Folklore Rules

by Lynne S. McNeill

This common misunderstanding, while awkward at parties, does, however, help to highlight some distinctions. I study folklore; I don’t necessarily perform folklore. This is the case with scholars in many academic fields; in response to a recent “Tell us a story!” scenario, I tried pointing out to the party guests that no one ever asks my criminologist husband to “Commit us a crime!” Unfortunately, while I was patting myself on the back for finding such an apt analogy, most of the guests found it a pretty hilarious joke (and still wanted me to tell that story).

  But the thing is, it is an apt analogy, one that can help people unfamiliar with the field better understand what is it that folklorists do. Crime is a component of culture; it emerges from within a society or group of people. So does folklore, as we discussed in the previous chapter. Criminologists study crime, the different types of crime that crop up in different cultures, the social and psychological influences that encourage or discourage those crimes, and so on, just as folklorists study folklore, the different kinds of folklore that crop up in different cultures, the social and psychological influences that shape and promote the sharing of that folklore, and so on. If only there were as many prime-time dramas about folklore as there are about crime, we folklorists might not have to go around finding apt analogies all the time.

  So, folklorists don’t necessarily perform the folklore they study, at least not as a part of their professional work as folklorists, any more than criminologists commit the crimes they study.2 Sure, folklorists will probably learn lots of songs and customs and stories during their formal education, and if there’s the inclination and talent, it just might turn into a distinct skill set,3 but that’s separate from their work as folklorists.

  The crime analogy only goes so far, of course; for one, folklore is often seen as a positive thing to emerge from a community (though we know this is not always the case, as folklore can be nasty, vulgar, and cruel as often as it can be beautiful and inspiring), so while criminologists are often focused on preventing the growth of crime, folklorists are often engaged in encouraging or admiring (or at least not trying to prohibit) the growth of folklore.

  But stick with me—the analogy can take us a bit further. Just as some professionals in the field of criminology decide to focus on applying their knowledge about crime to practical uses in a community (say, by becoming a police officer or an FBI profiler), some professional folklorists decide similarly to focus on the applied side of folklore studies. They take their understanding of folklore and apply it within their communities by creating archives and museum exhibits to preserve and display information about local cultures for educational, documentary, and entertainment purposes, or by serving as cultural mediators in fields like international business or medicine.4

  On the other hand, some scholars who study crime decide to focus on the more theoretical aspects of the issue—considering what causes crime, what factors influence who commits a crime and who doesn’t, or what blend of individual and environment creates a potential criminal. Some folklorists similarly choose to focus on more theoretical questions about folklore—determining how we distinguish one genre from another, how a particular piece of folklore functions in a community, or what a certain tradition expresses or reflects for the group that shares it.

  From these two approaches, which certainly aren’t wholly separate from each other, we get the two main types of professional folklore work: public folklore and academic folklore. Much has been made over the years of this dichotomy, the split between public and academic folklorists, and you can read articles or talk to folklorists about both the distressing divisiveness and the beneficial cooperation between these two types of work. The reality is that they both take a bit from each other, and choosing one over the other as an area of focus usually has more to do with whether you want to work in the public sector or at a university than with what you want to do or not do (or think or not think) as a folklorist.

  This book, however, is designed to tell you about the academic field of folklore studies, so that’s what we’re going to focus on here. If public folklore is of interest to you, I encourage you to find yourself some public folklorists and start pestering them with questions. For now, let’s discuss what academic folklorists do.

  Well, for starters, folklorists collect folklore. That’s nice and straightforward, isn’t it? While the collection of folklore used to be considered an end in itself, that’s not really the case anymore. As I mentioned in the last chapter, for quite some time (think early to mid-1800s until fairly recently), the general assumption among folklorists (who were usually identified, at that time, as either anthropologists or antiquarians) was that folklore was disappearing. They saw folklore as this glorious beacon of the noble past that was slowly but surely slipping away.5

  This, of course, was tied closely to the idea that the “folk” were a limited segment of society—the poor, the illiterate, the uneducated. Scholars believed that folklore was the leftovers of an earlier age, leftovers that likely contained important remnants of a culture that the elite and educated classes were sadly yet inevitably leaving behind, leftovers that needed to be rescued from imminent demise.

  We, of course, know better now. Everyone is the folk; everyone lives cultural lives on both formal (institutional) and informal (folk) levels. Rather than seeing folklore as something that’s slipping away, we now recognize it as something that ebbs and flows with the times. Folklore has no institutional anchor; the minute it’s no longer relevant to us, it’s gone. Sure, collecting it and lovingly storing it in an archive is probably a good idea in case it never crops up again, but what, exactly, are we saving it for?

  Thus we come to the second, and far more important, job of a folklorist: analysis. Folklore studies is an analytical field, just like anthropology and literary studies, the two fields from which it derives most of its tools and methods. Like anthropologists, folklorists examine and consider the behavior that surrounds folklore, the processes by which folklore is learned and shared, and thus the process through which it varies and evolves. Like literary scholars, folklorists also examine and consider the folklore itself (the texts of narratives, certainly, but also objects, rituals, concepts, and customs), and look for meaning and patterns in the content. These two approaches, looking at the text and at the context, lay the foundation for the study of folklore.

  Collecting Folklore

  You have an assignment: go out and collect some folklore. Sounds easy enough, right? Gather your friends, maybe bribe them with food, ask them to tell you some jokes or stories or to describe what their families do at the holidays, and you’re good. Right?

  Well, here’s the thing: there’s a whole lot going on when folklore emerges naturally through interaction that can’t be captured simply by writing down the words of a story or joke (or taking a picture of a quilt or describing a holiday custom). For one thing, the words or actions that make up a folk narrative or a traditional behavior don’t exist in a vacuum. The general cultural and social setting in which the folklore is being performed affect both the form and the reception of the folklore. Jokes that are thigh-slappingly hilarious in one country don’t always translate humorously in another; the cultural background for folklore always needs to be noted.

  There’s also the more immediate setting in which the folklore happens—where and when it is performed,6 and who’s there listening or watching. If you don’t think this affects how folklore is presented, think of what happens when someone is telling a dirty joke and their parents—or their children—walk into the room. Suddenly that joke isn’t so dirty anymore (or suddenly there’s no joke being told at all!). If someone were to read only the words of that joke, the sudden switch in tone or language wouldn’t make sense without an explanation of the sudden change in audience.

  And keep in mind, while it’s ideal to imagine yourself encountering folklore in its natural habitat, ready with your phone’s voice recorder app to capture your friends’ natural banter as it occurs, it’s unlikely that th
is is always how you’ll get to collect folklore. Let’s be realistic: if you’re collecting folklore for a class, you’re likely calling up your family two days before your whole project is due and asking them to please tell you some of those funny stories they always tell at Thanksgiving dinner, so you can record and transcribe them.

  This usually results in less than natural settings for the collection of folklore. So it’s important to find out how the setting of collection differs from the setting in which the folklore would usually appear, because the folklore might be altered because of it. For example, that dirty joke’s punch line might still be told, but in a whisper rather than a shout, depending on who’s around when you finally get your friend to tell it.

  This brings up yet another issue—not simply where and when the folklore is shared, but how it is shared. Is the story told or the song sung in a lively way or a somber way? Is the recipe made casually, with imprecise measurements, or painstakingly, with perfectly leveled scoops? Is the celebration carried out identically each time, rehearsed down to the minute, or does it not really matter if things are replicated perfectly? Is the joke told as if it is truly funny, or as if it’s not funny at all? Is the punch line whispered or shouted? These are the questions that keep folklorists up at night, as these are often the questions that lead to an understanding of the folklore on a deeper level.

  Folklorists have come up with numerous ways to deal with all this necessary extra info when collecting folklore. Different archives have different formats in which they like to have information submitted, but in general, there are some guidelines that are accepted across the board. Folklorist Alan Dundes7 came up with the three-part consideration of text, context, and texture as the main things to make note of when collecting folklore. In brief, the text is the what; the context is the where, the when, and the who (or the with whom, to be more grammatically precise); and the texture is the how.

  So, to put it in practical terms of what you would need to consider when collecting, say, a joke, you’d want to know what the joke is (the text, often summed up as “the thing itself”—the words of the joke, in this case, and a description of any integral gestures or expressions); where, when, and with whom the joke would normally be performed (the context, on several levels—the general cultural context as well as the more specific contexts of use and collection); and how the joke is normally performed (the texture—the tone, pitch, volume, rhythm, rhyme, and general attitude of the joke).

  Filling in these three categories of information can be accomplished in different ways. Folklorists generally refer to the process of going out and conducting interviews and such as “fieldwork,” and this is the most common method of gathering information. It’s important to note that folkloristic interviews aren’t your typical nightly news, back-and-forth, information-gathering interviews. Folklore is an emergent conversational form of communication, so we want to re-create that kind of setting when collecting folklore.

  Visit with your informant8 somewhere comfortable and casual. Leave the recorder on the table so you’re not holding it in your informant’s face. Get your informants talking, rather than bombarding them with questions right off the bat. In fact, maybe even share a bit of your own folklore to give them a sense of what you’re looking for. Of course, some collection projects (those involving music, for example, or dance) can require more involved and technical setups for recording, and there are whole manuals written about the minutiae of fieldwork, but in general, when collecting folklore, think of creating the kind of environment where folklore would naturally flourish, and go from there.

  Of course, these days, fieldwork is as often accomplished online—via e-mail, chat, Facebook, or Skype—as it is in person. This is fine. These are all normal, everyday means of communication that we use, and all three kinds of information—text, context, and texture—can be determined through these methods. Sure, texture is different in a chat room than in a face-to-face interview (are they using emoticons, typing fast or slow, spelling carefully or sloppily?), but there’s always a way to manage it.

  And direct questioning isn’t the only way that folklorists get information, either. As anthropologists know, the general practice of “ethnography,” or the description of a culture, involves not only interviewing but also observation. As we discussed in chapter 1, folklorists are interested not only in the particular genres of lore, but in folk culture in general. Sitting back and taking in the situation when you’re with the people from whom you’re collecting folklore can provide a good understanding of the contexts of both use and collection.

  Paying attention to the ways people interact, both with each other and with the space they’re in, provides lots of opportunities for identifying the unspoken cultural knowledge that people are putting to use in a given situation. The practice of ethnographic observation often involves consideration of both emic (insider) and etic (outsider) perspectives, which can require seeing familiar situations in a new light. We often don’t scrutinize our own cultural settings this way (I’m betting you haven’t spend a lot of time wondering how everyone in a McDonald’s knows not to sit and wait to be served), but it can be a helpful technique to employ when attempting to thoroughly understand the multiple and nuanced contexts of folklore.

  Now, this all may sound fairly straightforward, and you can probably imagine yourself easily coaxing folklore from your friends and family—recording their descriptions of traditions, transcribing their stories, noting their gestures and facial expressions as they talk. And sometimes it is that easy. One past student of mine, Anya, had a grandfather who was known in his hometown as a ballad singer and tall-tale teller, and all Anya had to do was sit down with him, ask him to run through a few of his most popular stories and songs (a request he was familiar with, one that many people made of him on a regular basis), and within just a few hours, she had a great set of stories and songs recorded.9 Of course, she needed to document context and texture, but she could easily do that from memory—she’d spent her whole life listening to her grandfather tell these stories and sing these songs, so documenting the where, when, and how wasn’t difficult at all.

  Of course, there are some flaws with Anya’s approach. Perhaps there are some meaningful stories that aren’t among her grandfather’s most popular, stories that come out only on certain occasions, or that he wouldn’t want to tell in front of his granddaughter. And the contexts and textures that Anya perceives may not be the same as the perceptions of her grandfather or another audience member. The assumption of understanding and familiarity when you’re interviewing people you know well can often lead to overlooking some interesting and significant aspects of the folklore you’re collecting. Anyone in Anya’s situation, easy though the collecting might be, would want to be wary of jumping only to the most apparent or obvious conclusions when analyzing the collected materials.

  Let’s consider a different collection experience: Craig was a student who wanted to collect folklore from his roommates. Craig knew that his roommates were quite clever and funny, that they had been friends since high school and were always hanging out together telling stories about past parties or crazy stuff they’d done, and he thought he’d be able to get many stories and jokes from them. Specifically, he was thinking of their common pastime of visiting the local Walmart late at night and causing minor havoc amid the aisles—his roommates were always telling stories about run-ins with employees or store security, and he even knew some of the more infamous stories well enough to prompt his friends if they forgot.

  To conduct his first interview, Craig arranged to have his roommates and some of their other high school friends visit his dorm. When he initially laid out the topic, “those stories about the stuff you all used to do at Walmart,” the group was enthusiastic but a bit unfocused. Lots of references to stories were immediately produced—comments like, “Oh! Like that time Rob rode the tricycle and knocked over the microwaves!” or “Chris’s thing about the women’s restroom is funny!”—but no a
ctual stories were volunteered. When Craig specifically asked the group to tell the stories, they fell flat: “Well, you’ve heard it before—that’s pretty much it. Rob took a tricycle from the toy department and crashed it into a big endcap stack of microwaves.” Craig knew for a fact that he’d heard these guys tell a very long, very funny version of that same story before, but it simply wasn’t happening when he tried to collect it.

  Craig’s friends decided that the best way to help was to visit Walmart together, so Craig unexpectedly found himself crammed in a car, trying to hold his phone up to continue to record the conversation (which wasn’t really focused on Walmart stories anymore anyway). At the store, they all got drinks from the Subway restaurant which, they explained to Craig, was how a typical night would start. Of course, it wasn’t nighttime when they visited, and there were lots of shoppers around, so the typical antics didn’t take place. They wandered around the store a bit, pointing out places where memorable things had happened, and then went home. Craig was left with roughly two hours of very garbled recordings, an empty drink cup, and very few ideas of how to go about picking out stories from the mess of information he’d gathered.

  Craig’s situation is a very common one on many levels. First off, many people don’t see their folklore as folklore, and when the storytelling is taken out of a natural context, it’s awkward for most people to go into full detail of a story that they know the person to whom they’re talking has already heard. The stories Craig was hoping to collect weren’t really folklore in Craig’s friends’ understanding of the term, and in fact, they didn’t really think of them as stories at all—they were just good times, things that had happened that were funny to remember. None of the guys he interviewed would have referred to themselves as “storytellers”—they simply didn’t think of themselves and their folk culture in that way.

  It’s easy to sympathize with Craig’s frustrations, but rather than focusing on what Craig didn’t get, we need to consider what he did get out of his fieldworking experience. Clearly, Craig’s assumptions about what he was looking for were incorrect, or at least incomplete. While he got a few brief stories, he got several other genres as well—customs, foodways, pranks10—and more important, he got a wealth of contextual and textural information. As revealing as the short story of the tricycle is, the fact that the guys implicitly knew that daytime was an inappropriate time to engage in mischievous behavior is telling; for as much as they apparently enjoyed hassling the late-night employees, they drew the line at inconveniencing regular shoppers.