A Q U A R T E R LY N E W S L E T T E R F R O M N AT I O N A L F O L K L O R E S U P P O R T C E N T R E

J A I S A L M E R W O R K S H O P S P E C I A L VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

THE ADVENT OF
ASIAN CENTURY
IN FOLKLorE

C o n t e n t s
EDITORIAL ........................... 3
IN A TIME WARP ................... 5
DESERT VOICES .................... 6
ANNOUNCEMENTS ........ 29, 35
FOLKLORE AND
CREATIVITY ........................ 14
ADIEU, JAISALMER ............. 26
PARTICIPANTS’ REPORTS..... 30
ON CREOLIZATION ............. 36
ON FOLK ART MUSEUM ...... 41
ON DOCUMENTARY
ACT .................................... 43
ON FOLK NARRATIVES ........ 49
REFLECTIONS ..................... 57
FOLKLORE READINGS ......... 61

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

 National Folklore Support Centre (NFSC) is a non-governmental,
non-profit organisation, registered in Chennai dedicated to the
promotion of Indian folklore research, education, training, networking
and publications. The aim of the centre is to integrate scholarship
with activism, aesthetic appreciation with community development,
comparative folklore studies with cultural diversities and identities,
dissemination of information with multi-disciplinary dialogues,
folklore fieldwork with developmental issues and folklore advocacy
with public programming events. Folklore is a tradition based on
any expressive behaviour that brings a group together, creates a
convention and commits it to cultural memory. NFSC aims to achieve
its goals through cooperative and experimental activities at various
levels. NFSC is supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation.
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Regional Resource Persons B O A R D O F T R U S T E E S

S T A F F
V. Jayarajan Ashoke Chatterjee
Programme Officer Moji Riba B-1002, Rushin Tower, Behind Someshwar 2, Satellite Road, Ahmedabad
N. Venugopalan, Publications N. Bhakthavathsala Reddy
K.V.S.L. Narasamamba Dean, School of Folk and Tribal lore, Warangal
Administrative Officers Nima S. Gadhia Birendranath Datta
D. Sadasivam, Finance Parag M. Sarma Chandrabrala Borroah Road, Shilpakhuri, Guwahati
T.R. Sivasubramaniam, Dadi D. Pudumjee
Sanat Kumar Mitra B2/2211 Vasant Kunj, New Delhi
Public Relations
Satyabrata Ghosh Deborah Thiagarajan
Programme Assistants Shikha Jhingan President, Madras Craft Foundation, Chennai
R. Murugan, Jyotindra Jain
Data Bank and Library Susmita Poddar Senior Director, Crafts Museum, New Delhi
Jasmine K. Dharod, M.N. Venkatesha Komal Kothari
Public Programme Chairman, NFSC.
Athrongla Sangtam, Director, Rupayan Sansthan,
INDIAN FOLKLIFE - EDITORIAL TEAM Folklore Institute of Rajasthan,Jodhpur,Rajasthan
Public Programme
M.D. Muthukumaraswamy, Editor Munira Sen
Support Staff Executive Director, Madhyam,Bangalore
Santhilatha S. Kumar
N. Venugopalan, Associate Editor M.D.Muthukumaraswamy
Dhan Bahadur Rana Ranjan De, Designer Executive Trustee and Director, NFSC, Chennai
2 V. Thennarsu
C. Kannan
K. Ramadas
Deputy Director,
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Regional Resources Centre for Folk Performing Arts, Udupi
P. Subramaniyam
Director, Centre for Development Research and Training, Chennai
INDIAN FOLKLIFE
Y. A. Sudhakar Reddy
The focus of April special issue is on NFSC’s Jaisalmer Reader, Centre for Folk Culture Studies, S. N. School, Hyderabad
workshop on Documenting Creative Processes of Folklore, Veenapani Chawla
Director, Adishakti Laboratory for Theater Research, Pondicherry
held at Hotel Dhola Maru, Jaisalmer, from February 5 –
19, 2001. We acknowledge our gratitude to Mrs. Vidya h t t p : / / w w w. i n d i a n f o l k l o r e . o r g
Sigamany (vidyasigamany@eth.net) for patiently and
diligently transcribing audio recordings of the workshop.
NEXT ISSUE
We invite submissions of articles, illustrations, reports,
reviews offering historical, fieldwork oriented, articles Theme for the July issue would be Religion, Folklore and
in English on works in other languages, multi- Folklife. Closing date for submission of articles for the
disciplinary and cultural approaches to folklore. Articles next issue is June 15, 2001. All Communications should
should confirm to the latest edition of MLA style manual. be addressed to:

Cover Illustration: The Associate Editor, Indian Folklife, National Folklore

Support Centre, No: 7, Fifth Cross Street,Rajalakshmi Nagar,
Zakhar Khan in different poses playing Kamaicha Velachery, Chennai - 600 042. Ph: 044-2448589, Telefax: 044-
Back Cover Photo Courtesy: L.N.Khatri 2450553, email: venu@indianfolklore.org

On City Landscapes On Ecological Citizenship, Local On Arts, Crafts

On Syncretism and Folklore Knowledge and Folklife and Folklife
April, 2000 October, 2000
July, 2000 January, 2001

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

 E D I T O R I A L
O Jaisalmer!
M.D. Muthukumaraswamy
Like the Shillong workshop we conducted in
May 2000, the recently concluded Jaisalmer workshop
in February 2001 has also become a
landmark event in the history of Indian
folklore studies. This is mainly because
both the workshops clearly articulated
the intellectual underpinnings of the
field of folklore by placing the burden
Sarangi
of meaning of arts, culture, education,
tradition and change on the ways creative processes of
folklore are transmitted either on their own or with the
aiding intervention of the folklorists. Both the
workshops complemented each other in many ways:
thematically the Shillong one was on the public
presentations of folklore with the theme From fieldwork
to public domain and the Jaisalmer one was on how to
achieve the primary goals of documenting creative
processes of folklore, location wise Shillong is in north
eastern India and Jaisalmer is in north western India
and in terms of participation Shillong had young
academics while Jaisalmer brought together experienced
cultural activists. What we could not achieve after the
Shillong workshop was to bring out a special issue like
the one you are holding in your hands. We regretted
the loss so much that we made sure from the beginning
that the thoughts and practices discussed in Jaisalmer
would make up this special number. The aim of this
expensive publication is not only to disseminate the
ideas of Jaisalmer workshop to a wider audience but
also to use this as a precursor for a possible future
monograph on both the workshops.
When we conceived of this workshop on fieldwork and
documentary techniques in 1997 we were thinking only
in terms of effectively using technology for the purposes
of folklore documentation. But as we went on refining
the concept of the workshop it became clear to us that
a theoretical reorientation towards the subjects of
documentation would be of utmost importance as
defining moments in the history of folklore studies all
over the world have always been made with that focus.
A theoretical orientation that would not lose sight of
empirical evidences in the name of theory, history of
Indian folklore in the name of global conversations and
Sharada Ramanathan distributing Sarangi and Kamaicha to young musicians of Rajasthan: Koju Khan, Sadqe Khan, Bundu Khan, Iidu Khan, Barkat
Khan, Sikandar Khan, Habib Khan (all Sarangi players), Kaloo Khan, Sachu Khan, Bakshu Khan (all Kamaicha players)
INDIAN FOLKLIFE
cultural convergences in the name of sense of a locale.
The delicate and daunting task of balancing would not
have been achieved without the dedicated efforts of
the faculty members of the workshop. With his
admirable rhetorical skills Henry Glassie presented the
quintessence of twentieth century North American
folklore scholarship in addition to his fieldwork projects
that took him to Ireland, Turkey, Bangladesh and Japan.
With an amazing variety of examples he was able to
demonstrate how transcendental ideology of exceptional
individuals serves as nourishing platform for folk
creativity and how folklorists bearing honourable witness
to that human aspect of life can document it with simple
tools like a notebook and a pen. With a gentleness
masking his density of thought Lee Haring explored
folkloric processes of cultural convergences in Trinidad
and Mauritius. His lectures amply made clear that the
essential nature of creativity is to function through
syncretic processes. The legendary Komal Kothari
presented a wide array of empirical evidences from
Rajasthani folklore to reveal that creative expressions
of folklore are embedded in the larger local knowledge
systems that connect social life and environment
intimately.
3
Folk musicians and other artists were continuously
visiting the workshop venue to meet with him and such
meetings inevitably resulted in brilliant performances.
Komal Kothari’s phenomenal knowledge of Rajasthan’s
landscape and its people was evident in all the field
trips he guided us and all the performances he
introduced us. Pravina Shukla offered new ways of
looking at bodily adornments and perceptively made
us discover how the remaking of the world would be
composed of such self-expressions. Kapila Vatsyayan,
who spent two valuable days in the workshop, through
a very fine heuristic method, taught the participants
ways of verbalising their fieldwork experiences and the
ways of interpreting them.
We had the rare privilege of having Aruna Roy for the
inaugural and Susan Bean, Deborah Thiagarajan,
Munira Sen, Sharada Ramanathan, Rukmini Shekar and
Adarsh kumar for a few days at the workshop.
VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001
 E D I T O R I A L
All of them vigorously participated in the discussions
and enriched the learning process enormously.
Reflecting back I am inclined to think that Jaisalmer
itself contributed to the spirit and dynamism of the
workshop. As the westernmost town inside India’s
border Jaisalmer has an extraordinarily medieval and
Middle Eastern feel, with its crenulated golden
sandstone walls and narrow streets lined with
exquisitely carved buildings. With four major gateways
to the town and founded by Prince Jaisal in 1156,
Jaisalmer grew to be a major staging post on the famous
silk route. On the roughly triangular shaped Trikuta hill,
the Golden Fort (called so because of the colour of the
sandstone) stands 76 meters above the town enclosed
by a 9-meter wall with 99 bastions. When you walk
through the narrow streets within the fort you often
get blocked by an odd goat, cow or a camel cart and it
Function for distributing musical
instruments to young folk
musicians of Rajasthan
is amazing to see even today how about a 1000 turban
clad men, veiled but bejewelled women and school
going children live in tiny houses inside the fort often
with beautiful carvings on doors and balconies. Through
a mere walk through the town you meet with musicians,
puppeteers, weavers, jewellers, potters, toy makers and
ironsmiths. With an abandoned aircraft kept as a public
museum piece on a roadside park with a piles of pots
on the opposite side, the puppeteers dwellings two
streets away, havelis with their beautifully carved facades,
jali screens and oriel windows visible at the other end
of street, the camel carts pushing their way through
and the fort in the background when you sip a cup of
tea at the roadside shop you tend to think Jaisalmer
defies time.
It was astounding to learn from Ramsingh Mertia’s
lecture that the entire Thar Desert must have been
underneath the sea ages ago and the desert was a result
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
of lack of rain. He shared with us a wealth of information
on how the desert supports a variety of plant, animal
and bird lives. After his lecture it was very easy to
perceive hardships of living in the desert as well as to
appreciate human ingenuity in the built water ways and
conservation systems (in Khuldara villages), artificial
lakes, city plans, food habits, cow and camel herding,
grass growing and indigenous medicinal systems.
Komal Kothari has been presenting this perception
about Rajasthani life all through out the workshop
through innumerable instances and living in Jaisalmer
for fifteen days made us realise that folklore studies go
beyond studies of expressive behaviour to gain insights
into life situations. Folklore as a discipline holds a vision
of human life in existential terms beyond the corridors
of power and it is important to maintain that vision
while addressing the questions of art and creativity also.
The same vision made us understand that while desert
is both a metaphor and reality Rajasthani folk music is
not only an artistic expression but also more of an
existential necessity. It was not at all difficult for us to
see why music and so Sarangi and Kamaicha are central
to Rajasthani folk life. It was not at all difficult for us to
understand why Komal Kothari was lamenting that
these two musical instruments had not been made in
the last one century. I am most grateful and most
delighted that the board of National Folklore Support
Centre and the Ford Foundation approved making of
these two musical instruments with the little excess
money we had for the workshops and distribution of
them to the child musicians of traditional communities.
The making of these musical instruments was not as
easy as it appeared to be. Despite Komal Kothari’s four
decades of research in musicology and easy access to
traditional communities it was difficult to make the
instruments as it called for knowledge of the woods
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001
 E D I T O R I A L / I N A T I M E W A R P

and carpentry skills apart from a collaboration between
folklorist, carpenter and traditional musicians. The
strenuous and adventurous collaboration headed by
Komal Kothari lasted for several months and just before
the workshop they were able to complete only seven
sarangies and three kamaichas. As I am writing these lines
the project is still going on to achieve the target of one
hundred instruments.
What a grand finale the distribution ceremony turned
out to be! All the musicians, who were performing all
these days for us either at Hotel Dhola Maru or in the
villages, were all present. By then we had realised that
Zakar Khan, Anwar, Barkat, Gazi, Sagar, Ghewar,
Perupa, Buchi, Mehra, Mayat and Gazi Barner were all
world-class musicians. The scintillating performance of
the child musicians, Yassin, Mehboob, Abdul Rashid,
Sikander, Kutla, Shankara, kheta, Darra and Roshan
was lingering in the memory.
We were remembering the haunting voice of Rukma
Devi, Kherati Ram Bhatt’s skillful puppetry, Kalvelia
dance of Sukmi Devi, Teratali dance of Chanda, Kamala,
Rukmani and Gazi Khan’s institute of music in the village
of Bharna. In the midst of a sudden avalanche of
powerful evocations, Sharada Ramanathan of the Ford
Foundation began distributing musical instruments to
the child musicians. They were historic moments filled
with unknown emotions and sentiments. Those were
the moments one normally feels contentment, fulfilment
and satisfaction.
My colleagues, Athrongla, Jasmine, Murugan and Venu
join me in thanking the Ford Foundation, the faculty
members, the participants, all the artists (including
B.D.Soni, the jeweller), Kuldeep Kothari and the staff
of Rupayan Sansthan our collaborative partner for this
workshop, Naval Kishore Sharma of Jaisalmer museum,
Rajasthani Patrika which carried the news of the
workshop everyday, Major General Bhandari, his family
and the staff of hotel Dhola Maru and the administrative
staff of NFSC who stayed back home to give us
background support.
We are especially grateful to Gowher
Rizvi, Representative of the Ford
Foundation’s New Delhi office without
whose help we would not have
identified three participants from other
Asian countries and expanded the scope
of this workshop. Although I feel the
sense of an ending for this introductory Kamaicha
essay, I do not have the satisfaction of
having said everything. Let me say in
exasperation: O Jaisalmer!

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In a time warp

Henry Glassie

The musical instruments that are lined on the table today set the mood. The mood is one of transfer,
of making it possible for people to continue to do what it is that they wish to do. We should have no desire to
make people continue to do what they don’t wish but if musicians want to make music, if they want to celebrate
the universe through sound then we should make it possible for them. Our giving musical instruments to the
next generation, allowing that generation to accomplish its own world in its own way, today establish the mood.
So think of those musical instruments as the proper metaphor for everything that’s happened in this workshop.

This is the moment of conclusion, it’s a moment of transfer, it’s a moment of gift; it’s a moment when another
generation rises to receive, rises to go forward, rises to make possible the continuity of culture. So just as we are
making it possible for a group of young musicians, by the possession of musical instruments, to carry forward the
beautiful, astonishing and deep music of Rajasthan, so too has this workshop worked in exactly the same way.
The idea being a group of elders transfering to a new generation a hope for possibility for a new idea of folklore
research; and so just as the musicians will be able to make such music as they want, we hope we who have been
teaching in this workshop that we have transferred to you the instruments with which you can make the music
that you choose to make, not it is to be hoped the music that we made, but better and more beautiful music.
Henry Glassie
But at the core of that act of transfer there is the hope for a kind of continuity, a kind
of continuity that can be expressed in this very simple way–echoing in reverse, as
point of complexity. And that it’s what could be simpler and what at the same time
more complex than the idea of folklore. I would say that the idea of folklore is
nothing more or less than this – it is that time when a human being elects to act with
sincerity, nothing more. Meaning that a human being will inevitably work towards
the expression of the self, will work towards the preservation of the society, will
work towards the preservation of the world, and will work towards honouring
whatever sense of the transcendent visits that individual…(these excerpts were taken
from Henry Glassie’s concluding remarks…Editor)

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

 D E S E R T V O I C E S

Documenting creative processes of folklore: desert voices

Welcome address: Komal Kothari

It is a big opportunity for me to welcome time for us. So I think it is necessary in this world to
Arunaji, Henry Glassie, Lee Haring, Pravinaji and all find time to communicate with each other from our
other friends who have come over from all parts of the very different worlds.
country and a few of them from outside the country
I work with an organisation that is extremely small,
also. It was in Shillong a year back that a workshop on
which is based in central Rajasthan called the Mazdoor
From Fieldwork to Public Domain was held and it was
Kisan Shakthi Sanghatan. It is a small organisation, which
decided at that point that next time we would meet in
is a non-party people’s organisation. In India today,
Jaisalmer. It was something, which we were doing in
because all systems have failed us, whether it is the
Shillong, was totally east and now what we are trying to
political system of parties or whether it is the system of
do is totally west. What we were doing in the hills, now
trade unions, for poor unorganised people living in the
we will be doing the same type of exercise in the desert.
villages of Rajasthan and elsewhere in India, we feel it
So, this type of a workshop is practically to conceive a
is extremely important to understand that in democracy
sort of an in-house, in-depth discussion about the
politics is everybody’s business; to re-shape democracy,
possibilities folklore presents to human society. We will
to make it our democracy, make it participatory
be here for another two weeks and will try to come in
democracy and make it something that will fulfil our
contact with people who are involved in creating lot of
dreams, our needs and our vision.
artefacts, lot of life objects, lot of life material through
which they pass and we will try to look into it and that It is true that we in our specialisations have different
will give us opportunity to go among the people, stay areas of interests–some look at folklore, some look at
with them, try to understand them, try to understand folk tradition, and people like me who work with rural
their creative processes as that is what is required. people have, in a certain sense, to look at them
holistically, though I may have to concentrate on their
6 We would welcome people from Jaisalmer who would
participation in political processes, to see that they have
be ready to exchange or know about the processes with
more power to decide for themselves what kind of world
which the folklore discipline is attached in one way or
they want to live in. And I think if we look at the earth
the other. They are welcome to join us at any particular
and its enormous resources and the way it is going
moment. But let me hope that I should be able to take
today, and the way people’s initiative, small processes,
lot more time later on and I welcome you all and it is a
small groups of traditions that exist, are all being
great opportunity to have met here in the desert, which
steamrolled into one standard uniform culture, then
as you see, has its own silence but silences also have lot
we are all important in our different ways, to see that
of meaning. Let us try to get the meaning out of silence.
all these individual small traditions exist, and they not
Thank you.
only exist but have a right to exist. And in that right to
Chief guest address: Aruna Roy exist they make their expression an important form of
expression to communicate, to entertain, to teach and
I would like to thank NFSC and the Rupayan Sansthan also to form a big political statement on the need for
for inviting me today. I am particularly glad to be with existence of sub-cultures.
Komalda, we all affectionately call Komal Kothari,
Komalda or Komal kaka in Rajasthan depending on We cannot have one uniform culture all over the world.
our ages. It has always been a privilege to be wherever We have institutions in India, which are specialised
Komalda has worked, in whatever form. He has always institutions for higher culture, which exist, but I do not
been with us whether we have worked with political think that there are many institutions in this country,
which exist for the smaller cultural groups. Rupayan
activism, with social activism, with folklore, with folk
has made a substantial difference to this perception. If
musicians or getting folk people together. He has always
you look at the crafts, if you look at singing traditions,
had a great sympathy for people who struggle against
if you look at creative traditions in India, we could see
oppression, who struggle for justice. So I feel privileged
they have been expressions from people whom we call
to be with you all here today and honoured that
Dalits, whom we call Dastakars, whom we call the lower
Komalda has thought me good enough to inaugurate
strata of our caste-ridden society. It has been important
this session. So I would like to, with all my humility,
therefore to not only look at the expression of these
say that I come here to share my thoughts, not with
various communities but also to give them some place
the arrogance that they may be right ones, but feeling
in our social fabric, to give them some importance, to
that I owe a great debt of gratitude to Komalda and his
also accept that they have a right to live other than the
various folk artists and friends who have always found
expression of their medium.

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

 D E S E R T V O I C E S

I do not know how many of you are familiar, who have We damn the whole lot as illiterate, we damn them as
come from abroad, but those of us who live in this non-creative, we damn them as people who do not know
country well know that when the performance takes anything, and I think we do the greatest harm to them
place we accept, for that particular moment, the equality and to ourselves.
of the performer with us, but when it comes to feeding,
when it comes to living, we always differentiate between The oral tradition that exists in Rajasthan, I am sure it
ourselves and them. One of the fundamental things exists in all parts of India, has contributed enormously
that the Rupayan Sansthan has done is to break those to our understanding of us, to the understanding of
differences. And I think it is a major contribution that tradition and to the understanding of knowledge.
it has made to our lives in Rajasthan. Though I extol tradition as extremely important, I would
also like to bring to bear upon us the negatives of
In India, we have a country divided by many things, tradition. In Rajasthan, we have also seen a woman
we are divided by language, we are divided by tradition, burnt at the stake not very long ago with her husband’s
different kinds of tradition, different kinds of cultural body in a funeral pyre when the Roop Kanwar’s Sati
patterns and though in a sense we are one country, it took place. We also see all kinds of atrocities on women
is these differences that make this country really a rich in the name of tradition. I am not saying that tradition,
tradition, a rich heritage, a rich cultural texture. There in and of it, is wonderful. I am saying tradition is a
are attempts today, even from amongst us, to make us mixed bag, just as development and modernisation is a
a uniform whole. Politically we talk of one Hinduatva, mixed bag, so one is not talking of one versus the other,
of one Hindu party. It is wrong, in my opinion, to talk one is talking of preserving those forms of tradition
about culture in those terms. I think in the course of and those forms of modernisation which are for social
the fifteen days that you will meet here you will see justice and equality, which also perpetuate culture in
and understand the kinds of different textures and the form that we want to define it. I am not willing,
different kinds of cultural forms that exist. But I will and I am sure most of you are not willing; to let the
make a plea and the plea that I will make for you and I electronic media or newspapers that are now in the
know that you are interested but I would still like to hands of multinational corporations define what culture
make a plea that in our work I have found when we should be. I think we have a right as people in a living
talk about political alternatives today in this country or society to define what culture we need to subscribe
alternatives of social reform, I find that the middle class and I will be very interested to know what comes out
is really pulverised. as a result of your fifteen days’ deliberation on it. 7
I think no great major ideas have emerged from the I have just come back from Brazil and where, World
middle class in the last 50 years. They have only rehashed Social Forum held an alternative social summit to the
various things. If you look at the political status of India economic summit held at Davos. In Davos, the WTO
today, I do not think we can claim any great contribution met to see how the world could be standardised, how
to the nature of politics or the nature of economics of everything could be under the normative pattern of one
this country. It is important at this juncture, for people group of people who decide how the world will work
like me and many of my friends in this country, to look economically. As an alternative, the World Social Forum
at and understand the nature of knowledge that exists which organised itself in Brazil invited people who are
amongst people whom we dismiss generally as illiterate. not in the mainstream of decision-making today but
I think though literacy is an extremely important tool for who are the large majority of this earth’s population.
development, it is a tool The meeting discussed what kind of
which is important, for it is alternative modes could prevail in the
a living skill and here come Pravina Shukla: Keynote address world to decide and protest against the
my friends who are the standardisation and steamrolling of
greatest of performers, who economics and of culture. If you look
may be illiterate, but who in at the way multinationals are coming
their performance, in their in, it will not only be in the selling of
knowledge of musical notes, soap and the selling of tea and the
in their knowledge of selling of goods, it will also be in what
various things, have the we will read in the
greatest understanding of newspapers, what we will
mathematics in the read in magazines, what will
understanding of beats, they have the be shown on the television,
understanding of rhythm which originates from and its going to be a big
an understanding of timing, which originates struggle for all of us who
in mathematics. We have the most marvellous support the marginalized, so-
weavers in this country who weave the most called marginalized groups of
exquisite fabrics in which the precision people, whether it is the
in terms of mathematical calculation exist. peasant or whether it is the
Inaugural function

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

 D E S E R T
folklorist, whether it is the singer, whether it is the
performer, against this massive inroad and the amount
of money that is being spent on it is colossal. But we
people who are on the other side have one great
advantage and that is the numbers that we are. We are
enormous numbers of people and they are very few if
you look at the comparison in terms of numbers.
The problem is that in India, and I am sure in the rest
of the world but I only know India well, the people
who protest are few, the people who promote those
things are also few, the large numbers of us do not say
anything, we keep quiet. Here in Rajasthan, there is a
favourite phrase, whenever I went to the village and
talked about things which were community properties,
which were community heritages, which were
community things, there was a famous saying especially
in economic terms when you talk about government
spending, they used to say badhbadoji, badhbado, maru
tho ko na - it isn’t mine, let it burn. I do not think I will
take much time but I will just mention it because that is
the reason why I am here with you all today, and our
campaign for right to information and transparency of
government funds and of all people dealing with public
money has now become a national issue.
It is one way in which we can make the government
accountable to its people and we can make the people
responsible for political action in a democracy. In a
8 democracy people cannot just cast a vote and say that
the five years between one vote and the next is the
responsibility of the politician we sent to power and
the bureaucrat who looks after us. We have realised
that in a democracy if we want real power, we will have
to speak, we will have to monitor. We will have to
have continuing accountability of the government to
us. We have to make the people’s voice stronger. I
come to you with a final plea that ethics whether it is in
the business of public life and politics or ethics in the
question of cultural choices is not in the depiction or
just in the mode of depiction or the purity of the
depiction of a certain form.
Many years ago, I had the good fortune to study dance
at Kalakshetra in Madras, and I know what it means to
have a purist form because in the school that I studied
in, we were not even allowed to see performances of
Bharatanatyam by people who are not considered pure
dancers. And the people who came and taught us the
dance form were in the pure tradition, in which there
was no interpolations of any cinematic mode, of any
modern mode but came in the true tradition of what
the Bharatanatyam system was. We did not hear any
classical music in which there was any infiltration of
any other thing. I am not talking of purism, which in
itself has its own value. I am talking about ethics of the
people who perform. I think the lives of those people,
the kind of life they lead economically, and the kind of
life they lead socially are as important as the forms that
they project.
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
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I will just end with a simple quotation not from one of
the great people in the world we know but from Lal
Singh who is a comrade and a friend of mine, who
works with the Mazdoor Kisan Shakthi Sanghatan. So
when we were invited to speak in an institution in Jaipur
which organises training for people in the civil service,
they invited me and they invited another person who
is also bilingual, both English and Hindi speaking, and
we took with us three farmers and workers. After all,
my organisation translates into a workers’ and peasants’
organisation and I am neither a worker nor a peasant.
So they thought that Lal Singh had just come as a sort
of a totem to say that, you know, there are peasants and
workers we work with. As usual, they gave me fifteen
minutes to speak but they said to me at three minutes
that time was up. So Lal Singh said to them he needed
only one minute.
When Lal Singhji was given that one minute to talk,
three minutes to talk, he said I would speak in one
minute, that’s all I need. And what he put succinctly
in that one minute, it will take me half-an-hour to explain
with all my verbosity. So like all other cultural folklorists,
our peasants are also people who are gifted with the
gift of language, of thought and I will translate what he
said in Hindi. With all these to-be bureaucrats and
civil servants sitting in front of him, he said to them; we
wonder if we do not have the right to information and
transparency whether we poor will exist in India at all. You
as people who are going to sit and rule over us as a state, you
wonder if you give the right to information, whether you will
be in control or not, whether you will sit on that chair or not
literally, because your power will be distributed, because once
you share information, you share power and you will lose
your seat and your control over power. But actually what we
should all do is to collectively think whether the country will
exist or not exist if there is no transparency or right to
information, if there is no ethics in public life. So, friends,
I come to you with all humility to share the few
thoughts. Thank you.
Keynote address: Henry Glassie
It is a great delight for me to be here. I have spent
many years of research in Bangladesh, visited Pakistan,
toured in Tamil Nadu, this is my very first visit to north
India, therefore I pretend no expertise, I know nothing
at all about your place, I come here humbly to learn
from you. Not to teach but to learn. I need, in
expressing my delight, to thank a friend who have made
my visit possible. In M. D. Muthukumarasamy, an old
and dear friend, a great folklorist, a man with whom I
feel great kinship and who have made this conference
possible. We need to remember Sharada Ramanathan
of the Ford Foundation in Delhi who has provided
support to NFSC. I consider it a great honour to be
here with my colleagues, the great Komal Kothari and
my colleagues from America, my old, close beloved
friend Lee Haring and Pravina Shukla who teaches with
me at Indiana University.
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I come in the very beginning to make a fairly simple set In its second century, folklore shifted from Europe to
of propositions. Here is the first one: I teach you a the United States, and in shifting from Europe to the
little bit about the history of our discipline. We can divide United States folklore began to be concerned not so
its history into three great phases. The first one is the much with the past as with the present. As it
European phase. In the European phase, folklorists reconstructed itself as a view of the present, folklore
were primarily interested in history. Their eyes were lost the value structures that had committed folklore to
turned backward, they were concerned with distant a countering of colonialism; it began to look at the
times, distant places, the movement of ideas, and the possibilities of a universe made up of equal civilisations,
movement of peoples and as they looked backward, of equal cultures, of cultures each of them with their
they first discovered something about their national integrity, of cultures each of them with their power, of
heritage. But the more the folklorists concentrated on cultures each of them with their beauty. Folklore then
their national heritage, the more the Germans were became the celebration of the integrity of distinct
interested in Germany, the more that the Irish were cultures, the ways in which small groups of people had
interested in Ireland, the Italians in Italy, they began to through speaking well, through making well, through
discover the proposition of the international. They lost thinking well, had constructed for themselves ways of
their concern with national life that answered their needs, that fit their ecology,
destiny and began to think, that fit their hopes for the future. In a sense, in its
Aruna Roy: Chief Guest
however humbly, however second century, its American century, folklore devalued
crudely, and from whatever values, deconstructed historical propositions and moved
superior perspective that towards the notion of a universe made up of separate
they adopted, they began to societies, each with its own integrity, and each with its
think about an international own purpose.
view, an international view
We are, you and I, involved in a very powerful
that through various serious
historic process because we are at the very
research ultimately brought
dawn of folklore’s third century. Its first century
the folklorists into an
was a century of Europe and history; it was a
understanding of one great
century of looking backward in order to
land mass that lay on the west in Ireland
reconstitute a history that could be useful for
and on the east in India and the great
the future. In its second century, its American 9
Thomson in his day titled the most
century, folklore is primarily oriented to the
important chapter of the most important
present, looking out upon
book, From India to Ireland. Note the way
the present and fragmenting
in which the folklorist’s interest in the
the globe into a thousand,
origins of folklore in India that then moved
thousand small societies,
westward was precisely counter to all the
each of them with their
forces of colonialism. The forces of Komalda: Welcome beauty. We are now
colonialism were suggesting that all ideas address
standing at the very
were moving from Europe to Asia; the beginning of folklore’s third
folklorist was arguing that all the great ideas had in fact century, which will be not
moved from Asia to Europe. its European, not its
Humble, small, marginal, of no great importance, the American century but its
Lee Haring: Keynote
little discipline of folklore took as its task, from the very address
Asian century. We are at the
inception, to countering the proposition of colonialism very dawn of folklore’s Asian
by arguing in behalf of the world moving against the century and folklore’s Asian century will not be a century
sun and all of the ideas moving with the course of the that orients to the past, it will not be a century that
universe from east to west. In its first days, its European orients to the present, it will be a century that orients
century, folklore was primarily concerned with the past itself to the future, that begins to look forward and to
and as it was concerned with the past, it was primarily imagine how all of that learning that we have developed
concerned with the reconstruction of a history that about history, all of that learning that we have developed
would be for modern people a better, more democratic, about culture can be put into action. No longer will we
more comprehensive history than the history that was suspend judgement; we will be obliged to make
written in history books. It started this discipline of judgements. No longer will we be involved in pure
folklore in pure opposition to the force of history, the research, we will be involved in impure research and
force of history being that force that supported colonial impure research that allows us to rethink the entire
endeavours, that supported oppression, that supported proposition of scholarship, the entire proposition of
division, that attempted to work against the entire science and allows us to realise that what we should be
notion of democracy. In its first century, folklore was doing is putting into play, applying, ameliorating,
committed to an understanding from the past about making the world better for the world’s people by using
possibilities of a democratic future. pure research to develop means by which we can

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

 D E S E R T
improve the lot, not only of the poor, but of the rich,
the way that we can improve the lot of all the people
who live on the world.
During its American century what folklorists did was
to dismantle the value structures by which history was
constructed and attempt to eliminate values on behalf
of equality. What I would like is to think about it as
something beyond equality, beyond something
egalitarian, something that might even propose the
frightening notion of a new aristocracy, a new
aristocracy of the mind, of the heart, of the soul, a new
aristocracy that might allow in its Asian century for
folklorists to solve the problems that the West has not
solved – the problem of gender, the problem of class,
these are the problems that lie before us; we have failed,
it is my hope that with God’s power that you will
succeed. So my mission in coming to you is to help the
transition from the century of America to the century
of Asia. And in this mission what I imagine is a change
in folklore, a change in folklore as you just heard the
notion that we might reshape democracy, I would
imagine us reshaping the entire proposition of ideology
and in that reshaping what it is my hope that can happen
is that Asian scholars who receive from western scholars
all of those things that westerners have learnt and then
not only adjust those things to a new territory but
completely rebuild the discipline of folklore. I am here
10 to give you the discipline of folklore with my blessing
and my hope that you will do a better job with it than
we did. We brought it to a certain point but at this
point we in the West have failed.
My first statement of my mission is that what I am here
to do is to learn from you and to hand to you all of that
which is of value in the discipline of folklore so that
you can reconstruct the discipline and not only make it
fit for Asia but so that Asians can now begin to lead the
entire world, to do folklore better than we did folklore,
to do better than the Europeans did folklore, to take
folklore to new glorious heights in which pure research
will be dedicated not merely to the accumulation of
knowledge, but pure research will be dedicated to the
solving of serious problems. There are serious problems
that lie before us and the folklore can be the very means,
it being so crucial to the way human beings construct
their lives, the folklore can be the very means by which
you construct a new discipline and you can, I wish,
you can lead the world better than we have. America
presumptuously calls itself the most powerful nation
on the face of the earth; I see America as a great giant
that does not know yet that it is dead. It is still stumbling
around on the face of the earth as though it had energy.
America’s energy lies entirely in the past; Europe’s
energy is not even a dream in the mind of a dying soul.
The whole hope of the future, in my opinion, lies with
you in Asia. I am very delighted to be able to; I wish to
surrender to you such virtue as remains in the discipline
of folklore. My first mission is to give you folklore and
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
V O I C E S
my second mission is to follow you into the future, not
to lead you but to follow you. My third mission is to
hope that with you we can dismantle this monstrous
neo-colonial proposition called globalisation;
globalisation that can seem like a positive force,
globalisation which is nothing but colonialism in a whole
new, more insidious guise. What I would like to do is
to say to you first of all, as an American, for heaven’s
sake, do not follow America. For heaven’s sake, please
begin to lead America. America needs your direction
and folklore needs your direction too.
What we need to do is to work against the proposition
of globalisation on behalf of freedom, on behalf of
justice. Folklore is not marginal to those endeavours.
Our understanding of folklore is absolutely dead central
to those endeavours; there will be no possibility for us
understanding the world unless we study closely, so
closely the people who have mastered tradition, that
we do not consider those people to be our equals but
we humbly accept those people to be our superiors and
at last we learn to follow them and their wisdom into
the future. I am, I repeat, delighted to be here. I am
looking forward to these two weeks with you; I am
excited in the ways in which I will be able to learn from
you but more importantly what I would like us to do is
to be able to develop between ourselves, among
ourselves with all the powers that lie behind us in our
civilisations, to be able to develop for the world a better
model of what the future can be like. The European
century was about history and the past, the American
century was about the present, the Asian century will
be about the future and whether the future will be better
than the past is largely up to you. I say at the end of
this little rant that I am perfectly happy, delighted to
be following you into the future, pleased to be here, I
thank my friends.
Keynote address: Lee Haring
Dear colleagues and members of the workshop, I take
a moment now to express to you my immense gratitude
for the invitation to me to travel here to Rajasthan and
to be among you for the two weeks in this workshop.
It was a year ago that I was privileged to attend the
Twentieth Indian Folklore Congress held at Patiala.
There I met many Indian folklorists and was impressed
by the great importance that the study of folklore holds
in the past and present and future, as my dear friend
Henry Glassie has said, of this great country. It was an
American anthropologist, Milton Singer, who pointed
out, almost fifty years ago, India’s strong interest in the
recovery or reinterpretation of India’s traditional culture.
Singer also gave us this challenge, I quote, and the
professional student of culture and civilization may contribute
something to this inquiry through an objective study of the
variety and changes in cultural traditions. That is the
contribution we all hope to make through this
workshop.
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Writing about African-American blue songs, the great
novelist Rod Ellison remarked that any viable theory
about part of a culture obligates us to fashion a more
adequate theory of the whole of that culture. Blues, he
wrote, cannot be isolated from other kinds of music,
whether African-American or other, cannot be isolated
from other kinds of American expression or other parts
of American culture. Ellison’s logic if we take it to a
global scale implies the reverse as well. Any viable
theory of world culture in our time obligates us to
assemble facts about local cultures, more facts indeed
than globalisation theorists usually acknowledge.
Folklorists are uniquely positioned to direct attention
to local cultural situations. And that is a large part of
our study in this workshop – identifying the new genres,
tools and insights that arise in the studies, the central
task of folklore is to take its place where it belongs at
the centre of the human sciences. I am glad to be with
you as a new millennium begins. Last year, many
people celebrated an ending as though it were a new
beginning. But new beginnings are always possible for
us. I try to start over each morning, so I greet you with
gratitude and excitement, and I wish all of you, all of
us, a happy and fruitful time of working together.
Keynote address: Pravina Shukla
Good Morning. I am going to keep my comments very
brief because you have lots of opportunity to hear me
talk in the next two weeks. First of all, I want to thank
M.D. Muthukumaraswamy for being here. It is a very
important personal pleasure for me to be here in India,
participating in this workshop. I am also honoured as
a new professor to be in the company of my heroes,
people who have proven and inspired me in folklore. I
see my presence here at this folklore conference/
workshop as symbolic. I see myself imbibing the
connections between India and America. I am of Indian
heritage, my parents are from India; I was born and
brought up abroad; I have done fieldwork in both India
and Brazil, where I grew up. So I study both the new
world and the old world, both areas of my background,
countries and cultures that make up who I am today. I
think what we have to do is take the abstract of what
Henry and Lee talked about and make it concrete.
We need now, we continue to need, compassionate
understanding outside those perspectives. Still, we also
need perspectives that bridge, a friend of mine just
recently called me, saw me as a bridge between east
and west, between Asia and America or Europe. I think
we need the perspectives of the bridge, people who are
both insiders and outsiders simultaneously, which I
consider myself. And then we need to add the
important insider’s perspectives to this. That would be
you talking about studying India. All three of these
perspectives are needed for us to come to a better
understanding of the dynamics of Indian folklore. I do
not think we are using the insider’s perspective, I say
yours, the kind of bridge perspective, I say mine, the
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
V O I C E S
outsider’s perspective, I say theirs. One is not better
than the other, one is not replacing the other in this
chronology of centuries; I think we need all of them
simultaneously. As I hope for the future in making
this abstract specific, we are currently in the final stages
of developing international folklore connection between
Indiana University and India. We have Indian scholars
and contemporary folklore theory. Henry Glassie and I
would be the co-directors of that. This is an official
connection; in the meantime while this happens we
can engage in all kinds of unofficial connections. It is a
pleasure to be here, I look forward to getting to know
you. Thank you.
Vote of thanks: M.D. Muthukumaraswamy
Aruna Roy, the Chief guest of this function, Henry
Glassie, Lee Haring, Komal Kothari, Chand, Bhandari,
the Director of the Folklore Museum, Jaisalmer, and
distinguished members from Jaisalmer and
distinguished participants, it is my pleasure to thank
you all for coming over here. This has been a very
difficult workshop for us to organise, in the sense that
we are sitting there in the city of Chennai and then we
are organising something in Jaisalmer. This workshop
would not have been happened without the
collaboration of Rupayan Sansthan headed by Komal
Kothari and his staff. They made all the local
arrangements here and we were coordinating between
the international faculty, the participants who applied 11
to us and also with so many other people. One of the
major tragedies that happened on January 26, the Indian
Republic Day, the major earthquake in Gujarat, that
set us really in a bad mood and many participants
wondered whether we would be able to hold this
workshop. The tragedy was colossal and the whole
nation went through depression. On TV, the images
shown were depressing and it was purely because of
the encouragement I received from Komalda I went
ahead with all the preparations. I am also glad for all
the participants who enquired with us whether this
workshop was to happen in the first place, who believed
my assurances and then came over here.
I would like to make a few comments about this
workshop and its organisation and also thank all the
colleagues who are to participate. We began the
planning for this workshop in December 1999 when I
invited Glassie to come over for our Shillong workshop.
But at that time he could not make it because he had
some other commitments in Bangladesh and then we
began a conversation about this workshop and purely
due to Glassie’s commitment to the Asian century of
the future that we were able to put together a
curriculum, put together the faculty and I am grateful
to Henry Glassie for being associated with me and then
guiding me for the workshop for nearly one and a half
years. That kind of a preparation went into this, all
through emails: of course email is a blessing. Email and
internet have revolutionised information sharing.
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001
 D E S E R T
That brings me to the idea Shrimathi Aruna Roy brought
to us today, the right to information, the right to have
the transparency installed in government, non-
government and other organisations. National Folklore
Support Centre receives a grant from the Ford
Foundation. We at NFSC believe that the funds available
to us from the Ford Foundation are public funds. It is
a public fund we are handling and NFSC stands
committed to the accountability of receiving public
funds. At NFSC I strive hard to keep the centre,
egalitarian. We have no hierarchy in the organisation;
we have only roles to play, and we have only work to
accomplish. And I have distinguished, hard-working
colleagues with me, Venugopal, Jasmine K. Dharod and
Athrongla Sangtam and Murugan. Then we have the
blessing of working with the colleagues from Rupayan
Sansthan, Kuldeep Kothari and Rajinder.
All of us are participants, we are students of folklore,
we are here to learn and as organisers we have second
roles to play. We are here to learn from you and also
learn from the place, Rajasthan. Another thing I would
like to talk about is the kind of faculty we have in the
presence of Lee Haring and Shukla. I entirely agree
with Glassie when he says the future of folklore as a
discipline is in the hands of Asian scholars. I hesitate
to say Indian scholars because we planned to have South
Asian and South-East Asian participants for this
workshop. Unfortunately when we initially conceived
12 of this workshop, we conceived of it only as a national
workshop. Then we thought we have a larger
connectivity with the South Asian and South-East Asian
countries and we needed participants from there also.
But we could not provide them with the travel funds
and Glassie said he would relinquish his travel funds
to give that to candidates from Bangladesh or other
Southeast Asian countries. We found although we are
very eager for a conversation with our colleagues in the
South Asian and South-East Asian countries,
communications between us are dismal. So giving
Workshop Participants and Faculty
Standing (from L to R): Murugan, Nima, Geeta, Muthu, Pravina, Lakshmi, Jasmine, Simon, Khubchandani,
Kuldeep, Aruna, Jayathirtha, Tulasi Diwasa, Sawai, Phuong Le Thi, N.K. Sharma, Moji Riba
Sitting (from L to R): Bandhu, Gayatri, Komalda, Munira, Guy, Shikha, Athrongla, Ashok Alva
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
V O I C E S
information was difficult, we could get only very few
applications and once we asked them to come over,
they had difficulty finding travel funds. This is one of
the problem we need to take into consideration in
building up an Asian century for folklore. However we
were able to get three scholars, Phuong Lethi from
Vietnam, Tulasi Diwasa and Bandhu from Nepal. The
structure of the curriculum, the course, we thought,
should address transnational ways of seeing folklore.
Transnational in the sense how cultures mingle and
how cultures offer ways of all the time creating new
possibilities, all the time creating possibilities of genre,
possibilities of life forms, possibilities of expression, the
possibilities of wisdom.
Without expression, there is no possibility of wisdom.
Without wisdom, there is no possibility of learning and
without learning there is no possibility of building a
nation of democracy and the nation of democracy
depends on learning from the people as we all agreed
and then for learning from the people, we need tools,
we need theoretical tools, we need people who have
studied them. So we have Lee Haring and Pravina
Shukla, both of them are experts in studying how
cultures mingle and how new possibilities emerge.
These are very important to us in the context of
globalisation as Glassie mentioned, in the context of
grassroots expression as Aruna Roy mentioned and then
in the context of listening to the silences as Komal
Kothari mentioned. So along with distinguished faculty
I think we also have distinguished participants for this
workshop; most of them are senior to me in this field
and I look forward to a great listening and great learning
experience with all of you. We, I hope, to spend fruitful
time here in Rajasthan; let us explore Rajasthani culture
also when we are here for the next fifteen days. With
that, I thank every one of you, I thank the Ford
Foundation, I thank my colleagues, I thank my
colleagues at the Rupayan Sansthan, and I thank our
learned teachers.
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001
 F I E L D V I S I T S / E V E N I N G P E R F O R M A N C E S

Field visits

Date Place

6 February Jaisalmer fort, Jain temples, Haveli sculptures and khadi bhandar

8 February Kalakar colony to Kherati Ram Bhatt’s place where the whole process of puppet making
and a puppetry show were performed

9 February Folklore museum and Garisar lake

11 February Visited Bharna and Gazi Khan’s Institute, listened to folk music concerts, went for
camel safari and visited the sand dunes

13 February Visited goldsmith B.D. Soni’s work place and observed the various stages
of making jewellery

14 February Visited Hamira village for traditional pottery and later to Gazi, Anwar and Zakar ‘s
place where they sang folk songs and visited the traditional fair related to
mother goddess Kale Doongri

16 February Visited village Khuldara, abandoned villages by Pallival Brahmin community and
later went to the sunset point
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Evening performances

Date Artists Description Contact Address 13

of performance
Feb 5 Child Artists: Yassin, Mehboob, C/o Kheta Khan
Abdul Rashid, Sikander, Folk Songs Manganiyar,
Kutla, Shankara, Village Post Hamira,
Kheta, Darra, Roshan Dist- Jaisalmer, Rajasthan.
Ph: (02992) 51285
Feb 7 Rukma Devi Solo artist (song) Payachi, Rajasthan,
Near Hotel Dhola Maru,
Jaisalmer, Rajasthan
Feb 7 Kherati Ram Bhatt Puppetry Katputliwala, House
no. 47, Kalakar colony,
Jaisalmer, Rajasthan
Feb 9 Ghewar, Anwar, Barkat, Gazi Folk Songs Village Hamira,
(Hamira) Dist. Jaisalmer, Rajasthan
Feb 11 Ghazi, Sagar, Perupa, Buchi, Folk songs Village Bharna
Mehra, Mayat, Anwar, Gazi, (Bharna) Dist. Jaisalmer
Gazi Barner, Satar, Barkat Rajasthan
Feb 12 Sukmi Devi, Suva Devi, Kalvelia Dance Sheshnath Lok Kalakar
Satar Khan (Dholak) House no. 55, Sanjay C
Colony, Pratap Nagar,
Jodhpur, Rajasthan
Feb 13 Anwar, Gazi Bharni, Ghewar, Folk Songs Village Hamira,
Barkat Khan, Mehra Dist. Jaisalmer, Rajasthan
Feb 14 Chanda, Kamala, Narayan Das,
Rukmani, Gaffur Teratali Dance Gaon Dhol
Tehasil Gokurda,
Dist. Udaipur, Rajasthan

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

 F O L K L O R E A N D
Participant report: folklore and creativity
Guy Poitevin is Director, Centre for Cooperative Research
in Social Sciences, Pune, India
The workshop on documenting creative processes
of folklore, was meant to bring together people actively
concerned with folklore issues in India in order to initiate
a process of interaction among them, and as a follow-
up explore possibilities of cooperation between the
National Folklore Support Centre (NFSC) and the
participants, in whatever form and context deemed
appropriate to the objectives of NFSC. The deliberate
choice of Jaisalmer is to focus on the cultural
potentialities and artistic capacities of deprived
communities and popular performers. To this effect,
NFSC intends to cooperate with Indian Universities and
support folklore researchers.
The Far-East regions having been neglected by India
since Independence, NFSC purposely organised a first
training workshop in Shillong in May 2000 for mid career
Indian folklorists to reflect upon their practice. The
second one was decided to be at Jaisalmer with Rupayan
Sansthan. The workshop was organised to offer an
opportunity of intense exchange of views and
experiences to selected participants, either in general
sessions through immediately reacting to the
14 presentations made by the faculty members or in the
small groups of five which were arranged as their follow-
up and animated by a rotating faculty member. These
small groups were recomposed every five days. Field
visits were generally arranged in the afternoons to get
acquainted with various facets of folklife and interact
with them in their life environment. Evenings were
earmarked for performances of music, puppetry and
dances. The latter again gave opportunities to personally
relate with the performers and express our appreciation
for an expertise, which often compared with that of
professionally trained artists.
This report deals with
Guy Poitevin
the general sessions
only. It does not intend
to be an objective
recapitulation of the
lectures made by
faculty members and
following general
debates. The richness
of these lectures and
discussions would only
make this task
impossible. I mean
something else,
namely, to point out a
few issues, which seem
to me particularly
relevant in the field of
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
C R E AT I V I T Y
folklore studies and practices in India. I intend on the
one hand to stress points which should become matter
of consensus and be remembered as significant
landmarks for reference by the participants keen on
proceeding further along ways chalked out by the
workshop. I shall on the other hand take this
opportunity to occasionally raise critical questions on
issues, which in my opinion remain problematic and
require further consideration.
Identification of core issues
The workshop was meant to possibly identify
programmes to be further carried out with NFSC
support. This implied that basic perspectives be shared
in order to work actively upon whatever be the fields
of social involvement or the domains of research. It
was essential to that effect that right at the outset the
concerns and expectations of every one be spelt out in
order to facilitate a broad homogeneity of perspectives.
The participants were therefore requested to make a
short self-presentation and state their main fields of
involvement or areas of research. This gave an initial
idea of what actually folklore means for them, practically
and theoretically.
The concerns of most participants can be categorised
as follows: (1) the publication of articles, documents,
books, video-tapes, visual and audio-documents and
films on folk traditions; (2) the promotion of folk arts
and support to performances, sometimes the
organisation of traditional artists’ melas, talks and meets,
one of the significant aims of such activities being of
presenting these living traditions to a large public which
ignores or even looks down upon them; (3) the
preservation and reactivation of people’s traditions and
knowledge for the next generations at a moment where
their survival is problematic, but their heritage
significantly relevant. The aim of most of the participants
is of strengthening such potentialities, enhancing their
resilience, propounding their social relevance and
availing of them as assets for cultural activities in front
of destructive social challenges.
Issues of theoretical concern
The preliminary self-introduction pointed to a few
theoretical issues bearing on methods, perspectives and
the clarification of which motivated the wish of the
participants to come and attend the workshop. Their
hope was that workshop would provide fruitful insights.
The particular expectation expressed by several
participants was of discovering through a direct contact
with the rich Rajasthan folklore especially its music,
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001
 F O L K L O R E A N D C R E AT I V I T Y

craft, tales, songs, dances, etc. The holding of the it was later defined by the Faculty as a metaphor
workshop in Jaisalmer was indeed meant to offer a borrowed from the world of weaving to mean what has
singular opportunity of personal experience and been woven together, that is to say, elements that
exposure to Rajasthani folk traditions through directly somebody puts together as to shape a distinct object).
relating with artists and their communities at home in In this regard several questions arise. First, what are
the course of the field work visits arranged in the orality and its function versus the written? What can
afternoon, and evening performances. people’s oral traditions mean in the context of present
day development and in general with reference to
The preliminary cultures and civilisations grounded in the written text
question raised which use to entertain disregard for the oral texts of
by many was: primitive societies? Secondly, what cognitive status and
What is folklore? authority do we recognise to oral texts when our
The question documentation means and procedures are guided by
of the principles and concepts framed by systems of
theoretical knowledge based on the predominant authority of the
status of written text? In other words, we may try and know
folklore how to let performers of oral texts speak for themselves
as a with an authority of their own, but to what extent are
constituency we able to apprehend the logic of their oral regime of
o f expressivities? Thirdly, human rights and the rights to
ic ians knowledge information were strongly stressed by Aruna Roy and
e mus
villag
H amira proves a crucial brought forward time and again by the participants as
With
and pervasive a core issue directly connected with our interest in
issue, at the folklore. How would we figure out this political
cognitive as well connection between peoples’ traditions and democratic
as at the rules of social communication?
practical level.
Those who try From the outset questions were raised about what do we
to enhance do when we document? What is the meaning of
the validity documentation? How and why do we document? The 15
and survival question is an ethical one. It bears on the rapport
of oral between the scholars, the research worker, or, for that
traditions matter, the activist, and the people with a different
especially culture and a much lower social status. How would we
ic ians
ag e mus in tribal like to qualify and figure out this rapport? The question
ra vill
Hami is one of the core issues to be addressed by a workshop
With communities raised
another important on documentation. Why do we collect songs and wish
issue: What does to archive oral traditions? What are our motives? What
creative process are we looking for? How to secure continuity and
mean? The survival for disappearing traditions (songs, tunes, tales,
question has crafts)? What are the means to preserve them? Why
reference to and how to preserve them when styles of living change
language, drastically and changes do not care for continuity. How
social forms, do we manage or negotiate such ruptures? What are
marriage the means to reactivate traditions? How can we base on
customs, them processes of cultural action in the modern context?
tales and How do we concretely figure out the continuity or of
myths, tradition and modernity in the case of folk-tales, songs,
melodic myths, music, etc? How do they enter in and be
’s hom
e heritage, etc. represented by our modern discourses? Traditional
Ram Bhatt societies are swept away off their social and cultural
K herati
Aruna Roy and others, not as a moorings (family customs, ways of living, cultural
fact to be deplored but a boon to be wealth, occupational skills, etc.). How can we reactivate
worked out, naturally stressed the question of a collective cultural memory found fading away, and
multiplicity of cultures alive and vibrant in the whole save its relevance, if any, and, if so, which one, in a
Indian subcontinent. modern environment, to the benefit of the overall polity
and culture of India to-day? Are we only enjoying a
Folklore is a matter of speech and not of pure textual role of mourners with no other purpose than the
traditions, which possibly exist only as mental fictions. dubious pleasure of an aesthetic contemplation of the
(The word text is being used in this report in the sense beauty of the dead?

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

 F O L K L O R E A N D
Cultural memory may draw upon the inner dynamics
of old folk forms and incorporate their semantics and
values in a new life style, in different systems of social
relations. Why should we not even continue using old
instruments and react against their falling out of use?
A mental shift is needed to prompt new people to adjust
to old instruments on account of their musical potentials.
Why not create this opportunity and device a new lease
of life for them in our times? remarked Komal Kothari.
From the outset, a kind of principle for action was
stressed, namely, that at a time when many traditional
forms are disappearing, these forms should be carefully
documented and systematically studied for whatever
they are worth for (social form, musical tune, myth,
tale, etc.). Save one percent in your budget for pure folk
studies is the motto and request of Komal Kothari to all
social action groups. But how to solve such difficulties
as the availability of time and funds, have concerned
and competent people, of means and methods?
Then how to do good work and do justice to the
traditions themselves? This applies to musical
knowledge as well as to mythological logic. This implies
firstly that forms be studied in their whole human
context, not as isolated folklore item. There is no more
pure music or pure technical craftsmanship without
concrete human social communication, human
expression and as a consequence constant variation are
16 the three characteristic modes of living oral traditions.
Pure excellence is always defined out of context. Folk
traditions have their own life; they constantly change
according to time and historical transformations. They
are never fixed and isolated objects. They are historically
conditioned inventions. The workshop was precisely
meant to examine ways and methods of documenting
the particularly significant dimension of creativity of
people’s traditions.
Careers and concerns
Under this title faculty members shared introspective
reflections about their individual journey as folklorists
so that the lessons that they drew from their professional
career may help us to avoid dead ends and suggest a
way to us. Lee Haring was initially a performer of banjo
and singer of traditional American songs. He realised
later on that songs were coming from country people whom
I had no connection with. We had no concern for their context.
We were selling ourselves as guardians of authentic American
songs taken often from commercial productions. A second
lesson is the discovery of the importance of music in
the European songs that his students, sons of migrants,
were learning at home as part of their culture. When
folklore became a reality in the North America in the
60s, another discovery was the retrieval and the
investigation of the text as a form of creative process.
In Kenya, in India and in Madagascar, I discovered
complicity between the ignorance of their folklore by people
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
C R E AT I V I T Y
and European colonialism. Their folklore became less isolated
and ultimately appeared to me as equivalent to people’s culture,
and culture equivalent to history. Folklore studies became
then a way to acquaint people with their own heritage.
Ultimately, ethnicity and nationalism appeared to me narrow
approaches, if not altogether wrong perspectives. Notions of
endangered species and pure forms were also discarded as
misleading, as there is only mixture, métissage, diversity
and hybrids. This would apply to situation in the USA also,
confirmed Lee Haring in reply to a question. There is a
history of the concept of folklore in the USA as well,
with the same need to transcend concepts of ethnicity,
otherness, purity, and nation.
Pravina Shukla reflected upon her professional
experience as folklorist in Brazil (carnival), Benares
(women’s practices of body adornment) and in
organising exhibitions and museums in the USA (see
Pravina Shukla’s article in this issue–Editor). She pointed
out practical difficulties encountered in fieldwork while
taking photos or shooting to document the carnival,
in particular to gender constraints.
Documentation from collecting
material and
displaying
objects to
present the
findings and
the ultimate
results of an
investigation
with possibly
the help of
visual and audio
material or e gate
ar Lak
exhibition of Garis
objects and texts
raises a number of questions. Venugopal wondered
about the cognitive status and extent of validity of a
document, which claims to actually represent the reality.
There is in a document more than what one sees. There
is first what we selected and choose to present, and
how and why we gave it a definite signification. Usually
this is not spelt out when we write a book. What is
beyond or behind? G. Poitevin raised the point of
another distinction to be made especially with reference
to documenting through visual material, to two
cognitive processes, the one of the scholar constructing
a document and the other one of the receiver whose
insights depends on the symbolic values that the images
have for him. The image has an uncontrollable
effectiveness of its own. Here are two separate worlds
of meaning construction. Henry Glassie shared
reflections on the nature of folk creativity. His experience
taught him to move from a song text and singer’s song
towards the whole life environment and culture of those
concerned (housing, cloth and dresses, cooking and
food habits, architecture and material culture in general),
which are consonant with the song. People sing songs as
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 F O L K L O R E A N D C R E AT I V I T Y

their house looks. The best way to protect people and a consequence legal questions of authorship and
document their potentialities is, first, to reveal their copyright are to be acknowledged once the product has
names and identity as individuals with reference to their become a commodity. The example of a song composed
environment, instead of hiding them under empty by a Rajasthani traditional singer and shared by the
generalisations or deleting their personal life whole community of Manganiyar singers for decades in
features. Extracting Rajasthan before being commercially appropriated by
a performance out mass media with an immense and profitable success
of the performer’s becomes a legal question of authorship and copyright
life space and in a modern context only. The previous popularity of
social relations the song was not credited to an individual’s rights and
c a n n o t consciousness against the collective consciousness of
apprehend his community. This does not mean that folk songs in
individual’s India are cultural goods, which belong nowhere and
creativity. A stand as nobody’s property; the performers own them
performer’s as the common heritage of their community. Even when
creativity no name can be mentioned as the author of a given
lies in their folklore, this does not mean that the latter can be
h o m e rapport. considered as an aesthetic item isolated from moorings
att’s
a t i R am Bh S e condly, in a concrete community and surviving without
Kher
with regard to the performers or carriers.
performance itself, no tune repeats
itself two times absolutely equal to itself. A story This issue of individual carriers or performers versus a
once repeated will adapt to each particular situation community was unsatisfactorily discussed. Let us refer
and only variants exist. The storyteller’s creativity is to two instances of traditional practices. The story-teller
realised when we listen several times to the same story of an oral narrative will put his name as being the
in different moments and situations. The tale is affected narrator or carrier but not the author of the tale or myth
by the interaction of the teller with his audience, and which the whole community owns as his wealth; the
the ethnographer as well, while being narrated. narrative does not stand by itself as anybody’s or
nobody’s story, but neither as a singular individual’s
Creativity is the function of interaction. There is no
property. Similarly, the formula of identification and
17
pure, original folk-tale. The text of a tale or song that
remains with the ethnographer is only an abstract, an the signature of authentification of the collective
emblem or a short sample of the reality of the singer tradition of the grind mill songs in India are spelt out
and his culture. by the phrase: I tell you, woman. This implies a shared
appropriation of the tradition by an individual woman
All theories are singer in the performance itself, through embedding
bound to herself and incorporating her testimony within the
common heritage; the question of ascribing the song to
disabuse an individual artist’s name never occurs and would seem
Folklore is not incongruous. Artist’s anonymity points simultaneously
an anonymous to a commonly shared heritage and a deeply
cultural item. personalised identification of oneself within the common
We often heritage in the moment it is received and commonly
assume that carried over.
a folk Should we not conceive of a process of individualisation
tradition or personalisation growing abreast with an increasing
such as a symbiotic interaction of each carrier with the other
arna
song or a members of his community, each one reaching in each
e-Bh
I n s titut tale is a performance a deeper stage of himself/herself or shaping
n’s
h a z i Kha c o l lective
At G a new a material heritage through his/her identification
wealth and has no with the very collective heritage of the community? The
composer. Even when the composer’s individual and the collective seem to be better construed
name is not known, a great poet composer will interactively and communicatively than antithetically
be credited with the song creation, as is the case in when we deal with traditional forms of tangible or
Ireland. It was felt that the issue of the individual versus intangible culture. This issue is crucial as it has a
the collective in respect of oral traditions should not be determinant bearing on methods and procedures of
viewed only with reference to a western approach to documentation. It calls for further elaboration as the
folklore, in which the concept is applied to modern creativity and fate of people’s traditions depend
practices and innovations which are launched by constitutively on the interaction of all members through
individuals before becoming popular in the opinion; as modes of symbolic communication and systems of oral

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 F O L K L O R E A N D C R E AT I V I T Y

transmission of knowledge specific to cohesive societies. the majority of the potters of Bangladesh or Turkey
Here the process of cultural creativity of the individual decide to discontinue the tradition, many potters
agent significantly differs from that of a modern disappear, but their beautiful language offers a defence
individual in a modern context where orality is no more which a minority avails of, finding in it inspiration and
the determinant and sole regime of communication. ways to overcome. This creativity is not economically
or politically ground. They avail a means of their own
Issues of documentation practices and documentation to protect their art: it is a transcendent force that makes
ethics, as well as issues of collective vitality and survival some of them continue their art practices.
of traditional oral cultures are to be conceived along The person engages himself in
specific conceptual constructs. A debate remains creating something
necessary on the concept of living collective tradition not only for
and singular ways of traditional creativity with reference him but
to the multitude of Indian communities, their systems also in the
of mutual relations and symbolic communication, their name of
indigenous or autonomous knowledge, their expertise oneness with
in crafts, and last but not the least their every day a supreme
wisdom. Processes of creativity vary with each of these power or to
domains and should be documented in minute detail please that
for each of them. In Japan, folk traditions are alive in power. The
plenty. Japan is extremely rich in folktales. Folk can be same is the case
vibrant with high standard of living. It is equally wrong with weavers aking
f p u ppet m
to connect folk creativity with illiteracy. Why then folk ss o
and their Proce
survive when comfort and high literacy are not adverse weaving. The
to folk traditions and may not mean their extinction? idiom is taken from
According to Henry Glassie, folk creation emerges when Islam and not
an individual feels furious against the collective. Three f r o m
factors are required for folk to exist: 1) a brave individual economics.
ready to stand up and refuse the fashion of the many, A
2) a group of people surrounding him and ready to be
18 taught something else, and 3) a belief in a transcendence
transcendent
ideology
or an ideology, that is to say, a constitutive link between prevents their
oneself and something beyond. art from
disappearing, a
Religion is the substratum of folklore result that a er
isalm
simple economic s e u m, Ja
u
When clarification was sought in a small group ore M
or utilitarian Folkl
discussion about the third factor, Henry Glassie defined
argument would
transcendent belief as a conviction transcendent to
not be able to
ethnicity, environmental constraints, economics and
perform. Folk
politics. Something deep provides a resource from
forms are
within and is distinct from everyday constraints. This
symbolic
resource is usually sought in philosophy or religion.
forms. This
This transcendent resource offers a language different
explains
from ordinary language and allows us seeing life
their survival
differently. That transcendent element is an ideological
in the midst
conception in the control of people, not imposed from
of adverse
outside. Folk creativity rests upon language or art as
economic
metaphorical form of expression and symbolic
constraints.
communication. The performers have the ability not
ar Lake
only to make artefacts; they are moreover able to speak This theory of Garis
about their art with a language of their own. That emergence of
language helps them to control, transform, and interpret folklore was
their art as a system of significance, which helps them unfortunately not discussed. It appears amazingly
to defend it. identical to theories of popular culture as counter culture
which flourished in the West some decades ago, for
For instance, potters in Turkey have a language to
which the people, namely, small insurgent groups are
discuss life borrowed from Sufi poetry, which is not
the source of innovation; they are moreover understood
part of orthodox Islam, but these sets of poems allow
as individuals from low status community, or repressed
people to have a practical and different language of
minorities. It sounds as if the term folklore is just
their own. When their art of potters is threatened, and
brought in to replace the term popular. This subjects

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

 F O L K L O R E A N D
the construction of Folklore as transcendent source of
human survival to those objections made to the popular
construed as alternative front of counter-culture. This
is not to deny the necessity of ideological sources of
inspiration for social actors exploited by dominant
interests to fight against unjust socio-economic systems,
but the question is not of accounting for the emergence
of action-groups.
The concept of individual, which appears here, may
not prove appropriate to conceive of the relation of the
creative individual performer to its community in a
traditional way. Creative processes within oral folk
traditions characteristically appear to be communicative
phenomena, rather than artist’s courageous upsurge,
and their mechanisms would have been better discussed
with reference to the many Indian folk realities familiar
to the participants, starting with the various folk
practices encountered during the field work visits in
and around Jaisalmer. A second question is that a huge
mass of folk traditions as much in India as elsewhere
are not essentially religious, and their emergence as a
response to a transcendent call may simply be not
tenable as a general theory.
A third observation is that the function of a number of
folk traditions consists in maintaining the status quo if
not even repressing dissent, or in emulating higher up
models if not seeking acceptance and recognition by
dominant communities. The Indian narrative traditions
constitute the wealth of each community (for instance
the practice of genealogies and the sets of myths specific
to subaltern castes, to mention only two examples) seem
hardly capable of breaking altogether the over-all
hierarchical and patriarchal patterns.
Performance theory: Henry Glassie
Several lessons can be drawn from Glassie’s lecture.
The first lesson is that a text as a thing in the world, an
archaeological monument, is to be distinguished from
the inner view of the human agent. The latter’s insight
is a meaning to be ascertained from within once we
have documented the processes of production of a form.
The ethnographic stage is necessary but not sufficient.
The second lesson is that the meaning can be
documented only after a prolonged interaction with
people. Truth is any way out of reach, as it exists only
on the inaccessible horizon, which the interpretations
of the folklorist in dialogue with those of his performers
point to; all of them remain only approximations. (See
Henry Glassie’s article in this issue-Editor)
In his two presentations, the one on musical instruments
and other one on folk tales, Komal Kothari gave accounts
of creation of form with reference to their physical
parameteres, location, social mapping and
correspondent distinctive genres. These accounts were
inspiring illustrations of how one could analyse these
forms. Kapila Vatsyayan explicitly articulated a first
lesson later in a talk: What is the distinction between
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
C R E AT I V I T Y
tangible and intangible culture? This categorisation never
occurred to Komal Kothari to distinguish the
manufacturing of instruments and the narration of tales.
His description immediately clarified crucial points: the
production of a given instrument is directly guided by
a certain form of music which is specifically if not
exclusively performed in particular circumstances: the
tune cannot be separated neither from its material
vehicle, which itself is symbolic of caste, technical and
aesthetic expertise, and therefore instrument of social
distinction, nor from the social/symbolic function of the
performance. Similarly the import of folk narratives from
low status castes cannot be properly assessed unless
they are perceived as embedded in the everyday material
culture of communities maintained in a state of
deprivation. Second lesson: Forms do not emerge from
nowhere; they are contextually embedded in the totality
of a social structure, which comprises of a number of
agencies mutually interdependent and interactive
(Kapila Vatsyayan). A form should therefore be
analytically examined at various levels. The wealth of
information given by Komal Kothari cannot be reported
here. A few details only may be remembered to
substantiate the previous statements.
Regarding musical instruments, for instance, barring
the simple ones, they were played in hereditary castes
supported by patrons. If most of them come from
kitchenware, the reason is that they were mostly played
at folk shrines of the goddesses. Until thirty years ago,
19
rural people were not using metallic utensils because
of the difficulty of making alloys. The study of musical
instruments has led us to study food practices (there
was no fried food), and their use led us towards the
shrines of the goddesses. Different instruments (pabu,
jantar, jogi and sarangi) were used for different epics with
the result that specific epics captured some; as a result
they remain used exclusively for that particular epic.
Two groups of musicians, langas and manganiyars, are
found in western Rajasthan, each of them divided in
two sub-groups, which play a different instrument (for
instance with strings differently placed on the bridge
of their sarangi in the case of manganiyars). The
manufacturing of sarangi and kamaicha had to be learnt
again, they were not made in India for last one hundred
years; two families who could make the Sindhi sarangi
were in Karachi and the kamaicha was only repaired but
no longer made.
The reactivation of manufacturing expertise and the
valorisation of musical practice proved a long march of
performative creativity. Our problem was to get good
instruments made and repaired. Komalda remarked:
Nowadays we struggle with the exact place of the bridge;
often we cannot tune, as the exact place has to be found for
each of them. At the start, in 1953, a musician runs away
when I asked him to allow me to record his song. He said: If
I sing, I shall lose my voice. Camps were organised in villages
for musicians: some knew how to tune the instruments (some
of them tune not with the ear but on the basis of the colour of
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001
 F O L K L O R E A N D
the strings). Gifted musicians tried to improve. Children were
made to listen and try for themselves in camps organised for
them. The manufacturing of instruments requires a complex
knowledge of appropriate substances different for each part
(teak wood, rose wood, brass, copper, horn, etc.),
measurements (with fingers) and location (particularly difficult
in the case of flat and vertical bridges). We tried and made
experiments: our experience has taught us for instance that
for the kamaicha the best skin is that of a six-month old goat.
Not a single instrument is exactly of the same size as another
one. All are unique. The manufacturing skills developed
again. The transmission of performing skills to young
boys since 1992 is now one of the most exciting
experiments. Komalda remarked: Our concern is for
musical quality. I boycotted the harmonium. The Portuguese
among other many good and bad things such as the small pox
brought the harmonium. All folk instruments are traditionally
for accompaniment and not meant to play solo. We prompt
those who use harmonium to shift to kamaicha and abandon
harmonium. We have remade three instruments: sarangi,
kamaicha and ravanhatta. We shall now take up other
instruments.
As regards Rajasthani folk-tales, a few significant
features are worth reminding. First, the variety of genres
should be identified. For instance, to start with tales
composed or narrated against payment, come the
genealogies kept by the caste of Bhats. There are two
types of Bhat, those who keep written records of family
20 lineages and those who keep only an oral memory of
them. The maintenance of genealogies is a necessary
status symbol. Bhats visit once a year families who pay
them to keep record of their descent, stay a couple of
days, spend evening telling stories. The art requires a
highly ornamental rhetoric. Those who keep oral
genealogies are also acrobats, and work with poor
people. Their stories start with Sun, Moon, and Water
and follow a format close to Puranas. (See Komal Kothari’s
article in this issue-Editor)
Creation: making and remaking of the world
This title offered a framework for two presentations
that tried to illustrate the theory of performance and
the process of documentation as two moments of
creation with reference to a folk object with the help of
photos and through a well-knit biographical narrative.
Henry Glassie tried to draw the full life profile and
dynamics of a Hindu potter (murti maker) in Bangladesh.
The potter learned to make the murti by spending a
number of years visiting many artists in India and
Bangladesh and studying all the sixty eight possible
forms of the goddesses and their background narratives.
Instead of following the written prescriptions of the
sastras, he followed only his mystical inspiration, setting
to work after long moments of prayer only during which
he was granted a mental appearance of the devi. He
just tried to shape his statue as a visual projection in
the clay of his internal vision. The clay is not fired, as
the seed of creation would go off the clay. The body of the
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
C R E AT I V I T Y
goddess cannot be fired. Perfect symmetric order of the
body and absolute brightness of the face display a figure,
which transports the devotee out of the human, every
day life into the divine realm of gods. The murti is not
the god, only the receptacle of the divine. The deity
descends to communicate with the devotee and the
devotee’s world. It is a direct fusion and an exchange:
the devi consumes the flowers that are offered to her
while she responds to her devotee’s needs. Against a
vow the devotee is granted a son. When the meet is
over, the statue becomes clay again and is thrown in
the river to merge with the silt of the delta. Once the
murti’s function is over, the clay goes back to the earth.
The overall documentation of a murti in Bangladesh
was meant to stand as a pattern of documentation of
two creative processes. As a matter of fact, the
presentation was essentially displaying a third creative
process, that of the construction of a representation of
both the processes by a third agent, the ethnographer,
to a particular audience, that of the participants of the
workshop. The third process takes place in a context
totally alien to the space and time of the first two
processes. In this respect, the exercise revealed at least
two pitfalls that the process of documentation might
find hard to avoid when its logic is one of exemplification
of a general idea more than a scientific display structured
by analytical concepts. The determinant general idea,
that of the mystical dimension of the process of murti
making, was stressed to the point that the
correspondence of the ethnographer’s discursive object
and the concrete actual murti became problematic.
Reality tended to be turned into the pretext of an
aesthetic constitution when the discourse on the beauty
of the goddess was making one forget that the colours,
the dresses, the jewels, the soft and white skin of the
devi’s plump face might have as much to do with the
appearances of film actresses in the dream of young
female devotees than with the apparition of the devi to
the artist in prayer. Similar doubts were raised about
the measurements of the statue: to what extent were
they not borrowed from canonical texts, resulting from
a negotiation between people’s tastes and normative
definitions? To what extent can folk potters remain free
from these norms, even if we assume that they never
read them and that sculptors strictly observe these
canons? As a result the representation of the
ethnographer looking for an in-depth mystical
understanding of a tremendously ambitious potter could
hardly avoid the serious danger of actually standing as
a marvellous piece of orientalist literature.
This leads to the methodological question of the motives,
which may, explicitly or implicitly, structure the
discourse of the documenting ethnographer. The truth
of the latter might not be the same as that of the
performer who is documented. Everyone has his truth.
Documentation is a process of representation, which
may mirror the ethnographer’s truth more than the
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 F O L K L O R E
performer’s intention or the user’s interest. The latter’s
creative process displayed in the performance may differ
from the ethnographer’s interpretative performance. The
ethnographer’s logic ought to be clearly stated. The
ethnographer no less than the performer avails of the
material at his disposal.
Pravina Shukla presented as a process of creativity the
choice of jewels by women in Benares jewellers’ shops
to adorn their body. Jewels are matched with the dress,
the shoes, the demeanour, the complexion and the
image of one’s body. The choice reflects the wealth of
the family, a sense of beauty and others’ liking. The
result is a performance of sorts: the creation of a self-
portrait resulting from a reflection on oneself and one’s
appearance often with reference to film actresses whose
photos are exhibited as models of beauty on the wall
of the shop. In short an
elaborate process and a
number of moments of
creation and gender
collaboration with male
vendors are prompted by
a wish to look fit, a feeling
of self-esteem, a sense of
power and control over
the situation, ultimately
an ability to achieve
something.
The purely descriptive
approach raised a
s e r i o u s
methodological
question that of a
total lack
a n a l y t i c a l
framework
structure
e- p u p p et show observation
att’s hom
Ram Bh document the
Kherati
process of body adornment.
A decision was to be made in this regard and
need to be stated by the ethnographer. Documentation
is more than mere superficial exhibition. The study of
everyday life style cannot be a scientific attempt of
construction of folk knowledge without deciding upon
the concepts of references most appropriate to the object
of study. These might have been of a triple nature in
the given example: (1) the concepts adequate to a minute
observation of practices such as those of taste, smell,
beauty, sense of colours and physical forms, etc. with
reference to various parameters such as age, position
in the family, education, etc., (2) the norms- The
determinant point is that the analysis cannot avoid
considering the location of the performance in the given
cultural, social and political environment: body
adornment creates a female social form. In this respect
it might prove difficult to construe the possibility of
choice offered to high middle-class women as a creative
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
A N D C R E AT I V I T Y
potentiality. It might more appropriately be studied as
an aggregate of distinctive class markers. All jewels are
provided by the market and designed by some one else,
none of them at the initiative of the women performer/
customer who looks like a complacent puppet in the
control of various external agencies; she selects on the
basis of criteria alien to her own decision (the tastes,
wishes and reactions of husband, in-laws, relatives and
the distinctive aesthetics of her class). The range of
initiative opened by the choice to be made is as much
limited as conditioned by constraints accepted as the
rules of the game. Categories of imitation and social
reproduction would give a better account of the process
under consideration.
Creolization: creativity in cultural convergence
When people of different languages come together, they
renegotiate their culture. Lee Haring in the islands of
the Indian Ocean studied this process of creativity by
convergence: Madagascar, Mauritius, La Reunion,
Seychelles and Comoros. The process called creolization
can be defined as the mixing of two or more languages
in specific situation of social and traditional contact,
which often contains power differences. Mauritian creole
grew out of the impact of French and slaves in an island
populated now by Indians (two thirds), the descendants
of former slaves (one fourth) with a Chinese minority
of shopkeepers. All had to come to terms with each
other, especially out of the necessity of labour relations. 21
(See Lee Haring’s article in this issue-Editor)
Why folklore?
Though no debate took place on this central issue,
of several kinds of considerations were made. On the one
hand, Hentry Glassie boldly assigned to the workshop
to and specifically to Asian scholars the task of rebuilding
the the discipline of folklore in a way suiting Asian
and communities, right at the beginning. On the other hand,
Kapila Vatsyayan reminded everybody that the word
carries in India a historical load. It was imported as an
epistemological weapon fitting other systems of the
colonisers’ knowledge, science, administration and
governance. Folklore is in India is a marker of the
colonial moment in the history of the sub-continent.
Since then it has applied to phenomena categorised and
constructed with reference to Western-European
epistemological models of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. The theoretical concepts of these models
were simply transferred and grafted on an Indian social
configuration which was itself structured by alien
sociological and anthropological categories (for instance
clear cut distinction of hunters, gatherers, tribes, village
societies, etc.). Kapila Vatsyayan stressed the fact that
these categories have permeated our discourses. The theoretical
framework that we have received has inevitably chalked out
our perceptions of traditions, our people and ourselves. The
prescriptions of the language obviously bear upon our
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 F O L K L O R E A N D
understanding of the textual documents. What happened to
folklore once it is Indianised and grafted to Indian realities?
What have we retained? How have we worked it out as to
conform to our own perceptions and systems of social relation
and symbolic communication? We ought to be clear about
the semantics of our discourse of folklore and the various
theoretical perspectives that it carries since colonial rule.
In a small group discussion, Henry Glassie made
supplementary clarifications. The first ever
ethnographer, F. Boas, did not distinguish between
disciplinary boundaries as was later done (social
anthropology, history, sociology, human geography,
art, linguistic, folklore, etc.). The present growing
interest in folklore studies in Africa and the USA is due
to the discredit attached to anthropology, which was
once, a science meant by the colonialist rulers to serve
their interests. Folklore is free from the stigma of
scientific aggression. In the USA, folklore is seen as the
heart of anthropology. As a matter of fact, the distinction
of folklore and anthropology is false and of no serious
or scientific relevance whatsoever. Folklore is only seen
as representing a humanist approach. Folklore would
be particularly interested in people’s own creations and
focus on the texts themselves (myth, art, music,
indigenous knowledge, etc.) of the individual members
of a community. Folklore considers the individual as
22 the sole human reality and possible source of creativity,
and not as an example of a generality. Anthropology
would on the contrary look for structures and
regularities. Actually the difference is no more
considered as the marker of different disciplinary
boundaries. The distinction is only one of approach and
accentuation.
In a general lecture, making another attempt to clarify
questions, which were constantly raised, Henry Glassie
Evening performances during the workshop-folk musicians from Rajasthan: Yassin, Mehboob, Abdul Rashid, Sikander,
Kula, Shakela, Kheta, Dasseo, Roshan, Ghewar Khan, Anwar Khan, Barkat, Gari, Sagar, Perupa, Budin, Mehra, Mayat,
Gazi Barner, Satar and Barkat, Kherati Ram Bhatt’s puppetry and Rukma (solo artist)
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
C R E AT I V I T Y
explained how folklore couldn’t be defined as such but with
reference to tradition, communication, art and creativity. He
defined tradition as the creation of the future out of the
past, all decision being based on the past. All definition
of folklore would therefore entail an idea of tradition
and recognise that every tradition is impure. We cannot
operate out of memory. For instance, in the USA, we
observe a tremendous revival of Indian traditions, the
anthropological texts of F. Boas being the basis of this
revival. If we record what is dying out, this is because
a reconstitution of the dead may later be made.
Communication is a creation in the present out of
available means and resources.
Art is sincerity and cannot operate out of the frame of
traditions. Creativity occurs when a form (tale, song,
etc.) is positioned in the world. There is no innovation
unless something is relocated in the world, in a new
relational context. Newness comes always as a
reconsideration of the past. The power of a human being
is measured by his potential to assert oneself. This
defines his/her creativity. Documenting folklore means
to document this creative potential. This creativity
signals the emergence of the individual as the moment
of a constant negotiation by some one with a collective
to which he confusedly belongs, for asserting one’s
identity. We are all members of several collectives
(gender, class, age, caste, religion, etc.). An individual
is the gathering point of a number of collective identities,
a point endlessly open for negotiated relations.
Documentation of the individual’s creativity bears on
the act of fusion of identities at the moment where the
power of the individual shapes a new integrative
synthetic form. We bother to document the past because
we ourselves belong to a tradition of science and
knowledge to which we want to contribute through
bearing witness to humanity.
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 F O L K L O R E A N D
Documentation: ethics, ways and problems
Documentation is an intrusion in people’s lives. It must
be positive, that is to say, leave the community
undisturbed. Folklorists may make wounds: they must
commit themselves to make good. They cannot be
neutral. They cannot be objective. Their intrusion is a
political act. Documentation without a purpose is
immoral. This differentiates an activist from a pure
researcher. But a folk activist must have a profound
knowledge of who are the people and identify with
them, repairing the damage that his intrusion may
cause. Archives are only residual and accidental
objectives. The main aim is to act against prejudices.
Ultimately information should be shaped so that it may
do well and have a definitive beneficial impact on
humankind. We cannot enter into people’s lives without
proper intellectual understanding. We must be able to
recapture the meanings of the process underlying the
forms and find out the categories adequate to apprehend
from within the significance of the forms. Meanings
are there, but usually in a confused state of
consciousness. We have to articulate them and help
people themselves reaching a higher level of self-
consciousness. This only may give legitimacy to our
intrusion.
The research on folklore often ends up with a product:
a stereotyped form is presented in isolation as if there
had been no process of creation and no functional value.
The uniqueness and universality of living forms are lost
with their standardisation and globalised replication,
their desacralisation and social disembodiment
(KapilaVatsyayan). When living forms walk out of their
life context, they are presented, as pieces of art, cut off
from their role and value in their socio-economic milieu.
They are sliced, only a small portion of the form is
selected to be brought out, ten minutes of dance are
performed, sequences are decontextualised and the
value of the form totally altered. Originally folk forms
are dealing with essential environmental problems
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
C R E AT I V I T Y
(water, land, air, community relations, fertility, gods).
A fair documentation should try to comprehend and
represent forms with the totality of their functions and
values, in their wholeness, that is to say, with reference
to all the structures of the society, which they belong
in. Kapila Vatsyayan substantiated this perspective with
a vivid example, that of the multiple contexts in which
an earthern pot may be used. Similarly, lecturing about
the transcription of verbal art, Lee Haring’s advice is
that we should discover for ourselves and reveal to others
its patterns and contents. Several patterns are bound to
emerge: phonetic, linguistic, syntactic, rhythmic,
melodic, rhetoric, semantic, acting, etc. The tale might
be the same but notations will change with moods and
meanings, meanings will change with audiences and
circumstances. Appropriate means should be found to
transcribe the creativity born from interaction with
people during the narrative performance.
Forms cannot be closed categories. We look for authentic
texts. But there can be no such thing as an authentic
text. We oppose oral or folk to written and classical,
and look for fixed and distinctive forms. We similarly
oppose agricultural to non-agricultural communities,
Adivasis to villagers, literate to illiterate, etc. But we
have only variants, and folk and classical forms are in
constant relations with one another. Authenticity is in
the changes and transformations, which keep forms
alive and relevant.
23
The critical review by Lee Haring of the history of ethno-
poetic transcription of folktales in the American
scholarship since F.Boas draws our attention towards
significant lessons to be remembered. No idea of artistic
achievement in the performance. No idea of the
complexity of a unique event. This is the perspective
that folklore kept in view. E. Sapir (1884-1939) translated
narratives as prose. This erased the poetic value of oral
narratives and distorted considerably the original
material. Poetry is a repetition of words and it enforces
the message. Cancelling poetic aspects (refrains, words
with no literal meanings, non-sense syllables, etc.) kills
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 F O L K L O R E A N D C R E AT I V I T Y

the strength of the narrative and misses what mirrors
the structural patterns of a song as a whole. M. Jacobs
(1902-1971), a linguist, considered folktale performance
like a drama and tried to reconstruct it as a play, not a
novel. D. J. Crowley (1921-1998) in his writings focussed
on the complexity and uniqueness of each oral
performance.
The concern is how not to distort the poetry, how to
keep old poetry alive and attractive to changing current
tastes. This requires a new translation. But how do we
fit an audience without distorting the original message?
For Dell Hymes narratives can be organised in verses,
scenes, distinct lines and series of acts. A narrative
follows patterns; it is not prose but measured verses.
Unlike the Greek and Latin meters, the rhythm is
essential by compressing time, accentuating words, and
devising rhymes. The paradigms and indicators of
patterns are to be found. Speech patterns are reproduced
as much as possible. Participants were referred to the
paper by Dell Hymes, which was circulated for further
discussion, Discovering Oral Performance and Measured
Verses in American Indian Narrative. Henry Glassie
suggested concrete procedures to (1) honouring one’s
responsibility to accuracy, (2) engaging the readers, and
(3) giving back to people a product in which they may
recognise themselves. A transparent documentation is
a combination of these three achievements. But when
narration is not information but speech, that is to say,
24 merger of prose and poetry, how to render
accentuations, silences, intonations, rhythms, words
musicality, etc. in prose? Speech and story are not prose.
A direct transcription from tape cannot render the
speech performance. Henry Glassie referred to his paper
on Irish folk history that was circulated to exemplify
ways and means of a faithful and effective ethno- poetic
transcription of oral narratives.
Let us here recall only one significant advice among
many: No quotation! People should talk directly in the
full text; their voice should not come as quotations
external to the central discourse of the ethnographer,
brought in by the latter to illustrate or evidence his
own views about others. The views expressed should
be those of the people, who should be the author of
the central discourse. It is the duty of the historians to
show how the documentary evidence upon which they
found their discourse legitimately introduced the
method of quotation. The same method is objectionable
in ethnographic documentation where living human
beings should be heard constructing their life-world
themselves, documenting themselves, as it were, by
means of a skillful ethnographer’s techniques and tools.
In short, the ethnographer’s function is not to
instrumentalise his informants and their speech with a
view to stage or vindicate a true representation of their
world-view; but to let his expertise be instrumentalised
by an attempt of self-presentation of the peoples’
themselves. Henry remarked that I burry scholars in the
endnotes of the book.
Henry Glassie tried to illustrate this with a presentation
of photographs. A tightly, aesthetically and emotionally
constructed narrative performance of the ethnographer
may convince an audience of the truth of the
ethnographer’s invented story and captions. But this
truth is ethnographer’s view. Photos can speak for
themselves to the extent their selection and sequence
enforces the meaning that we want them to convey
when we display them. Give a set of ten photos to
different people; each of them will assemble them in a
different order as to support and evidence different
narratives and messages, which may even clash with
one another. Photos create their own metaphors but to
suggest various scenarios in the minds of different
people. Similarly, the narrative of the ethnographer is
a fiction, a myth, and an invented scenario, which
represents mainly the truth of the ethnographer.
Two issues may be raised in this
regard. A subjective
one: the
transparency of
purpose, which
Henry Glassie
articulates in clear
terms: You can do
what you want provided
you inform what you are
going to do. An
objective one: a critical
awareness of the
discursive logic of the
narrative representation.
These issues may
substantiate a radical
questioning of the very
claim to be able to actually
represent people as
themselves. The hara
tion: Kuld
ethnographer’s wish of a io n a l w a ter consera
Tradit
perfectly transparent
instrumentality seems likely
to be a directive utopia. It should be recognised as such
lest it becomes a mirage and a (needed?) self-
mystification of the anthropologist. Unless we
understand the impasses, pitfalls and confusion of a
representation model we would better discard that
utopia and define another directive model for
documenting popular cultural forms, their import and
relevance. I would suggest that this be accounted as
one of the theoretical results of the workshop.
Challenges
The exchanges did not result in commonly articulated
conclusions. Debates rather raised open-ended
questions. It would be only appropriate to conclude
with summarily stating a few challenges, which bear
upon the future and expected achievements of the
cultural practices undertaken by the participants of the

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

 F O L K L O R E A N D
workshop. Three issues seems to me significant. I would
like to identify them as follows: the need of a reflexive
conceptual construction, the urge of a systematic critique
of tradition, the exigency of an open conflict of value
and power. Firstly, folklore is no more a concept at the
centre of a distinct scientific constituency in human
sciences. What appears under this term is nowadays
studied under a variety of terms and with all sorts of
analytical tools borrowed from any possible scientific
horizon as per the needs of each investigation. Let us
not any more ask, what is folklore? But concern
ourselves with what do we do with what is labelled as
folklore?
The variety of operational and analytical terms used
during the workshop allows us to dispense
with a word, which remains too
much entangled in its history
with powerful gestures. The
term proves unable to provide
reliable and useful guidance
when we concern ourselves with
giving a future to folk traditions
in India. This means that we have
to construct our own operational,
analytical and theoretical concepts as
a result of a reflexive analysis
scrutinising our cultural practices in
various fields of folk traditions.
Secondly, when as cultural actors we
ground our initiatives on folk traditions, we cannot fail
to realise that our cultural practices cannot claim
credibility and dispense with a critique of tradition. This
demands, at the theoretical level, a collective work of
critical interpretation and reflexively grounded
reappropriation of the past. The motives of the cultural
activists need to be transparent and their strategies
justified. This demands, at the practical level of models
Jaisalmer fort
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
C R E AT I V I T Y
and forms of development, calculated attempts of
incorporation of basic values of the past in different
modern civilisational set-ups. To say the least, none of
the tasks, theoretical and practical, can be taken for
granted. They face us rather as a serious challenge. A
critical revalidation of tradition is a preliminary urgent
duty.
Thirdly, this urgent duty of revalidation and reactivating
traditions actually amounts to a tough two-fold conflict
of value and power for two reasons. One: The advocacy
of a valorisation of the creative potential of yesteryears
t r a d i t i o n s cannot forget that all traditions are
bound to disappear with
unavoidable civilisational
transformations. Our ultimate aim
cannot be the survival of the past
but the assertion of values received
through such traditions as
humankind’s heritage. Two: The
utopian belief in folklore as the
fresh, popular source of
salvation and counter-power
emerging from a transcendent
call to which courageous
individuals respond, I am!
gr i does not stand scrutiny.
Doon
Kale Obviously, traditions are no less
effectively revalorised to serve the hegemonic
intentions of a few in the name of Identity. We know
25
for sure that documenting and reactivating traditional
potentialities may possibly prove an asset for human
enlightenment as well. But this cannot avoid sharply
conflicting on the answers to such questions as: Which
creativity do we decide to save from the past? Or why do we
plan to look back as to dig out and save particular values
from the past?
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 A D I E U J A I S A L M E R
Adieu Jaisalmer: 19 February 2001
Komal Kothari gave the welcome speech and
remarked that the workshop was a unique learning
experience for him and it would be definitely reflect in
his future work.
Chief guest address: Sharada Ramanathan
I just had a few thoughts in the last four days that I
have been here. I have heard few words; I have heard
some people express themselves in different ways. One
such word is complexity and I was thinking to myself –
and I have used the word myself a lot in the last four
days – thinking that this field is completely unique
because it is subtly complex. No one has really been
terribly worried about the them and us and if they have
been worried about the them and us then it has been
very anti-us and them.
In my little experience in the field of folklore, my own
sense is that folklorists are complex people, complex
human beings and therefore the field itself is complex.
26
Valedictory: Jasmine K. Dharod
There has been a lot of discourse around who is a
folklorist; everyone sitting in this room is a folklorist,
starting from the musicians and then the storytellers,
the scholars, practitioners, the experienced, the not so
experienced, intellectually and emotionally and
spiritually, everyone sitting here is a folklorist. So the
situation itself represents the complexity that is what I
am trying to articulate.
The second word that I have heard, particularly from
people like Murugan, is pain and sadness. And I actually
don’t understand it as a simple notion of pain– it is a
kind of pain that comes through a certain kind of
struggle which is very cultural, philosophical, spiritual–
the struggle of being a folklorist, the struggle with the
field of folklore and the pain that emerges from that
struggle is a creative one. So folklore is also an
extraordinarily creative field that comes out of a certain
pain and struggle. And I have sensed this when Henry
Glassie has spoken, when participants have expressed
themselves, when artists performed and then when
Murugan sort of captures it all in that one word pain.
The third word that got articulated in different ways
but not quite in the way that I understood it is the
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
word synergy. It has been very jargonised and synergy
in this field is not always inside the conference hall but
a lot of it can be outside of the conference hall too. So
I am just illustrating some of the characteristics of being
a folklorist or being in the field of folklore. And these
are not terms that are commonly or easily used in a lot
of other disciplines. So I think there are actually three
or four important directions for the field and therefore
for the folklorist. One is to sustain the complexity of
the homosapiens. We must never attempt at sameness,
attempt at homogeneity that is causing conflicts
everywhere in the world whether in the caste problems
of Tamil Nadu or the problems in Zimbabwe or the
Kashmir issue or Bosnia or wherever. Conflict resolution
can happen only with the acceptance of complexity and
diversity, so that’s one of the roles of folklore.
The second is therefore to serve as a resource for several
other disciplines – sociology, anthropology, linguistics,
language studies, history, the development of historicity
and multiple perspectives in historicity and even one
of my new favourite subjects, civilisational studies. So
I don’t see people like Komalda, Glassie and Haring
and several others here as just folklorists; I see them as
resources for the evolution of multiple disciplines across
the board, cross-sectorally, cross-regionally, trans-
boundary, in every possible way. So I would love to
see these people not only in folklore conferences but
also at other kinds of thinking forums.
The third thing that I think we should continue to
struggle with, which is an issue not just for folklorists
but people across disciplines, is the connections or the
gaps between the development of thought and
development of action. This is something we should
continue to struggle with.
Since I haven’t been here for all the fifteen days, I want
to illustrate the discussion yesterday on dissemination
and the kind of perspectives that could develop around
that; and the discussions about archives– what are
archives? Some of us continued to talk about it outside
of the hall, when we said multimedia means different
things in different contexts. Multimedia here means
literally different media, it does not mean different
buttons within the same media, for example; it is not
just about computers, not just about websites, and its
not about an either or. It’s about many ands. That’s
the other balance that we should continue to try to strike.
I think the last point that I want to make in this fairly
unprepared speech is something that a lot of
contemporary thinkers and intellectuals within these
disciplines such as sociology, folklore and anthropology–
they say how can you talk about the humanities without
engaging with the human being? I have heard Henry
reminded us about this and Komalda also reminded us
about this many times, over the last four days.
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 A D I E U J A I S A L M E R
So I have been somewhat at the level of first principles,
but sometimes we tend to move so much away from
first principles that we forget why we started; like all
good fundamentalist movements they forget where they
started and why they started– we should not become
one of them.
Last but not the least, much as I hate clichés, I want to
thank all of those participants who did not say, I thank
the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation is not
sponsoring this event. The Ford Foundation is a resource
and a philanthropy that supports certain organisations
who represent certain causes; I would like to believe
that that’s where we are. I would like to thank Muthu,
Venu, Rola, Jasmine, Henry, Lee and Komalda of course.
I want to thank all the participants because I have learnt
tremendously over the last four days from everything
that everybody has said.
Concluding remarks: Henry Glassie
. . . What is folklore? It is the moment; and there are
number of such moments that I remember from
Jaisalmer. I remember walking in the streets, the sun
going down, the sandstone blessed with the gold of
the sunset and the intricacy of the carving that reminded
me of people now dead who blessed this city with their
talent.
It is this moment – the instant when Zakar Khan placed
the bow on the strings of the Kamaicha and was able to
accomplish a tone, a sound, a depth and a beauty that
I have rarely experienced in any musical performance.
That moment is the moment I remember – that’s the
moment that folklorists talk about; that’s the moment
when the human being engages the world in sincerity.
Zakar Khan sitting in his village, placing the bow on
the strings of his Kamaicha brought forth everything
that we would need to think of what it is to be human.
When our friend, B.D. Soni showed us the brand new
image of Ganesha that he had made out of gold such a
moment occurred. That piece of gold captured the sun
for an instant, allowing us to know how beautifully he
had, with what sincerity he had created his piece of the
world.
Or the night when accidentally the light flashed behind
Kharati Ram Bhat in this very place and we could see
that he was playing and dancing those puppets. When
in the dark we see the puppets dance it was interesting
but when the light came behind him and we could see
his body gracefully moving like the most elegant of ballet
dancers, that was another such moment.
The moments that we are searching for are the moments
that seem simple, not because they are simple but
because they have perfect and complete integrity. It is
for that reason that people frequently describe folklore
as being simple but Sharada is right in describing it as
the ultimate complexity. Because it is the place where
the individual and the collective fuse; it is the place
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
where the mundane and the transcendent fuse; it is
the place where the useful and the beautiful fuse; it is
the place where the sorrowful and the joyous fuse.
When we can feel that melancholy surge up in the midst
of joy, that’s the moment when we understand the
fullness of human sincerity has been engaged or
addressed.
And if anyone would like, as a folklorist, to understand
what it is that we must do, the first thing that we must
do is to say when we have seen, to say when we have
heard, to say when we have felt, to say that we have
understood those instances in which the whole of the
human complexity had been brought into perfect focus
at the very end of the bow, touching the strings of the
kamaicha in the hands of Zakar Khan. It is that I honour,
it is that has brought me half way around the world, it
is that which I lead you, the next generation of
folklorists, that’s your responsibility, to note, to
preserve, to document, to transfer, to teach others about
those moments in which our fellow human beings had
27
Sharada Ramanathan: Valedictory address
given the absolute completeness, the absolute fullness
of their humanity into the world for us to experience.
Concluding remarks: Lee Haring
I have been something like a folklorist for over fifty
years, beginning with the Irish folk songs that were
sung to me by my mother as I sat under the piano,
carrying on with the American folk songs that I myself
sang with my friends, on into the study of American
songs and tales and the teaching of these, through
involvement with the peoples of East Africa,
subsequently Madagascar, subsequently other islands
in that region, including multicultural and multilingual
Mauritius, and Seychelles. You would think I wouldn’t
have much to learn–I have had a great deal to learn in
these fifteen days. And after this workshop, I am a
better folklorist than I was before.
As our time together comes to an end, I express my
gratitude for having been invited to Rajasthan, the land
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001
 A D I E U
of the kings with its battle-scarred forts, its palaces of
amazing luxury, its riotous colours and its deep,
enduring traditions of honour. The workshop has given
to me, an emissary from the decadent west, a new vision
of folklore as the vital centre as we have visited the
desert villages and come to have insight into the central
role of expressive culture in the lives of so many people
in this part of India.
Henceforth, I will always have before me the image of
Komalda sharing an inexhaustible store of information
about puppeteers, singers, instrumentalists and other
artists. I will hear the music of the manganiyars who,
before I came here, were only characters in a scholarly
article but now who are to me some of the most
distinguished artists of the world. I will cherish the
memory of all of you who are dedicated preservers of
what is most valuable in the life of India. For all these
things, I thank the NFSC and its director, I thank my
dear colleague Henry Glassie and I even thank the Ford
Foundation. Thank you.
28
Certificate distribution ceremony: Moji Riba with Komalda
Vote of thanks: M.D. Muthukumaraswamy
Komal Kothari, Henry Glassie, Sharada Ramanathan
and Lee Haring, distinguished participants and the great
musicians of Jaisalmer, it is my pleasure to be with you
today to thank all of you on behalf of NFSC.
As Henry Glassie spoke to you, this is a moment, a
very important moment of conversation, of folklore.
We at the NFSC all the time believe in extending our
conversations beyond the centre, beyond a region,
beyond the national boundaries. We all the time yearn
to have conversation – it is a very important term for us
– conversations that are held within the strict norms of
dialogue, the dialogue that presupposes the equality of
all the people concerned. Henry Glassie all the time
stressed in all his lectures here that we should meet
another person as if we would be meeting another fellow
human being on the surface of this planet. And that is
the exact moment of folklore we believe in.
INDIAN FOLKLIFE
J A I S A L M E R
We have been doing these workshops to extend these
conversational possibilities, to extend our dialogue to
our colleagues who are working in this field, not only
in the universities but also in other non-governmental
organisations and people who are engaged with folklore
in so many different ways – to offer them a common
platform, to come together for fifteen days in a place
like Jaisalmer – this means a lot to us. It is a conversation
that will not end with today’s valedictory function. It is
a conversation we would extend all the time to be with
us and to be with you.
We have achieved a visibility not only within India but
also in the international arena. It is all the time difficult
for us to achieve the norms of dialogue that I talked so
gloriously a few minutes ago. To engage with a region-
specific scholar, to bring in a national scholar, to bring
in an international scholar and from people who are
engaged in diverse ways with folklore, to bring them
for a conversation is a difficult task. It has its own
moments of difficulty, it has its own moments of
challenges, and it has its own moments of reward. The
reward is always the friendship, the emotions that go
along with friendship. It is important that we continue
to nurture those friendships and emotions and build
collaborations of work, build a camaraderie that would
cut across regions, language and other invisible borders
all the time blocking the conversations.
This is a very important event to have in Rajasthan and
I believe that in last fifteen days I learnt a lot. I learnt a
lot from Komalda, from Henry, from Pravina, Lee and
every one of you. This is a moment of gratitude, which
I would take back home, which I would publish, which
I would talk about, which I would use as a
conversational tool to bring in more colleagues in our
work.
I would like to thank several other people who helped
us here in Jaisalmer -Y.K. Sharma from Government
College, Prem Jalani, Nand Kishore Sharma, Vyas,
Director of All India Radio, Chand, Ram Singh Mertia
who came and gave us a wonderful lecture on the Thar
desert, Bhandari and his family and the musicians Ghazi
Khan, Zakar, Anwar, Hayad, Mehrudeen, Bhagad,
Anjar, Rana Khan, Pampa Khan, Sambadar Khan, Suva,
Sugini, Ajay, Anwar Khan and Jaitley.
The most important people in my life are the colleagues
I work with – I am extremely fond of them, I make no
secret about it and I work towards their growth,
intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. And I remain
thankful to my colleagues Venu, Jasmine, Rola and
Murugan who have all the time been with me. I have
been continuously telling you that the NFSC is an
egalitarian space– we do not believe in hierarchies –
hierarchies do not exist in our mind, not in our practice
and we work in the spirit of collegiality. I remain
thankful to them because they make my life easier,
happier and they bring to me the pleasure of working,
of working in the field of folklore. I hope that they
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 A D I E U J A I S A L M E R / A N N O U N C E M E N T

have socialised well with you so that even if I did not –
I tend to keep myself aloof, not because of anything
else but that is how I am; my aloofness is for my own
reflections, my own growth – but I have wonderful
colleagues and then if it is not possible for me to continue
the conversations I am talking about, you can always
continue the conversations with my colleagues.
Having a conversation with them is as good as having
a conversation with me; it is this I want to make clear
to each and every one of you, because if I have not
spent time with you, if I have not followed a
conversation further, please excuse me – you can all
the time continue them with all my colleagues – they
are my equals, I am only the first among my equals.
I should also thank Sharada who has been with us,
with NFSC in all our endeavours, in all our moments
of crises, moments of challenges and moments of
happiness. She is a great friend to have in the Ford
Foundation. I remain personally grateful to Sharada
for all the support she has been extending to the NFSC
and to us personally.
Thanking Komalda – it is like thanking myself.
Komalda, apart from being the Director of Rupayan
Sansthan, is the Chairman of National Folklore Support
Centre. As the Chairman, Komalda brings with him a
vision, a way of working and also a way of guiding
young people like us. We remain grateful to him all the
time for all the work he has done, for the kind of vision
he brings along with him – this has rightly made him a
legendary figure in the field of Indian folklore. And I
am most grateful, most honoured and privileged to be
living in the time of Komalda.
So, thank you so much, thank you Henry, thank you
Lee, thank you Pravina, please carry our words of
heartfelt gratitude to Pravina also. Kapilaji is not here;
the moments she shared with us were wonderful. I
thank everyone of you for taking time to come over
here to spend fifteen days of your life with us. Thank
you all.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Announcement
29
NFSC Festival on Musical Instruments and Oral Narratives
December 8-18, 2001 (tentative), Chennai
NFSC is organising a folk arts festival on the theme: Musical Instruments and Oral Narratives from 8 – 18
December, 2001 in Chennai. Throughout India oral narratives are being performed along with music and occasionally
with dance. This festival will bring together their unique cultures, religious diversities, different traditions and
languages. Ten different troupes of folk artists will be invited from various parts of India to perform in the festival.
This festival will feature ten major oral narratives and thematically the oral narratives can be of heroic, romantic
and/or historical in nature. Along with the festival there will also be three museum exhibits:
˜ Collection of various musical instruments associated with oral narratives ˜ Objects like jewellery, costumes,
weapons, and other properties associated with the performance of heroic oral narratives ˜ Photographic exhibition
of historical places connected to the historical oral narratives performed during the festival
Variety of other activities will be taking place during the ten-day festival. There will be lecture demonstrations by
artists, screening of ethnographic films / documentaries, puppet shows, stalls of folklore books, regional folk
crafts and paintings, folk music, and ethnic food. The festival will also facilitate artists’ collaboration-a platform
where all the invited folk artists could meet and explore collaborative opportunities. NFSC is planning to bring
out a brochure soon, which will have more detailed information. The aims of the festival are to bring awareness
to people about the existing folk arts of India by bringing various performing artists from different parts of India,
especially from relatively unknown regions. This will enrich our knowledge about the various regions of India
and their history and also create an avenue for sharing community values in our new urban milieu. The festival
is an effort to cultivate genuine appreciation for diverse cultures. Like all other programmes of NFSC, the festival
will also be a collaborative venture between several folklore scholars and allied institutions. NFSC would be
happy to receive your suggestions and help in making this festival a success. We look forward to your suggestions
for participation either individually or institutionally. For further information please contact Jasmine / Rola. If you
are interested to become a volunteer, please send your curriculum vitae with a letter of interest to Director,
National Folklore Support Centre, New No.7, Fifth Cross Street, Rajalakshmi Nagar, Velachery, Chennai-42.
Tele-fax-044-2450553, 2448589,E-mail: muthu@md2.vsnl.net.in / info@indianfolklore.org

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Individual reports of workshop participants

The Individual presentations centred around the questions like whether participants presumptions were shaken or not,
whether the workshop was helpful in charting out their future line of enquiry and what would be their present-day concerns
and engagements with the larger concept of folklore and folklife. We have not received the written reports of presentation of
Moji Riba,Tulasi Diwasa and Hindu Singh Soda. Only excerpts from other individual reports are presented here…Editor

It was certainly a pleasure when the question of relating social reality to aesthetics came up right in the inaugural
session. And since then, it has been a course of gaining knowledge and insight into
the processes of bringing out individuals creativity through their lifestyles. I have
come to know a lot about what could be the basic principles for documentation, in
what manner one may go about it, and how one has to guard the dignity and
selfhood of the people in concern. Glassie’s lectures actuality charted out the steps
by which one should take up the task, and his reiterated emphasis upon the purpose
for documentation and the circle of responsibility was really a heartening boost to
what we believe in. The discussions with him and the group-colleagues, where we
discussed the narrative traditions among a community to its historical and sociological
background, have opened up possibility for me to get engaged further in this topic. I wish to study how a
narrative may perhaps travel across geographical regions, languages and communities, acquiring newer forms
and significances that are associated with the collective experience of the communities, yet one presented through
individuals imagination and expression. A close discussion with Komalda further encouraged me to take up this
engagement, and I aspire to live up to my commitment, in my own humble way. In every group discussion as
well as in open discussions, arguments were carried over various positions on issues of immediacy like the notion
of tradition, contexts, continuation of tradition, market economy, individuality, feminism and self-awareness,
spirituality and science, pedagogy and alternative learning, decontextualisation and its relevance, and a lot more.
One of these discussions has actually made me work upon the possibility of a study of various patterns or ways
of learning out of pedagogical system, relevant to my work situations.
30
As for the group discussions I have enjoyed a relaxed and intimate relationship with participants. It helped the
participants to know one another and build-up contacts both individually and
institutionally. This is most unforgettable experience in this workshop. The field
visits were a bit disappointing for me. I was looking forward to learning about how
fieldwork could be done. Instead it was merely field visits and when everybody
crowded at one place and clicked photographs and got around the performer or
artist and learning came to a stand still. Perhaps if the four groups were sent to four
different places we could have documented or presented the material culture and
the social culture of the people we visited in a more comprehensive manner. But still
I could experience the splendid performances of the desert culture in a nutshell.
Definitely this workshop helped me in grasping new ideas about documentation that will be useful in my future
documentation projects particularly in the systematic documentation of material culture and oral traditions.

As I do not have the luxury of time to bring out all that I want to say, I will restrict my discussion mainly on folk
performances and consequently its documentation. Let me begin by the bewilderment
I experienced when I saw the folk performances at the workshop. It made me feel
that each performance is a creation as well as a pointer to its history. It also seems to
tell the story about its genesis, narrations and inter-cultural borrowings that it might
have undergone through its long historical journey. What are those heterogeneous
elements, which might have contributed in their origin, growth and the plane of
maturity it might have achieved at some point of time? What kind of explanatory
methods will help me to write the history of these art forms? It is a similar situation
of how we could explain the fast movement of a cloud or weather or even a sunset.
Further, how do these musicians on movements achieve a kind of harmony and by what means? What is the
nature of this convergence of collective and the individual happenings in front of our very own eyes? The idea of
tolerance, compassion and the need to have new conceptual tools is the need of our times. Moreover it places an
ethical demand upon us. The experience has been singularly close to me and I hope we will be able to train our
senses for seeing/hearing the creative expressions of folklore in future.

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Nepal is a multilingual, multiethnic and multi cultural country where several traditions are on the verge of
extinction. Though the scholars from different groups are documenting various items
and genres of folklore all of them are not well trained in the methodologies of
documentation. As a teacher and researcher, I have done some field works and
documented materials. Participation in this workshop has made me aware in some
aspects of fieldwork and documentation and has helped me update my knowledge
in the field. I feel that the workshop is very helpful in charting out my future line of
enquiry. Haring explained some of the key terms like Creolisation, Diaspora and
Ethnopoetics while Glassie and Shukla concentrated on the basics of folklore,
performance theory, material culture and creative process as well as requirements of documentation. Interactive
sessions with Vatsysyan were very stimulating for everyone. She made everyone creative asking him or her to
narrate personal experiences of the field trip. Komalda enriched the participants with his vast and in-depth
knowledge of Rajasthani folklore. The group discussions were useful as the faculty was always active in initiating
and continuing the discussions.

I am hoping to apply the methodology and the model outlined by the faculty in the workshop to produce a book
length report on Katha performances of Karnataka. Hybridisation in art forms is
inevitable. In the process of change something dies but a new form arises. Although
I am reflecting on these ideas, I need to construct my own model to suit my project.
At present I am working with six different communities and sung narratives. My
main concern is to bring out their oral performances into a coherent book. I recognise
many points and contact between the discipline of folklore and ethnomusicology.
Perhaps the stress on the collective in folklore supplements the emphasis on the
performer and the music in ethnomusicology.

In the group discussions the participants at length discussed how tales began and how tales ended, the place of
Proverbs and Riddles it brought together many pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together. 31
When Kerati Ram explained how he measured the puppet with the palm and the
environment in which Dhokla (the light wood) is grown I could relate maths,
geography and history very well to his story. He traced the origin of his heritage and
the genealogy and what better teacher can you find than him. I reconfirmed to
myself that folk artists and folklore is the only answer to make subject and art
interesting for the children and it is the only answer for a holistic education. I was
left thinking about how folk awareness could be spread over more schools in India
at the national level. And how this in turn can create awareness in the younger generation to sustain the folklore.
And how can we give it back to the community? I believe that folklore is becoming all the time just as storytelling
is becoming all the time. They are not things of the past. It takes a brave Individual to make a collective decision.
A sage once said: The world is only the size of each Man’s head.

It was a delightful experience for the last fifteen days I had with the faculty as well as with participants. It is
delightful in terms of the ideas shared in the group discussions, lectures by faculty,
subtle observations during the fieldwork, and the idea of developing a creative
fieldwork manual. The caution, repeatedly from Glassie that we encounter the
intended consequences of our vision and for a detailed transparency call from Lee
Haring with the object we study are some of the positive indicators in that direction.
The idea we need to look for the multiple layers will be a moving principle in NFSC’s
future research work. The inadequacies of our own fieldwork at NFSC done during
the Visual Art Traditions of India series are an indicator in this direction. Often, I
feel that it is a question of seeing what is not easily visible in what we see. I feel it is a way of looking at different
layers of truth to see the creativity of religious expression, possibility of creating new ways of fieldwork that is
devoid of hierarchical values, and perhaps what Komalda would like to call, to question what is already stated. I
am sure this entire workshop will help me to articulate my fieldwork research in new dimensions. Also I am not
able to pinpoint all my shaken presumptions. But above all it is a kind of reassurance what Komalda would like
to call that we could change our ways of looking at things, and thereby modify the processes we study.

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Madhyam deals mainly with communication, development, culture and media. My work centres on the street
theatre and cultural media. I write scripts, direct plays and conduct workshops for
the upliftment of folk artists. The theme of my plays mainly revolves around Karnataka
folklore. As my first priority is on performing arts, I really got myself carried away
with the puppetry, music and dance performed during the workshop. I was able to
interact with the performers and learn a lot about their art form. My experience in
this field has been encouraging. All lectures by the faculty have been informative
and helpful to me. All field visits have been places of interest and importance and
are correlated with the topics discussed in the lectures. As a street performer, I am
going to take these colours and music of Rajasthan and bring them out in the form of street plays in Bangalore.
Kherati Ram’s puppetry has been a great source of inspiration and I am looking forward to work with his
puppetry in my street plays.

A varied and rich program planned during the workshop exposed me to a better appreciation of the vitality of our
culture by learning about the documentation of different aspects of folklife and
folklore. This understanding can help us to critically assess the processes of
development related to Indian pluralistic milieu. An enquiry into the complexities of
human behaviour, specifically in the plural context of South Asia, can give us sharper
insights by examining the phenomena in terms of a cross-cultural continuum. Integral
reality gets manifested in various hues and shades of colours like cultural rainbow
characterising fuzzy and fluid cultural and linguistic boundaries in contrast to sharp
dichotomies and the fixity of languages. I came across vivid instances of such fluid
continuum in the Sindhi spiritual singing of the manganiyars in Jaisalmer and across the border in Pakistan, and
also in the convergence of dhati, meghwari and Jaisalmeri vernaculars mixed with Sindhi and Marwari languages in
the Barmer region. Communications in such a milieu are pronounced by variability, covering a range of meaning,
supported by the creative processes such as implications, synergy, serendipity, and so on. We can gain a deeper
understanding of the phenomenon of cultural development when looking at the living reality in a perspective of
32 fuzzy becoming, rather than treating culture as an artefact, as a crystallised being.

It was an excellent opportunity to listen to the great folklorists of our times. The lectures and field visits helped
me to observe and relate to certain immediate concerns of folklore in the modern
world. The arguments related to the question of contextualisation and thematisation
was also a useful engagement as far as folk performances are concerned. The idea
that folklore is situated in a linear development graph is also a moving idea for
future documentation research. How do we analyse social narratives, traditional
conflicts, the absence of women behind wheels also intrigues me. During field visits
I could document few hours on Video, which will surely help me to see, what could
happen in an unstructured way of showing and seeing things. During our fieldwork
visit to Kale Doongri Rai temple, people objected to any kind of documentation of sacrifice of goats. After enormous
amount of persuasion and promising them that the footage will not be used for any other purpose they allowed
me to do document. This instance is an indicator of the necessity of developing mutual trust and confidence in
what we do. They believe that the goddess will protect them from natural calamities like famine. It is equally
important to know how certain cultures have very distinct ethos.

I have been associated with this field for more than a decade. I received this workshop experience as a creative
process that would stimulate, inspire me to explore in my research activities further.
I believe that any vibrating experience has creation and reception at two levels. Once
one goes through that, one can never be the same as before. I felt that more areas
could be brought into my research studies, in terms of representing people and
documentation. I could see now more ways of exploration than before. I take this
opportunity as a refreshing, a process of relearning, relocating in terms of
professionalism. This workshop opened up the possibility of more publishing
avenues. To me, culture specific demands and disciplinary demands are not distant
relatives. I always seek a balance that avoids sliding to any one extreme. My only regret is like it could have been
done is some sort of a documentation project that could have been made during this period. I was pleased to have

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an ideally designed program everyday that consists of lectures, small group discussions followed by fieldwork
and folk performances. Equally important is the way in which the folk artists created the great musical movements
and I was immersed, lost myself.

Before attending this workshop I had no idea about what is Indian folklore. So, I came here with a lot of curiosities
in my mind. I asked myself: Indian Folklore – What is it? How does it transmit? Only
one thing I was sure that I am going to discover one of the rich cultural treasures of the
world. In the village Khuri, where people make pottery, When I saw three women
were sitting on the ground and drawing the pots, their children were sitting next
playing with these pots, on the yard there were two goats, and further behind the hut
standing a camel. People, cattle and nature presented a wonderful picture of peaceful
life. I wondered at the creativity of Rajasthani folklore when from this conference hall
I saw Suva’s dance. She is so charming and is talented. After the performance I had a
small talk with her. She told that she had been to many countries for performances, but now she does not want to
travel so much, she want to stay at home in Jodhpur to lead simple life with her husband and their three children.
It is the powerful life of Rajasthani folklore with its deep roots, and Suva is one diamond treasure of Indian folklore.
During the workshop some lectures, small group discussions helped me to clarify many questions about the creative
processes of folklore, about documenting material culture. Especially field visits are helpful for me; they gave me
deep feelings and knowledge about Rajasthani folklore. The Folk performances enriched my experiences. It is also
interesting for me that, I am a Vietnamese came to India to learn documenting creative processes of folklore, and I
have learnt not only from Indian experts, but also from Henry Glassie, Lee Haring and Pravina Shukla. About the
method of the workshop, I would like to say that if the lectures were more related to the field visits, it would have
been more meaningful.

Most of the suggestions for the creative documentation of the folklore processes came from the group discussions.
I was happy to hear other people give opinions especially through stories, like Geetha
did. In fact group discussions are more helpful. The fieldwork would have been 33
more meaningful if it was analysed later with the help of the faculty. When I saw the
evening performances I felt a sense of sadness. I felt that the music was so closely
attached to the landscape and this could not have been possible without Komalda
who connected everything and explained things in detail.

While working with the tribal artists of Chhotandepur region of Gujarat, I had gathered that the study and
documentation of folk art has to be done in the close regional and socio-cultural
proximity of the community we study. This workshop has only made me believe
more strongly in that, in the fact that you have to go into the depth of the ways of
life of the people and study them in the totality of the multiple contexts.
Understanding the complexity of a folk art and its transmission from one generation
to the other involves being with people as well as considerable amount of time we
need to spent with them. And, Komalda’s deep insights on the Rajasthani folk
music and his tremendous work of documentation is enough to inspire and encourage
all of us who want to honestly and sincerely put forward the truth of our subjects in
one way or the other. Whether it was Glassie’s model for documentation or Pravina Shukla’s presentation of slides
of the Brazilian carnival, I not only learnt more about the technique, but also about the enriching personal and
emotional experience that a field worker goes under. As a linguist, I could fully relate myself to Haring’s lecture
on Creolization. For me the field visits were like the first step in documentation. The creative processes of folklore
are happening not only with a Rathwa tribal there in a remote village, but also with me when I am reading out
this report. I am wondering if there could be a series of workshops – not exactly in the framework of a course for
the young and mid-career scholars. There may be two workshops a year for two consecutive years. I missed the
Shillong workshop on From Field-work to Public Domain. The next workshop could be on Translation and Transcription
of Folklore. I do hope that the participants of the present workshop will be selected to attend the next one. I end
my presentation with many thanks to the people of Rajasthan, especially the artists for making this a memorable
experience with the glimpses of their rich cultural heritage.

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Fifteen days for a workshop! Frankly, this was my first reaction when I got invited for the workshop on Documenting
Creative Processes of Folklore. As a film- maker, I have been in several situations where
I have documented creative processes. What this workshop brought into focus is a
multitude of issues while dealing with documentation of creative processes. More
importantly, the interactions in the workshop have extended the boundaries of the
notion of creativity and the possibility of my intervention as a film maker/documenter
of folklore. What came across repeatedly in the workshop was that creativity in
folklore draws from tradition that is fluid, unfrozen and flexible. It’s the constant
negotiation between forms, as being simultaneously fixed and variant that forms the
core of creative processes in folklore. The workshop forced us to interrogate our own complicity in representing
folklore as expressions of fixed and reified tradition. As documenters, we need to recognise folk artists as individuals
who are negotiating collective experiences with their individual subjectivities. We need to document the processes
of transformation that are linked with modernisation. How do we do that? I think the best way would be to look
at community’s expressions in whatever form they might be on these transformations. There are wonderful songs
that people sing in the Chota Nagpur region describing the coming of railways or the coalmines. Why can’t we
look at these industrial folksongs? What happens when women who have migrated to the cities visit a doctor in
a public hospital? How do they communicate with the Doctor? How do meanings get created in this encounter?
Have they composed any songs describing this encounter? I would like to deal with some of these issues in my
own future line of inquiry. Lastly, I also want to respond to some of the gender issues that got raised or perhaps
sorely missed out in the workshop. When we saw langa and manganiar boys performing on stage, I could see the
joy that they experience while performing, striving for excellence. (Komalda told us that women had composed
many of the songs that they were singing) I couldn’t help thinking about the female siblings of these boys who
are being denied this joy. Perhaps, these issues need to be raised in a future workshop dedicated to the theme of
Gender and Folklore.

From the beginning of the workshop, one of the key issues discussed was documentation. I feel it needs to be
discussed in the context virtual libraries, method of cataloguing, archiving etc. The
34 ethics of the user and the systems user friendliness is a matter of serious concern for
folklorists and anthropologists. This imperative need to be conceived and properly
articulated in future workshops on folklore. This workshop is a right step in that
direction.

I have attended this workshop with an intention of acquiring and refining my skills in ethnographic documentation,
as I am engaged in ethnographic fieldwork since last eight years, as a student of
Social Anthropology. But these lectures and deliberations in the workshop, helped
me to focus on particular themes and make a coherent presentation, using visual
and textual material. Though I am delighted with the structural analysis of myths
and exploring the logical constructions of human mind, this workshop made me to
think from the multiple perspectives other than structural to see life in its fullest
sense. One such important aspect is Biographical aspects of individual artists and
performers and inclusion of their own creative processes. Particularly I am convinced
that this method will help us in bridging the gap between the observer and the
observed, as both will be partners in discourse, or rather collaborators, but not hierarchically positioned human
beings. Further presentation of visuals, as naturally occurring phenomena and looking at things, as lively objects
of value, contributed to my understanding of the discourse on material culture. The other concepts discussed in
the workshop, with regard to ethno musicology, and ethno poetics, informed me quite well, in recording the
narrative processes of the people.

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

 A N N O U N C E M E N T

Announcement

Indian Folklore Resource Book: Scholars and Engagements 1900 – 2000.

National Folklore Support Centre proposes to publish two volumes of resource books on Indian scholars who
have made significant contributions to the field of folklore in the twentieth century. As the discipline of folklore
grew in India as an offshoot of regional languages study we seem to have different perspectives and engagements
existing in different states at any given historical period. A compendium that offers a comparative perspective on
the eminence of folklore scholarship in different Indian states would enhance possibility of dialogue within this
nation.

These books with their accessible presentation are also conceived of as an exciting new series of cutting edge
research and studies for wider readership across the most topical areas of Indian folklife and folklore. One of the
key aims of the series will be to focus on the interaction of the theory and practice, exploring the application of
international research to assess the seminal contributions of Indian folklore scholarship, and the scholars who
have creatively and singularly helped to define the practice of Indian folklore for the twentieth century. Uniquely
drawing together within one single cluster of titles, this high profile series, we hope, will offer an important
contribution to our present day scholarship.

This project is conceived as a new venture in bringing together contemporary writers of different discursive fields
and folklore to produce collective work. The book will attempt to find fascinating indices of our changing attitudes
to folklore and folklife, the extended and multi-disciplinary approach to tradition, history and development of
Indian folkloristics. Posing challenging questions, the distinguished contributors need to critically acknowledge,
and throw light on the profiles of Indian folklore scholarship during the period 1900-2000. The books need to
provide the following:
35

-------- Biographical sketch of scholar(s) worked in vernacular languages

-------- His / her seminal contribution to the discipline of folklore, innovation and development of his / her ideas

-------- Bibliography / discography of his / her published and unpublished works and works on him / her by
other scholars

-------- Situating his / her work historically, chronologically and in relation to other works of that period and
Scholars perception about multiple existence and variation of Folklife and Folklore and the dynamics of
cultural mediation of that time

-------- Translation of his / her representative work into English with critical reflections on the newness of
his / her ideas

-------- Concise historical introduction of folklore scholarship of that region / language

-------- Maximum length of each study should not exceed ten thousand words

These volumes are considered as easy-to-use sourcebooks and the format need to be accessible to specialist as
well as non-specialist readers. Reinterpreting seminal regional ontology, variously reporting and situating their
work, the sourcebooks attempt to provide an illuminating perspective on a richly varied selection of Indian
folklore scholars of the last century.

We are looking for regional compilers and editors who would work with regional scholars to produce these
seminally important volumes. Scholars interested in this exciting publication venture are requested to contact
Director, NFSC or Program Officer (publications) at the earliest as the project is set to commence by July 2001 and
the books are to be printed by December 2001.

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

 O N C R E O L I Z AT I O N
Creolization: creativity in cultural convergence
Lee Haring is Professor Emeritus, Brooklyn College of the
City University of New York, USA
I am going to be speaking twice today, now and in
the afternoon, and I am going to make repeated
references to work that I have
done in the islands of the
southwest Indian Ocean. So, I
will begin with my work, about
Mauritius in particular; then I will
go into the theoretical
implications.
My project is a study of folk
Lee Haring narrative as one topic; the
colonial encounter, that is the
engagement between Europeans and non-Europeans,
is the second topic; and third is what I call cultural
creolization in the western Indian Ocean. The materials
come from many years of study and fieldwork, first in
Madagascar and then in Mauritius. My proposition is
that in a region where many peoples of different
linguistic and ethnic backgrounds come together, what
happens is that they renegotiate their cultures. They
try to hang on to what they have had, but what they
end up doing is renegotiating their cultures. This process
is demonstrated in the collecting of folktales.
36
Mauritius lies in the Indian Ocean several hundred miles
off the coast of Africa. Mauritius is very densely
populated today. It was uninhabited until the 17th
century and this is very hard for people to imagine,
that any place has remained uninhabited so late in
human history. But Mauritius was uninhabited until
the 17th century when the Dutch attempted to colonise
it with what they called the Dutch East India Company.
The Company set up this settlement in the 17th century
and brought in slaves to work for them; the slaves
rebelled, escaped and burnt down the settlement. The
Dutch had to leave. Thus the descendents of those
slaves from 1694 can claim to be the earliest settlers in
Mauritius. They came from Africa and
Madagascar. Subsequently Mauritius was colonised by
France under the name of ile-de-France, island of
France. The French in the 18th century planted coffee
and then sugar which became the main crop of the
island. For the coffee and sugar plantations it was
necessary to have a labour force. The French imported
slaves for this purpose from Madagascar and East Africa,
which was then Portuguese East Africa, and which we
now know as Mozambique.
Looking at a map and marking the points from which
the slaves could be shipped from E. Africa and
Madagascar, it is easy to tell the geographic and ethnic
origins of the slaves in Mauritius. But many people in
Mauritius do not know anything about their history
and background though nowadays it is easy for
historians to make out where the slaves came
from. Another irony is that some of the slaves in the
French period, the 18th and some in the 19th century,
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
actually came from West Africa. Again, looking at the
map one would ask, why would somebody go all the
way around the Cape of Good Hope to fetch slaves, to
work in an island lying off the east coast of Africa I
believe it was done largely because Gor*e and its related
slave posts were by then well developed and an active
enough place for putting out slaves. So it made some
sense for French traders to go all the way around the
Cape of Good Hope to fetch slaves and thus, there were
a few people in Mauritius, way out in the Indian Ocean,
speaking the West African language Wolof, which is a
major language in Senegal.
The sugar export business in Mauritius was a big success
and still is. The island itself, however, was lost to the
French at the end of the Napoleonic wars. In 1815,
Mauritius became a British colony and remained so for
around 150 years, until it gained independence in the
1960s. As a British colony, it came under the influence
of the growing anti-slavery movement, the movement
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
Creolised languages were usually
called broken. Mauritian Creole is
still regarded as broken
or bad French
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
to abolish slavery that grew all over the British Empire.
Finally slavery was abolished, only 20 years after the
British took over, in 1835.
The sugar plantation owner’s thought that they could
use the slaves as labour on their plantations, only they
would now have to pay them. But the slaves would
not want anything to do with them and walked off the
plantations. The planters were now threatened with a
total lack of workers. As it was in the interest of Britain
to keep the sugar business flourishing, it turned to India
for the labour force. In the next decades, many
thousands of Indian men, subsequently women,
principally from Calcutta and Bombay, were exported
to work on the sugar plantations of Mauritius as
indentured labourers. That is, they were contracted to
the planters in Mauritius in a system which one leading
historian refers to as oa new system of slavery. Their
working conditions were not very different from that
of the slaves. They were often strongly oppressed. The
sugar business picked up again, and Mauritius was the
principal exporter of sugar to the British Empire all
through the 19th century.
The Indian population grew, mainly through
immigration, and near the end of the 19th century, they
began to prosper. There was a division of land, due to
which some Indians could own property. About two-
thirds of the islandAEs 1.2 million population is made
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 O N C R E O L I Z AT I O N
up of people who came from India, now Pakistan. Let
us call them Indo-Mauritians. They run everything; they
dominate the nation in every way. The other major
strand in Mauritius is formed by the descendents of
the former slaves who came from East Africa and
Madagascar, who make up about a quarter of the
population. This group is referred in the census as the
ogeneral population,o as though they did not have an
identity of their own. There are two other strands of
population: Chinese, who came in the 19th century as
shopkeepers and spread out all over the island, and
the Europeans who were the descendants of the French
settlers. These Franco-Mauritians own the sugar estates
and usually keep to themselves. They live in beautiful,
elegant houses that are set inside the sugar estates, and
one does not see them much.
Thus there are four strands in the Mauritian population:
people of African and Malagasy background, of Indian
background, of Chinese and of European background.
This in an island of 720 square miles. Each group had
to necessarily come to terms with each otherAEs
traditions, each otherAEs languages and ethnicities.
The first product of that was the local language, Creole,
which brings me to the topic of linguistics. Now I go
from Mauritius to theoretical considerations.
Mauritian Creole grew out of the impact of the
Europeans and the slaves. That is, the language came
into existence because it was necessary for the owners
and overseers on the sugar estates to communicate with
the slave population, and vice versa. The language
has contributions from French, from the languages of
Portuguese East Africa such as Yao, and from Malagasy.
Languages that result from the contacts of people fall
into two classes, pidgin languages and Creole
languages. Pidgin languages tend to be simpler and
less elaborate than Creoles. A creole language is fully
developed; it resulted from the kind of contact and
convergence that I have described for Mauritius. The
process whereby a creole language comes into existence
has come to be called creolization. I am going to be
focussing on that process.
There has been a lot of research in the last 30 or 40
years on creolised and pidginised languages. There is
so much continual contact in the world today between
people of different origins and backgrounds that
linguists and anthropologists have set aside ideas of
cultural purity and ethnic isolation in favour of ideas
about contact. These types of languages develop, as
my sketch of Mauritius has shown, through the
convergence of several different and diverse linguistic
traditions. One of the characteristics of that
convergence is that it happens because of certain socio-
economic and political forces. That is, a creolised
language, like Mauritian Creole, can only develop within
a specific situation of social contact. All recent research
points to this fact.
Creolised languages were usually called broken.
Mauritian Creole is still regarded as broken or bad
French. Another negative associated with creolised
languages is that they are regarded as hybrid, implying
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
that they are somehow inferior. The linguistic model
used until recently, has on the one hand a pure national
language, and on the other hand broken or hybrid forms
of that language which need to be suppressed if
possible. This is visible in the Caribbean island of Haiti,
for instance, where the entire population speaks Haitian
Creole, but Creole speakers are strongly discouraged
from speaking Creole; they are encouraged to go up
the linguistic scale, as Creole is an inferior language.
So the usual characterisation of creole and pidgin
languages as hybrid, broken and inferior in relation to
some established national languages which are
supposedly pure, is a politically motivated one and
totally unrelated to linguistic development. The facts
of linguistic development about creolised and pidginised
languages are surprising. For one thing, instead of
developing continuously, unbrokenly from the parent
language or languages, a creolised and pidginised
language actually breaks off. It is historically
discontinuous, it is autonomous, and it has its own
integrity, its own reality. That means it changes a lot
and changes fast. We had a student at the University
of Pennsylvania who did work on street language in
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So the usual characterisation of
creole and pidgin languages as
hybrid, broken and inferior in
relation to some established national 37
languages which are supposedly pure,
is a politically motivated one and
totally unrelated to
linguistic development.
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
the city of Nairobi in Kenya and he began to document
the existence of a Nairobi street language called Sheng,
which is a mix of Kiswahili and English. In the few
years that he has begun to study it, he has already
noticed and documented changes in Sheng.
Now we come to the connection with folklore. Linguists
study the system of written and spoken
language. Sometimes they do not study what people
do with language. We who are interested in myths,
folktales, legends, riddles, proverbs, know that these
are things that people do with language. If you want to
understand their uses of language, you have to study
what they do with it.
A critical feature of creolised and pidginised languages
is that they have new functions, social and linguistic,
which are different from those of their contributing
languages. A creolised language is appropriate to the
new community for which it is formed. So what I am
coming to is that creole and pidgin languages are new,
in both structural and functional terms. Of course,
they are built up from previously existing languages,
but they are not dependent on the contributing
languages. Rather they take on new social and linguistic
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001
 O N C R E O L I Z AT I O N
functions. They grow out of the specific situations of
social contact in which they are. Creole linguistics
historically is a sub-discipline of linguistics, but the
perspective it has developed reaches far beyond
linguistics. I took the linguistics detour to say that it is
not a detour; what we are looking at in these languages
applies directly to what happens in the artistic use of
language.
The attention in folklore studies, or in sociology or in
anthropology, in the attention to who says what to
whom, when, where and for what purpose, is
fundamental to sociolinguistics. But it is also
fundamental to folklore, because we are beginning to
learn a lot about the rules that come into play which
govern the performance of certain kinds of folklore.
Certain stories can only be told at certain times of day,
for instance. And such socio-linguistic rules are part
of the picture that is being filled out by the study of
Creole and Pidgin languages. So we are moving far
beyond the limits of national or ethnic folklore, just as
we move beyond the conception of a pure national
language.
Let me use a small parenthesis here. A group of people
claim their folklore as only theirs; they use their
traditions, their stories, and their songs as the strongest
marker of their identity in their own eyes. You take
their word for it until you discover that they in fact
share a lot of it; similar words, similar tunes, similar
stories are being told by another group as well. That is
38 your first step out of the notion that folklore is the
possession of a single group.
When we study creolization in folklore, we discover
that the kind of folklore that results there is not the
possession of a single group but is created because of
the situation and social contact. So one has to let go of
the idea that songs and stories are the exclusive property
of one people, they are shared but then I also have to
acknowledge that those are of great importance to
them. When people adopt a tradition, a song or a story
as their own, you cannot take it away from them. But
you can map and document its distribution outside their
territory. Thus creolization is way beyond linguistics,
it is what people do with language and proverbs, riddles
and tales. It is what folklore they create as a result of
specific situations of social contact.
So, by creolization do I mean just any mixture of cultural
elements from two or more different sources? For
instance, in France periodically there are protests about
the number of words that are added to the French
language from English. Some people who want to
preserve the purity of French as a national language
find it objectionable that words such as weekend show
up in their language. Would I say weekend in French
is an example of creolization? No, I would not. We
do not use creolization to describe just any cultural
admixture of any sort, because the term creole carries
with it a historical burden. Creole people historically
are always regarded as somehow inferior to other parts
of the population. The term creole therefore carries
with it a burden of class difference, or more broadly,
socio-economic or politico-cultural conditions.
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
Here’s an example of what I am trying to refute. It is
from a Swedish anthropologist, Ulf Hannerz. Creole
cultures like creole languages are those which draw in some
way on two or more historical sources, often originally widely
different. They have some time to develop and integrate, and
to become elaborate and pervasive . . . . There is a sense of a
continuous spectrum of interacting forms, in which the various
contributing sources of the culture are differentially visible.
Now this is what I am objecting to; this anthropologist
is using creole to mean any kind of mixture of any two
cultures. The trouble with that is when all cultural
mixing is included within the compass of the term
creolization, the socio-economic conditions under which
creolization actually happens get obscured. The reality
is that Creole languages get created predominantly in
situations of dominance and oppression. And if you
leave out the dominance and oppression, if you leave
out the power differential between the two contributing
sources, then you are eviscerating the whole picture.
Because the phenomenon depends on I am the boss, you
are the worker, and you get to follow my orders. So in
Mauritius in particular, and in other slave-keeping
societies, the kind of cultural mixing that occurs between
a slave population and a dominant, invading population,
will lead to creolization. But the use of English words
in French nowadays is not an example
of creolization. In my own country the
biggest source of information about
creolising of languages comes from
African-American English. A great deal
is now known about creolization in
African-American English.
Culture, as you know, is very much
available to change. We know that
culture is always susceptible to
modification and the other interesting thing about
culture is that it is portable. For an indentured labourer
or a slave, probably the only thing that is portable is
culture, because he has left everything else behind and
is separated from his family as well. The portability of
culture and its susceptibility to change help us
understand the African diaspora and the European
diaspora, which Pravina Shukla will be talking about
later.
Syncretism is a term used in religious studies to mean
the mixture of two or more religious traditions or
customs or observances. It is amazing how the word is
regarded in many religious studies as a cursed or
negative word. Syncretism means that people are not
observing religion in the right way. Religion is
susceptible to that kind of thinking because religious
structures are centrally controlled and
organised. Dogma, orthodoxy come out of a centre and
disseminate outwards. This dissemination allows for
changes to be introduced and we get things like
syncretism. African Christianity has been studied for
its syncretistic elements, which are regarded in different
ways by different people.
An Indian merchant starting on a voyage asks his three
daughters what they want. The first one asks for a
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 O N C R E O L I Z AT I O N
diamond necklace, the second asks for a blue velvet
dress, and the third daughter, who is reading a book
and is not paying much attention, says, Sobur, meaning
Wait. But the merchant thinks, that is what she wants
and goes on his journey. On the way, he meets a prince
called Sabour and shows him a picture of his
daughter. The prince falls in love with her immediately.
The merchant has bought the first two presents, the
necklace and the dress, but he cannot proceed home,
because his elephant will not walk until he has finished
all his errands. It is a wise animal. He discovers from
a passing woman that Sabour is the name of the local
prince. So he goes to this prince to explain his
predicament. On seeing the daughter’s picture, the
prince falls in love with her and gives the merchant a
magic fan to take as a gift to the girl.
The elephant is now content to go and takes the
merchant home. When the girl is given the fan, Sabour
appears on it and proposes marriage. She accepts, and
so does her father. The girl’s elder sisters claim the
right, according to custom, of making the bridal bed.
They spread ground glass on the bed; Sabour’s skin is
ruptured, and he starts bleeding. He asks his wife to
give him back the magic fan, and using the fan, he
disappears.
Time passes. Six or seven months later, the unhappy
wife learns that Sabour is lying ill in his country, and
his father has promised half the kingdom to whoever
would cure him. So the wife disguises herself as a
Muslim priest with a false beard and sets out to Sabour’s
land. The journey takes three months. One night
when she is resting under a tree, she overhears two
birds discussing Sabour’s illness. The birds say, The
medicine is not hard to find. If Sabour’s body were rubbed
with the droppings we are leaving at the foot of this tree, he
would get well right away. So she picks the droppings
and goes to the palace and offers to cure the prince,
accepting to be beheaded if she fails. She rubs Sabour’s
body with the droppings, the glass comes out of his
body, and he is cured.
The wife, disguised as the Muslim priest, asks for the
prince’s hand in marriage for his daughter. The king
accepts, but Sabour does not. The king gets angry and
Sabour reluctantly explains that he is already married.
Then the wife removes her disguise and the couple fall
into each other’s arms. The king gives a big banquet
and the story is over.
I have not researched this story, but I know a Bengali
version which is much more elaborate. This version
was collected and published in Mauritius in the 1880s.
It appears in the only collection of Mauritian folktales
from that period. In the Bengali version of a few years
before that, there are a number of episodes that take
place before the Sabour story comes. There is a lot
more elaboration. Very crudely put, one bit of
creolization in the arrival of the story in Mauritius is
the simplification and shortening of the story.
I want to draw your attention to the end
piece of the Mauritian story. Here is the translation:
The king was so pleased that he gave a banquet. The biggest
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
banquet ever. After desert, I asked for some extra cakes to
take home for my children. They grabbed hold of me, dragged
me into the yard and gave me a kick in the pants, and that is
how I come to be here today to tell this story. The closing
formula is the place where we can see the substitution
of one unit for another, which is what establishes the
parallel between linguistic creolization and cultural
creolization. In both, you look for and find the
substitution of one unit for another. In the Bengali
version, for instance, the story closes thus: The prince
took his bride to his palace in his far-off kingdom, forgave his
sisters-in-law, lived happily for scores of years and was blessed
with children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. The
closing formula in the Bengali version rapidly
summarises the rest of the prince’s life. The formula
in the Mauritian version draws attention back to the
storyteller. The storyteller brings I back into the story.
The most important thing is that it echoes the favourite
formula of Creole storytellers in Mauritius. Here are
some contemporary examples from Creole performers:
I asked for just a teeny glassful and that was when they
kicked me in the pants and I fell down right here. That is
from one of the stories. Here is another: I went up to
them and asked for a tiny little glass of liquor and they put
the dogs on me. I had to run away. Here is yet another
example: When I came to sit at the table, they pulled my
chair out from behind me and I fell
down and rolled all the way here.
From those three examples of
closing formula from Mauritian
folktales, you can see that Creole
39
storytellers are fond of this kind
of a device as a closing formula.
The interesting thing is that the
storyteller of Sabour in Mauritius
was not speaking in creole; he was speaking in Bhojpuri,
which is related to Hindi. The Bhojpuri storyteller
undoubtedly acquired the formula from the other
storytellers around him who are of African or Malagasy
background, who were speaking in Creole. It is well
attested in the study of the language that Mauritian
Bhojpuri speakers regularly use Creole words.
Religion is the most prominent evidence of cultural
creolization in Mauritius and the other islands of the
Southwest Indian Ocean. Many Mauritians participate
in multiple religious traditions. Creole people, who are
nominally Roman Catholic, will turn up at Hindu
temples and shrines; they observe customs that have
nothing to do with their religion. Hindus and Muslims
cross the supposed barriers between religions frequently.
The most interesting example of this is there are two
major pilgrimage sites in Mauritius. One of them is the
grave of the 19th century French priest Pere Laval, who
is revered in Mauritius. His grave is a pilgrimage site
for members of every religion in the country, not only
Catholics, also Hindus, also Muslims and even
Chinese. So, in the religious realm there is a lot to
consider.
Historically, folktales like Sabour have been regarded as
continuities, as a single story that recurs in different
places among different speakers in different languages.
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 O N C R E O L I Z AT I O N
When you replace that question into the history of a
specific people like the Indo-Mauritians, it begins to
look more like a socio-linguistic problem, because you
have to examine the specific social conditions under
which the development has occurred. Most important,
though, is that we have to have adequate evidence of
the socio-economic, political, cultural conditions in
which people acquire each other’s traditions. Indo-
Mauritians, Afro-Mauritians and Malagasy arrived in
Mauritius under entirely oppressive socio-economic
conditions. We know a lot about the variety of
languages among, for example, Indian indentured
labourers; it has been well researched and documented.
The status of the basic language for Indo-Mauritians is
Bhojpuri, which is a derivative of Hindi, and is spoken
by a large number of Indo-Mauritians. I am told that
nowadays Bhojpuri is disappearing in favour of
English. It is not rare to meet a middle-aged man whose
mother cannot communicate with his daughter because
they do not have a language in common; the daughter
speaks Creole and English and mother only Bhojpuri.
Let us focus for a minute on the status of Bhojpuri
among Indo-Mauritians. In Mauritius, Bhojpuri is
spoken by a fairly large number of people; it is also
spoken in Trinidad and in Guyana but it enjoys a higher
status in Mauritius. It is associated to some extent with
culture and religion. Indo-Mauritians tend to disregard
their own culture in favour of Indian culture. That is,
they tend to look to India for reference points as regards
culture and religion. But it is also true that Creole is
40 prevalent and English is accorded a lot of prestige.
English happens to be the official language of the nation,
even though only few people have much command over
the language. So what I am coming to say is that
Bhojpuri flourishes in a limited domain. The message
for the folklorist is that in that limited domain, what
flourishes is not just any use of Bhojpuri, but the art of
the word—in other words, proverbs, riddles, jokes,
songs, folktales. These are the predominant constituents
of the domain of Bhojpuri. These are the things that
people let go of very slowly; they will hold on folklore
forms, forms of verbal art most retentively, because for
ordinary communication they only need Creole. So it
is exactly in the realm of folklore or verbal art that
Bhojpuri will flourish.
This brings me to political implications. Bhojpuri
speakers are aware that their language is on the way to
becoming a minority language with the passage of time
despite large numbers speaking the language. It is
interesting to think of the possibility that things like
rumours, gossip, folktales, jokes, songs, rituals,
euphemisms and other expression are a form of politics
for the support network. It may be relevant to the
work that you all do in the various parts of India that
these arts of the word of the minority or threatened
language are not merely survivors of something old,
but are a form of politics. A great American folklorist
used to refer to folklore as unofficial culture. Maybe that
is a relevant concept here. Unofficial culture has its
own history, its own literature, its own poetry; this is
the culture that is the province of the folklorist. So,
you are entitled to look for the political implications of
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
the arts of the word when studying people analogous
to the Bhojpuri speakers in Mauritius.
One last point. It is likely that folklore in Mauritius,
and in creolised situations generally, exists in a situation
that is analogous to what linguists call diglossic.
Diglossia is a fancy word for something that you are
familiar with, namely a situation in which there is a
demand for a universal or a national language, for
universal literacy and unification of language. With this
comes a division of opinion as to whether the high form
or the low form should be used as the standard. The
same kind of division of opinion is also seen with
folklore: on one hand, the disregard or scorn for folklore
in comparison to high literature; on the other hand,
the insistence that, as the Irish poet Yeats said, Folklore
is the soil within which all great art is rooted. But we use
creolization to describe what happens in a contact
situation between a ruling minority and a subjugated
mass; we do not use it to refer to just any mixing of
culture. In relation to official culture, it is likely that
folklore exists the way diglossic languages exist, side
by side. This means that there is always going to be a
struggle between the advocates of one and the other.
You, the folklorists of this country, whether you like it
or not, are advocates of minority culture. Many of you
are sensitive to the political implications of the cultural
expression of the people whom you study.
Despite the hundred and forty years of British rule in
Mauritius, Catholicism is especially prominent; the
bishops and priests are quite influential. As I said
earlier, the most saintly figure in Mauritian history is
Pere Laval, a nineteenth century French Catholic
missionary, whose grave was visited by the Pope in
November 1989. The grave is considered a pilgrimage
site not only by Catholic Creoles and Catholic Chinese,
but also by Hindus and Muslims. It is a place where
people make what is called in Creole a promesse, a vow
to perform a ceremony if your prayer is
granted. The custom was probably
brought to Mauritius by Hindus, not by
Catholics. One can pray to the saint or
make offerings for being healed, whatever
religion one belongs to. You can call this
a case of syncretism, or you can call it
cultural renegotiation, because it is a
conscious adoption of someone else’s
custom for your own purposes. To go
another step here: Hindu folk religion came into
existence in Mauritius in the era of the indentured
labourers. It is quite distinct from Hindu orthodoxy and
the Arya Samaj; it develops its variety according to
language so that folk Hinduism is distinct in Hindi,
Tamil, Marathi, Gujarathi and Telugu, at least in these
five groups; there are a number of sub-sects as well.
In this case, religious differentiation follows linguistic
differentiation.
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001
 O N F O L K A R T M U S E U M

Folk art in the museum

Pravina Shukla is Assistant Professor, Department of

Folklore, Indiana University, USA

Not all results of fieldwork are presented in books
of ethnographies or deposited
in archives, generally for limited
and privileged consumption.
Rather much of the information,
and especially objects collected
and documented, are presented
in public exhibitions in
museums, accessible to the
general public, beyond the
Pravina Shukla
scholarly realm. For this very
reason, we should pay attention
to not only how we document traditional culture, but
also more importantly, how we present the cultures
studied in the context of a public display. This paper
will consider some possible directions for the future of
folk art in museum exhibitions. Our collective goal
should be to bring the ideas, the theoretical and
intellectual perspectives of folklore, out of the textbook
and into the museum, whether the museum is dedicated
to history, anthropology, folk art, or even fine art.
When exhibited, so-called folk art is often regarded as
the art of the common man (literally man, as displays
are frequently gender biased). Other implicit and
explicit assumptions are that the art is anonymous and
untutored (with a complete disregard for a notion of
folk ateliers and rigorous systems of learning and
teaching the traditional arts). Even though some
exhibitions of folk art today may highlight individuals,
most exhibitions still present the artist as rooted in her
or his community, and not as an individual of strong
personality, innovative and rich in personal aesthetics,
the way in which artists are regarded in museum of
fine art.
Broadening this discussion in an attempt to understand
current trends as influenced by historical practices of
exhibition, we should look at current thinking about
art, folk art, and display, both by scholars and museum
practitioners. There is still much preoccupation with
the definitions of folk art versus fine art. Ethnographic
objects are shown primarily in their function as cultural
objects; what matters is the function of the object in the
daily life of its user. Unintentionally, this presumption
tends to lower the aesthetic standards of museum
presentations, causing a glaring dichotomy between art
museum exhibitions, where objects are chosen for their
beauty and aesthetic excellence, and exhibitions in
ethnographic museums, where culturally meaningful
objects may or may not embody the aesthetic excellence
of the culture that they are meant to represent.
What are directions that museums should take in the
future, while utilising new general paradigms of art
and culture? First of all, when possible, museum
exhibitions should display the objects using native
systems of organization. Instead of taking tribal or
village art and fitting it into our urban way of
understanding — for example, in the contrast of craft
and art — we should understand how the people
themselves conceptualise the art, its meaning, its beauty,
its functions.
Secondly, curators and scholars should acknowledge
that objects are engaged in multiple moments of creation –
therefore many of the people who come in contact with
a specific object can be seen as artists. An object is made
in the atelier, then it is beautifully displayed in a market
stall, then it is bought and artfully displayed in an
assemblage in a home. Not only are these different
contexts of use, they are actually different contexts of
creation, incorporating and adhering to differing
aesthetic criteria, maintaining simultaneously a very
individual and idiosyncratic choice, while conforming
to a set communal standard of display and meaning. 41
The study of folk art, among other things, has yielded
an understanding of how the personal biography of an
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Museum exhibitions should present
not only the object in context, but in
multiple contexts. The same object
should be shown in different contexts
to explain that not only does an
object take meaning in relation to a
person or a situation, but also
objects take on meaning in relation
to other objects. Museums then can
combine different perspectives, to
create a holistic view of the native
systems of organising, understanding,
making, using and constantly
recreating the art in ritual and
mundane daily life.
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artist should be used to appreciate the object properly
(for example, works by Ralph Rinzler, Henry Glassie,
Michael Owen Jones, John Burrison, Terry Zug, and

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001


John Vlach, among others). Many scholars have
followed the model set by these studies in capturing
the life history of an artist. Other scholars, such as
Chris Steiner, seem to have been
inspired by Arjun Appadurai in looking
at the life history, not of an artist, but
of the art. What we need is to combine
these two methodologies and
understand the complete process by
looking at the biographies of artists and
the many lives of the art they have
created. This approach would provide both scholars
and the general public with a broad comprehensive view
of how and why objects are made and conceptualised.
This broad context of art would also shed light on how
much of the initial perception is inherent in the object,
physically inscribed and therefore carried by the body
of the art, and how much of it is ascribed by each
individual in each interaction and context of use, and
subsequent contexts of creation.
Museum exhibitions should present not only the object
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Our goal should be to display the
people, their art, the way they make,
use, and view their objects of art, be
42
they secular, sacred, utilitarian,
decorative, or most likely, all of the
above – simultaneously splendid and
part of common life.
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in context, but in multiple contexts. The same object
should be shown in different contexts to explain that
not only does an object take meaning in relation to a
person or a situation, but also objects take on meaning
in relation to other objects. Museums then can combine
different perspectives, to create a holistic view of the
native systems of organising, understanding, making,
using and constantly recreating the art in ritual and
mundane daily life. The exhibition medium with its
possibilities of creating three-dimensional spaces and
environments, of incorporating media, of providing a
multi-sensory experience of art and culture, lends itself
naturally to this cause.
We need to expand our notion of a museum. Museum
professionals and scholars take ethnographic objects and
place them in our framework of what a museum is,
how it should look, who it serves, and how it functions.
We need to encounter as museums temples and
mosques, markets and tea stalls, homes, and even the
body as a walking museum of the self — all of these
can be seen as self-conscious creations, a curated display
of values, traditions, and aesthetics. This perspective,
INDIAN FOLKLIFE
O N F O L K A R T M U S E U M
this expansion of the notion of museums and native
ways of seeing, ordering and displaying art, will yield
respectful exhibitions. Our goal should be to display
the people, their art, the way they make, use, and view
their objects of art, be they secular, sacred, utilitarian,
decorative, or most likely, all of the above –
simultaneously splendid and part of common life. [This
paper is an excerpt from an oral presentation delivered at the
NFSC’s workshop on Documenting Creative Processes of
Folklore, panel on The Presentation of [Fieldwork] Results:
Scholarly Situation and Cultural Comparison, in Jaisalmer,
Rajasthan, February, 2001-Editor].
Bibliography
Appadurai, Arjun. The Social Life of Things. London:
Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Burrison, John A. Brothers in Clay: The Story of Folk
Pottery. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1983.
Burrison, John A. Shaping Traditions: Folk Arts in a
Changing South. Athens: University of Georgia Press,
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2000.
Glassie, Henry. Turkish Traditional Art Today.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
Glassie, Henry. Material Culture. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1999.
Jones, Michael Owen. Craftsmen of the Cumberlands:
Traditional and Creativity. Lexington: University Press
of Kentucky, 1989.
Karp, Ivan, and Steven D. Lavine. Exhibiting Cultures:
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display. Washington:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. Destination Culture:
Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1998.
Rinzler, Ralph, and Robert Sayers. The Meaders Family:
North Georgia Potters. Washington: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1980.
Steiner, Christopher. African Art in Transit. London:
Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Vlach, John Michael. Charleston Blacksmith: The Work of
Philip Simmons. Columbia: South Carolina Press, 1992.
Zug, Charles G., III. Turners and Burners: The Folk Potters
of North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1986.
VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001
 O N D O C U M E N TA R Y A C T

Performance theory and the documentary act

Henry Glassie is College Professor and Chair of Near Eastern

Languages and Culture, Folklore Institute, Indiana University,
USA

For thirty-five years, in American folklore, a
single idea has dominated our thought. We call it
performance. The word is imperfect,
misleading, but we use it because a
brilliant theorist, Dell Hymes, made
it central to his argument when he
was developing a new concept of
sociolinguistics in a series of articles
in 1964 and 1965. His ideas have
become basic to folklore as well as
linguistics. Any American folklorist
Henry Glassie would hold that the theory of
performance lies beneath and behind
the folkloristic scholarship of the contemporary United
States. Performance is a theory of creativity. For thirty-
five years, American folklore has been primarily
dedicated to an understanding of creativity. This
workshop, in Jaisalmer, has been given to creativity and
its documentation, and the theory of performance is, I
believe, necessary to our practice. To say it
schematically, performance unifies structure and
function, reconciling two anthropological schools,
structuralism and functionalism. Philosophically
speaking, performance merges the aesthetic with the
instrumental. From the standpoint of communication,
it conjoins self-expression with social action.
Performance is a generalising theory that works as well
for high art as for folk art, for written literature as well
as oral literature.
A liberating dimension of performance theory is that it
tasks the folklorist with the development of an approach
to the world that is useful far beyond the customary
interests us is that it is based upon a view of human
nature, situated in the existential philosophy of the
twentieth-century. The theory promises to account for
human beings, how they exist in the world, how they
are doomed through their humanity, their genetic
makeup and material circumstances, to create. In
America, we accepted the idea quickly but we have not
brought it to full maturity. The reason for our failing
is that we have not effectively linked theory to method.
We have not adequately considered performance theory
in relation to documentary protocols. That is my
mission today.
The chief issues are two, and the two lie in the title of
our workshop. Our topics are creativity and how
creativity can be documented. Let us return to history
to understand the significance of our enthusiasm. We
can describe folklore scholarship as having been based,
through time, on three views of humanity. The first
one, an old one, is no longer seriously to be considered.
It reduced people to bearers of tradition. People were
seen as carrying folklore as though it were a burden on
their backs. The metaphor suited an elite view of the 43
poor who led their nasty lives, trudging witlessly under
the weight of ancient traditions. The scholar’s job was
like that of a tax collector, to intercept the bearers of
tradition and take valuables from them. They wandered
the world unknowingly carrying stuff the scholar knew
to be folklore. Our job was to stop them in their tracks,
gain something we called rapport, distracting and
tricking them, so that we would rifle their burdens,
extracting the bits that would prove useful to our
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limits of the folklorist’s discipline. We are developing

a superior theory of creativity beneficial to art historians Philosophically speaking,
and literary historians, to anthropologists and
sociologists, as much as to folklorists. No matter the
performance merges the aesthetic
realm, the most complete and effective theory of with the instrumental. From the
creativity available, I believe, is the idea Dell Hymes standpoint of communication, it
has given us, which folklorists in the United States call
performance. My topic is how performance theory conjoins self-expression with social
conditions the practice of documentation. What are action. Performance is a generalising
the implications for documentation that are the natural
and necessary result of the adoption of the performance
theory that works as well for high
approach to folklore? My first job is to situate art as for folk art, for written
performance theory historically, so that you will literature as well as oral literature.
understand the enthusiasm of American folklorists. I
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am not coming to you as a colonial agent, demanding
that you adopt our paradigm. schemes. Folklore scholarship was collection, a taxing
by the rich of the poor, an extractive industry. The
Instead, I am saying that if you make the mistake of documentary task, when we thought of people as
inviting American scholars into your midst, then they tradition-bearers, was text collection. We wished to
will, inevitably, speak in terms of the theory called pluck from people texts that were examples of folklore,
performance. And the reason performance theory and our documentary responsibility was nothing more

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

 O N D O C U M E N TA R Y
or less than the accurate recording of texts. I think,
and I will always think, that one of the most important
missions of the folklorist is the accurate recording of
texts. As a survival from our earliest days, as a
responsibility to the future, we are dedicated to the
precise recording of texts. The latest stage in this
progressive trajectory is ethno poetics, an improved
means of the representation of the accurate
and exact text. This responsibility is ancient
in our practice. One of the great, forgotten
masters of the discipline is Charlotte Brooke,
who had effectively argued before the end of
the eighteenth century that folklorists are
obliged to record lovingly and scientifically,
accurately and completely. That was our
model, more than two hundred years ago.
People had received texts from an earlier
generation. We lifted the texts from them and rendered
them on paper as well as we could. In time, folklorists
would use and invent more and more elaborate
machinery, devices that enabled us to fulfil our
responsibility of accuracy with greater and greater
precision. Thus, we advance along the old track.
But when we think of people as bearers of tradition
and our task as collecting and recording and
representing texts, then creativity is not part of the
picture. There is no creative energy in the people we
study; they are human, forgetful, confused, and best
when they are passively, non-consciously carrying and
44 transferring texts through time.
The more that we did fieldwork, getting to know real
people, the more it became obvious that our notion of
passive bearing was wrong and our task of accurate
recording was insufficient. As we began to understand
the singers and dancers, the weavers and storytellers,
we learned that they were reworking, redeveloping,
and reinventing the folklore they had received. They
learned from many sources, combined in many ways;
they were always improvising and innovating. Folklore,
we came to understand, is always in a state of change,
and tradition, the key term in folklore, was ever in a
fluid state of transition. Not long ago, my colleagues
in Indiana’s Folklore Institute were asked to make a
statement to represent folklore. Most chose some version
of the sentence, Tradition is not static; it exists in a fluid
state of change. That notion, I guess, seemed original,
though William Morris had fully articulated the same
idea in the 1880s. As soon as we describe tradition as
fluid, we need a source. Why is tradition fluid?
Because it exists only in the mind, and the mind is
perpetually awake, active.
The folklore we study is the consequence of mental
activity. And the second historical vision of humanity
in folklore holds that people are not passive bearers
but active creators. In the second phase, we folklorists
became interested in the human process that generated
folklore. Now we have creativity in the picture.
Instead of people bearing from the past a text for us to
extract and commit to paper, we have people who are
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
A C T
creative. Our task is to record texts and to understand
the process of creation that leads to the acts we record
as texts. So the student of art would not only study
the resultant object, but as well the creative process.
So the student of stories would understand that every
story is unique, that stories are not texts in the mind
that pop out of the mouth. Stories result from people
learning, processing, composing, and performing into
the world a tale that is at once traditional, fresh, and fit
to the moment.
The text always differs from other texts. Texts are always
in some ways like other texts. Texts in analysis urge us
to the simple, yet profound idea that every creation
combines the variable and the invariant. Something has
changed, because all people and events are unique.
Something has not changed, because people shape their
thought for social exchange. If, in the text, all were
new, communication would be impossible. It is
axiomatic that in creation, there must be at once change
and stability. I cannot say to you something I have
said before, in exactly the way I have said it before, or
I would not be adjusting my thoughts and words to
suit my needs and yours. At the same time, I cannot
say something absolutely new, with thoughts never
before thought, words never uttered, or I would not be
communicating. So, in every created text, there is
something new, something old; it can be described as a
merging of the variable and the invariant. Recently, you
and I have shared a marvellous musical experience in
this room. When the singers were performing, all of
them accepted and repeated a single melodic line. But,
in order to make the event exciting,
each singer varied the ornamentation of that line, so
that we could follow as the men and boys played back
and forth, copying, transforming, and innovating. The
thrill of innovation was built upon the stability of the
melody. T h e m e l o d y was invariant but the
ornamentation was variable. The performance blended
the old and the new, the stable and emergent. There
was no other possibility. Every time the melody
appeared it was the same, and it was not the same.
You understand the paradox. And this is not merely
the nature of folk performance. If there were not
something stable, some deep essence or flicker of style,
in every French impressionist painting, we would not
be able (as we surely are) to locate the pictures in time
and place. Stand far away, and every tradition-French
painting or African sculpture or Indian music-seems
repetitive. Go close up, and every work is the peculiar
creation of an individual in motion in place.
When, in folklore, we begin to understand people as
processing and reinventing their traditions, we have
begun to move toward a full idea of creativity. In
folklore’s third phase, which is the phase I will call
performance, we understand that the individual is
processing folklore information in the mind, changing
and rearranging, but we also understand that the
individual is processing information, altering and
inventing, so as to place a new creation back into the
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

world. The individual creator is the one who takes
ideas from the world and cycles ideas back into the
world. The individual artist operates at the nexus where
the world is created. Performance is an existential
proposition, which establishes people as intelligent,
sentient beings who receive and process and compose,
and as beings who occupy and act upon the real world
with all of its pain and wonder.
I realise the abstraction in all of these words, but the
abstractions are nearly over. Here is my point: the
idea we call performance represents the third and latest
stage in the evolution of a folkloristic vision of human
nature. It situates real people in the real world. When
we ponder our documentary work, performance can
be understood as the unification or two processes.
One is a process of design. It is the way the mind gets
and transforms information. The second is a process
of situating. It is the way the human being, existing in
the world, composes the information to suit the scene,
to alter circumstance for the better. Every folklore text
can be imagined as the result of two, simultaneous,
intermeshed processes. One of those processes is the
mind’s process of learning, storing, and reworking
experience. The other is the human process by which
the old and the new, the remembered and imagined,
the fantastic and pragmatic unify in the things that come
new to the world. Everything we study-story or song,
pot or temple-depends upon the human being’s capacity
to transform, and to transform in such a way as to have
impact upon the world.
Every object of folklore study is doubly unique. It is
unique because it is the result of a particular mental
process of design. It is unique because it is situated in
a new scene. Creation sets the creator in the world, as
receiver, as transmitter, as performer. The process of
creation situates folklore in the world, solidly,
inescapably, so the creator, you will understand, is
necessarily involved with the world during creation,
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Text means textile, something woven
together out of distinct threads.
When we call a story a text, we
employ a metaphor form the weaver’s
world. It is less strain to think of a
puppet as a text than it is to think
of a string of words as a text.
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with the environment, with the economy, with politics.
Life unifies tremendously in the act of performance.
When we thought of people as tradition-bearers, they
could be isolated from the world, set away from historic
forces. But if folklore is the natural result of the
existential location of human beings in the world, as
actors in situations, then folklore can no longer be
conceived as a collection of items, of texts in isolation.
INDIAN FOLKLIFE
O N D O C U M E N TA R Y A C T
Instead, texts must be understood as the consequence
of a double process. One is a process of design, or
expression; as I express myself, I express my ability to
grasp and transform. The second follows: as I express
my transformative ability, I am in a scene,
communicating, and in communication, I entangle
myself in webs of connection that ramify to the ends of
the earth.
We might say that performance theory has as its goal
the complete understanding of the text. Every proverb
or story, every textile woven, every puppet carved and
stitched, every object of folkloristic study expresses the
self, the individual, the one who processed received
materials; and it expresses the society among whom,
and for or against whom, the individual operates; and
it expresses the world, the place the society occupies;
and it expresses some relation to the ultimate, the
cosmological ground upon which all moves. Maybe
the cosmological is expressed in scientific terms, more
often it is framed religiously, but it is the case that the
creation we take as the object of folklore study must
bear within it an individual, a society, a world, and
some transcendent possibility that relates the thing we
study to principles of the ultimate.
How does all this fancy talk relate to documentation?
We wish to be complete and systematic, at once scientific
and properly connected to an acceptable concept of
human nature. Suppose I were to document Kherati 45
Ram Bhatt, master puppeteer of Jaisalmer. These are
the things I would have to document, being an adherent
of the performance school. First, I would document
the text. In his case, the text would be a puppet. He
makes puppets. I would record them accurately; the
goal of accuracy being that the record is so complete
that a new puppet, exactly like the old one, could be
created from the recording. A digression might be
necessary. Why call a puppet a text? Why call a
stream of words a text? Text means textile, something
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
woven together out of distinct threads. When we call
a story a text, we employ a metaphor form the weaver’s
world. It is less strain to think of a puppet as a text
than it is to think of a string of words as a text. A text
is an object composed of parts that we perceive to have
been the unified creation of another person. It is what
we are obliged to document: units other people
compose out of discrete parts, units that are limited
bits of the real world.
In the case of Kherati Ram, he takes wood, carves it,
paints it, he takes cloth, he takes different elements
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
and puts them together in such a way that in the end
there is a thing, a creation that had not been there before,
an object with edges, separable from its situation. You
can pick the puppet up and take it elsewhere. That is
a text: a unit made of parts by someone else that can
be moved from one situation to another, an entity
apprehensible as separable. So for me, for him, the
text is a puppet. My job is to record it. That was the
main command in the days of tradition-bearers. I take
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 O N D O C U M E N TA R Y
a photograph, but a picture is never enough. I take
measurements. I draw details. I sample the wood,
the cloth. I make a representation so accurate it could
be used to reproduce the original. That is the goal,
but it is only the beginning.
The second thing to document
is space. Where does the
puppet happen? We talk of
things as being out of context,
but all things are in context,
always, and that context must
be described. Let us say,
Kherati Ram’s puppet is in a
museum exhibition. Well, we would document it,
recording where the puppet is hung, how it relates to
labelling, lighting, and the other exhibits. If we chance
to be at his home where the puppet is made, then I
would not only record his puppet, I would record its
situation, making a measured plan of his house, the
courtyards front and back, to locate the puppet in space,
carved by the front gate, painted in the courtyard
behind, stored in a chest beneath the front window in
the bedroom. Spatial positioning is my second
documentary job.
It sounds simple, but I find many of my friends in
folklore still do not understand. They talk about context
but forget to document context. They record stories but
46 do not record with the same interest the place where
stories are told. Performance theory remains
unaccomplished. So we record the puppet, and we
record the places where the puppet exists, the place of
making, the place of storage, the place where it is put
into action. That leads us forward, but let us pause at
step two: the puppet, a puppet of certain materials and
form and colour, is in a box, the box is in a room, the
room is in a house, the house has a yard in front where
Kherati Ram’s little daughters are sanding the heads of
other puppets.
The text, the puppet, is not floating in the air. It is in
the world, exactly here. The third things I must
document are the social arrangements that surround
the text in its place. Kherati is carving. Near him sits
Papu, his brother and colleague. They collaborate in
puppetry, and now they chat while Kherati hacks a
face out of wood. He works as the leader of a familial
unit. I need to situate Kherati among people as I situate
the puppet in space, so I document who is present,
where they sit or stand, how they move, while he
moves, carving a puppet’s head. The fourth thing I
need is a complete biography of Kherati Ram Bhatt.
Not a few facts, but an autobiography that will permit
rich interpretation. I need to know where he was born,
when and how he learned his trade, how he improved
his work. I need his understanding of the history of
this tradition, his understanding of the aesthetic and
economic and social aspects of his practice. I need, in
short, to have a long discussion with him about his
life.
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
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The first things that I must document are sensate. I
see the puppet, I see its physical setting, and I see its
social setting. These things are visible. A camera
would catch them. Often we think all documentation
can be done by technological magic, but the most
important documentary acts elude technology. They
are ultimately invisible. We have to know the interior
of Kherati Ram’s skull if we are going to understand
that puppet. So having recorded the text, its physical,
and then its social settings, we record the fullness of
the creator’s biography. By that I do not mean a few
facts as in a census-father’s name, mother’s name, birth
date. I mean a conversation of, say, three hours in
two separate sessions. During that time, stories
emerge, and slowly the distance between the parties,
the one being documented and the one doing the
documentation, breaks down. Friendship becomes
possible, collaboration becomes possible, and the ethical
dimensions of ethnography gain natural, human shape.
The next thing I must document is the artist’s vision,
not my vision, but the creator’s vision of creation.
Generally, this involves at least three different aspects.
The first is the process by which the text has been
created. Obviously in the case of the puppet, I watch
while Kherati Ram makes one. I watch several times.
At last I think I understand the process, and I ask
questions to be sure I understand and to learn things,
such as the name of the wood, that are not visible.
This is the easiest step: the documentation would allow
someone to use my words and images to replicate
Kherati Ram’s process. And my questions allow us to
understand with his understanding. His wood is found
only in a certain part of Rajasthan. Called aakre lakri, it
has ideal properties for puppet-making: it is soft when
green, easy to carve, and it dries hard and light, so the
puppet can be moved easily and confidently by the
puppeteer. Studying a craft seems easy. The process
is externalised, visible. How could such a thing be
done for a storyteller? One of our failings as analysts
of performance is that we have theorised much but
rarely asked the performers about their theory of
performance. I have found that storytellers can talk
abstractly about story telling, and it is a pitiful bit of
arrogance that leads us to believe that we understand
performance better than the performers. Many
American analysts seem to me to be meditating upon
their own failed careers as folksingers more than they
are investigating the mature performance of the
accomplished artists they write about. I abandon that
digression to say that when I question
traditional artists they seem to have already solved many
of the problems that have bedevilled a century of
American folklore scholars.
Is folklore stable or changing? Once we said stable, now
we say changing, but the creators know what is variable,
what is invariant in their performance. Artists know
their art, and we must be patient enough to learn the
language in which deep discussions can occur. First in
our documentation of the artist’s vision is process. By
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 O N D O C U M E N TA R Y
watching and talking, we develop a full account of the
way in which the creation is created. Second is form.
In some areas of folklore scholarship, this would be
subsumed as an issue of genre, and it connects to the
crucial matter of repertory. In the old days, we thought
we understood genre, but the performers did not.
Then, at last, we asked and very often we found that
tellers of tale had ideas of genre superior to those of the
academy. The artists know what they are doing. Often
they have conducted a kind of structured analysis on
their own repertories enabling subtle judgments. That
is surely what I found in ten years of research in a
community in Ireland. The tellers of tale had developed
their versions of the theories we consider to be the rare
possessions of professional folklorists and
anthropologists.
We must document form, genre, and repertory. And I
have found that the people we are studying can help
us, for among them there are thoughtful individuals
who have understandings concerning those very
issues. They can speak of form, genre, and repertory.
In working with women who weave carpets in Turkey,
I found a few who could talk aesthetic theory at the
level of the trained art historian. I am not overstating
it, but it does take a long time to learn the language the
artist’s use, even when we think we are speaking the
same mother tongue. Once communication has become
effective, then our informants become our teachers. I
recall one young woman, Nezihe Ozkan, a weaver in a
remote mountain village. I had known her for years
when at last I asked her for the key to the aesthetics of
the oriental carpet, unquestionably one of the greatest
creations of humankind. She was a master weaver, and
did not pause, but responded quickly that the key was
the development of an interesting relation between a
busy, active border and a quiet, serene centre. Look at
an oriental carpet. Why are one good, one poor, and
one splendid? It is the alternation between action and
repose, excitement and serenity. Nezihe, the traditional
artist, knew, and she put quickly into words the aesthetic
key to one of the world’s great creations. In all their
books, the art historians have never written it so clearly
as the village woman spoke it. But, remember, I had
known her for years. We were comfortable with each
other, had developed a way to speak Turkish that suited
us.
In documenting the artist’s vision, we watch and listen,
learning about process, about form, and then we come
to the hardest task. We must learn the artist’s
interpretation. We have entered the realm of meaning.
Generally, scholars have seized the right to interpret,
reducing artists to suppliers of materials, making them
play the role of the working classes with respect to the
elite position of the interpreting scholar. They make
things, but we know the history, we know the meaning,
we do the interpretation. You have learned my position,
my politics, so it will not surprise you when I say that
I have found among the artists some people whose
interpretations are subtler, richer, and finer than those
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
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of scholars. Mehmet Gursoy in Turkey, Haripada Pal in
Bangladesh are the two of the artists I could name
who surpass the thinkers of the academy in their
interpretive panache. That is, if I take the time to get
to really know the artists of a place, I will find one,
maybe two, whose courageous interpretations sail
beyond my own tepid imaginings. My job is only to
stay long enough, to know the language well enough,
to have developed a sufficiently affectionate relationship,
and then, at the right moment to make the right
request. I do not undervalue my role in the work.
So, let me recapitulate. There are physical things to
record. There is a text, an object that occupies the sensate
world. It has dimension, size, duration, shape; it has
a beginning, an end; it has parts, segments, notes and
episodes. It needs to be recorded, documented
completely and accurately. The text is a puppet of
wood, paint, cloth and string. It only exists in some
physical setting. It is separable, yes, but it is always
somewhere, and that place must be documented. It
has a physical environment, the puppet is in a box, or
it is hanging on the back of a stage, ready to be put into
play. In a physical location, it is in a social location.
Someone is there. Maybe it is only the observer, maybe
it is the man, Kherati Ram, bent and carving, who made
it, or maybe it is Kherati Ram, turbaned for performance,
who picks the puppet from a post and drops it,
whistling, to dance on the stage, while his brother seated
to the left, sings a welcome.
47
Now the text, object, puppet, is in its physical and social
scenes, and we are documenting them. The people
who comprise the text’s social context are not stones or
birds. They are human beings, and since they are,
since they are beings of memory, imagination, and will,
they have biographies. The biographies must be
recorded so the objects we study can be understood as
the products of intention, of retention and innovation,
and not as the natural spill of instinctual behaviour.
Once these people have biographies, and we have
recorded them, we have begun to connect with them
on the basis of a shared humanity. Kherati Ram is a
man as I am a man. He is the yield
of his past, and dreams, as I am. A
man with a biography, he is a man
of attitude and opinion, of
information and theoretical insight.
I need to learn from him at least these
three things: Process; how is the text
created? Form; what are the forms
and categories in his full repertory
of creation? Interpretation; what
are the meanings of the puppets, who is portrayed and
why, how do they combine in the drama? Watching
his amazing play, I am stirred to a wild assembly of
interpretations, and I expect they would prove amusing
to other scholars, but taking my documentary role
seriously, and working toward the fulfilment of the
performance theory, I would want to ask Kherati Ram
for his interpretation, puppet by puppet, scene by scene
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 O N D O C U M E N TA R Y
in the drama, and I would want to accept him as a critic
and colleague, soliciting his opinion of my
interpretations. I have the right to develop my own
interpretations, but I have the obligation to test them
against the richer knowledge of the creators
themselves. Not by simple interviewing, but through
colloquy, through trades of insight in a collaborative
frame, the artist and the scholar come toward the
deepest levels of meaning.
The last thing to be documented might be called culture
in general. Culture as entailed by
performance theory differs from the
culture spread through the classic
ethnography. When I was trained in
anthropology, the idea of ethnography
involved going among a group of
people, treated as a collective. The
assumption was that they were alike
in fact and attitude. From them you
recorded data that fit in master
categories, facts about the economy, about social
structure, about religion. Then you came home. Now
I think of culture as an array of issues toward which
people orient in performance. The texts created in
performance raise the issues, and the problem for the
analyst is to relate the issue in the text back to the
experience of the participants. So we need to know as
much as possible about their experience, what it is like
48 to live where they do, as they do, with their terrors,
their delights, in their economic and political
circumstances. Our hope is to catch their references,
understanding their creations, as much as it is humanly
possible to do, as they understand them. There is no
limit to this work. But every minute in the field with
the creators, eating their food, feeling the itch of their
place, is an invaluable addition to our effort at
understanding. In essence, we must trust our human
intuitions, recording everything that strikes us, taking
photos, rolling tape, and above all filling page after page
of our notebooks. The most important of all
documentary technologies is the cheap pen and the
cheap notebook, tools for recording our own reactions,
which, it is to be hoped, are parallel enough in fellow
feeling to provide us a ground for mutual understanding
and interpretation.
Other people create the things, stories or puppets that
we record as texts. The texts refer to their experience.
Sharing experience, joining the artists in talk about
process, form, and meaning, we gain the right to create
our own texts. Our texts must be full of their texts.
Our interpretations must be chastened by their
interpretations. But our texts will be, at last, ours. The
hope is that our texts will be worthy of the people we
have struggled to understand.
A few simple notions can I believe, advance that
struggle. Creativity can be imagined as a combination
of two processes. One is the mental process by which
form is designed. The second is the bodily process of
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
A C T
putting form into the world, adjusting it to have positive
impact. To make the distinction clear in folklore terms,
consider the proverb that is, as proverbs generally are,
repeated verbatim. In repetition, apparently, there is
no creativity. But there is creativity in situating the
proverb in the world in the right way, locating it in the
flux of the instant so that it has consequence, function.
By contrast, let us say, the creativity of the epic is the
creativity of the mind soaring beyond mere
memorisation, winging free while the eyes are closed,
the audience forgotten, and the problem of creation is
sufficient unto itself. I sketch the extremes, one of
repetition in a new context, one of a creation breaking
free of contextual constraint. In the telling of a story,
the creativity might be in composing the tale, or it might
be in fitting the tale to its scene. Most likely it lies in
both at once.
In most creativity, in most of that which draws the
folklorist, the two processes fuse. The mind’s capacity
to make form becomes one with the desire to situate
form in the world as a communication, so that the
creation will usefully rearrange the conditions of human
existence. The creation is structured to function, and
the double process is essential to performance theory.
The processual conjunction might be called situated
intention or competence in context or art. The language
does not matter, so long as the idea is clear, and if it is,
then the implications for documentation should be
clear. As has been the case for more than two centuries,
our first job is to record texts, but now recognizing that
texts do not travel on their own through space and
time, recognizing that texts are created by individuals
who use their unique skills of learning and
transformation in order to compose, and their unique
sensitivity to situation, as well as their own opinions
about social order political purpose, to put their
compositions into the world, then we must do much
more than record texts, completely and precisely.
And I suggest, as a start, a little documentary list to
check off while you do your work. Document the text.
Document its physical setting. Document its social
setting. Record the biographies, in their words, of the
people involved, members of the audience, consumers
as well as creators. With the creator, you need to
document the process of creation, the forms that make
up the full repertory, and you need to document
particular meanings and general interpretations. Then
you need to document, intuitively, emotionally, as fully
as possible, the experience you share with the creator,
gaining a general feel for culture. At last the goal is to
know enough to be able to understand the text, so as
to derive a full account of its creation, and you do that,
we do that, so as to live with respect, usefully and
honourably among the people with whom we share
this earth.
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 O N F O L K N A R R AT I V E S
Folk narratives
Komal Kothari is Director, Rupayan Sansthan, Folklore
Institute of Rajasthan, Jodhpur, Rajasthan and Chairman,
NFSC
A study of folk narratives can have many, many
different directions. One could study the problem of
folk motives, or study tale types to
internationally put up the narrative
into a particular socket – one should
choose one direction to work. One
works in the field of folk narratives
to gather interesting stories, to write
and publish them; another decides
folktales are very interesting lessons
in our jobs as teachers; yet another
wants to collect stories and see who
tells the story, why, and for whom,
Komal Kothari as well as the type of social
significance or social message it
contains. So, there are hundred of ways in which folk
narratives can be studied, there is no one fixed way.
Some people do not work with folk narratives as a
distinct discipline. Rather, they collect whatever folk
narratives they find interesting and integrate them in
their work.
I believe that whatever one studies, one should try to
get the whole out of the whole and from what remains,
which is also a whole. This is apparent in folk narratives
where even after studying it any number of ways, what
will remain is a total whole. There would still be things
to be told about it. What I shall talk about folk narratives
here is the sum of my experiences after entering the
world of folk narratives. The first important factor for
me is: who is the narrator? Who is the teller of the tale?
I shall list out people of different types of folk narratives
with whom we worked in Rajasthan and collected
stories. I begin with professional storytellers. They
expect some remuneration, some fee, and are
professionally engaged in the job of storytelling. Shifting
from this description, we have an entire class of people
known as bhat, the genealogists. The role of these people
is to keep track of your family line, specifically the male
line. There are two types of bhats – mukhavancha bhat
and pothibancha bhat. The mukhavancha bhat maintain
genealogy records orally, not in writing. The pothibancha
bhat keep a bahi or record in which they write down
names.
Each family has to pay the pothibancha bhat for the writing
of their names, without which their names will not be
entered into his bahi or into the bhat’s memory. The
practice in Rajasthan is that the bhats visit families every
three years and record in the bahi the names of children
born, if any, in the families in the interim years. People
think that this kind of record of family history is kept
only for kings and jagirdars and such, but that is not
true. Any group in Rajasthan that claims a caste status
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
has to have a genealogist. Today, this institution of
recording genealogy is strong in the so-called low caste
groups. Most of the art forms, too, are alive today
because of this system which somehow or the other,
has kept many traditions alive for us.
During their visit, the bhats stay for two or three days
with a family or in the village and go from house to
house. In the evenings, they tell stories. This is actually
a full performance – they sit at a designated place, there
is an audience comprising men and women, and they
use highly ornate speech. There are also various
formulae in the storytelling – for example, when they
talk about a king, there is a lot of material about the
king’s appearance, the way he sat on his horse, about
what happened to him, the ornaments that he wore.
When they talk about a queen or a heroine, they use
many formulae to describe her beauty. There are also
ornamented descriptions of horses, camels, of drinking
and of the elements.
The mukhavancha bhats are only available with in the
low caste groups. They are generally nats or acrobats. 49
All the acrobats that we see on the streets are oral
genealogists of other caste groups in Rajasthan. In their
practice of genealogy, these bhats start with stories about
how the birth of the Sun, the moon and the trees, how
the various activities in society came into existence and
how natural phenomena occur. We have recordings of
some mukhavancha bhats and one can see a relation to
the organisation of the puranas. Puranas have five
chapters and the oral genealogists follow exactly the
same format while narrating stories. As no society or
group will survive without their own mythology, these
stories are about low caste people.
Our problem while working was finding the mythology
of the low caste people in society. Can their mythology
be the same as classical mythology? They too survive
on their mythology. Our general reaction was that it
would be difficult for them to survive on classical
mythology, so what do they have with them? This led
us to the institution of the mukhavancha bhats. These
mukhavancha bhats have hundreds of stories to tell in
the course of telling the genealogy of people. I shall tell
you one about a tribe known as the rauts, a small group
in the Mewad region. We heard the story inadvertently
while passing through the area. There was this acrobatic
group reciting the genealogy of the rauts. There was a
crowd of about five hundred men and women. The
story went thus: there was a person named Punia. At
that time, nobody knew agriculture. For the first time,
Punia sowed the seeds of corn and it turned out to be a
success. When he was to harvest his crop, the Sun and
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 O N F O L K N A R R AT I V E S
the Moon came and said, Punia, you have grown something
and it has turned out well. But would you have been able to
do it without us? Punia says, No, I would not have been
able to. So they asked for their share in the yield. Punia
told them that the whole field was theirs. They moved
through the field and saw the beautiful flowers at the
top of the corn plant. They also had not seen agriculture;
they said they shall take the upper part and the lower
part shall belong to Punia. So the sun and the moon
got nothing and Punia got the full crop as the corn
grows on the middle part of the plants.
Next year, Punia sowed sorghum or jowar. Again, the
Sun and the Moon came by. They said this time they
would take the middle part and Punia can take the upper
part. Punia again got all the grain and the Sun and the
Moon got none. At this part of the story, the storyteller
beat his drum very vigorously and asked if anybody
could tell him who is Surya (the Sun) and Chandra (the
Moon)? The audience answered in one voice that they
were Chandravanshi and Suryavanshi. These were the
rulers of that place. In the twelve hours of recording
that we have(at Rupayan Sansthan), there are many
such tales – if the high caste people listen to them, they
will be angry and unhappy. So, one way or the other, a
type of a big narrative lore of very important life aspect
of lot of people is available at this point. We consider
both types of bhats as professional storytellers – they
prepare themselves for the job, the particular way of
50 storytelling is transmitted to them, they learn it, and
narrate it. So, bhats form one group of storytellers. The
second group is made up of the known professional
storytellers. But we found in Rajasthan that these people
mostly work at night – they have to work for the entire
night and they have a lot of free time in between. When
the people gather before them, they tell stories to pass
the time. Not everybody can tell these stories, there are
a few people in the village who specialise in narrating
them. And they are always long – the stories last for an
hour or two. Similarly, when people in the villages are
sitting and doing nothing, waiting for something or the
other, they will ask the storyteller from that place to
narrate a story and he would do so. These are very
compact stories. Again, these storytellers also use
heightened speech as well as theatricality, a sort of
organised performing situation.
The third situation is when we ask any
person to tell a story, he says that he does
not know. Have you listened to
something? He says no, I have not. But
the same person, if some occasion
happens, would tell a story to establish
his point. Out of many stories that came
to mind, I tell you this story.
Somebody has taken a loan from another person and
he was unable to repay. In Indian situations, when a
person takes a private loan, it is repaid even in fourteen
generations or twenty generations; they do not feel
totally free until they repay the loan. The loan,
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
indigenously given, is on exorbitant interest. I might
have taken a loan of Rs. 200 and I might have paid Rs.
2,000 or Rs. 20,000 on interest but yet another Rs. 2,000
might be left to repay. This is the situation today, I do
not know about any other parts of India, but it is so in
Rajasthan. So, people feel that if we have taken a loan
from you, we would repay by washing in the milk, and
this would be the expression they use.
So, this is the situation for the person who has taken
the loan. And then, somebody would come up with a
story. The story would be: a person who took a loan
died and the person who gave the loan also died. The
person who took the loan was reborn as an elephant
and the person who gave the loan was reborn as a bull.
Both of them are in the same kingdom. It so happened
that one day, the elephant became mad and started
killing people and rummaging through the kingdom.
So, the king offered half of the kingdom to any person
who would be able to tame this elephant. Everybody
was afraid of the mad elephant but the bull told the
peasant who owned him, Let me go. I shall go and defeat
him. The peasant was sceptical but allowed the bull to
try. As soon as the elephant saw the person who had
given him the loan in the form of a bull, he ran away. A
number of stories are told in this way to establish some
point or the other. But these stories will never come to
us if you ask them to tell a story. Most of our collections
are from my friend who works, writes and publishes
folktales – he has published fourteen volumes of
folktales collected from various places. Most stories
actually come from situations where the storytellers try
to make a point. When we were living with them in the
village, such situations would arise.
We see a lot of proverbs used in similar situations. Most
of the proverbs actually have stories behind them – we
call them proverbial tales. Let me tell you a story that
comes to mind: there is a proverb in Rajasthani that
translates to, I am the person who can say no, who are you
to say no. This is used in a number of situations.
Proverbs, like words, don’t have a single meaning, and
they are used according to the context and give meaning
to that particular situation and the context is never the
same. The story in case is that of an old woman who
had gone to the jungle to collect firewood. As she was
coming home with a heavy load on her head, a sadhu
passing that way saw her and said, you are an old lady
and you are carrying so much weight. Give me the load; I
shall carry it to your home. She appreciated his gesture
and said, carry it for me, and when we reach home, I shall
give you something for it. When they reached her place,
she went inside and did not come out because then she
would have to give him something for helping her bring
the wood. Meanwhile, the old woman’s daughter-in-
law came out and the sadhu asked her for something.
She said, No, we would not give you anything. Then the
angry mother-in-law came out and asked, what right
did you have to say no? Only I have the right to say no.
Hence the above-mentioned proverb.
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 O N F O L K N A R R AT I V E S
There is another proverb, Even when a doomani weeps,
there is some melody in it. (A doomani is a woman from
the musician community). But the proverb is not
restricted to women and musicians. For example,
somebody meets me and I immediately start talking
about folklore, and even if he or she talks about
something else, I bring the conversation back to folklore.
The person might recount that whenever you meet
Komal, he talks about one thing only. And then the
person might quote this proverb. Then there are the
jokes that are prevalent in hundreds of ways in the
villages. Some are honourable; some can’t be talked
about freely. These again fall into the category of
narrative. And then we have the women’s narratives of
stories. The women tell stories to their children. In this
way, we work a little more in detail. Again the problem
that comes up is about who is the bearer of the tradition,
as was discussed in our first lecture by Henry Glassie.
In my childhood, too, I heard stories – if I stress my
memory, I might be able to remember a few, may be in
a skeletal form. Every child hears stories. As far as rural
Rajasthan is concerned, no child grows up without
stories. It is as important as mother’s milk. But a child
who never retells these stories is not the bearer of the
tale. The other important thing to remember is that
when women tell stories to their children, it is an adult
addressing a child. The format of the story is adult
format, not children’s format. Therefore, the child would
never be able to express himself or herself through that
story. Up to the age of seven, we found that children
never tell stories to other children or to anybody else,
so they never become the bearers of the stories.
What I tell you now is absolutely personal. Whenever I
try to work in any particular field, whether it is folk
narratives, or songs or gods and goddesses, the first
thing I do is to do it in my family and try to see the
situation there and try to ascertain because I can ask
them hundreds of questions in hundreds of ways and I
would get some kind of reply or no reply at all. I started
trying to remember stories I’d heard in my childhood.
I was brought up in my maternal family. I mostly grew
there and it was in the Mewad and Udaipur region.
Only one story comes to mind, and my maternal aunt
told me that one. I remember we were a lot of boys of
the same age in my group and we would ask her to tell
the story again and again and therefore it might have
remained in my memory. The story was simple and
short. There was a pair of birds. They decided to put
up a swing on a well. The birds used to swing on it.
But it was made of very thin thread and the thin thread
broke. She never said anything more than that. But we
always felt sorry for this pair of birds. After a very long
time, when I was working on folktales, this story came
back to me. By this time I was about fifty-five years
old. When I retold the story to myself, I realised that
the birds did not fall in the well but they flew away. As
soon as I realised that the birds flew, it was as if a great
burden had been taken off my heart.
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
I enquired why people who tell the story do not
immediately tell the moral of the story. This puts up a
very different attitude to the women’s storytelling. They
would never, never tell the moral of story to the child –
they will leave it to the child to grow and understand
not only one moral but different shades of meaning
out of a story. This is what was happening in the
traditional society. But when we tried to bring these
stories to the schools, we found that we begin with the
moral of the story, and then tell the story. Or after telling
the story, we try to explain the moral. Not only that,
the children never retold the stories they had been told.
The format was such that it was not possible for the
child to come out with the story; like the lullaby that is
sung to the child by an adult and cannot be sung by a
child to another child. Nowadays, we tell a child a story
in the night before sleeping and in the morning, at
breakfast, we ask the child what the lion did and what
the fox did. If the child is able to answer, we feel very
happy that the child has learnt the story. But this was
not the purpose in traditional society – to examine
whether the child knows the story or not. Now, we
learned that no child under the age of eight or nine
ever gets a story that has to do with religion. It may
appear in some families – may be Brahmin families.
But, in general, only after the child is seven does religion
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Every child hears stories. As far as
rural Rajasthan is concerned, no 51
child grows up without stories.
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appear in stories. The child never retells the story. So,
again, who is the bearer of the tale? In the case of the
professional and other storytellers, they have a particular
type of recruitment for particular types of tradition. They
learn the stories from those sources. But these stories
that women narrate, how do they move on?
We found that mothers in rural areas are never
storytellers. We also found that the grandmother does
not tell stories if the grandfather is alive. Then we looked
into the way of life in which the mother is engaged for
the evening – prepare food, wash things, ready the beds,
do the things necessary for the next morning and so
on. This is the time when children would sleep and
she had no time to attend to the child. So, she never
told stories. Most adults, when asked to remember
bedtime stories they’d heard in their childhood, would
say, who will tell us stories? Mother would give us a good
slap and ask us to go to sleep. But this is not true. They
were told stories. They need to be goaded again and
again to remember something.
In such a situation in rural areas, we found that if there
was a widow in the family, she is the one who tells the
stories. She is usually the one who looks after the
children in the family after the husband’s death. She is
in contact with the children all the time. Any family we
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

visit, we learn about the family members. If there is a
widow, we ask her to tell us stories. She is able to tell
us many, many tales. So, here is the bearer of a very
different generic type of a story. We ask these widows
the source of these stories. They say they heard the
stories from their families. But they had also collected
stories later on. When asked if she told the stories when
her husband was alive, the answer is no. Another thing
becomes important: when a professional storyteller talks
to other people, he is professionally prepared and tells
the story to many people. But it is different in stories
narrated in houses. For example, if a mother tells a
story to her five children – say, three daughters and
two sons– all five may not come and listen to the story.
They may be of different ages. And even if all of them
are present, only one or two might be listening. And it
is a personal, conversational mode of storytelling. A
different type of language is used – the theme, the way
of talking, how the story begins and ends. This is the
type of stories children hear from women in the family.
Then there is another genre of stories narrated by
women. These are the vrat kathas. There are certain
fasting days in a year, certain time cycles, in which
they eat only once a day or not eat throughout the day.
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Most of the time when I am in my
village, I do not wear a watch. I do
52 not even know the date or the day. It
is not needed there. But when I come
to Jodhpur, date does matter.
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They have to observe certain rituals, such as they’d eat
only after the moon rises. The vrat stories are told on
these occasions. The same story is narrated every year
for that particular vrat, but there are variations according
to the region. This type of storytelling led us to another
type of problem. How is time divided in a given society
or group? My wife and I use different calendars. In her
calendar, it does not hold that one has to get the salary
on the first day of the month or that Sundays or second
Saturdays are holidays. She is always working and there
are no holidays for her. She lives according to the Indian
calendar, which is the tithi. She has to have a calendar
of her own in which she sees the eighth, ninth days of
the fortnight or that the eleventh is cut off, only twelfth
day is there and on these calculations, the vrat day is
determined.
The format of vrat stories is that a situation arises in
which a family gets into difficulty because somebody
in the family was not observing this vrat. They have to
face a lot of tragedies, but finally the gods would come
when this particular vrat is observed, and everything
would be alright. So the vrat is something to please the
deity. The factor that became important for us in the
study of the vrats is the time divided among the women’s
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O N F O L K N A R R AT I V E S
groups of Indian society? They might have a weekly
vrat, a Monday vrat or a Saturday vrat – it will appear
every week. Some vrats are done, say, on the eleventh
of every fortnight, so there would be two vrats in a
month. Others are observed on amavasya or the night
of no moon. Then, the vrat would be once a month.
Then we have vrats that move in two-monthly, three-
monthly, four-monthly, six-monthly or yearly cycle.
Finally, we found that the vrat is the absolute clue to
the working timeframe for the women. It is this that
keeps them aware of what we call date. Most of the
time when I am in my village, I do not wear a watch. I
do not even know the date or the day. It is not needed
there. But when I come to Jodhpur, date does matter.
So, the vrat stories are to be looked into in conjunction
with the tithis. There are also many folktales that refer
to this type of time division in people’s lives.
So far, the narratives I have been talking about are the
prose narratives and normal speech. There are sung
narratives, as well. There are ballads. Unfortunately,
in Indian folklore studies, we do not see the proper
understanding of the ballad type. People only talk about
the epic type where there is a long narration and the
canvas is bigger. But, ballads receive the least possible
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cognisance. Among the women’s songs are hundreds
of ballads. In one of the studies we are conducting now
about women’s songs, we came across a particular
ceremony called night-wake (ratijaga) done in families
at childbirth, marriage and death, in which these songs
are sung. Some of the songs are lyrical, but some are
total narratives. These songs contain a story line, but
there is no mention of the name of the place, or names
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of characters and there is no time prescribed in the story.
One of the most popular songs is the panihari. Anywhere
in Rajasthan, if you request, he or she would sing this
song. Panihari is a narrative song. The story line is
something like this: A man riding a camel came to a
water hole, nadi as we call it, where anyone could come
and drink water. A girl is also drinking water there,
and the camel rider asks her some questions and praises
her beauty. The girl gets angry that a stranger should
talk to her in this manner and goes home ruffled. The
man follows her. Reaching home, she complains to her
mother that the man has been harassing her. Her mother
comes out, sees the man and finally says that this is the
man to whom the girl has been betrothed. This is the
story – no place is mentioned, no names of the persons.
We asked the people what other songs they sing about
in the night-wake (ratijaga) ceremony, and they said they
sing about gods and goddesses. We came across sixteen
songs about gods and goddesses. We didn’t get into
these gods and goddesses, but we went into the details
of the whole-night sessions. We found that right up to
midnight, people would sing songs related to gods and
goddesses. After that, they would sing singaru songs,
or songs of romance. One story comes in here: A girl is
being married off. Her father wants to give her dahej
(dowry). He tells her to take gold, take cattle, take
VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001
 O N F O L K N A R R AT I V E S
buffaloes, take ornaments or take money. All the time,
the girl says she would not take any of these, that she
wants only one thing. When the father asks her what it
is, she asks for her beautiful maidservant
who works for the family, with whom the
father had got involved. So, to save her
mother and to give her mother a good life,
the girl asks for the maidservant. The father
says okay but warns her that she has to be
careful. The girl insists, and so she takes
the maidservant along with her. The new
bride prescribed a lot of rules for the
maidservant; the maid was not allowed to
take a bath everyday, she could not wear
good clothes or ornaments nor could she
wear any makeup. And she kept a strict
watch on the maid to see that the maid followed all
this. But one day she was invited to attend a night-wake
(ratijaga) ceremony that she could not avoid. Before
going, she again instructed the maid not to do anything
that would make her look beautiful. At the ceremony
at around midnight when she looked at her palace she
saw lights in the part of the palace where she slept.
She rushed back immediately and found her husband
involved with the maidservant.
These types of stories come in the nature of a ballad.
Why are they sung? What is their message? This is
difficult for me to discuss now.
In another situation, another story is about a girl who
gets married and goes to her in-laws’ house. The next
morning she goes to a small lake near her house to
fetch water and she sees a peacock. When she tries to
fill her pot, the peacock comes and puts its feathers at
that spot and does not allow her to fill water, and says,
you are a beautiful bride. Why don’t you come with me? I,
too, am beautiful. The bride decides to elope with the
peacock. But her younger sister-in-law, who has come
with the bride, goes back and tells everyone that the
bride has eloped with the peacock. The people pursue
her, kill the peacock, and bring the new bride back
home. In the evening, she is served food. After she
finishes eating, they inform her that she has eaten the
peacock’s meat. This is another night-wake (ratijaga) song.
We now have more than forty songs in our archive. As
far as the narrative part is concerned, these ballad types
have not been studied generically in any part of India.
We have hundreds and hundreds of ballads. In our
collection, would have five hundred. Otherwise, most
of the time, these stories rarely get into folk songs and
they fall into categories other than merely folk songs.
The narrative element starts guiding them in a different
way.
Let’s come to oral epics, again narrative. There are
different types of oral epics. We have oral epics where
there is a long scroll, nearly two hundred episodes of
the epic painted on it – a man and woman sing before
the particular scroll and tells the story of Pabu. The
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
musical instrument played along with it is the
Ravanhatha. Then there is another scroll that goes by
the name of Bagdawat or Dev Narayan, and the
instrument played with it is the jantar. These stories are
very long. In our recordings, we have about five, six
versions of the Pabu story. None of them moves for less
than twenty to thirty two hours. The Bagdawat moves
from thirty to forty eight hours.
There is this particular epic of Heer and Ranjha, sung
in the eastern parts of Rajasthan like Alwar and
Bharatpur. It is also found in Haryana, in Agra and in
Manipur. As soon as I say Heer Ranjha, everybody
thinks of a romantic tale. A Sufi poet Wajid Ali Shah
took this story and wrote it in the Sufi mould. That is
the Heer-Ranjha story that became famous from Punjab.
It is sung for not spreading the cattle epidemic. There
is a particular disease that affects cattle, buffaloes and
horses, in which the foot splits into two. It is contagious
and moves quickly like an epidemic and affects
thousands of animals. In this region, the people would
say that when such an epidemic occurs, we do the patha
of Heer-Ranjha. Now this patha is very peculiar. Usually
it is the patha of Ramayan or the patha of Mahabharat or
the patha of Geeta – only religious treatises are known
as paths. But here, they talk about the patha of Heer
Ranjha. This story is sung for this purpose by
professional musicians of a particular caste of that region
as well as by peasants. An important group of this kind
is the jogi. This leads to another problem. The area that 53
I am talking about is Mathura, Brindavan, Bharatpur
and Alwar. This is the area of the cows, the area of
Krishna. But for curing the cows today, Krishna is not
the effective god. So, who can cure a cow or a buffalo
today? It is Ranjha. Ranjha was Mahiwal, which means
mahish paal, the buffalo-keeper. He became the saviour
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Unfortunately, in Indian folklore
studies, we do not see the proper
understanding of the ballad type.
People only talk about the epic type
where there is a long narration and
the canvas is bigger.
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of cows and buffaloes. He is also a flute player like
Krishna. Then there is another situation. Which are the
societies that consume the milk of buffaloes. If you go
to Manipur, Meghalaya, China or Tibet, the people there
do not consume buffalo milk. Here, the buffalo is mainly
a sacrificial animal. Gradually, we found that we can
divide even the peasant groups depending on whether
they rear cows or buffaloes. Now, we have started
talking about buffalo culture and cow culture. So, this
Heer-Ranjha is sung in a particular way and this version
is not well known. It is very different from the Wajid
Ali Shah’s version.
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

In the same category comes the tradition of Dewal or
Pandav or Mahabharat stories. But except for the names
and characters, the stories have nothing to do with the
Mahabharat. All stories of Dewal or Garath or Pandav
actually begin after the end of Mahabharat. A new
situation turns up, a new story unfolds, while the
characters remain the same. These type of stories are
called Pandavon ki Katha, Pandavon ki Phaliyan and Pandun
ke Kade. They run absolutely parallel to Mahabharat
situations.
One story is known as the Drupad Puran. The Great
War is finished. The Pandavas are in one camp and the
Kauravas in the other, and everything is fine. In the
Pandava camp, Draupadi arrives. As soon as she enters,
Yudhistra gets up and touches her feet. Bheema gets
angry and says that whatever Draupadi is, Yudhistra is
her husband. Why does he touch her feet? Yudhistra
tries to calm him down. But Bheema wants an
explanation. Knowing Bheema’s anger, Yudhistra does
not want to get into an argument. Instead, he asks Bhima
if he has heard that in a particular forest there is a demon
that comes every night and destroys the people there.
Bheema immediately gets interested and wants to know
where the demon is. Yudhistra tells him where the forest
is and tells him that the demon would come at midnight
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Most of the time, I feel that what is
54
our world but a narrative. Can we
survive without stories?
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and that Bheema was to destroy it. Bheema goes to the
forest, climbs a tall, thick tree and waits for the demon.
But at midnight, he sees a big group of people who
clean a spot, spread beautiful, costly carpets and arrange
chairs made of gold, silver and precious stones. All the
gods and goddesses start coming and they take their
respective places. Bheema, who is watching from the
Dholki
INDIAN FOLKLIFE
O N F O L K N A R R AT I V E S
tree, sees that a lady arrives and occupies the main
chair. The lady is none other than Draupadi.
As soon as Draupadi takes her seat, the gods start
complaining that she had taken birth in the world to
destroy the Pandava s . B u t t h e
Mahabharat is over and the Pandavas are
still alive. She had taken a vow in Vaikunt
to eliminate the Pandavas. Draupadi
admits this fact and says that she could
not do it because whenever she said
anything, the five brothers accepted it like
a law. So, she did not get a chance to be
angry with them or do anything to them.
But she asks the gods and goddesses not to worry and
says that only that morning, Bheema tried to question
Yudhistra for the first time. Now the time has come for
her to destroy them. The story goes on – it’s a long
story. But it adds a whole frame of such a story to the
Pandava tale that moves on a very different line. The
narratives that I describe are what I could remember at
this moment. There are many other ways in which
narratives are told. Most of the time, I feel that what is
our world but a narrative. Can we survive without
stories?
To conclude, let me tell you a story. There was a king
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and he wanted to be told a story that would tire him of
saying yes, what we call the hoonkara. He promised
half his kingdom to any storyteller who could do this
to him. One storyteller approached. He started by saying
that a peasant had a big house and grain was stored in
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one seed and went off. The king said yes. Then he said
the bird came and took another seed, and then another.
The king said alright the bird came and took away all
the seeds. The storyteller said the bird came and took
away all the grain in the granary and I shall proceed
with the story. So, I end here – the story would never
end. [We are thankful to Sopan Joshi for editing
help......Editor]
Murli Surnai
VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001
 R E F L E C T I O N S
Reflections
Interview with Kapila Vatsyayan
by M.D.Muthukumaraswamy and Venu
Kapila Vatsyayan is President of Indian International Centre,
New Delhi and distinguished author of many books
Venu: First of all, let me thank you for coming and
sharing your thoughts during travel, during field visit,
in-group discussions and during
the dinner table discussions – it
was really a kind of moving
experience for all of us. You were
talking about some kind of load
folklore carries within it. What is
that moment in folklore, which
you find very singular, which
Kapila Vatsyayan could be beneficial to folklorists in
their future exploratory research?
Kapila: I first want to thank NFSC for having thought
of me and to Muthukumaraswamy who kept insisting
that I should come. I am grateful – it is like a piece of
archives that has been taken out to participate in the
present. It has been a great learning experience for
me. When I said that folklore carries a moment of history
– it has two dimensions. One dimension was a purely
academic or the dimension of the evolution of certain
disciplines and in that one statement what was I really
containing? I was really eluding to a more extensive as
also a deeper and a complex discourse. Westernisation
is a limiting word but let’s understand it as that.
The disciplines of archaeology, anthropology and the
nature even of historical studies came into being as a
direct concomitant of the evolutionary paradigms. What
happened in the field of the natural sciences, in the
emerging new philosophies of Western Europe and at
the level of our relations is something that has been
discussed at great length. Perhaps still discussed
insufficiently –was what we call the era of enlightenment
and I was situating folklore at that moment where the
European psyche was aware simultaneously of
ascensions on the one hand and divisions that had been
done in knowledge but also aware of a sense of loss
and it was in that that these early ethnologists in the
study of smaller societies came into being. And as
distinct from another civilisational trend which was
moving people to homogenisation and we’ll leave the
European situation there.
Now we come to whether the Indian or the situation in
whether you call it in geographical terms South Asia or
South East Asia or extend it to Africa and portions of
Latin America, or use another appellation in a way
applicable to some or most countries but not all – that
is, those countries which were colonial territories earlier
and which have received political freedom. These
countries show two simultaneous threads – one, all that
they absorbed from the colonial rule and what happened
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
with the expansions which came with the era of
enlightenment and furthermore what Edward Said has
tried to argue in his book on Orientalism and the
construct of these cultures. And on the other, there is
the phenomenon, unlike in Europe, of the continuities
of those, call them by the category of indigenous or call
them native category or call them the social structure
which continues.
We are going through a transformation, at least some
percentage of Indian society is going through a
transformation of becoming again a homogenised global
society and then the parallels are that on the one hand
you are moving towards that; on the other you have a
sense of loss or you are at least aware of the fidelity of
the existence of the plurality of your cultures and that
therefore which you have rightly said folklore as a
discipline comes into India in its Indian historical,
sociological situation and carries with it another moment
of history.
55
Venu: Is this process available to us in a linear
development graph? How are they related to forms of
quality of life in our times- whether we may call them
aesthetic or ecologically sustainable?
MDM: In the modern interpretations of folklore, we
have abandoned the evolutionary paradigm on the one
hand and the western theoretical models that are
implicitly colonial on the other. I am also so glad that
you brought Edward said into our discussion. In this
context, your ways of using natural categories to
interpret and theorise on cultural phenomena – for
instance, your use of time as a category to bring together
diverse Indian cultural instances under one paradigm/
continuum –are amazingly insightful. But such
theorising has the inherent risk of dehistoricising and
decontextualising cultural happenings. How would you
respond to such demands of theorising? Are there not
many, many ways a theorising?
Kapila: Let me say that both of you have really made
very valid and perceptive statements – I have very little
to add to that. May I take up the few issues, which I
have comprehended; then I will come to the point you
made in terms of theorising. There are two aspects of
this – one, that unless you have at least tried to observe
and comprehend, how do you act? Because if your
own perception is a derived perception, that is by other
people’s writings or other people’s conclusions, then
when you are in the area of action or decision-making
or policy-making you would go by that, to give a very
crude example if administration is to be done on the
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

basis of which we all use, I have used extensively, census
commission reports, gazetteers and so on and so forth,
we begin at the very root of data collection.
Now at that point we have to see whether that mode
reflects the kind of phenomenon we want to capture
and therefore this whole process of what you are
launching on documentation is a new methodology for
understanding and comprehending that phenomenon
first. Because I can only talk about any kind of re-
orientation – first let me understand what the existential
situation is and the understanding of that existential
situation does become a Roshomon story. Long ago when
Arjuna was asked about what does he see in that fish –
and there my stress is that the moment of our seeing is
also that moment or attitude of our seeing without our
knowing it because we are empowered in a certain way.
Regarding the question about structures or to modify
the existing structures of self-governance that is where
I think that India both faces a challenge as also India is
singularly competent to evolve models which would
be applicable not only to India but to the other colonial
countries. I tried to convey this argument through
detour routes in my presentation too – but both of you
were very perceptive and you got that. Instead of having
standardised models of development – I have been part
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Folklore is both the reflector and the
56 mediator. It is a part of our social
structure – you cannot look at it
only as an artistic form.
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
of the nuts and bolts of that machinery, I know how it
works, whether it is the question of water or grains or
education most of all, that you sit in planning
commissions and then you evolve a model which is
going to be applicable from Arunachal to Kerala. Folklore
is both the reflector and the mediator. It is a part of our
social structure – you cannot look at it only as an artistic
form.
Therefore romanticisation of the artistic form is not going
to enable you to get into this. So if we do that then the
study of what we are calling folklore, let’s forget
appellations and labels, whatever we are doing to study
local cultures in all their complexities can bring out
prototypes of developmental models. Plural modelling
is what I was getting at. Biodiversity and cultural
diversity are primary in this perception. Not only we
are a multicultural people but we are also a multi-identity
people and that each one of us has multiple identities
within us. And I was talking of an in-built framework
of both autonomy or self-containment and
interconnections.
What was the burden of Komalda’s most beautiful and
moving presentation on folk narratives today? (See Komal
Kothari’s article in this issue-Editor) Every single story he
INDIAN FOLKLIFE
R E F L E C T I O N S
told you did have, interconnections and
interdependence. If from all these, we are able to throw
up even three or four models of development or self-
organising systems, then I think that our task is done.
In this process you also are looking at yourself. Theory,
in the last analysis, is not a goal; after all it is only a
framework of enquiry, it is also a tool in which whether
you go by the normal way of exposition of a thesis and
hypothesis and so on and so forth or any other way. In
that, in my very small way in which I have been
stressing, is that as the world developed, and this is
not an evaluative statement, and just as I speak the
English language and a number of other Indian
languages and I see the integrity of each of these
languages, when I speak English I use my nouns and
my verbs, my conjunctions and prepositions in one way
and that is what is given to me and when I switch to
Sanskrit, Hindi and Bengali, it is not only in the language
but it is in the thought language that I switch.
Although we are speaking the two languages of thought
and semantics, we have to be careful. The second
language is also permeating at the lowest levels, hence
we are a minority and that minority is claiming to be
the mainstream and I was warning against that. I was
cautioning against because since we have been given
that empowerment or privilege, and we are a privileged
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even now not more than 3% of India. And by that
privilege it is for us to learn those other multiple
languages rather than impose our language of thought
and perception in even theorising into when you’re
making any kind of abstracts on the phenomenon –
this is one part of it.
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ The second part of it is to get back to where I said that
there are two systems of thought and it is not good to
give names as East, West and Occident, Orient and so
on; I have problems with it – but it is true that a construct
was made related to the power of knowledge and
everything that folklore discusses. However, when I
was saying this, all I was saying was on a primary level
that there are cultures and civilisations, which have
developed on the basis of this integral relationship of
man and nature and environment. Again, everything
that Komal said was a substantiation of what I had said
at a theoretical level. What are these reptiles, what are
these cattle doing and you get to the Todas – I have
been instrumental in the making of a film on them –
they have names for their animals, not names for their
human beings. This integral relationship of nature,
both outside and inside, was something that was
mentioned.
The possibility of mutation of life forms gave rise to a
very different worldview. The whole idea of the pinda
and the brahmaanda, the idea of jeev and that jeev is as
much in the ant as in you or in God. The myth is not
that the gods are sitting out there, the gods are sitting
right here and they are also changing; they are as much
vulnerable, there is no completeness in any one of those
gods, they are full of flaws. You know the famous
story of Indra and Brahma; Indra is always in power and
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 R E F L E C T I O N S
always in trouble. So he went to Brahma and asking
about a lot of things. As he was talking, there was this
whole line of ants that was moving and he got very
irritated and he told Brahma, What’s all this? I can’t be
sitting here in this dirty place with these ants. Brahma smiled
and said, you know who those ants are? Those are all Indras
of the previous births. The entire mythology is in terms
of where you are incomplete and completeness. From
that man and nature as also jeev and the idea of the
inanimate and animate, you are also getting to another
level in which there is a gradation and that gradation is
a consciousness which emerges from the principle of
mutation, a consciousness of this that is the gross that
can become the subtle, that which is the unrefined which
can become the refined, a purely chemical process
whether materially or physically or spiritually.
You are also getting to your never being complete. The
whole of the Upanishads and all the stories – Geeta
Ramanujam just now told me a story about the crow –
and all those stories in Tamil Nadu, everywhere
someone is dependent on someone else. Like the five
senses had a fight with each other, ultimately they
realised that they were all disabled without the other;
the five elements had a fight, Agni said I am supreme,
etc. What are all these? And then every time, whether
it is folklore or the Upanishads, what are those stories
about the breaking of the fig and you go on breaking
the fig? What are the stories of the salt doll that gets
immersed in the ocean and then, you know, where the
salt is or not the salt is but where the doll is. So (a)
interconnection and (b) that you are part of a larger
universe, which is what the social system is trying to
tell you.
The third then that the divisions are not in terms, to
cut a very, complex concept, of binary opposites in
conflict but these are in triads – you have threes, you
have fives, you have sevens, and therefore these
numbers, whether it is the seven sisters of this local
myth, you can carry it through any part of India and at
any level, tribal or anything like that. There are either
seven brothers or seven sisters and this can be
interpreted at the cosmological level or at the sociological
or the anthropological level, or in terms of caste and
class structures, and the whole gender relationships,
which come to play a part in it. These are vertical
divisions; at the horizontal level there is a question of
both space and time. Now you have the four directions
and the multiples of four, which becomes eight, sixteen
and so on. Because then life is governed by those
sixteen’s. That is, abstraction is done, categories are
made and those categories are inter-penetrative
categories.
So you cannot talk of high philosophy, something that
is what we have done of an insulated textual tradition,
unrelated to everything that you were doing of the oral
tradition, so those hierarchies cannot be established.
In fact, it is a constant movement – that is what I came
to yesterday but did not elaborate – that at the level of
theory, marg is not something which is a superior
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
category at all; it is a directional route, it is a route which
conveys from the etymology of mrig, it is the direction
of the mrig and while this is something which is formed
in time and space, and can again flow into the marg.
So the marg can become desa, the desa can become marg.
When we talk about only the sophisticated, about the
textual and there is this whole debate of what constitutes
the textual and what constitutes the oral, because once
again we have taken those developmental issues and
placed them in the unsaid hierarchy of the pre-literate
to literacy. On the other hand, we have gone by the
fact that we think that the oral belongs to just all this
that we are studying and the textual belongs to some
brahminical business.
So the other point that I was making was that the oral
is as ballad in that which you would call the brahminical
tradition in old history terms as it is in these levels.
There are distinctions and those distinctions as much
as the great example that you heard the other day was
in music. It wasn’t that there was no melody there and
it wasn’t that there was no tala there; structures were
different but those structures in terms of we have said
that there is a raga and a tala system which we call the
classical system. But if we say that that is not related to
all that langas and manganyars were singing, we would
be totally wrong. In fact, I would say that at some
point in history, it is just these that got crystallised into
what we recognise as the more structured systems in
which individual performance takes place and therefore,
for me, music is a great indicator and a reflector of
57
theoretical constructs.
MDM: I am familiar with some of your work, not all of
them. To put you a question of my own reading of
your work and what you just now spoke about, firstly,
you seem to carry a Benares with you all the time, a
Benares that erupts in contrast to the theoreticians of
folklore who believe in hierarchy. But they have made
the systems, the texts, the interpretative modes and
the interpretations – you talked about the Upanishads
– there is a definitive point in the history
of Indian philosophy where the mind is
supposed to be the supreme over the
other senses. Later on, when you look at
it, the hierarchy of the senses in relation
to the mind became the social hierarchy
and what are related to the mind, what
uses the mind becomes the classical and
what is related to the senses, what use the other senses
become the folk. The social hierarchy and the hierarchy
of the senses in the process sometimes have a definitive
correlation in terms of theorising about Indian life. In
this background, how do you see your past and also
your future work?
Kapila: There are a series of questions on different
levels here that you have asked. I have not done any
great theorising – I have some perceptions, I try to gave
expression write them not because I was part of an
academia or anything like that. Moreover it pleased me
to keep myself engaged, probably a waste of time but I
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 R E F L E C T I O N S
have done it for some decades of my life. The moment
you say that you carry a certain Benares in you that
means you say that I also carry a Harvard and a Michigan
and I carry many masters within me. In this
conversation, yes, I mentioned the Upanishads to you –
but that does not mean at all that therefore I am
considering either the Upanishads or the
Vedanta – I did not mention the word
Vedanta, remember that and I want to be
very clear and unequivocal to you on this
because it is your association that the
moment the word Upanishads come, a
whole series of secondary writing on
Upanishads gets internalised within you –
I have read the Upanishads outside
philosophy; I have read them as I read my folktales;
that is why I mentioned all the parables and not what
the beginnings of philosophical systems are.
You made another observation that as we went along
that there was a dichotomy that took place between the
mind and the senses – that the mind became the classical
tradition and the senses became the folk tradition. I
am not sure whether, as they say in America, I buy that
argument or that historical perspective at all because
my understanding of this tradition is – for whatever it
is worth, I may be wrong in many ways and tomorrow
morning I might have another view and have another
insight. At the moment, I think that this tradition
celebrates the senses in a manner, which very few others
58 do, and I use the word celebration with purpose. Because
if it did not see the interrelationship of the senses and
mind and soul, three-fourths of the literature of this
country would have to be put down in the well. I am
not talking about Khajuraho – and that there is only a
minor philosophical stream that is negating the senses,
either negating the senses or subordinating the senses.
Look at the whole of the Buddhist tradition; please read
the Abhidharma Kosa; look at the vajrayana tradition; look
at what metaphors are used for the concepts of upaya
and prajna. Look at the Jain tradition and you will find
that at no time is this aspect of the relationship of the
motor and the sensory, and the outer and the inner, is
negated in the tradition right up to the fifteenth century.
And the two examples that I can give you of that is
something that I have studied for a few decades of my
life and in the work that I have done on the Gita Govinda.
This is a post-Upanishadic twelfth century text. How does
this text travel to all parts of India and receives the
kind of dimensions and the purely metaphysical,
theological, artistic levels? How is it possible for it to
travel from Nepal to Kerala? Indeed it is not at the level
of what we call classical. In Kerala, I have recordings
of ten different types of singing the Gita Govinda and
interpretations of that, from the ambalavasis to the people
singing in the Guruvayoor temple. So for me, there is
no classification of classical and folk.
MDM: Yes, I see what you mean. But these social
categories of hierarchy are not intrinsic to art forms
themselves.
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
Kapila: Exactly, so that it becomes an outer sociological
category rather than an artistic category. Therefore, we
have to find some other appellations and I accept this
criticism but since now those books have gone into the
historical mythology of writing, I cannot do anything
with them – the Publications Division wanted to do
another edition, I suggested can we have another title
and gave them one or two but they said, No, no, Kapilaji,
it is this book which has to be…
Venu: You have rightly pointed out about certain kind
of cultural dynamics, which is taking shape over the
centuries. If you look at recent works happening in
the South Asian cultural scene, it is no more a space
which colonial power occupies completely and where
the colonised merely accept it. May be all South Asian
traditions which are closer to UK has also moved the
UK cultural space in a different way. I am not saying
there is an overwhelming work from South Asians in
London, but sometimes it has also moved their culture;
always there is borrowing and deeper encounters
between cultures. May be it could happen even with
our own folk traditions too, for example Kabir is a kind
of summation of a long oral tradition at a certain point
in history. May be one should look closely at the
performances we had during the workshop. The
distinction between classical and folk is too rigid or not
useful for our explorations. May be this kind of cultural
encounter and borrowing takes place all the time; then
the question is how do we account for that cultural
dynamics in relation to certain concerns of folklore. Your
own work might have gone through meaningful
transformations in the last fourty years. Maybe you
are looking at those works differently now. This kind
of reflection happens after considerable amount of work
done by someone. If you could elaborate on what are
those present issues you are engaged in, which may
help young Indian folklorists also to have a meaningful
encounter in their researches?
Kapila: In fact, if anyone has been reading my work, I
have been trying to say that even though I happen to
be the unfortunate writer of the two books called Indian
Classical Dance and Classical Dance in Indian Literature, I
question that categorisation now. That’s what my later
work and all the volumes on culture and development
show – I have questioned this and as I said yesterday
that margi and desi become merely categories of form
which you see at a particular time and that these are
not sociological categories nor are they categories in
which one text is being carried further. Therefore, yes,
I used those words but remember that–Venu is
absolutely right–that one goes through different
journeys and I would be hard put to find another
appellation.
I was saying that yes, I wrote Classical Indian Dance and
Indian Classical Dance – a) perhaps it was not as much of
an awareness or call it a maturity, not that I am mature
now, but I think for lack of a better English word. This
word classical and the word medieval are two major words
that we need to discuss and to find a viable working
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

English word for it – just as we have had a problem
with folk because we are translating one reality into
another reality. To take the argument of the absurdity
of using the word classical – when it gets re-translated
into at least Hindi or what we begin to call music or
Indian music, one kind of Indian music, shastriya sangeet
– now can you tell me of one single shastra in this country
which has got a category called shastriya sangeet. Yes, of
course, not only borrowings but the fact that we are
here together, each one of us will have accepted
something from the other which we may not consciously
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Later on, when you look at it, the
hierarchy of the senses in relation to
the mind became the social hierarchy
and what are related to the mind,
what uses the mind becomes the
classical and what is related to the
senses, what use the other senses
become the folk.
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
recognise at this time but which will filter into ourselves.
Yesterday we saw the spectacular performance of
kalvelia–now this performance was her performance, it
was a performance which has been taken into a film
and it is a performance which is after her original
performance had been taken into a film and re-presented
to you now. Can it ever be the same? It cannot be the
same and the nature of that influence, now one would
have to go in to it – was it in the costume? No. Was it
in this, yes; was it in the way she took her chakkars or I
was also trying to see here. And for me it was a great
learning experience, it was not a response experience
at all, I mean, I responded negatively to the technique
and so on, but it was a great academic experience
because I respond most negatively to the nature of body
language I see on the TV today. I think that is polluting
to a point of… I mean, I am physically sick seeing that
sometimes.
When I watched this yesterday I realised what
exaggeration of locomotion can do to bring about certain
emotive responses and how this performer in her
innocence was using certain parts of the body in
exaggeration but she was in control. And to me, this
was a great discipline that even if by training my eyes
and my spinal cord and everything else would tell me
that I would rather not use these parts of my body or
these joints. But I was fascinated with the flexibility of
her pelvis and I realised that when those people on
television dance, they are unable to have either this
flexibility or the inner control which she was doing by
placing all weight on one foot. This has influenced
and formed what we are today seeing as high media
performance.
INDIAN FOLKLIFE
R E F L E C T I O N S
I cannot chart out, nor is it my business and I could
take a project to chart out, how exactly this travelling
has taken place. I can identify what has happened to
bhangra when I see some of Bollywood versions. Now,
this is not only borrowing but a journey from what you
would call desa to the highly modern, because all that
we call modern we call that contemporary, and some
of it was also evident in the dancing of our own
colleagues and I as a technician of dance, watched their
movements. When you transfer this situation from a
purely agricultural society to decontextualised form of
appearance in urban India, something is happening to
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urban India but something is also happening to the
performers. Now these forms travel not only to London,
or the carriers of these forms go to Silicon Valley – where
I stayed last year to teach a whole semester there –
naturally they are affecting that and specially as far as
UK is concerned, the situation in UK today is a different
situation than in my student days.
When I spoke about colonialism, I was talking about it
in terms of dating, where we would put it in 1950 and
certainly not in 2001. Because the changes that have
taken place are not only very significant but the pace of
that change is remarkable. I am in touch with a whole
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
group of people who are dealing with south Asian arts
in three major societies, Manchester, Sussex and
London, and I know that some of these things are
permeating not only into what are known as South
Asian or African communities in terms of ethnicity but 59
into mainstream Anglo-Saxon society. This is not so,
surprisingly not so, in America.
The question of folklore, now lets get to Eastern Europe
and the Soviet Union because there it acquired a very
different meaning. It acquired a meaning because now
it was the nation state which wanted to, on the one
hand, have a national dominant Russian stamp and
then there was the whole movement of a construct.
Edward Said should look at what happened in the Soviet
Union, because that construct was through the
establishment of folk dance ensembles and music and
the study of these communities while at the same time
not allowing them to use their own language, not
allowing them to have that in their own homes. What
has happened in Australia is a very different thing. And
in Australia, it is also different from central Australia
that is the whole of the Alice Springs, the desert
aborigines from the northwest coast and in each time,
interaction takes place.
And you think that the coloniser was not affected by
his study in India – the British, you think they were,
despite all official dictates and despotic orders to keep
away from natives and things like that, but what
penetrated from India into Britain is as important as
what Britain did to us. It may have done so in certain
sections, not so in others, those are something that can
be discussed. So at no point can I say that there is
something as either insularity or purity despite
Muthukumaraswamy talking about my Benares and I
can tell you about ten different Benares’.
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 R E F L E C T I O N S
Let’s get to Kerala, you say the Namboodris and you say
my friends the Marars and the people of Paavakoothu
and so on and so forth. I have to tell you one story
before we end. You know the story about Paavakoothu,
you know how they started to do the Ramayan and the
tholpaavakoothu in Kerala? You have to hear this story –
this will tell you all about classical and folk traditions
and it will tell you everything about borrowings. This
is the most amazing story – you see, this Kali woman is
very strong; friendly but she is always having fights
with Siva or someone. Once she had a fight with Siva
and said, Look, I got left out – I hear there were a Ramayan
that took place and Ram fought with Sita and all this happened.
Where was I? Siva said, you were busy fighting Darika and
therefore you missed out. And in the meantime all this
Ramayan took place. She said, I have to see it, I have to see
it. Siva said, I can’t do anything for you. You can’t see it;
but there can be a shadow, I can re-create a shadow for you.
So then he re-creates and shadow is naturally in
tholpaavakoothu but where do we do this and with what
text. In malayalam there is no text, what to do? So
they got hold of Kamban and they have the Kamba
Ramayanam. But there is a whole solid indigenous
tradition and what do we do with this and there is the
Devi cult and so on and in between come Ram and
Vishnu, what to do? So he said since you are the person
who always wants all these things to see again and you
have all this sense and you want to gratify your desire.
So what we will do is do it in the Kali temple. So now
60 let’s interpret this - a) Kamban – high tradition, outside
Kerala, Tamil – the purest Kamba Ramayanam just if it is
recited anywhere it is in the tholpaavakoothu and nowhere
in Tamil Nadu but, in Palakkad. So transfer takes place
– they have to do an assimilation, what is the strategy
of that assimilation – they have to give it sociologically
a lower position, therefore it is a non-Brahmin tradition
– they assimilate it there. Then it gets assimilated and
then it travels. So in India there are so many ways of
this legitimisation and borrowing but you have to find
a raison d’etre for it, not to speak about whom the chakyars
are.
MDM: A few remarks on Kamba Ramayanam and
tholpaavakoothu of Kerala’s Palakkad district which Stuart
Blackburn recently studied. One of the things he studied
was how the purity of the text by Kamban
being retained in a culture outside Tamil
Nadu. Western scholars interpret the
retention of the pure text as an indication,
of being unchanging society, or the
changes in the society take place only in
the periphery, that is why this culture
retained a pure text. Is this an observation
by an outsider? The other question may be tangentially
related to all the natural phenomena you see between
man and nature and in their relationship, time seems
to be a major concern and is there any particular
preference for you to be meditating over time?
Kapila: No, no, it is not my concern at all. But let’s talk
about this business of the text being fixed and if the
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1
text is being fixed, therefore it is an unchanging society
–Blackburn’s theory or his deductions by looking at
tholpaavakoothu, may I put a rhetorical question – then
is this unchanging society with four hundred and
twenty one recorded versions of the Ramayan. Therefore
you say that in the tholpaavakoothu there is a fixed text
and everything else, as one knows it, one has had that
performance in different ways and long before theorising
on that began I published a book. The mere fact of
either something being fixed for certain duration or
unchanging or changing, does not therefore extend to
the society, that the society is therefore unchanging.
When you look at the texts of Kathakali: some texts do
not change, some others change. When you look at
the traditions of Ramayan, every text changes. You know
that the work of Richard Schechner in terms of the Tulsi
Ramayan, yes, it is and there is an invariant and, what I
have been saying, there is a level of constant and there
is a level of variation. So far as time is concerned, and
since we are running out of time, I shall be very short –
I can only say to you – Komalda has just left – what
was he telling you when he said that there were the
two calendars; what was he telling you when he said
that he left the clock when he went to his village and
that he put on the clock when he went to the city; what
was he telling you that she looked at the thithis and the
sun and the moon and so on. It has come to me by
looking at the phenomenon and I realised that we were
on two different types of sense of time. I have just
spoken to you about multiple languages and alternate
knowledge systems, similar and basic to that, is the
two fundamentals of the understanding of the space-
temporal reality or existence.
Continuity is a beastly thing because it has also made
Indians inefficient in certain ways because they just do
not know how to fall in to linear time and that there is
a very different sense of time or that there is a double
sense of time that in fact we are moving by. And that
sense of time, I am concerned with that in terms of my
understanding of what one would call the textual
tradition; when I look at Sanskrit drama, when I look
at the Gita Govinda, when I look at literature till I come
to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries where a
definite discontinuity and a change takes place. When
the novel comes into being and when even Bankim
Chandra in Bengal comes into being – there is a definite
discontinuity that has taken place. And get in all this
that you are looking at in the broad appellation of
folklore I think that it is that other sense of time, of
recurring time, of no time, of no beginning and no end
time. If it were not part and parcel of our living at some
levels, then I would not be talking about it, may be I
would talk about it as a historical thing. But what are
we doing? You have legitimised that in your Diwalis,
in your Holis, in your Pongals… and I am only bringing
to your attention that. Alright, you do not want to me
talk about time, in that case don’t talk about Pongal.
ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001
 F O L K L O R E R E A D I N G S

Folklore readings

I. Folklore as Cultural Creation: Text, Tradition, Performance, Communication, Culture, History

------ On Performance
Bauman, Richard ed., Verbal Art as Performance: Prospect Heights, Wave land Press, Illinois, 1977.
Bauman, Richard, Story, Performance and Event: Contexual Studies of Oral Narrative, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
1986.
Briggs, Charles L., Competence in Performance: The Creativity of Tradition in Mexicano Verbal Art, University of Pennsylvania
Press, Philadelphia, 1988.
Degh, Linda, Folktales and Society: Story Telling in a Hungarian Peasant Community, Trans Emily M. Schossberger, Indiana
University Press, Philadelphia, 1982.
Glassie, Henry, Passing the Time in Ballymenone: Culture and History of an Ulster Community, University of Pennsylvania
Press, Philadelphia, 1982.
Hymes, Dell, Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia,
1974.
Lord, Albert B., The Singer of Tales: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass; 1960.
Narayan, Kirin, Storytellers, Saints and Scoundrels: University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1989.

------ On Fieldwork
Agee, James & Evans, Walker, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1960.
Alver, Bente Gullveig, Creating the Source Through Folkloristic Fieldwork: A Personal Narrative, Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia,
Helsinki, 1990.
Briggs, Charles L., Learning How to Ask: A Socio linguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social Science Research,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986.
Georges, Robert A. and Michael Owens Jones, People Studying People: The Human Element in Fieldwork, University of
California Press, Berkeley, 1980.
Glassie, Henry, All Silver and No Brass: An Irish Christmas Mumming, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1975.
Goldstein, Kenneth S., A Guide for Field Workers in Folklore: Folklore Associates, Hotboro, 1964. 61
Ives, Edward D., The Tape Recorded Interview: A Manual for Fieldworkers in Folklore and Oral History, 2nd ed. University of
Tennessee Press, Austin, 1974.
Jackson, Bruce, Fieldwork, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1987.
Levi-Strauss, Claude, Tristes Tropiques, (trans) John and Doreen Weightman, Atheneum Press, New York, 1955.
Lewis, Oscar, Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Cutlure of Poverty, Basic Books, New York, 1959.
Lomax, John A., Adventures of a Ballad Hunter: MacMillan Publishers, 1971.
Murphy, Michael J., Tyrone Folk Quest: Black Staff Press, Belfast, 1981.
Synge, John Millington, The Aran Islands: John W. Luce, Boston, 1911.

------ On The Individual

Abrahams, Roger D., A Singer and Her Songs: Almeda Riddle’s Book of Bllads, Louisiana State University Press, Baton
Rouge, 1970.
Azadovskii, M.K., A Siberian Tale Teller, Centre for Intercultural Studies in Folklore and Ethnomusicology, University of Texas
Press, Austin.
Cochran, Robert, Singing in Zion: Music and Song in the Life of on Arkansas family, 1999.
Glassie, Henry, The Potters Art, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2000
Ives, Edward D., Larry Gorman: The Man Who Made the Songs, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1964.
Ives, Edward D., Lawrence Doyle: The Farmer Poet of Prince Edward Island: A Study in Local Song Making, University of
Maine Press, Orono, 1971.
Ives, Edward D., Joe Scott: The Woodsman Song Maker, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1978.
Jones, Michael Owen, Craftsman of the Cumberlands: Tradition and Creativity, University Press of Kentucky, Lexington,
1975.
Morton, Robin ed., Come Day, Go Day, God Send Sunday, Routledge & Kegun Paul, London, 1973.
Oring, Elliot, The Jokes of Sigmund Frend: A Study in Humour and Jewish Identity, University of Pennsylvania Press,
Philadelphia, 1984.
Pearson, Bary Lee, Sounds So Good To Me: The Bluesman’s Story, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1984.
Roberts, Leonard W, Up Cutshin and Down Greasy: Folkways of a Kentucky Mountain Family, University Press of Kentucky,
1988
Vlach, John Michael, Charleston Blacksmith: The Work of Philip Simmons, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia,
1981.

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 F O L K L O R E R E A D I N G S

II. Folklore as a Political Stance and an Academic Act: Affirmation and Critique in Romanticism;
Situation and Change in Disciplinary History.
------ On Folklore
Bausinger, Hermann, Folk Culture in a World of Technology (trans.) Elke Dettker, Indiana University Press, Bloomington,
1990.
Brunvand, Jan H., The Study of American Folklore, 3rd ed. Norton, New York 1986.
Dorson, Richard M, ed., Folklore and Folklife: University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1972.
Dundes, Alan ed., The Study of Folklore, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1965.
Dundes, Alan ed., International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore, Rowman & Little Field
Publishers Inc., Boston, 1999.
Glassie, Henry, The Spirit of Folk Art: The Girard Collection at the Museum of International Folk Art, Museum of International
Folk Art, New York, 1989.
Paredes, Americo & Bauman, Richard eds., Toward New Perspectives in Folklore: Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, 1971.
Toelken, Barre, The Dynamics of Folklore, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1979.
Sydow, Carl Wilhelm Von, Selected Papers on Folklore Published on the Occasion of His 70 th Birthday, Rosenkilde and Bagger,
Copenhagen, 1948.

------ On History of the field

Bronner, Simon J., American Folklore Studies: An Intellectual History, 1986.
Brown, Marry E., Burns and Tradition: University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1984.
Cocchiara, Giuseppe, The History of Folklore in Europe: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, Philadelphia, 1971.
Dorson, Richard M., The British Folklorists: A History, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1968.
Dow James R. & Lixfeld, Hannjost, German Volkskunde: A Decade of Theoretic Confrontation, Debate and Reorientation
(1967-77), Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1985.
Gillespie, Angus K., Folklorist of the Coal Fields: George Korson’s Life and work, Pennsylvania State University Press,
Philadelphia, 1980.
62 Goldschmidt, Walter ed., The Anthropology of Franz Boas: Essays on the Centennial of his birth, 1959, American Anthropological
Society, San Francisco, Ca, 1969
Holbek, Bengt, Interpretation of Fairy Tales: Danish Folklore in a European Perspective, Suomalainan Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki,
1987.
Nowry, Laurence, Marius Barbeau: A Biography, Canadion Museum of Civilization, 1998
Thompson, Stith and John H., McDowell (ed.), A Folklorist’s Progress: Reflections of a Scholar’s Life, Indiana University
Press, Bloomington, 1997
Whisnant, David E., All That Is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region, University of North Carolina
Press, Chapel Hill, 1986
Wilson, william A., Folklore and Nationalism in Modern Finland, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1976.
Wilgus, Donald K., Anglo American Folk Song Scholarship Since 1898: Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1959.
Zumwalt, Rosemary Levy, American Folklore Scholarship: A Dialogue of Dissent, Indiana University Press, Bloomington,
1988.

III. Form and Meaning: Structure

------ On Structure
Aarne, Anti and Thompson Stith, Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, Folklore Fellows Communication
No.184, Helsinki, 1961.
Dundes, Alan, Morphology of North American Indian Folktales, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, Helsinki, 1964.
Glassie, Henry, Folk Housing in Middle Virginia: A Structural Analysis of Historic Artifacts, University of Tennessee Press,
Knoxville, 1976.
Hansen, William F., The Conference Sequence: Patterned narration and narrative inconsistency in the Odyssey, University of
Carolina Press.
Levi-Strauss, Claude, The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of Mythology 1983, University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, 1993
Levi-Strauss, Claude, The Way of the Masks (trans.) Sylvia Modelski Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1982.
Levi-Strauss, Claude, The Story of Lynx (trans.) Catherine Tihanyi, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1995.
Propp, Vladimir, The Morphology of the Folktale, (trans.) Laurence Scott, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1968.
Rosenberg, Bruce A, The Art of the American Folk Preacher, Oxford University Press, 1980

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 F O L K L O R E R E A D I N G S

IV. Form and Meaning: Genre

------ On Genre
Ben-Amos, Dan, ed., Folklore Genres: University of Texas Press, Austin, 1976.
Finnegan, Ruth, Oral Literature in Africa, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1970.
Haring, Lee, Verbal Arts in Madagaskar: Performance in Historical Perspective, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia,
1992.
Sokolov, Y.M., Russian Folklore (trans.) Catherine Smith: Macmillan Co., New York, 1950.

------ On Oral Literature

Ancelet, Barry Jean, Cajun and Creole Folktales: The French Oral Tradition of South Louisiana, 1994.
Bauman, Richard, Story Performance and Event: Contexual Studies of Oral Narrative, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
1986.
Boas, Franz, Tsimshian Mythology 31st Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology: Govt. Printing Office, Washington,
1916.
Child, Francis James, The English and Scottish Popular Ballards 5 vols.: Cooper Square Publishers, New York, 1962.
Crowley, Daniel J., I Could Talk Old Story Good: Creativity in Bahamian Folklore, University of California Press, Berkeley,
1966.
Degh, Linda, Narratives in Society: A Performer Centered Study of Narration, Suomalainen Tiedekatemia, Helsinki, 1995.
Dundes, Alan, Sacred Narratives: Readings in the Theory of Myth, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984.
Holbek, Bengt, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales: Danish Folklore in a European Perspective, Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia,
1987.
Hymes, Dell, In Vain I Tried to Tell You: Essays in Native American Ethnopoetics, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia,
1977.
Jacobs, Melville, The Content and Style of an Oral Literature: University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1959.
Seitel, Peter, See So That We May See: Performances and Interpretations of Traditional Tales from Tanzania, Indiana University
Press, Bloomington, 1980.
Thompson, Stith, The Folktale: University of California Press, Berkeley, 1977. 63
Wilgus, Donald K., Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship Since 1898: Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1959.
Yeats, William Buttler, The Celtic Twilight: Maunsel, Dublin, 1902.

------ On Material Culture

Bascom, William, African Art in Cultural Perspective: An Introduction, W.W. Norton, New York, 1973.
Briggs, Charles L., The Wood Carvers of Cordova, New Mexico: Social Dimensions of an Artistic Revival, University of
Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1980.
Bunzel, Ruth L., The Pueblo Potter: A Study of Creative Imagination in Primitive Art, Dover, New York, 1972.
Burrison, John A., Brothers in Clay: The Story of Georgia Folk Pottery, University of Georgia Press, Athens, 1983.
Evans, E. Estyn, Irish Folk Ways, Devin Adir, New York, 1957.
Ferris, William, Local Color: A Sense of Place in Folk Art, Mc Graw Hill, New York, 1982.
Fry, Gladys-Marie, Stitched From the Soul: Slave Quilts from the Ante-Bellum South, Dulton Studio and Museum of American
Folk Art, New York, 1990.
Glassie, Henry, Turkish Traditional Art Today, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1993.
Glassie, Henry, Art and Life in Bangladesh, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1997.
Glassie, Henry, Material Cutlure, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1999.
Levi-Strauss, Claude, The Way of the Masks, Trans Sylvia Modelski: University of Washington Press, Sseattle, 1982.
Newall, Venetia, An Egg at Easter: A Folklore Study, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1989.
Rinzler, Ralph and Sayers, Robert, The Meaders Family: North Georgia Potters, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1980.
Roberts, Warren E., View Points on Folklife: Looking at the Overlooked, UMI Press, Ann Arbor, 1988.
St. George and Robert Blair ed., Mateiral Life in America 1680-1860: Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1988.
Sweezy, Nancy, Raised in Clay: The Southern Pottery Traditon, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, 1984.
Upton, Dell and John, Michel Vlach eds., Common Places: Reading in American Vernacular Architecture, University of
Georgia Press, Athens, 1986.
Zug, Charles G. III, Turners and Burners: The Folk Potters of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill,
1986.

[The remaining part of Folklore Readings will be published in the next issue (July 2001) of Indian Folklife......Editor]

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 5 APRIL 2001

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