Definitions of Folklore

Source: Journal of Folklore Research, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Sep. - Dec., 1996), pp. 255-264
Published by: Indiana University Press
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Definitions of Folklore
Reprinted with permission from Maria Leach, editor
Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend
(Harper & Row, 1959)
folklore Folklore comprises traditional
creations of peoples, primitive and civilized.
These are achieved by using sounds and
words in metric form and prose, and include
also folk beliefs or superstitions, customs
and performances, dances and plays. More?
over, folklore is not a science about a folk,
but the traditional folk-science and folk-
poetry. Jonas Balys
4" Whenever a lullaby is sung to a child;
whenever a ditty, a riddle, a tongue-twister,
or a counting-out rime is used in the nursery
or at school;
Whenever sayings, proverbs, fables,
noodle-stories, folktales, reminiscences of
the fireside are retold;
Whenever, out of habit or inclination,
the folk indulge in songs and dances, in an?
cient games, in merry-making, to mark the
passing of the year or the usual festivities;
Whenever a mother shows her daughter
how to sew, knit, spin, weave, embroider,
make a coverlet, braid a sash, bake an old-
fashioned pie;
Whenever a farmer on the ancestral plot
trains his son in the ways long familiar, or
shows him how to read the moon and the
winds to forecast the weather at sowing or
harvest time;
Whenever a village craftsman?carpen?
ter, carver, shoemaker, cooper, blacksmith,
builder of wooden ships?trains his appren-
tice in the use of tools, shows him how to
cut a mortise and peg in a tenon, how to
raise a frame house or a barn, how to string a
snowshoe, how to carve a shovel, how to
shoe a horse or shear a sheep;
Whenever in many callings the knowl?
edge, experience, wisdom, skill, the habits
and practices of the past are handed down
by example or spoken word, by the older to
the new generations, without reference to
book, print, or schoolteacher;
Then we have folklore in its own peren?
nial domain, at work as ever, alive and shift?
ing, always apt to grasp and assimilate new
elements on its way. It is old-fashioned,
gray or white-headed perhaps, fast receding
from its former strongholds under the im?
pact of modern progress and industry, it is
the born opponent of the serial number, the
stamped product, and the patented stan?
dard.
Men of learning have in the last century
or so gathered, classified, and studied a vast
body of materials appertaining to folk tradi?
tion. They are called folklorists. According
to their aptitudes and preferences they have
specialized in various aspects of their chosen
field, some in folktales or folk songs, others
in handicrafts, others in dances and games,
still others in beliefs and customs. Their
tendency so far has been to restrict rather
than to let their research expand all the way
to its natural scope.
256
Much still remains to be undertaken in
the study of our folk arts and crafts. And
even our working definition of folklore itself
should be broadened to embrace the forms
of habitation, carving, statuary, metal work?
iron, pewter, brass, silver, gold?weaving
customs, and ancient domestic arts. Even
written documents and materials from our
archives may belong as much to folklore as
to history, for instance, those bearing on the
activities of the old guilds, on the pursuits of
workshops, and on the traditional schools of
manual training. And the door remains wide
open to the comparative study of the folk?
lore harvest taken as a whole and in its
branches, for it all forms part of the culture
of man from the remote past to the present.
Marius Barbeau
^ In anthropological usage, the term
folklore has come to mean myths, legends,
folktales, proverbs, riddles, verse, and a vari?
ety of other forms of artistic expression whose
medium is the spoken word. Thus, folklore
can be defined as verbal art. Anthropolo?
gists recognize that an important group of
individuals known as folklorists are inter?
ested in customs, beliefs, arts and crafts,
dress, house types, and food recipes; but in
their own studies of the aboriginal peoples
of various parts of the world, these diverse
items are treated under the accepted head?
ings of material culture, graphic and plastic
arts, technology and economics, social and
political organization, and religion, and all
are subsumed under the general term cul?
ture. There is, however, an important part
of culture which does not fall under any of
these convenient headings, and which is
classed separately as folklore. Folklore in all
its forms, thus defined, is obviously related
to literature, which is written; but folklore
may never be written even in a literate soci?
ety, and it may exist in societies which have
no form of writing. Like literature, folklore
is an art form related to music, the dance,
and the graphic anal plastic arts, but differ-
Journal of Folklore Research
ent in the medium of expression which is
employed. William R. Bascom
?f* In a purely oral culture everything is
folklore. In modern society what distin?
guishes folklore from the rest of culture is
the preponderance of the handed-down over
the learned element and the prepotency that
the popular imagination derives from and
gives to custom and tradition. The transfer?
ence of oral tradition to writing and print
does not destroy its validity as folklore but
rather, while freezing or fixing its form,
helps to keep it alive and to diffuse it among
those to whom it is not native or fundamen?
tal. For the folk memory forgets as much as
it retains and restricts and corrupts as much
as it transmits and improves. In the reci?
procity of oral and written tradition and the
flux of cultural change and exchange, revival
plays as important a part as survival, popu?
larization is as essential as scholarship, and
the final responsibility rests upon the accu?
mulative and collective taste and judgment
of the many rather than the few. In this
process of creative remembrance, which is
tantamount to the genius of a people, the
great collections of folk literature are the
product of the collaboration of countless
folk singers, folksayers, collectors, scholars,
religious teachers, and professional artists
and interpreters of the arts with the inar?
ticulate folk?Sandburgs "laboring many";
of the "scholar's learning about the folk"
with the folk's own learning.
Within the realm of the handed-down,
several classes and levels of folklore and folk
idiom may be distinguished, and each spe?
cies or individual item must be judged in
relation to its history and function in its
own social and cultural setting, since folk?
lore originates and spreads in many differ?
ent ways and forms. The great bulk and
central core of folklore consists not so much
in folk songs and stories (although these are
more obvious in their appeal as colorful and
characteristic) as in the customs and beliefs
Funk and Wagnalls, Definitions of Folklore
attending the "periods of emotional stress in
the life of an individual in relation to the
group?birth, graduation, coming of age,
marriage, burial" (Martha Warren Beckwith,
Folklore in America, 1931, p. 5), which the
educated and sophisticated share with the
uneducated and naive. Another consider?
able and important phase of folklore is made
up of the mass delusions and hallucinations
of myths, especially in the presence of the
"wonders of the invisible world," and the
apocrypha of hero-worship, with its legends
of doubtful exploits of historical personages
and "untrustworthy traditions of doubtful
events." Both aspects of folk fantasy have
their popular counterpart in the prejudices,
stereotypes, irrational beliefs, and daydreams
inspired or encouraged by commercial and
academic forms of mass communication and
mass organization of thought.
As folklore approaches the level of the
literate and literary, it tends to become more
elaborate and self-conscious in expression,
to shape about itself a formal tradition with
prestige value, and to become absorbed into
the main stream of culture. As it approaches
the level of the illiterate and subliterary,
folklore constitutes a basic part of our oral
culture, in the proverbial folk-say and accu?
mulated mother wit of generations that bind
man to man and people to people with tra?
ditional phrases and symbols. Folklore thus
takes root in the "humble influences of place
and kinship," of shared experience and wis?
dom, and has its flower and fruition in those
works of art in which the individual artist
succeeds in identifying himself with a folk
tradition and giving it universal form and
significance. On both levels?folk culture
or folk art?folklore derives its integrity and
survival value from a direct response to and
participation in group experience, and the
fusion of the individual and the common
sense. B. A. Botkin
4? Folklore, or popular knowledge, is the
accumulated store of what mankind has ex-
257
perienced, learned, and practiced across the
ages as popular and traditional knowledge,
as distinguished from so-called scientific
knowledge. The distinction between the two
is not always definite. The materials of folk?
lore are for the most part the materials of
social anthropology that have been collected
from the barbarous and "uncivilized" re?
gions of the world, as well as from the rural
and illiterate peoples of the "civilized" coun?
tries. These materials have been obtained
from the anthropological data of history or
have been collected by anthropologists and
folklorists in modern times. Specifically,
folklore consists of the beliefs, customs, su?
perstitions, proverbs, riddles, songs, myths,
legends, tales, ritualistic ceremonies, magic,
witchcraft, and all other manifestations and
practices of primitive and illiterate peoples
and of the "common" people of civilized
society. Folklore has very deep roots and its
traces are ever present even among peoples
that have reached a high state of culture.
Folklore may be said to be a true and direct
expression of the mind of "primitive" man.
The science of folklore is that branch of
human knowledge that collects, classifies,
and studies in a scientific manner the mate?
rials of folklore in order to interpret the life
and culture of peoples across the ages. It is
one of the social sciences that studies and
interprets the history of civilization. Folk?
lore perpetuates the patterns of culture, and
through its study we can often explain the
motifs and the meaning of culture. The sci?
ence of folklore, therefore, contributes in a
great measure to the history and interpreta?
tion of human life.
AURELIOM. ESPINOSA
& A survey of materials published as folk?
lore indicates that the subject is pretty much
what one wants to make of it. I favor a
conservative definition. Without attempt?
ing a formal statement, to me the term "folk?
lore" is most meaningful when applied to
the unwritten literary manifestations of all
 258
peoples, literate or otherwise. Stories, cer?
tainly, whether myths, legends, folktales, or
anecdotes, are of primary importance. I
would also add riddles, rimes, proverbs, folk
songs, as well as folk beliefs and supersti?
tions of almost all kinds. Regardless of how
they are presented, these materials are folk?
lore. Beyond this point one finds materials
which may be treated in folkloristic fash?
ion?games, cat's-cradle, ceremonies, witch?
craft, to illustrate?but which in themselves
do not, as I see it, necessarily constitute
folklore. Outside the central literary core,
folklore is best defined in terms of treat?
ment rather than in terms of inherent
nature. George M. Foster
* Folklore is that part of a people's cul?
ture which is preserved, consciously or un?
consciously, in beliefs and practices, cus?
toms and observances of general currency,
in myths, legends, and tales of common
acceptance; and in arts and crafts which
express the temper and genius of a group
rather than of an individual. Because it is a
repository of popular traditions and an inte?
gral element of the popular "climate," folk?
lore serves as a constant source and frame of
reference for more formal literature and art;
but it is distinct therefrom in that it is essen?
tially of the people, by the people, and for
the people. Theodor H. Gaster
& Folklore might be defined?not as ap?
plying to certain branches of lore rather than
others, nor to certain kinds of people rather
than others?but in terms of the ways in
which it is acquired, used, and transmitted.
It is true that certain subjects (like ballad)
are more associated in our minds with folk?
lore than others, but there is nothing in the
basic meaning of lore which suggests that
any subject is excluded.
It is also true that certain cultures or groups
have a more prevailing folklore than others.
But every group and every member of it is a
compound of elements that are folk and not
folk; it is the proportion that varies. With
Journal of Folklore Research
sufficient search one could no doubt dis?
cover an atomic scientist who would refuse
to walk under a ladder. With sufficient ac?
quaintance we detect unique qualities in
highly typical examples of folk products.
Folklore then may crop up in any subject,
any group or individual, anytime, anyplace.
It might be thought of as comprising that
information, those skills, concepts, prod?
ucts, etc., which one acquires almost inevi?
tably by virtue of the circumstancesto which he
is born. It is not so much deliberately sought
(like learning) as absorbed. It is not deliber?
ately invented; rather it develops. It is present
in the environment, is accepted, used, trans?
formed, transmitted, or forgotten, without
arbitrary impetus from individual minds.
There may be deliberate efforts to combat
it, as in the Westernization trends in China,
or to revive and preserve it, but these are
extraneous to what it is.
What was once a branch of learning, like
astrology, may become folklore. What was
once folklore, like the swastika motif, may
be taken over and used or exploited in a
non-folk manner. An individual work of
art, like the Statue of Liberty, may become a
group symbol, or a group symbol, like an
African mask, may go into the painting of
Picasso. These things are folklore, so long as
they are acquired, used, and transmitted in
the manner offolklore. When they cease to
be, or before they are, used in that way they
are not.
The nature of its development prevents
the setting of any rigid limits to folklore. It
is most clearcut where the group is most a
unit, with cohesion and continuity. Any?
thing which tends to break down the cohe?
sion of a group?communications, diversity
of knowledge, specialization, etc.?tends to
scatter its folklore. But we are not justified
in thinking, because it then becomes more
elusive, that it ceases to exist or evolve. Nor
can we think of groups simply in the tradi?
tional racial or geographic terms; they may
be based on occupation, age, sex, econom-
Funk and Wagnalls, Definitions of Folklore 259

ics, education, interest, etc., and in a com? that these popular forms be considered in
plicated society new groupings are constandy terms of the criteria, concepts, and prob?
presenting themselves. lems of any living literature.
The "group characteristics" which result Melville J. Herskovits
from the accumulated nature of folklore,
4r Folklore in the specific sense, which is
and by which we attempt to recognize and
the usual one in the United States, embraces
label it, are not to be thought of as opposed
those literary and intellectual phases of cul?
to individuality. Folklore is something which
ture which are perpetuated primarily by oral
the individual has in common with his fel?
tradition: myths, tales, folk song, and other
lows, just as all have eyes and hands and
forms of oral traditional literature; folk
speech. It is not contrary to himself as an and dialect as the medium of these
individual but a part of his equipment. It speech
materials; folk music and folk dancing be?
makes possible?perhaps it might be de?
cause of their intimate relation to folk song;
fined as that which constitutes?his rapport
also customs, beliefs, and "folk science."
with his particular segment of mankind.
Folklore thus exists in the city as well as in
M. Harmon
the countryside, and within groups that cut
& Originally the study of cultural curi? across such a division, but by preference it
osities, and held to be the survivals of an has been that of the countryside.
earlier period in the history of "civilized" A wider meaning, of "folk life," more
literate peoples, folklore has come more and familiar in
Europe and Latin America, cov?
more to denote the study of the unwritten ers the entire culture of a "folk"
group, usu?
literature of any group, whether having writ?
ally a rural group whose mode of life is
ing or being without it. This development rather different from that of its urban coun?
followed naturally upon the refinement of
terpart. Such a wide expansion of meaning,
ethnographic method, which yielded con?
stemming from a special "folk" concept, has
tinuously deeper insights into the nature not been
and functioning of human culture, and re? applied in the study of "primitive"
or preliterate societies where the
vealed the defects of the older comparative
anthropologist's background in social sci?
approach, on which the concept of cultural
survival was based. It became clear that the ence and linguistics appears indispensable
customs of living "primitive" folk could not for the study of native cultures as a whole,
and also for a fruitful evaluation of the func?
properly be equated with those of the actual
historic predecessors of Western European tion and history of oral folklore.
nations. In other words, "primitive man," The division of interest and of labor, sug?
wherever found, is not a contemporary an? gested by these distinctions, has followed
cestor. In Europe, recognition of this fact the different inclinations and methods of
resulted in the development of the study of the student of culture and of society"?
peasant cultures and other manifestations of whether anthropologist, rural sociologist, or
earlier custom as a discipline separate from social psychologist?and of the folklorist as
folklore. This newer orientation, by defin? a
literary scholar. No doubt both can only
ing more critically its field and approach, gain by greater familiarity with each other's
has freed folklorists for the study of popular
methods, points of view, knowledge, and
literary forms, among peoples everywhere, insights. GEORGEHerzog
whether they have a written language or
not. This analysis is to be carried on, more? & Folklore is a branch of cultural eth?
over, not only in the study of plot and inci? nology. The data of folklore are the myths,
dent, or to recover the place of origin and legends, traditions, narratives, superstitions,
original form of the tales, but also to the end religions, rituals, customs, dances, and ex-
260
planations of nature and man, acceptable to
individual ethnic groups in each part of the
world at any historical moment. Because
these are all structures of the human imagi?
nation and frequently operate most power?
fully when the groups or the individuals
who constitute them are experiencing mo?
ments of crisis, the data of folklore are im?
mediate and potent evidence of the nature
of man when man is defining his fears and
aspirations and searching for a security which
always eludes him. Folklorists whose busi?
ness it is to study folklore frequently become
infected and find that instead of studying
folklore they are in fact making it.
The methods of the study of folklore are:
1) collection of the data as they actually
occur without, if possible, the intrusion of
the folklorist's own mythopoeia, a primitive
impulse which creates folklore; 2) a com?
parison of the data to determine what are
the similarities and differences of these phe?
nomena in the several ethnic groups; 3) an
examination of the beliefs implicit in the
data; 4) of the social and psychological im?
pulses which produce them, and 5) the func?
tions folklore performs for the individuals
and the social groups through which they
operate.
Though persons concerned with folklore
in our present period of Occidental culture
are known as folklorists, they have been
called at other times mountebanks, priests,
poets, mystics, medicine-men, scholars. A
general purpose of all these people whether
they are producing an epic poem or editing
the Pentateuch or an encyclopedia of folk?
lore is to put their data together in such a
way that they will make sense. The sorts of
sense folklorists attempt to derive are vari?
ous: Many are determined to prove that
their social group is superior to others be?
cause their superstitions being generally ac?
cepted by their group are sound doctrine,
whereas superstitions not accepted by the
"we-group" are wicked, or at best quaint,
heterodoxy. In this way and many others,
Journal of Folklore Research
the pleasure we get for example from the
repetition of "family jokes," the folklore of
each group tends to strengthen the group
and to bring a sense of security and there?
fore superiority to the members of it.
Modern times have brought a new apol?
ogy for an old impulse. The "scientific" folk?
lorists search frenetically for origins and fill
their pages with discussions of "original"
dawn myths, stellar myths, totemism,
diffusionism, and other pretentious expla?
nations of an incomplete logic. Instead of
having only one meaning, each fact in folk?
lore has many meanings, even for the people
of the group who most fanatically accept it.
Until this semantic complexity has been
grasped and a suitable grammar of discourse
has been constructed to accommodate it,
folklorists will continue to toy with the skirts
of a great mystery. In the meantime the
humanists, undismayed by a terminology
which implies but does not present a scien?
tific approach, will continue to meditate on
the sorts of gaiety and terror which the
peoples of all times and places record in the
human structures known as folklore.
R. D. Jameson
4* Folklore is the science of traditional
popular beliefs, tales, superstitions, rimes,
all dealing preeminently with the supernatu?
ral, and picturization of these beliefs in fes?
tive customs, games, mime, song, dance. It
is essentially a communal product, handed
down from generation to generation, and com?
mitted to writing by trained investigators.
The domains of folklore arouse debate.
Its narrowest definition confines it to the
shadowy remnants of ancient religious rites
still incorporated in the lives of illiterates
and rustics. More broadly it includes secular
legends and songs, tales figmented from fact,
superstitions of recent origin, and fragments
persisting among sophisticated urban resi?
dents.
Folktale is distinguished from mythologi?
cal tale by attenuation of religious signifi-
Funk and Wagnalls, Definitions of Folklore
cance, from fairy tale by the still extant (how?
ever vague) faith in veracity and efficacity.
Likewise, by the current loss of function,
folk dance and folk music are distinguished
from ritual forms by their anonymous heri?
tage and from revival and individual com?
position by folk style.
Gertrude P. Kurath
4" Folklore is the generic term to desig?
nate the customs, beliefs, traditions, tales,
magical practices, proverbs, songs, etc.; in
short the accumulated knowledge of a ho?
mogeneous unsophisticated people, tied to?
gether not only by common physical bonds,
but also by emotional ones which color their
every expression, giving it unity and indi?
vidual distinction. All aspects of folklore,
probably originally the product of individu?
als, are taken by the folk and put through a
process of re-creation, which through con?
stant variation and repetition become a group
product. MacEdward Leach
4* The term folklore as used today is am?
biguous. The context in which it appears
reveals whether the user is referring to all
the unwritten narratives of primitive people
and thereby drawing a line between the lit?
erature of primitive and civilized peoples; or
to a poorly defined category of stories vaguely
distinguished from mythology (an equally
ambiguous term) by being of less serious
content and significance to their primitive
narrators. A connotation which adds to the
confusion is a hang-over from the earlier
European use of the word folklore to cover
peasant customs, beliefs, and narratives?
the anthropology of peasants.
Katharine Luomala
?f? The entire body of ancient popular ing.
beliefs, customs, and traditions, which have
survived among the less educated elements body of tradition and the science of study?
of civilized societies until today. It thus in? ing it. Folklore is the survival within a
cludes fairy tales, myths, and legends, su? people's later stages of culture of the beliefs,
perstitions, festival rites, traditional games, stories, customs, rites and other techniques
261
folk songs, popular sayings, arts, crafts, folk
dances, and the like. John L. Mish
& Folklore is a lively fossil which refuses
to die.
It is a precipitate of the scientific and
cultural lag of centuries and millennia of
human experience.
In early times change was slower and less
frequent, so earlier customs and beliefs had
longer to form and to become deeply en?
trenched in the racial unconscious. These
primitive patterns and mandalas, ripened
and mellowed like hand-rubbed woods, have
persisted beneath the hasty veneers of later
civilizations, to surprise us with their beauty
when we chance to uncover them. Beauty
they have because they were formed slowly
close to nature herself, and reflect her sym?
metry and simplicity. So, in a sense, folklore
is how we used to do it and wish we could
now. Hence, folklore is always the delight of
children because it is the poetic wisdom of
the childhood of the race. It is also the
pleasure of the old who are wise enough to
renew their youth by rebaptism in the eter?
nal simplicities in completing the circle of
life.
There is also, beside the juvenile, a strong
feminine element in folklore, because its
origin antedates the emergence of reason
and belongs in the instinctive and intuitional
areas. It is irrational and highly imaginative:
much of it truly is termed "old wives' tales."
Women have always been the savers and
conservators of beliefs, rites, superstitions,
rituals, and customs.
So folklore develops as the traditional,
and usually oral, explanation of the origins
and early history of man, as distinct from
history, which is the factual record in writ?
The word folklore is used both for the
262
of adjustment to the world and the super?
natural, which were used in previous stages,
but the word also designates the scientific
study of those survivals by later more so?
phisticated persons whose own adjustment
patterns make the survivals seem quaint,
irrational, and superstitious, but also some?
times fascinating and nostalgically desirable.
The experienced folklorist is never patron?
izing toward primitive patterns of life-
adjustment. Charles Francis Potter
*f* It is usual to define folklore either
literally as the lore of the folk or, more
descriptively, in terms of an oral literary
tradition. The first of these is a good broad
definition including belief, superstition, and
religious practice, as well as myths and tales.
But it suffers from the difficulty which arises
whenever any attempt is made to define "the
folk." It is doubtful that the uneducated or
illiterate can be considered apart from other
persons, and the hypothesis which estab?
lishes the existence of such a folk identity
would be almost impossible to validate.
Modern interest in folk music and folk danc?
ing has done much, however, toward per?
petuating this definition. The second defi?
nition relies upon a distinction between an
oral and a truly literary tradition represented
in such productions as novels, poetry, and
holy books. Many folklore analyses have
been dependent upon oral materials gath?
ered in societies with a written literary tra?
dition, but a definition resting upon this
contrast between the oral and the written
fails utterly to meet conditions found among
American Indian and other societies for?
merly without the art of writing.
In order to avoid the pitfalls into which
either of these types of definition carry us, it
seems wisest to define folklore simply as the
study of verbal materials in all their variet?
ies. Technical linguistics, music, the dance,
and the graphic and pictorial arts would
thus become closely related but essentially
separate fields of investigation.
Journal of Folklore Research
A brief discussion of the three schools of
folklore active at the present time will help
to illustrate the kinds of problem to which
the folklorist devotes himself.
1) The Indie school has been most strongly
influenced by the studies of Maurice
Bloomfield. The members of this school
began as Sanskrit scholars. They are both
linguists and humanists. Their study of San?
skrit sources led direcdy to consideration of
folklore, and some of our most valuable ex?
aminations of the continuity of motifs in
time and space, and of shifts in meaning of
phrase and incident, have come from these
men. In addition, their work with native
Indian scholars taught an appreciation of
oral materials not usually to be found in the
approach of the historian. Though relatively
few in number and little known by the aver?
age folklorist, their work is extremely im?
portant to our understanding of folklore.
2) The anthropological school has worked
largely, to date, in the American Indian
field and owes its major emphases to Franz
Boas. Its members are social scientists and
are interested as much in linguistics as are
the scholars of the Indie school. They, too,
have insisted that if language materials are
to be fully understood they must be most
accurately recorded and most minutely stud?
ied. There is no substitute for texts and
linguistic analyses. Faced, however, with the
American Indian situation the emphasis has
somewhat shifted. Whereas the Indie school
worked in a continuous tradition of written
language, the Americanist had to deal with
unwritten and unrecorded languages which
were not only mutually unintelligible but
also belonged to entirely different language
stocks. Other cultural aspects differed as
markedly, and the Americanist was forced
to a consideration of basic differences. Upon
his recognition of such cultural difference,
he developed an approach which has since
been fruitfully applied in other world areas
as well. His attention has been directed to?
ward an intensive analysis of culture pat-
Funk and Wagnalls, Definitions of Folklore 263

terns existing contemporaneously in the games occupies a position intermediate be?

world today. Folklore has served as an excel? tween the folklore of physical objects and
lent tool in this analysis; it has been used to the folklore of ideas. Typical ideas transmit?
investigate, and to illustrate, differences more ted as folklore are manifested in the customs
intimate than formal and more psychologi? associated with birth, marriage, and death,
cal than linguistic. In recent years, although with the lesser events of life, with remedies
the anthropological school has not lost sight for illnesses and wounds, with agriculture,
of changes occurring in folklore over space the trades, and the professions, and with
and time, it has tended to examine bodies of religious life, notably with Christmas, Eas?
folklore with an eye for their uniqueness. ter, and other holy days or saints' days. Ver?
3) The Aarne-Thompson school of folk? bal folklore includes words considered for
lore differs from the other two in that its their own sake and words occurring as con?
methods have derived primarily from a study nected discourse. Typical words that the
of European folktales. It works in a purely folklorist studies without special regard for
humanistic atmosphere, and is impressed by their use in connected discourse are place
the existence of an oral tradition which stands names, personal names (both family and
apart from the written or sophisticated like Christian names), and nicknames. Folklore
a parallel growth. Members of this school in the form of connected discourse includes
have been particularly interested in the col? tales of various kinds (marchen, jests, leg?
lection and classification of folklore materi? ends, cumulative tales, exempla, fables, etio-
als and have emphasized the importance of logical tales), ballads, lyric folk song,
obtaining numerous variants of a tale. Their children's songs, charms, proverbs, and
influence has been widely felt in both the riddles. The study of folklore consists in the
United States and abroad, and has today in collection, classification, and interpretation
the United States become associated with of these traditional materials. Classification
the field of intercultural relations. involves interpretation to some extent. In?
Marian W. Smith terpretation seeks to discover the origin,
meaning, use, and history of these materi?
?$? Folklore consists of materials that are als, to state and explain their dissemination,
handed on traditionally from generation to and to describe their stylistic peculiarities.
generation without a reliable ascription to Archer Taylor
an inventor or author. Although proverbs,
ballads, and other items of folklore are often & Although the word folklore is more
credited to a particular person, this is itself a than a century old, no exact agreement has
stylistic peculiarity of the genre, and the ever been reached as to its meaning. The
individual's claims are ordinarily dubious in common idea present in all folklore is that
the extreme. If they are capable of proof, we of tradition, something handed down from
find that the material has suffered alteration one person to another and preserved either
or adaptation in the process of transmission. by memory or practice rather than written
This "communal recreation" proceeds char? record. It involves the dances, songs, tales,
acteristically according to associative rather legends, and traditions, the beliefs and su?
than logical ways of thinking. The materials perstitions, and the proverbial sayings of
handed on traditionally may be physical ob? peoples everywhere. It also includes studies
jects, ideas, or words. The folklore of physi? of customs, of traditional agricultural and
cal objects includes the shapes and uses of domestic practices, types of buildings and
tools, costumes, and the forms of villages utensils, and traditional aspects of social or?
and houses. The folklore of gestures and ganization; but for these latter aspects there
264
seems to be a general agreement to consider
them, when found in a primitive or pre-
literate society, as a part of ethnology rather
than folklore. This latter division of labor is
largely a matter of convenience and is not
universally accepted. At least among literate
peoples all the subjects mentioned above are
considered as folklore, since all of them are
truly traditional. Stith Thompson
4* Among American-trained anthropolo-
gists concerned with the cultures of
preliterate peoples, the term folklore cus?
tomarily has been used to refer to the vari?
ous genres of orally transmitted prose and
verse forms existent in primitive groups. Such
forms include myths and tales, jests and
anecdotes, dramas and dramatic dialogs,
prayers and formulas, speeches, puns, riddles,
proverbs, and song and chant texts.
This limitation of the term to designate
one part only of any preliterate culture con?
trasts sharply with the customary usage of
the same term by students of Euro-Ameri?
can, European, and other folk and peasant
cultures. In folk cultures a large part, but
only a part, of the total culture is trans?
mitted orally; all such orally transmitted
material is generally regarded by humanists
as folklore. In this extended sense, then,
folklore encompasses not only all traditional
prose and verse material, but all tradition-
Journal of Folklore Research
ally learned arts and handicrafts and a vast
body of social and religious beliefs and cus?
toms, subsumed by the anthropologists un?
der the general term ethnography.
The educated layman's usage of the word
folklore lies between the anthropologist's
and the humanist's. This or that fact or
theory, transmitted orally or in popular
sources as well as traditional prose and verse
material, is folklore. Instead of using the
outmoded term superstition, the layman is
now more apt to refer to a folkloristic belief.
There is at present a noticeable tendency
among cultural anthropologists to use un?
written literature, or primitive literature, or
literary forms, to designate material which,
even a decade ago, would have been called
folklore. With more and more attention be?
ing paid by humanists to the study of the
traditional in folk cultures, it may well be
that the new terms for the anthropologists'
relatively restricted materials will gain cur?
rency, and ethnography continue in use by
anthropologists as practically synonymous
with the humanists' use of the term folklore.
Erminie W. Voegelin
4* Folklore is that art form, comprising
various types of stories, proverbs, sayings,
spells, songs, incantations, and other for?
mulas, which employs spoken language as
its medium. Richard A. Waterman