IAH FINAL

When making paper airplanes, which of the following is an example of tradition?

Which of the following is an example of narrative folklore or "Things We Say":

A trickster is :

The following is an example of a folk group:

Occupational folk groups are interesting to American folklorists because

McNeill says a folklorist may ask questions about a number of things when collecting folklore. Which of the following are some of those questions?

What is one of the two main elements of folklore?

Which of these is NOT an element of folklore according to Alan Dundes?

Transmission is:

Which of the following is NOT a type of folklore that McNeill identifies?

Djinn are an interesting belief, since Djinn appear in both in the Quran and in: 

Which are NOT one of the two kinds of customary celebrations that McNeill identifies? 

In "The Many San Lázaros of Hialeah," believers participated in parades and performed pilgrimages on their knees in honor of San Lázaro. This is an example of: 

Which of the following is NOT an online archive we accessed in these units? 

Which of the following is an example of Things We Do:

It's important to establish that the people of a religious folk group:

The Occupational Folklife Archive was a collection of folklore focused on: 

In "Amulets from Anatolia" the author looks at several examples of amulets that protect against the evil eye. The amulets themselves are examples of:

In Things We Believe, McNeill spoke about Folk Beliefs. Folk beliefs NOT: 

In "The Invention of Trick-or-Treating," the author argues that trick-or-treating: 

Which of the following is NOT an online archive we accessed in these units? 

Campus Folk groups can include:

Which of the following is NOT a reading we've had this semester

Which of the following is NOT one of the folk groups covered by McNeill in Folklore Rules.

Three Hazelnuts/Wishes for Cinderella was made partially in:

In Leuk-the-Hare stories, traditional folktales of Senegal were combined with a classic tale from the colonial French culture, the story of: 

In Things We Make, McNeill spoke about material folk culture BEFORE mass production. In these periods, people may have made their own: 

In Things We Make, McNeill spoke about material folk culture in the age of mass production. An example of this is: 

Which of the following is NOT a type of coding discussed in Radner and Lanser’s Feminist Messages: Coding in Women’s Folk Culture, the authors describe which of the following types of coding? 

Diop, Fanon, and Haase are all:

IAH PPTX NOTES

WHAT IS A TRICKSTER

• A trickster is a character in folklore found around the world

• Tricksters are usually characters with less power in society, who manage to bring down characters with more power

• Tricksters play off the arrogance of those in power

• Tricksters play tricks, tell lies, twist the truth, use disguises and deceptions

TRICKSTER TALES

• Tricksters can cross boundaries

• Tricksters can be both good and evil (sometimes simultaneously; sometimes changing for the audience)

• Tricksters get away with their transgressions, even when causing harm or breaking the law

TWO TRICKSTERS IN GRIMMS’ KHM

• “Rumpelstiltskin” 1810, 1857

• “Clever Gretel” 1857

BROTHERS GRIMM AND THEIR COLLECTION

• Earliest fairy tales were all literary, even in German. 

• Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were the first to put together a collection of mostly oral tales recorded from storytellers—an original concept.

• Their collection, Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales) or KHM (1812-1857) was fairly late on the scene in the history of fairy tales and many of the stories they collected were retellings of Italian and French literary tales.

• The vast majority of their sources were middle-to-upper class young women (often their friends or the sisters of their friends). They also relied on some textual sources. They had a few sources that were actual peasant storytellers (also mostly women).

• They initially wrote for an academic audience—they invented German Studies as we know it (also created the first German dictionary and collected sagas and legends).

• As the tales became popular with children and families (and as children’s literature was beginning to develop), they edited the tales for a child audience. For them, this meant removing sexual references, but not violence. In fact, they added more violence to many tales to show a stricter punishment for the evil-doers.

A girl is given flax to spin, but everything she spins turns into gold instead of thread. Distressed, she is approached by a little man who promises to help her and foretells that a young prince will marry her—if she agrees to give him her first child. She agrees.

The prince passes by, marries her, and a year later she gives birth to a son. The little man returns to claim the child but gives her three days to guess his name to keep the baby. She can’t figure it out until her maid secretly follows him into the forest and overhears him shouting his own name: Rumpenstünzchen.

When the little man comes back, the princess guesses correctly. Furious, he shouts that only the devil could have told her and flies out the window on his cooking spoon.

TRICKSTERS

• Rumplestiltskin

• Clever Gretel

• Pied Piper

  • good/evil?

  • Power in society?

  • Motivations?

  • Boundaries that they cross?

REYNARD THE FOX

• Renart, Reinecke, Reinhard, Reynaert

• A popular character in Medieval Europe, first appearing in the 12th century in Latin. 

• Popular versions are the 12th century French variants, and the 13th century Dutch version. Traditions in French, German, English, and Dutch are particularly strong. 

• Hundreds of variants from the period exist and continued to be written. Even in the 19th century there are many examples of children’s tales featuring Reinecke Fuchs in German, for example.

SLENDERMAN STORIES

• Created in 2009 by Eric Knudsen on “Something Awful Internet” forum

• Knudsen paired creepy quotes with photos that were doctored to include a tall, dark figure behind children. Led to creepypasta posts, urban legends, “sightings” and later films and video games

• More attention brought to the tradition by stabbing in Wisconsin in 2014

• Now stories, sightings, ideas/beliefs surrounding Slenderman

ANASI STORIES

• Found primarily in West Africa and the Caribbean

• Likely originating in Ghana (Anansi comes from a word for spider in Akan)

• Trickster – usually using his cleverness to make those in power look ridiculous

• Tales can be humorous and still have a lesson

• His wife, Aso, can often match him in wit

COYOTE STORIES

• Coyote plays a role in mythology across North America, but is strongest in the West and Southwest

• Coyote is often a trickster character, but occasionally may play a different role in a story

• Coyote is often lone wanderer

• Coyote steals from and plays tricks on the gods as well

• Coyote’s counterpart in the East is the Great Hare—who influenced some of Br’er Rabbit stories

PERRAULT’S TWO MORALS:

• Curiosity, in spite of its appeal, often leads to deep regret. To the displeasure of many a maiden, its enjoyment is short lived. Once satisfied, it ceases to exist, and always costs dearly.

• Apply logic to this grim story, and you will ascertain that it took place many years ago. No husband of our age would be so terrible as to demand the impossible of his wife, nor would he be such a jealous malcontent. For, whatever the color of her husband's beard, the wife of today will let him know who the master is.

IMPLICIT CODING

• Explicit – the text is obviously coded. An example would be an alphanumeric code. 9 1215225 251521! = I love you!

• Complicit – the text is not obviously coded, but the meaning of the code has been decided on beforehand and is standardized. An example would be codes used in the Underground Railroad that used common small talk to pass information about the Civil War. For example, “ the milk is spoiled” may mean, “we lost the battle.”

• Implicit – the text is not obviously coded, and the meaning of the code has not been decided on beforehand. The oppressed group’s unique experience comes out in the text, whether on purpose or subconsciously, and someone from the same group will recognize the cues of this coding from their shared experience.

ACCULTURATION VS COLONIZATION

• assimilation to a different culture, typically the dominant one.

• cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture

• A process of social, psychological, and cultural change that stems from the balancing of two cultures while adapting to the prevailing culture of the society

VS

• the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area.

• the action of appropriating a place or domain for one's own use

• large-scale population movements where the migrants maintain strong links with their – or their ancestors' – former country, gaining significant privileges over other inhabitants of the territory by such links

POSTCOLONIZATION AND ANTICOLONIZATION

• Frantz Fanon was a theorist and revolutionary who was a scholar of postcolonialism and anticolonialism in the 1950s and 60s.

• Fanon argued for a destruction of the colonial system and its remaining structures in society. Fanon asserted that colonized suffers “psychic warping,” “collapse of ego” in the face of colonizer.

• In Wretched of the Earth, he argues that the colonized poet and colonized intellectual use the colonizer’s language and essentially buy into the colonizer’s culture as they compete to be successful in the colonizer’s world.

• The only way to create true postcolonial literature is to destroy the colonization, break the binary of colonizer and colonized, and start fresh.

THREE WISHES FOR CINDERELLA

• Made during the period of the cold war

• A collaboration between German and Czech film houses

• Sponsored by DEFA

• Has become the classic Cinderella film across much of Europe

• Is shown annually around Christmas time as a tradition

TERMS:

• Folk Groups

  • A group of people who share something in common—beliefs, practices, activities, occupation, location, identity, interests, etc.
    Examples: dog owners at a dog park, faculty, sports fans, religious groups, occupational groups.

• Variation

  • Folklore always changes as it moves between people.
    Example: You and a friend both make paper airplanes but fold them differently.

• Tradition

  • Something passed down, taught, or transmitted in a group over time.
    Example: Your sister teaching you how to make paper airplanes.

• Function

  • What folklore does for a group (the practical or social purpose).
    Examples: teaching a lesson, bonding a group, expressing identity, coping with fear.

• Meaning

  • What folklore means to the people who practice it.
    Example: Why an amulet matters to someone or how a holiday tradition emotionally resonates.

• Purpose

  • Why a piece of folklore exists or why a group keeps practicing it.
    Example: parades for San Lázaro serve devotional and community purposes.

• Text, Context, Texture

  • Text: The item of folklore itself (story, joke, costume, handshake, amulet).

  • Context: Where, when, and why the folklore occurs; the situation.

  • Texture: The style or presentation—tone, delivery, materials, sound of voice, design, etc.

• Transmission

  • How folklore is shared or passed between members of a folk group.
    Example: telling a joke, teaching a game, passing down a superstition.

• Anti-colonialism

  • A movement or ideology actively resisting colonial rule and seeking liberation.
    Examples in class: Fanon & Diop argued for destroying colonial systems.

• Post-colonialism

  • Study of how cultures rebuild after colonialism and how colonial structures remain embedded.
    Fanon: true postcolonial culture requires breaking the colonizer–colonized binary.

• Implicit Coding

  • A type of coded message where:

    • The coding is not obvious

    • The meaning was not pre-arranged

    • The meaning is understood through shared experience within an oppressed group
      (From Radner & Lanser)

  • Explicit coding: openly coded (ex: alphanumeric cyphers)

  • Complicit coding: coded but pre-agreed upon by a group (Underground Railroad signals)

• Rite of Passage

  • A customary celebration marking a major life change: birth, marriage, graduation, coming-of-age.

• Calendar Customs

  • Repeating yearly traditions tied to a calendar date.
    Examples: Halloween, Christmas rituals, annual San Lázaro pilgrimage.

• Tricksters

  • Folklore characters who:

    • Have less societal power

    • Use lies, tricks, disguise, wit

    • Exploit arrogance of powerful people

    • Cross boundaries (moral, social, supernatural)

    • Can be good, evil, or both

Examples: Rumpelstiltskin, Clever Gretel, Coyote, Anansi, Reynard the Fox.

• Oral history

  • Recorded personal accounts of lived experience; informal, first-person memories preserved in archives.
    Examples of archives used: MSU Sesquicentennial, Occupational Folklife, School Collection.

• Things We Say, Do, Believe, and Make

  • Four categories of folklore:

1. Things We Say — jokes, legends, stories, rumors, sayings.

2. Things We Do — rituals, customs, dances, handshakes, pilgrimages.

3. Things We Believe — supernatural beliefs, folk medicine, superstitions.

4. Things We Make — crafts, quilts, amulets, handmade or decorated objects (even mass-produced items personalized).