FOLKLORE AND FAKE LORE

During 1M past two tkatks, tAt IJIhjl of Amnictm foll(Jorr Nu fIIOl only won
tire altnllion of mOi'~ anti fMrt aerukmicUms, Ina It4s 1I/.sJo Il101J IVitksprNd
inJm.sI amo,., tIte t~1 muJiIrr prdJlic. II ~OR mniJ.s mbcQI ertmJinati01l.
Dr. [Jo,IOIt, WM'Iuatitmsnumy oftk~~sOflfolJc.lorr, is mUnendy
qulifod 10 tUscu.ss 1M Slllljet:t. He is 1US0C'iIIk profnsor of A~ IIistory III
Midlittm Sute Colkrt.lI1tIllk.1UJwr ofJooatban Draws the Loog ,Bow, a
collectiott of New &till"" f olJtlllks. }tmJeJ SIePt:ru is one of lk most tespUtl
."a popuIM Wl'ikrs offolJc.lore. PerluJps Iris best ~wn book! ~ Paw Bunyan
II"'!. Mattock, but he Iuu wriJIm IuJIf /I dozm~.

democratic society the values of

folkJore rank especially high. Folklo~ study builds bridges from the
intellectuals to the unlettered, from
the native-born to the foreign-born,
from one nationality group to another. It can dispel our ignorance of
America's many cultural traditions,
and restore faith and pride to "minorities" smarting under the 'stigma of
alien backgrounds. ~ a .6dd for
graduate students it offers fresh and
fruitful opportunities in grass-roots
history and popular 1itera~, to
~place . the fetid dissertations that
reshufHeold bones.
In recent years folklore has boomed
mightily, and reached a wide audience
through best-selling books, concert
and cabaret folksingers, even Walt
Disney cartoons. But &.r from fuI.6lling, its high promise, the study has

N A

been falsified, abused and opl .

and the public deluded with
Bunyan nonsense and claptrap
lectioDS. Wit.h out stirring from
library, money-writers have sue
fully peddled synthetic heroand saccharine folk tales as the st
of the people. Americans may
in.sutIiciently posted on their.his
and culture, as the famous New
Times survey indicated, but t
knowledge of these subjects is e
tion, compared with what they
about their own folklore. The sad
aspect of this fraud is that the sp .............
article is so dull and thin, and
genuine material so salty and rich
Take the Paul Bunyan busin
The idea that the giant lumberj k
represents the only indigenous American myth, trumpeted on every blurb
that commends the newest Bunyan
HS

T aB A ld B B. I CAN ld B B. CUB. Y

book, has become indestructible. A

host of lesser imitations foUo~ the
leader, all cast in the same mold:
Pecos Bill the cow~y, JOM Henry
the Negro steel-driver, Tony Beaver
the West Virginia logger, Febol.d
Feboldson the Nebraska plainsman,
and so on. These comic demigods are
not products of a native mythology,
ut rather of a chauvinist and fascist
nception of folklore. They must ~
00 per cent native American superen, aU-conquering, all-powerful.
ggart and whimsically destructive.
such distorted folk symbols the
zis supported their thesis of a
rdic super-race, and touted Hitler
their greatest folklorist.
olkJore by any definition requires
proo of oral vitality. The tales,
gs, sayings. crafts. pass down the
rations by word of mouth. Print
help along their distribution,
a 'tale that lives only in print is
ry, not folk. The wider the gulf
een the written and spoken
, the less chance exists for tradis to cross back and forth. With
Paul Bunyan and other hero tales,
possible gap se~es the slender
of oral anecdote from the dr~
invented, or derivative stories
- that have cascaded from the presses
uce the 1920$. Yet the books aU
profess to contain pristine folkstuff.
These books err in seve raJ ways.
The long, continuous narratives they

contain do not corre5pond to the

terse, fragmentary jokes that woodsmen occasionally do tell about Paul
Bunyan. Their soupy tone suits childish readers, but rather misses the
lum~rjack idiom in suc.h tales as are
told.
1"he Blue Ox used to look fancy
when ~ ~nt out with nine bales of
hay stacked on one hom and seven
bags of feed on the other. Every time
he'd crap it'd take the crew three
days to swamp around the pile. During
the Winter of tbe Blue Snow, one: of
Paul's men climbed a tree and couldn't
~t down. It was so cold that Paul told
him to pass water. H~ did, it froze,
and th~ jack slid down on the icicle.

The books give the impression that

lum~rjacks spend aU their spare time
telling Bunyan stories. Actually. they
talk mostly about tough camp bosses,
epic whisky-drinking bouts and eyegouging fights, insatiable lice and
illiterate French-canadians. North
Michigan loggers yarn mainly about
P. K. Small, a jack with a cast-iron
stomach who would eat dried manure
and drink from spittoons for a shot
of whisky.
Authors proudly stamp Bunyan as
the embodiment of tbe American soul.
James Stevens says in the introduction to his book that Paul Bunyan
"is absolutely American from head to
foot. He visualizes perfectfy the
American love of tall talk and tall

POLJtLoaB AND PAK:B LOaB

doings, the true American exuberance

and extravagance." But taU-tale
heroes thrive in the folklore of many
peoples. The Finns possess a duplicate
hero in B.ig Matt, who rull5 through
the same course of literary adoption.
The Chippewa storyteller lagoo, reported by Schoolcraft, draws a familiar long bow. I have hear<l FreochCanadian marvels about the prodigious strength of Max Dubaim, Polish
WhoppeB about strong man Turo
Janosek, Hungarian exploits about
Hary J~nos.
Stevens is a badly mixed up man.
In an expanded introduction to a
new edition of his book, he squeals at
the Ph.D.s and professors who ask
him for documentation. nen he
admits spending three years looking
for some. in vain. He now mentions
six story-tellers by name, and a "hundred" others anonymously, but gives
no texts. He says that his Paul Bunyan is the real McCoy, but that he
invented most of it. He accuses other
authon of stealing his legend - which
he has assigned to all America - even
if they heard it from jacks. for the
jacks read it in his book. I would like
to meet the lumberjack who would
rttite such stuff - or any IlOvdaloud. He calls himself a "timber
beast and sawdust savage," and writes
Hillf'. In ~ a final triumph he extracts
SlIpp?n from his old friend Stewan
Holb\omk Stevens picktd his Paul

337

out of an old pile of Douglas fir slash

be found in a dearing on the west
slope of Mt~ Rainer" (although a
page earlier Stevens has said Paul
belongs to the Lake States, not to
the Far West). Yet Holbrook h.i.rmdl
told me he never ran onto Bunyan
tales when he wrote Holy Old Mildt
ituJwl
How is a Paul Bunyan book made.
assuming one does not steal
Stevens' cutesy inventions? I
on Stanley Newron of the Soo at
time his Paid Bunyan of w
Lakes was in press. Had he gathe
his stories over the years from Mi
gan loggers, as his publishers'blur
No. He culled a column of Bub
yams he had edited in a local rna
zine. Sometimes he inserted a
outside story he knew. Sometimes
composed. This was honest naive
for I bad read the column and
with the lumberjacks, and found
connection between the dismal
vcntioll5 contributors slipped in
mail, like contestan ts sending in
other Burma-Shave jingle for
roadside, and the rugged humor
boardinghouse and barroom talk.
then did the aut.hor promote
book as genuine American folklo
The answer, of course, is that
promotion sells books. especially
the tourist trade which .be had primarilyaimed at. Paul Bunyan is big
business; :i. $5,000 corporation was
0

' Til

.t.w:.a.ICAN W COa.T

formed sevual yean ago to merchanII

. dise his folklore. To reach the Russim
market (this, was four years ago), Mr. Some compilers, riding the vogue for
Newton included the Russian people comic heroes and tall taJes. have lately
in his dedi~tion, and declared that taken to rummaging through old and
Paul emanates from Ilya Murometz new books and magazines, and pasting
- who was a medieval Russian dra- together large albums vended as
gon-slayer.
American foWore. The treasuries of
The straight Bunyan formula can Ben Botkin and Ben Clough stretch
be varied by giving. the oversized the. term folklore out of all meaning,
lown different names - Davy and shrink the definition of American
rockett, Mike Fink. John Henry, to old stock Anglo-Saxoru.
Th~ editors snip busily in all
ony Beaver, Old Stormalong - and
illing the book as a gallery of native directions, gathering in old jokes,
fiction stories, biographical anecdotes,
igods.
It Sttms not to matter that th~ newspaper artides. travellers' jottings,
roes are either largely dreamed up, and even lJOme folklore. They use a
e Tony Beaver, or that they belong great variety of ready-at-band sources,
quite disparate traditions. John excepting the most difficult and valuenry is lifted from a Negro tragic able, the ante-bellum newspaper, a.nd
lad and Davy Crockett from pre- the most obvious, the folk themselves.
vi] War comic almanacs, but they They purport to cover America, when
easily put through the mangle a man in his lifetime can bardy know
pressed into Paul Bunyan snape the lore of a county. The solid folkthe kids. A local writer invents a lore of one coun ty or one town will
rnish Paul Bunyan right out of not sell, of cou~, in such numbers aJ
. htad, Angus Murdoch puts him an omnibus with American in its
Boom COPP", Grace ue Nute title. Having succeeded at the box
office with his Tn:tIsury of American
OM Murdoch in uk! Superior.
a new fake hero j.s born - the Folklorr, Me. Botkin now embarks
octal" Dick -BUller with the on a series of regional treasuri~. In
n-mile voice. Carl Canner even thi.5 program he never budges from
k the legendary New Orleans the library, like the dude fisherman
whore. Annie Christmas, and set her who buys his catch at the market.
Professional folk.lorists have done
iDto a syrupy bedtime story. in a
hero-book designed to elevate and litde systematic field work in the
United States, apart from folksong,
instruct American youth.

.OLELOI. ..... ND ..... E. LOI..

and the lack cannot be overcome by

culling from OOItalgiC antiquarians or
local color journalists. Printed ~
for folklore can, withiri limits and
with pains, be rewardingly used, and
field collecting aln be easiJy abused.
But ultimately, to get the full-bodied
IQre, someone somewhere along the
line must talk to the folk, and if tbe
results are to be worthwhile, he must
talk intelligently and purposefully.
He needs _to probe the community,
to locate the master nory-tellers, to
win confidences, to strike the mother
lode. He must have careful plans in
mind, and yet be resourceful enougb
to fuUow unsuspected leads and undUcovered veins. He has to sort out
tradition from gulf, to capture tangy
pasonalities, to collect with pedantic
care and Wli~ up his find.. with the
excitement that belongs to living
matter. Then, perhaps, we can tell
what the lore is, wbere it lies. who
posse_s it, who are the folk.
Mr. Botkin's treasuries teU U5 none
of these things. Does lore differ for
social c.lasst:s, fur men of the seventeenth .nd twentieth centuries, for a
Maine islander and a Rhode Island
textile worker, for a Yankee and -an
Italian? Because his sources cannot
aid him, he gives us no close-ups of
story-telling action or folk societies.
Because we cannot trust them, we
never are sure how much is real
tradition, or what has been left out.

339

I can testify that his bulky coUcctions

barely graze the country's folklore
weal tho His Anglo-Saxon sources pro
vide an endless suffocation of taU
tales and gags, but not a single in
stance of the blood-stopping cbarm, or
the dialect yam, or the perJOnal 5aga
- since tbese are unreponed forms,
though widespread, known only to
the folk. Mr. Botkin ddines folklore,
fairly enough, as "tile stuff tM
travels and the stuff tbat sric
But this is not the same a.. the st
that is shoveled together to fill
bargain volume.
III

The exclusive nativism of the Am

can folklore soLd in anthologies
taught in schools does both social
cultural iojusti~. I fail to ~
the English witch deserves a prio
in Anlerican folk tales over the
man },at'. the Irish banshee, the It
~a, the Jewish golem., the F"
fIOiu, the NOl"Wegian ni.sse, L':te Po
cu:rowtUf4, and other demonic bei
intimatety known to millions
Americans. One fourth of Amen I
people are foreign-born or first-gen
cion. and in the dense Northern s
the figure rises to one half. Yet
marvelously rich lore of Europe
Asia thus planted on our shores.
folk heritage no other country <*l
remotely equal, re.rnains in shadow.
More than that~ it is scorned aod
J

340

THB AMBaleAN MB .. cuaT

derided by the pressures of School and

society, until the immigrants' children fed shame for their family culture, for their second tongue, .for
their own names. "Wheh the kids in
school heard me speaking Flemish
they poked fun a t me and said I
wasn't American, to a newspaper editor
told me. "So I have never spoken
Flemish since." Thdma James of
ayne University tells the story of
e rich Americanized Lithuanians
o hid their parents in an upstairs
m and let them come out only at
ht. when their oddity of dress and
gua~ would not be noticed. When
professor paid the old couple a
ia1 visit. to record their folk.gs, the children regarded them
h a new respect, and thereafter
tted them out in broad daylight.
e nativLSts miss many good bets.
Grimms' classic fairy tales con*
e to hold Ame.rican readers, but
versions in many nationality trans can be procured here and
, versions often showing new
rican impacts. For example: in
well known tale of the Bight
the dragon, the hero throws
'c articles in his path ~ich imthe monster; the tWt& becomes
a rest, the stone a mountain. But
" illiterate old TretHe Largenesse of
Marquette, Mich., gives his hero a
bar of soap and a rusty razor; the
dragon sputters and chokes in a moun-

ttin of soap, and

CUD

himsdf fatally

thC3Shing throup.. a sky-higb pile of

oLd rawn.
Each ethnic group prius its own
popular heroes and saina and epic
victories. This folk history makes
good listening, and often it synchroniu:s with democratic traditions.
Jussi the Workman, known to the
Finns (a major stock in Michigan and
Minnesota) as the migratory champion of the oppressed peas~nts,
mocked and undermined the land *
lords wherever he hired out. I give
one tale. Jussi, ploughing in the fields,
took ill with cramps and left his work
to relieve himself in the woods. His
master bawled him out for leaving
the job. Next day Jussi took up a
tract alongside the public road, wearing only a shirt, and followed the
plough steadily all day, fertilizing
the field as he went. When passers-by
asked him why he did this, he replied,
"Our master is so mean he will not
give us time for s - - g." Jussi combines the propaganda talen ts of Tom
Paine and the rdonning instinct of
Henry Gmrge. You'll BOt find him,
or his many counterparts, in United
States folk collections.
IV

The nativists, the juvenilists and the

dabblers market folklore as childstuff, arch and droll, quaint and
shimmery, bygone and dmuny. While

POLELoa .... ND

~AEB

Loa.

their fare may be more prefenble can do that," said Sam Colasacco.
reading tOr children than the blood "He can tie up the blood of a man who
andthuncler comic books of the news marries a virgin, by saying the words.
stand, it is not folklore. 1be fOlk" When his soo get marry. his Cather
mind is tough and earthy, and DOt tie him up. In the morning he asks
unaware of the facts of life. Adults him, 'How do you make out last
tell fairy tales, to adults, although night?' His lOll said, 'I couldn't do
the maudliniud and castrated sam DOthing.'"
The Indians have &rtd the wont
pies in print belie the fact.
Mr. Botkin clips tender super- &om the supr:a.ten. One illustrastitions on cobwebs and chickweed tion will do. Near Manistique, Mic
and lilac petals~ ("If it goes down a rectangular body of water ram
smoothly. the-dabbler in magic cries by the forest attracts thousands
out, 'He loves me'; if she chokes at summer visitors. who ' bave seen p'
her floral food, she must say sadly. tures and postcards of the B
'He loves me not.' ") . He includes Spring." The tourist literature pia
nothing like the Italian folk belief in heavily 00 an Indian romance blightl
the~ifQItU1Q, which an Italian saloon
on this spot, and the area's publici
keeper told me in a sweat.
director recites it in booming ton
A maD with evil power can make I summarize the unbroken series
you impotent. In the Old Country maudlin clicba.
John Berdino could not ra..Ue an erec
The beauteous Onoandacie Qi
rion on his wedding night, and knew firefly) and the stalwart Kitcbitiki
he was under the/atlUTa. He told his (I love you) paddled up a str
wife to pad out her stomach with a and came to the Big Spring, whe
pillow, a little more each mon~ they moored their birchen
Finally a man stopped him on the "And there, in the moonlight, d,.& _"street and said, "Goddamn, I doo't ing, planning. whisperinl to ea
believe in that /fllIurQ any more." other the sweet mouthings of lov
"Why not?" "Well, your wife in the they pledged their troth." But in
&miIy way.~' He showed Berdioo "playful mood the gal ran out 00
where he had buried hair knots from trunk of an overhanging tree, and t
a horse's tail. Serdino loosened the brave, in following hard after, lost .
knots, and his penis Hew up. Then he balance and plunked in. When he
shot the spellmakel' dead. When the failed to ari1e, Little FirdIy went off
~wn heard, it approved. "There's a her nut, mumbled "Kitc~itikipi" aU
WJow over here in Iron Mountain day .long. acd ~yCQtu.n, . . a
II

TBB AMB .. ICAN MBJtCUJtT

running jump into the Spring, so she

cO\lld join her dream man in the
Happy Hunting Ground. "And to
this day, my friends, if-you will visit
the Spring, of a moonlight evening.
in the month of May, when the gentle
breezes are moving through the overhanging pine trees and rippling its
surface, if you will lilten intently,
you will hear the waters of the Spring
unnuring the name of the Indian
over - Kitchitikipi, Kitchitikipi,
tchitikipi."
Indians do have a legend about the
ig Spring. The Thunder pulled the
r~nt up into the sky. leaving a big
Ie in the ground, which filled with
ter. Chippewa mythology centers
und the conflict between sky and
derwatcr powers.
The Ind ' ns don't talk about rontic love, since they regard women
functional. not decorative. "Whence
esc stories. whence these legends
d traditions?" A Chamber of O>mrce secretary, whom I asked about
e local landmarks publicized as
e Bathtub of the Gods, Bridal
reath Falls, and Caves of the Bloody
iefs, said matter-of-fas,tly "they
re Indian legends we-h'3d to make
for the tourists." And that in a
. ntry larded with Chippewa reservations, where the real, pungent
Indian tales still vigorously thrivel
A week later I split my sides laughing
when Chief Herbert Weish told a

mixed audience the Sioux favorite

about Iktomi and the forbidden
fruits. When Iktomi ate too many
wild turnips, he became afRicted with
gu, bounding off the earth with each
step until he had to lie full length
and clasp his arms around a stump to
keep from being blown heavenwards.
Finally it should be noted that
children generate their own lore,
which is savage rather than sticky.
Bouncing ball rhymes exist aU right,
but so do derisive chants and cries.
Theft: she g~s, th~re she goes,
All dressed up in her Sunday clothes.
Ain't she sweet? Ain't she sweet?
AU but the stink of ber dirty feet.

v
Any intelJjgible analysis of American
folklore must, I suggest, recognize
one primary fact: that there is no
such thing as the lore of the nation.
or of regions, but only the lore of
groups. These groups are ethnic, and
the United States absorbs the world;
they are occupationaJ, based in common trades and jobs and apprenticeships, that range from cowboys to
coJJege students; they are communal,
knit by genealogy and local his~ory.
Each group owns an esoteric body of
anecdote and custom and song, commonplace to its members but bizarre
to the outsider. The French Canadian
laughs knowingly when you mention
the /oup-garou; the Chippewa Indian

POLJtLOI. AND

when you .y "Winabijou"; the Dative of Menominee when you inquire

about the McDooald Boys; the coed,
when you ask her to sing "Minnie
the Mermaid"; the Wall Street broker
when quizzed about the fabled
Chauncy Depew; and the GI. when
pumped about Kilroy.
Everyonebclongs to IIODle folk
grou p, or to mott than one. you and
I too, no matter how urban and
sophisticated we consider oundves.
The college campus and the district
high school overflow with legends of
eccentric professors, feats of cheating.
traditions of the virgin coed, stories
of fatal fraternity initiations, folk!Oogs of amour, admonitions of the
Dean of Women, textbook in.scrip-

THlI

A.TIIT

343

tions, accret cries. In the folk ideas of

Such grouP' we can perceive traditional values, 1IIIJw. obwssions, humors" which bind its memben in
tight fraternities. and divide American society into many chambers. It is
time we began aplariag these ohamhers.
At all odds. .folklott needs to be
gathered and interpreted with iasight, integrity, and !Ome sense .f
social Dll1Ilings. In Europe fo
scholarship has IDOl-enjoyed presti
and contributed illustrious names
the humanities. from the brot
Grimm to Sir James Fraur. In
United States it is rapidly fond
the respect of (oost serious stud
of the American scene.

FOLKLORE AND THE AR TIST

BY JAMES STBVBNS

on

Dr. Donon's charge, tively to collect genuine items

"Stevens is a badly mixed up IJl2n the perishing folklore of the regio
[on Paul Bunyan]." and bat it right Indian t.ribes; and here in the pe
back at him. His confusion is betwten of the author. is an old weaver io
the tasks of the anthropologist and - ancient art of tale-making who
those of the artist with folklore. To vi.ges patterns of his oWn from the I
illustrate the distinction: Hett in the of woodsmen. The scientist of 10
Puget Sound country is Dr. Ema technical training and experience w'
Gunther, head of the Department of \DC folklore to reflect vital phases of
Anthropology of the University of human tribes in times past. The artist
Wa.sh.i.ngton. who has labored effec- adopts folklore for the work of his
SWING