet and said, Goddamn, I doo'tbelieve in that f l lIurQ any more.Why not? Well, your wife in themiIy w a y . ~ 'He showed Berdioo

where he had buried hair knots froma horse's tail. Serdino loosened theknots,

andhis penis Hew up. Then

heshot the spellmakel' dead. When the~ w nheard, it approved. There's aWJow over here in Iron Mountain

can do that, said Sam Colasacco.He can tie up the blood of a man who

marries a virgin, by saying the words.When his soo get marry. his Cathertie him up. In the morning he askshim How do you make out lastnight?' His lO l l said, ' I couldn't doDOthing.'

The Indians have &rtd the wontom the supr:a. ten. One illustra

tion will do. Near Manistique, Mica rectangular body of water ramby the forest attracts thousandssummer visitors. who ' bave seen ptures and postcards of the I I BSpring. The tourist literature piaheavily 0 0 an Indian romance blightlon this spot, and the area's publicidirector recites it in booming ton

I summarize the unbroken seriesmaudlin clicba.The beauteous Onoandacie i

firefly) and the stalwart Kitcbitiki(I love you) paddled up a strand came to the Big Spring, whethey moored their birchen

And there, in the moonlight, d,.& _ -ing, planning. whisperinl to eaother the sweet mouthings of lovthey pledged their troth. But inplayful mood the gal ran outtrunk of an overhanging tree, and tbrave, in following hard after, lost .

balanceand plunked

in.When

hefailed to ari1e, Little FirdIy went offher nut, mumbled K i t c ~ i t i k i p iaUday . ong. acd ~ y C Q t u . n , a


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T A M B I C A N M B J t C U J t T

running jump into the Spring, so shecO\lld join her dream man in theHappy Hunting Ground. And tothis day my friends, if -you will visitthe Spring, of a moonlight evening.

in the month of May, when the gentlebreezes are moving through the overhanging pine trees and rippling itssurface, if you will lilten intently,you will hear the waters of the Spring

unnuring the name of the Indianover - Kitchitikipi, Kitchitikipi,

tchitikipi.Indians do have a legend about the

ig Spring. The Thunder pulled ther ~ n tup into the sky. leaving a bigIe in the ground, which filled withter. Chippewa mythology centersund the conflict between sky and

derwatcr powers.The Ind ' ns don't talk about rontic love, since they regard women

functional. not decorative. Whenceesc stories. whence these legendsd traditions? A Chamber of O>mrce secretary, whom I asked aboute local landmarks publicized as

e Bathtub of the Gods, Bridalreath Falls, and Caves of the Bloodyiefs, said matter-of-fas,tly theyre Indian legends we-h'3d to makefor the tourists. And that in a

. ntry larded with Chippewa reservations, where the real, pungent

Indian tales still vigorously thrivelA week later I split my sides laughingwhen Chief Herbert Weish told a

mixed audience the Sioux favoriteabout Iktomi and the forbiddenfruits. When Iktomi ate too manywild turnips, he became afRicted withgu, bounding off the earth with eachstep until he had to lie full lengthand clasp his arms around a stump tokeep from being blown heavenwards.

Finally it should be noted thatchildren generate their own lore,which is savage rather than sticky.Bouncing ball rhymes exist aU right,

but so do derisive chants and cries.Theft: she g ~ s t h ~ r eshe goes,All dressed up in her Sunday clothes.Ain't she sweet? Ain't she sweet?AU but the stink of ber dirty feet.

v

Any intelJjgible analysis of Americanfolklore must, I suggest, recognizeone primary fact: that there is nosuch thing as the lore of the nation.or of regions, but only the lore ofgroups. These groups are ethnic, andthe United States absorbs the world;they are occupationaJ, based in common trades and jobs and apprenticeships, that range from cowboys tocoJJege students; they are communal,knit by genealogy and local h i s ~ o r yEach group owns an esoteric body ofanecdote and custom and song, commonplace to its members but bizarre

to the outsider. The French Canadianlaughs knowingly when you mentionthe /oup garou; the Chippewa Indian


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P O L J t L O I A N D T H l I A T I I T 343

when you y Winabijou ; the Da-ive of Menominee when you inquirebout the McDooald Boys; the coed,

when you ask her to sing Minniehe Mermaid ; the Wall Street broker

when quizzed about the fabledChauncy Depew; and the GI. whenpumped about Kilroy.

Everyonebclongs to IIODle folkgrou p, or to mott than one. you and

too, no matter how urban andophisticated we consider oundves.he college campus and the districtigh school overflow with legends ofccentric professors, feats of cheating.raditions of the virgin coed, storiesf fatal fraternity initiations, folkOogs of amour, admonitions of theDean of Women, textbook in.scrip-

tions, accret cries. In the folk ideas ofSuch grouP' we can perceive tradi-tional values, 1IIIJw obwssions, hu-mors which bind its memben intight fraternities. and divide American society into many chambers. I t istime we began aplariag these ohamhers

At all odds. . folklott needs to begathered and interpreted with ia-sight, integrity, and Ome sense fsocial Dll1Ilings. In Europe foscholarship has IDOl-enjoyed prestiand contributed illustrious namesthe humanities. from the brotGrimm to Sir ames Fraur. InUnited States it is rapidly fondthe respect of (oost serious studof the American scene.

F O L K L O R E A N D T H E A R T I S TB Y J M E S S T B V B N S

I SWING o Dr. Donon s charge,Stevens is a badly mixed up IJl2non Paul Bunyan]. and bat it rightack at him. His confusion is betwtenhe tasks of the anthropologist andhose of the artist with folklore. Tolustrate the distinction: Hett in the

uget Sound country is Dr. EmaGunther, head of the Department ofAnthropology of the University ofWa.sh.i.ngton. who has labored effec-

tively to collect genuine itemsthe perishing folklore of the regioIndian t.ribes; and here in the peof the author. is an old weaver io

- ancient art of tale-making whovi.ges patterns of his oWn from the Iof woodsmen. The scientist of 1

technical training and experience w\DC folklore to reflect vital phases ofhuman tribes in times past. The artistadopts folklore for the work of his

dorson_folklore & fake lore

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