Socialists and Storytellers

In his article, Dundes talks about Folklore and "The Folk" almost in terms of diversity and individuality. He debunks the notion that Folk and Folklore come exclusively from peasants and non-urbanized landscapes, i.e. the European peasantry. He talks in great detail about the idea that Folklore and Folk can be anything or anyone from Pueblo Indians to Japanese school children who all play the same video game. This seems like a very sensible definition to me (and it makes me part of several "Folk" myself, including English graduate students). However, the part in his article that most caught my eye was when he began talking about Marx and his "utopia." He notes that in Marx's perfect world, a world in which all people are equal, there would be no Folklore. This almost throwaway sentence really grabbed my attention, because I think he's right to a certain extent.

By Dundes's definition, Folklore comes from differences and sub-cultures, from dissension and protest.

Then, when I began reading Barbara Babcock's article, "Mudwomen and Whitemen," I couldn't help but make a connection. I grew up in Arizona, so the image of the Storyteller doll is embedded in my brain. Those little dolls are all over the place in tourist gift shops and airport terminals. As a kid, we even made our own storytellers for an arts and crafts project in school, but I never knew where they came from. From an outsider's perspective, a perspective which is probably very common, the Pueblo Storyteller as created by Helen Cordero, does not exist. The Storyteller has become emblematic of the Southwest and of Native culture in the minds of white men and other "tourists." This dispossession of Cordero's intent is a kind of representation of the dilution of folklore when it is taken out of its context, being dispossessed from its roots and instead of being seen for what it is, it's taken to represent a whole culture of homogenization. I find it upsetting that I've spent my whole life being so ignorant about it. (My mother bought me a storyteller once because I liked his chubby cheeks, but I broke it.)

I'm not sure that this is necessarily a dire issue that merits discussion, but it affected me nonetheless. 

Ashley