Tuesday, September 3, 2002
Make sure you are signed up for lecture and section
Last time I presented various items and asked you whether they were folklore or not without telling you what the standard definitions of folklore are
You started some of this in section
Do a more systematic presentation here.
Then you will take out your pieces of paper and we will go back and look at the items presented earlier, plus a few more
The three AREAS of folklore
Material culture &endash; artifacts = objects
Spiritual culture &endash; sociofacts = actions
Verbal culture &endash; mentifacts = words
As you told me &endash; most people think of the last category when it comes to folklore
Think of the verbal
And, indeed, this is where folklore scholarship began: studies of stories and songs
Brothers Grimm and Kinder und Haus Marchen
Ballads, such as those collected by Francis Childe
Usually known as Childe Ballads
But, people soon realize (as I hope you will, too) that to understand stories, you need to understand the myths out of which they grew, the rituals that go with them or that they are a part of (many stories were probably told as part of performing a rite)
There are items used in stories that are unique to a culture (like the Russian and Ukrainian stove) and it is good to know what one is to understand your story
Any sort of constructed space, like a house, reflects culture
Stove associated with birth, with women
Kitty corner from icon corner, associated with men and death
So, folklore scholarship expands to include social culture and material culture
What belongs in each category?
Material &endash; housing, clothing, food, tools
Spiritual &endash; rituals, festivals &endash; examples like weddings, funerals
Also Christmas, New Year, harvest festivals
Verbal &endash; stories, songs, rhymes, proverbs
But there is housing that is not folk
I would say that the 2 story split level ranch in which we live is NOT a folk house by any means
The food you buy at MacDonald's is NOT folk food
Whereas Brunswick stew is
Graduation is NOT a folk ritual and neither is the New Years' that they arrange for you at the Omni
A story that you see in the movie theater is NOT a folk story, though it may be based on one
Similarly, a novel is not a folk item, though it is a story
What Brittany Spears sings is NOT folk songs
What makes certain stories, songs, festivals, houses, foods folk?
Five criteria of folklore
Oral and transmitted orally or by custom and practice
Anonymous
Exits in variants
Traditional
Tends to be formularized
What we mean by each of these terms
Oral &endash; mom tells you how to do it
You do not read it in a cookbook or Gourmet magazine
Story Granddad tells &endash; not the one he reads to you out of a book
Rhymes your friends taught you &endash; as in counting-out rhymes
You do NOT read these rhymes in a book
Once adults know them and put them into print, they are NO GOOD
Transmitted orally:
You heard rhyme from Johnny; where did he get it?
Somebody TAUGHT him; he did not read it in a book
How do you know what to DO as you say the Hanky Panky rhyme?
Someone showed you and someone else showed the person from whom you learned
Custom and practice &endash; someone SHOWS use
It can be transmission without words
How to cook, garden, do wood-work
Cutting trees, dropping stove pipe
How the house in Iavorivka was made
Folk versus cookbook cooking
Different worldview and I would like to teach you the folk view
Teaching Elena how to make prianiki
Teaching Annette how to make piecrust &endash; here not folk versus book, but one tradition versus another
One of differences between folk and cookbook cooking is idea of exact copy
Book: you try to repeat exactly
Folk: you do what looks and feels right, or use what you have on hand
Anonymous &endash; you know who told you, but you have NO IDEA how this whole thing started, who first made it up
Your Grandpa told you, but where did he get it?
Johnny taught you Glory, glory Halleluiah &endash; but where did Johnny get it
It was around when I was a kid
As was On top of spaghetti
This brings us to the issue of variants
Variants &endash; things are alike and different
Grandpa tells the story 2 times; in all likelihood, it is different at each telling
If you are cooking by look and taste and feel, you will not repeat exactly
The various things we did in class on Thursday
They had a number of variants and what I knew was a variant of what they produced
Traditional &endash; it goes back in time
It is SHARED throughout a culture
The various kid rhymes and games that they know are kids rhymes and games that I kenw as a child
The Annette cooking example
Her TRADITION dictates a certain behavior with dough
Personal space
What is it in US?
Walk down street and test
What is it in other cultures?
What happens when two cultures come in contact?
Tradition applies to all areas
House and orientation toward the street
Body types and my conflict with mom
Stories &endash; there are certain stories that all Russian kids will know, but you won't
And vice versa
Very clear with ritual actions such as weddings and funerals
The open casket routine at funerals and kissing the dead goodbye
Formularized &endash; means structured, patterned
Knock-knock jokes
Changing lightbulb jokes
Traveling salesman jokes
Folktales and opening and closing formulas
Symmetry within a folk house
The symmetry means that it is formularized
The fact that all of the houses in the village are built on the same pattern means that they are traditional
They will see ritual towels in a second
Show rushnyky
Apply the 5 criteria to the items that we went through last time
They vote
Then we examine
Discuss gray areas:
Where an item might be of non-folk origin, but become folk, function like a folk item
Discuss the process in the opposite direction: folk item used by an author, filmmaker
MacDonald's uses children's rhymes and jingles
Cartoons use tale plots and sometimes character
Tolkien and the Fellowship of the Rings
Items presented:
Rushnyk &endash; ritual towel
Icon
Fortune-telling with daisy petals
See a penny, pick it up
Heads or tails
MASH
Hungry Hippo
Magic, the Gathering
Lego
Down by the banks of the Hanky-Panky
Dunlora
Bat Boy
Devil baby
Green Eggs and Ham
Man who Danced with Rusalki
Christmas Spiders
Black Widow Spider
More items &endash; if we have time
Fortune telling and the sword
AIDS Mary
Computer date
Wish-bone on Thanksgiving
Birthday candles and wish
Perverted birthday songs
Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut
How do folktales and legends do according to the five criteria?
Define tale and legend
Folktales virtually do not exist in a pure form; are virtually always of the hybrid, gray type
Although my experiences in Ukraine in 2000 surprised me
And I did tell Greg the Purple Planet stories for several years
Also, as a hybrid, folktales alive and well and are the source of a great deal of popular entertainment; generate enormous revenues for film studios and producers of TV shows
Legends definitely DO fit the five criteria
These are alive and well and being told and created all of the time
Both here and in Russia and Ukraine
Examples: AIDS Mary
Meeting your true love on line
U Va and the hot air tunnels
Bathrooms in Cabell
Bridge leading to the Ed School (Ruffner)
Dr. Seuss and U Va
L-shaped building and the millennium