Anthropology What Else Do Folk

Anthropology

What else do folk objects reveal directly that other kinds of folklore do not?

According to Simon J. Bronner, in Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: An Introduction (199-200), "folk objects" are the "material products of folkways." He describes things like pieces of wood that have been carved creatively out of a pocketknife, sauerkraut and pork, as folk objects. Those folk objects are the things that "materialize tradition," while folklore includes the tales, the proverbs, the songs and riddles and ancient legends passed down from generation to generation.

But clearly, folk objects reveal things that other kinds of folklore and folkways cannot possibly reveal. Folk objects are things a person can smell, touch, and above all see. A story can be heard, or even read, but printed words don't give the same emotional warmth as a vase that was made of clay and "thrown" on the wheel and baked, with an angel carved into the front. A song being song is beautiful, lyrical, and brings a lot of pleasure to the ears and the senses while it's being sung; but once it's over, there is only the memory of how it sounded; on the other hand, an object of folk are, a folk object, has dimension, has color and shape and it can be touched.

So, there are many things that folk objects "reveal directly" that folklore cannot possibly reveal. And Bronner's essay (200) also points out that a folk object can be measured (a song, a spoken poem, a story, can only be read or heard), and "measurement helps us to describe standards of form within a culture." Words may change dramatically, and the emphasis on certain syllables can be altered, when a poem or story or song is presented; but to change an object, Bronner explains, "the maker must create a new object or significantly alter an existing one."

Another powerful advantage of folk objects is that they are generally very slow to change or be changed. That fact, Bronner points out, helps a folk object become "an especially good indicator of a historical region and its culture." And historians need folk objects, such as old stone houses found in Utah (201) to understand fully the culture of people that populated that region during that period of history.

What are material companions? Material companions are things that "have aged with their owners," according to Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, writing in Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: A Reader (330-331). One of the items that falls under the category of "material companions" would include a wooden spoon that has been used for so many generations, it is "stirred to a stub," is still used because it is like part of the family. To throw it out would be heresy. "Such objects are not 'saved', writes Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, but rather they are "allowed to grow old and, however humble, they accumulate meaning and value by sheer dint of their constancy in a life."

What makes them valuable to study, for folklorists, is that their presence "parallels the ongoing life of the owner and makes them powerful, if diffuse, stimuli for reminiscence by the owner." While material companions are most often part of a person's daily life and activities, "rather than set aside for display," "souvenirs and mementos" are designed just to serve as a reminder of an event that someone attended, or a person who is no long present for whatever reason. There's a big difference between a material companion and a souvenir / memento, and the term itself spells that out: "companion" suggests the item is part of the life of a person, and "memento" has a ring of "memory" to it.

Why do folklorists have trouble with memory objects? First, to explain a memory object: according to Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, it is something created by a person after an event or an experience, "to recapture" the memory. The memory object is created "retrospectively, long after the events they depict have transpired." it's a way for people to relive past pleasant experiences, but it's all done after the fact, and more out of emotion than an exacting capturing of an objective item or event, so it is not actually something directly identified with an historic or cultural thing. The trouble with these memory objects - like the paintings of a Jewish childhood experience done by a Holocaust survivor - is that they are personal mental replays of a life gone by, and not necessarily an accurate portrayal of history. There's nothing wrong with a Holocaust survivor painting a dozen images of her community in Poland prior to Hitler sending her family off to death camps, and it may well be therapeutic for her, but it is not truly a folk object, or a material companion.

Discuss the relevance of carnival to showcase culture and social agendas. The annual celebration of life called "carnival" is a way for each culture to present its social, economic and political history, in a colorful series of public events, according to Building Bridges Through Culture (http://www.allahwe.org/history.html).Celebration of carnival then can be thought of as the fusing of culture and politics, a chance for minority cultures to show their zeal for their communities to the greater society. Frank E. Manning points out (82) in Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: A Reader that Canada has been officially declared "a multicultural society," and therefore, the Toronto Carnival allows the "diverse cultural groups" in Canada "the right, almost the duty, to preserve and display their heritage."

5. Carnival 200 presents an idealized view of Brazilian society: The Brazilian folk dance presentations that were part of Carnival 2000, was presented by the Bale Folclorica da Bahia; the troupe (32 members), based in the city of Salvador in northern Brazil, is from an area that is "largely composed of descendants of slaves brought from West Africa by the Portuguese" (New York Amsterdam News, 2000). So, the music is blend of African and Brazilian cultures, and is so high-spirited, explodes with so much energy, that is causes many audiences to "dance in the aisles," according to the article. And as folklore, it embellishes the real Brazilian society, idealizes it, as music and dance are really supposed to do. But the carnival is also a magical event in that for awhile, Brazil is a "perfect world" embodied in dance, music, celebration, and the poverty and health problems fade away for that precious time of revelry and partying.

Spiritualism: once it came to the masses it gave voice to other spirits who had no representation in high society's seances: Ysamur Flores-Pena writes that the members of "high society" had veladas such as scholars, religious icons from history, and "illustrious politicians"; but once spiritualism became widespread, and was part of the rituals of the masses, the mediums related to the Chinese, Gypsies, Africans, East Indians, more common, ethnic people. And the "Indians," as "true owners of the land," became the spiritual protectors; the Africans, the second in line of importance, bring "fierce" spiritualism to the cultural table. The spirits of both of these groups, Indians and Africans, and other mixed races to a lesser degree, "gave presence to groups who lacked a voice in society." That would not include "high society," which already had a voice.

7. The indigenous peoples of Mexico by Cosentino: Native peoples in Mexico had, for centuries, revered trees, and held them as very spiritual; in Cosentino's article, great trees were taken down with care and replanted in front of the "Great pyramid of Tlaloc, god of rain, at the precinct's heart." The tree was called "our father," and when the Roman Catholics arrived from Spain to colonize Mexico, they were looking for symbols that the natives already believed in, to tie in Christianity, and help them Christianize the natives; knowing the tree (which could be in the shape of a "cross" from time to time) was called "our father" was a good sign for the missionaries, "as evidence that these people knew something about the Trinity," Cosentino writes. The Dominican missionaries understood and took advantage of the fact that the natives held trees as a spiritual symbol. The tree was an "axis mundi" (giving live, unifying all the layers of the world).

8. Folklore may be "static" for many people because they adhere to old customs and folkways and do not engage in society and do not interact with new ideas and people. But cultures change and evolve outside the archaic world of the fringe person who does not want to adapt to technology, to new ethnicities in his community, to new fashions or ways of participating in the modern social world.