The Concept of Folklore

The Concept of Folklore
Author(s): Elli-Kaija Kongas

Source: Midwest Folklore, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Summer, 1963), pp. 69-88
Published by: Indiana University Press
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By ELLI-KAIJA KONGAS
MARANDA
Cambridge, Massachusetts
THE CONCEPT
OF FOLKLORE
INTRODUCTION
MANY STUDIES of the history of folklore state that folklore

scholarship started when the term was coined by W. J. Thoms in
1846.' 1 have three basic reasons for doubting this premise. First,
the term was coined by a man who was no folklorist, in no case
the father of the field; second, it was meant to be a substitute for a
term which already existed in approximately the same meaning as
we use it (and in exactly the same meaning as he used it); and
third, the term, although common, is not universally used even in
our days; some of the corresponding terms are, for example, the
69
70 Midwest Folklore XIII:2
German word Volkskunde, the Swedish folkminnesforskning, and the

Finnish kansanrunoudentutkimus.
But more important than any of the foregoing are the facts
that our libraries contain folklore studies written much earlier than
1846, that there are folklore archives which are older than 117
years, and that there are societies which have been founded and
which have continued, without interruption, to support collecting
and studying folklore for a period longer than the existence of the
English term. For example-I will use only data unquestionable
enough to illustrate my thesis-the first proverb collection in Finland
was published by Henricus Florinus in 1702 under the title Wanhain
Suomalaisten Tawaliset ja Suloiset Sanan-lascut, "The common and
sweet proverbs of the old Finns." It is known that the person who
started compiling this collection, Laurentius Petri Aboicus, gathered
his variants as early as the 1650's and called his collection Liber
Proverbiorum Fennicorum.2 Thus it even employs the same term
which in English is still used to distinguish the same genre, the
proverb.
It is easy to find other examples from the history of the same
country, Finland. During 1766-1778, a series of academic disserta-
tions was published under the title De Poesi Fennica, "About
Finnish Poetry." This is a thesis which, among other things, discusses
the rules of the ancient Finnish meter, which later was to be called
the Kalevala meter. It also contains a description of the manners
of presentation of epic poetry and the occasions on which it was
presented-problems which interest the scholar of today. Finally,
there is a chapter on the different genres of "folk poetry."3 Other
dissertations published in the same period had titles like De super-
stitione veterum Fennorum theoretica et practica (by Christianus
Erici Lencqvist in 1782); De fama magiae Fennis attributae (by
F. J. Rosenbom in 1789); Aenigmata Fennica (by Kristfrid Ganander
in 1783); Mythologia Fennica (by Kristfrid Ganander in 1789). All
of those studies use genuine folklore material, and some of them
arrive at surprisingly modern conclusions.' If we are looking for the
father of folklore studies in Finland, we can say that the first
scientific folklorist was the writer of De Poesi Fennica, Henrik
Gabriel Porthan, whose students and friends all the other writers
were; but Porthan died forty-two years before the term folklore was
coined in England, and, to be sarcastic, at least 159 years before the
term was used in Finland: although the term is understood, it is
not in common use even in 1963 in the country which has taken "the
leadership in folklore studies."5
Elli-Kaija K5ng&s Maranda 71
I have selected my examples from the area which I know the

best. No doubt, they could be multiplied easily if one investigated
the history of folkdore scholarship in other countries, especially in
north and central Europe.6 All the early collectors were not scholars,
but some of them were: the Grinms, for example.
The data given above are meant to emphasize the fact that
a term does not necessarily start a field of scholarship. The child
does not appear, however beautiful are the names which have been
selected for it, if it is not born in the usual way. A scholar is not
an eye-turner who need only name a thing to call it into existence.
Folklore was not a rabbit drawn from the hat of Mr. Thoms in
1846. There was a field of knowledge with its identification already
in existence before him. This field has its history as every field of
human achievement has; and the concept of folklore reflects the
history of ideas of a given country. The term, in England, was coined,
because there was a need for it at that time and because there
happened to be a man who found a good word. Equivalent terms
were "coined" or, with less emphasis on the baptizing of the child,
taken into use in other countries in other times.
Words are contracts. Relatively speaking, it does not matter
what name is given to a field if the scholars only agree on the use
of the term, on its meaning. "Folk poetry" was not a particularly
happy name for the object of investigation made by Henrik Gabriel
Porthan. Still, the term is in use in our time, although the Finnish
folklore archives contain the world's largest collection of proverbs,
superstitions, charms, children's games, and ethnographic descriptions,
although folk medicine is studied and lectures on it given at the
university, and although obscene anecdotes are filed in the shelves
of the Finnish Literature Society. One may remark that the title
must as clearly as possible express the content of the volume. That
is true; but the study of tradition has also its own tradition. If we
start coining names for our field every time there is a slight change
in our concept of folklore, we soon do not know what we are speaking
about.
I thus maintain that the meaning of the term, not the term
itself, is essential. There are huge problems in this connection, and
these problems we must face if we want to know what we are doing
as folkorists. The concept of folklore is the starting point of a
folklorist. We cannot simply say: "Folklore is what I, a folklorist,
am studying." We must have a definition, we must know what
distinguishes us from the scholars of neighboring fields: the scholars
of literature, the anthropologists, for example. We must find out
what was meant by folklore and its equivalents when the scholarship
we are continuing started; we must ask what is meant by it in our
time in other countries than our own, and we also must know what
our colleague has in mind when he uses the term.
THE ROMANTIC CONCEPT
At the end of the 18th century and in the first decades of the
19th, eager collecting of folklore was done in many European
countries, and numerous folktale and folksong collections were
published: in Sweden, Er. Gustav Geijer and Arv. Aug. Afzelius
published their Svenska Folk-Visor fran Forntiden, "Swedish Folk
Songs from the Ancient Time" in 1814;7 in Denmark, Just Mathias
Thiele's Prover af Danske Folksagn, the first Danish tale collection,
was printed in 1817.8 Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm compiled their
tale collections, Kinder- und Hausmtirchen (1812 ff.), and Deutsche
Sagen (1816 ff.)." Examples could be given from the history of
almost every European country. Even folklore societies were founded:
Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, The Finnish Literature Society
in 1831,1' Opetatud Eesti Selts, The Estonian Learned Society in
1838, and Eesti Kirjameeste Selts, The Estonian Literary Society in
1842.11 Both the Finnish and the Estonian Societies served as folklore
associations.
The basis of all that enthusiastic work was what the Italian
folklore historian Giuseppe Cocchiara calls il mito della poesia
popolare, the myth of folk poetry.'2 This "myth" was one of the
ideas created during the period of early Romanticism. Its first origin
can perhaps be seen in Giambattista Vico's concept of poetry as
necessita' di natura, the necessity of nature.13 Vico influenced
Herder," and Herder, it can be said, influenced Europe. Johann
Gottfried Herder developed his concept of the folk soul and, in an
enthusiastic and eloquent way, expressed the idea that folklore was
its true image. Folklore, for Herder, was the mirror of a nation, and
reflected its "soul" so faithfully that, as he said, "the fighting nation
sings deeds, the tender one love. The quick-witted people makes
riddles, the folk with imagination makes allegories, symbols, vivid
paintings-a suffering nation creates cruel gods." 15
The Romantics had a very unreal concept of the folk: expres-
sions like collective mind, collective creation etc. were not feared.
The "myth of folk poetry" meant romantic overvaluation of the
folk's creative abilities, it meant firm faith in the happy childhood
of nations. I quote one paragraph which speaks for all the rest:
Elli-Kaija K6ngds Maranda 73
In the life of the peoples there has been a time when all the elements
which later have specialized, still formed a simple unit, when an individual
was not yet outside of his people and this had not fallen into pieces, classes
in regard to its culture and life circumstances. Especially it can be said
just about that period that poetry sprang from the heart of the folk. One
expressed what thousands felt, and evoked a strong echo in everybody. Songs
were carried as heritage in the mouth of the folk, on the lips of the living
singers, in their instruments; they sang out what was sweet and sad in
mind, what was experienced, suffered, and wished. Songs became the
flower of the inner life, of the language, and of the land inhabited by the
people. It did not matter who gave the words to this inner life: a folk
song never knows its maker. But if a people had richer mental gifts and
if it did not waste all its time in the dreaming trance of natural life, the
song did not remain in the circle of private events and feelings, but grew
without stopping, and its sparks flew as electric sparks from generation to
generation; in innumerable souls it was reborn; innumerable minds tested
it; individual feelings developed into new attitudes, events joined and became
chains of events. The whole folk participated, more or less, in creating
these series. . 16
The concept of folklore which was characteristic of Romanticism

was, briefly, that folklore is the product of the collectively creating
folk soul. It mirrors the characteristics of the folk; but the folk proper
is good and wise, only in some cases suffering. Thus, there are only
beautiful pieces of folklore.
11 mito della poesia popolare lingered on for a long time after
Romanticism. Especially the notion of communal creation lives on;
even in our days, folklorists turn suspicious if they find the creator
of a piece of floklore. We say that we no longer believe in
communal creation or collective folk soul, but we do not believe,
either, that individual creators can be identified; at the same time,
it is presupposed that there is an individual behind every piece of
folklore. Romantic concepts of folklore can be found still in recent
articles: in 1949, Charles Francis Potter wrote: "folklore is always
the delight of children because it is the poetic wisdom of the childhood
of the race."17
The romantic concept of folklore as the image of the folk soul,

if estimated in regard to its results, was a very profitable one: it
resulted in systematic collecting of folklore in many European
countries, and these collections provided the basis for the development
of folklore theory and studies. In the end of the 19th century,
noteworthy new theories appeared in folklore scholarship; these
theories show the influence of the history of ideas during the time
period in question; in some countries, they also show the influence
of emerging anthropological theory.
THE SURVIVAL THEORY
One development of the romantic ideas was the so-called

mythological school, which influenced especially Central European
folklore scholarship for some decades."' The mythological school had
one of its most famous representatives in the philologist Max MUller,
who had a strange theory of the origin of myths. It was based on his
idea of the development of human thought and language: he
distinguished four stages in this development, the thematic (the
period of the formation of roots and of the grammatical forms of
language), the dialectic (the formation of the basic families of
languages-Aryan, Semitic, Turkic), the mythological (the forma-
tion of myths) and the popular (the formation of the national
languages). The rise of myths was explained by a phenomenon
which he called "the malady of language." That meant the process
of the gradual obscuring of the original sense of words."" Examples
of studies written in the spirit of the mythological school could
easily be given; but they have only a historical value in folklore
theory. Theories of longer-lasting importance were emerging.
In 1871, E. B. Tylor published his Primitive Culture.30 In

many respects his book influenced European folklore scholarship.
Tylor's theory of animism, for example, is still not forgotten.
Theoretically the by far most important and effective element was his
concept of cultural survivals, culture traits which have lost their origi-
nal function: meaningless customs and the like.21 The suvival theory
had many distinguished representatives in England-Andrew Lang,
James Frazer-and seems to have influenced the English inter-
pretation of the term folklore for a long time. I quote the only
comment about folklore in T. K. Penniman's A Hundred Years of
Anthropology:
. . . Frazer set himself to studying primitive superstition and religion

throughout the whole world, and especially survivals of primitive superstitions
in Europe. The most valuable collection of these had been made by W.
Mannhardt, who collected systematically the living superstitions and rites of
the peasantry, by oral inquiry, and by printed questions sent all over Europe,
devoting himself mainly to the folklore of the woodman and the farmer....
In all these works, the Rye-wolf and Rye-dog, the spirits of water, corn,
and trees, the cults of wood and field, were displayed as survivals from ancient
times, and the origins of later religion, These spirits took their place in
Tylor's theory of animism, as well as in The Golden Bough, and also in B.
Rohde's application of ethnological data to the study of classical civilization,
Psyche, Seelenkult, und Unsterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen, 1891-94. Since
1890 the Folk-Lore Society has been steadily adding to our knowledge of
primitive survivals in civilized life.23
Elli-Kaija Kongts Maranda 75
Penniman lets his reader believe that the goal of folklore in-
vestigation in England has been the study of survivals during a time
penod of more than sixty years. In fact, the notion appears in
English defimitions of folklore only in quite recent times.28
We need not, however, go to England to learn about extant
survival theory. As late as in the year 1949, several American folk-
lorists defined their field as the study of survival. The most extreme
opinion was expressed by Charles Francis Potter, who defines folklore
as "a lively fossil which refuses to die." The words are selected in
a confusing way: a lively fossil, however symbolically it should be
understood, is, I think, a contradiction in terrs. Perhaps the writer
wants to emphasize the complete loss of function when he calls folk-
lore a fossil; "lively," then, could simply allude to its existence even
in modem times. Potter further maintains that there is a strong
feminine element in folklore, "because its origin antedates the
emergence of reason and belongs to the instinctive and the intuitional
areas." He also characterizes folklore as juvenile "because it is the
poetic wisdom of the childhood of the race." Finally, he firmly
states that folklore is survival: "Folklore is the survival within a
people's later stages of culture of the beliefs, stories, customs, rites,
and other techniques or adjustment to the world and the super-
natural, which were used in previous stages. . .24 It is amazing that
a folklorist who has worked especially on children's rhymes has not
noticed how modern folklore can be; he must have heard how
"Charlie Chaplin went to France/ to teach the ladies how to dance,"
a perfect little piece of folklore, but by no means "poetic wisdom of
the childhood of the race" surviving from previous stages of culture;
lively, yes, but not a fossil!
Indeed, if there is anything of survival in folklore, it is the
survival theory of folklore: John L. Mish in 1949 defines folklore
as the entire body of ancient popular beliefs, customs and traditions
which have survived among the less educated elements of civilized
societies until today.25 Gertrude P. Kurath, very much in the same
way as Potter, espouses the same survival theory which implies a
kind of "high" origin of folklore: "Its narrowest definition confines
it to the shadowy remnants of ancient religious rites still incorporated
in the lives of illiterate and rustics." She mentions the loss of
function; this, she maintains, is the difference between folk dance
and folk music on the one hand and ritual forms on the other.26
She, thus, is an adherent of the ritualistic theory in that she sees
the origin of folklore in religious rites: new genres are created only
76 Midwest Folklore X111:2
by the loss of the function. The remark is to be made right away

that as long as man has had any mental needs-that means, as long
as he has existed as man-he probably has had also other than
religious interests. Even if "secular" folklore is younger than religious,
",sacred," it cannot be derived from the latter. There are very
obviously genres of folklore which are secular and have a clear func-
tion. Not the loss of function, but an originally different function
distinguishes folk dance from religious rites.
The concept of survival, in itself, is acceptable in the study of
culture. Tylor's classical example of meaningless customs in con-
nection with sneezing-greetings which only a scholar can explain
with the help of the old notion of the wandering soul-illustrates
his point. Nobody is greeted when he coughs! Folklore can still be
the study of survival, but it must not be only the study of survival.
As Dr. David Bidney said in a seminar, "All survivals are traditional,
but all tradition is not survival. You may have a living tradition.
The folklorist has to study traditional culture in both respects."27
THE FINNISH SCHOOL
The theory of evolution is noteworthy in the European history

of ideas during the latter half of the 19th century. Tylor's importance
through his survival theory was mentioned above. His theory of
animism was even more widely accepted. The general notion of
evolution found its application also in the Finnish school of folklore
studies; but there analogies were drawn mainly from the biological
evolution of Charles Darwin, as the founders of the Finnish school
clearly noted.28
It is, however, to be borne in mind that the basis for the
development of the folkloristic theory in Finland was in the collections
of the Finnish Literature Society: its archives contained a number
of folklore items unique for that time. The society had been founded
to support the collecting and publishing of folk poetry, which had
systematically been recorded by Elias Lbnnrot as early as 1827. In
1835, the national epic, Kalevala, was published; but collecting was
continued, variants were turned in, and soon scholars made efforts
to organize and compare materials in the archives of the society. It
was found that the runes (epic poems) insofar as their language
was concerned did not agree with the local dialects of the places
where they were written down: in 1872, A. A. Borenius observed
Western Finnish vocabulary and forms in Eastern Karelian Kalevala-
runes and wondered where Kalevala had originated. In the years
1873-1874 Julius Krohn developed his theory of diffusion and
Elli-Kaija Kongas Maranda 77
stated the fundamentals of the so-called Finnish method. He also

wanted to establish mental laws which would explain changes. In
1882, Eliel Aspelin-Haapkyla published his Studies on Kalevala, 1,
in which he embraced the animistic theory of Tylor, but said that he
was in his folkloristic study trying "to prove the prominent theory
of evolution by Darwin." In 1888, Kaarle Krohn, in his dissertation,
developed further the method which his father, Julius Krohn, had
originated. It was now called historic-geographic, and its principles
and goals were clearly expressed: by comparing variants it would
be possible to establish the original form of an item and find out
where it was created. The strong emphasis on the life history of
the folklore product itself had already been found in Julius Krohn's
writings, and this emphasis lived on in Kaarle's early work and in
the scholarship of the students of the Krohns, the representatives of
the Finnish School. Jouko Hautala writes when discussing the con-
cept of folklore on which the Finnish method was originally based:
"It is typical of the thinking of that time that Julius Krohn thought
of folk poems as if they were organisms independent of their carriers:
nobody has created them, but they have originated spontaneously,
under the influence of psychological laws, and their development has
also followed laws which work in an almost mechanical manner."29
This "superorganic" concept of folklore can, mutatis mutandis,
be characterized thus: "When evolutionary ethnology was combined
with Darwinian evolutionary biology, culture was then viewed as an
autonomous system subject to laws comparable to those of biology
and not stubject to human interference. For the 'social Darwinists'
cultural phenomena, like biological phenomena, were thought to be
subject to a process of 'natural selection' which was independent of
subjective human purposes and goals."30
There are several explanations of the fact that Julius Krohn
viewed folklore as almost a superorganic entity. First, the materials,
even in his time, were so rich that emphasis quite naturally was laid
on them in 1883, the archives had 400,000 verses of folk poetry
ready for publication-and second, he was not a collector himself,
but a literary scholar. This is the practical side of the matter.
Theoretically, the influence of the evolutionary theories easily resulted
in the superorganic concept as it was stated above.
The Finnish School, however, was less static than it is usually
thought of. Collectors paid attention to the life histories and personal
characteristics of their raconteurs right from the beginning of the
intensive collecting period in the early 19th century. Presentation
ways, occasions on which folklore was used, and its functions were
observed, and soon these questions entered scholarship. The theory
was revised; the practice of study developed by the Krohns is still
applicable.
The contributions of the Finnish School, as I understand the
matter, are the following: a strong emphasis on intensive, accurate
collecting and documenting the collections properly; classifying and
indexing the collections-we need only to think of Antti Aarne's
Verzeichnis der Mtirchentypen, published in 1910, according to which
most folktale archives of the world are now arranged; a technique
of study, the historic-geographical method, which, it has to be
stressed, is useful as a technique and never was thought of as a goal
in itself; and, finally, an effort for international cooperation of
folklore students (Folklore Fellows organization, 1907). In the time
when many scholars considered folklore a survival, Kaarle Krohn
dearly objected to the survival theory and stressed the point that
folklore is an integral part of folk life and carried on by the force of
its function. He also considered the mythologcal interpretations
vague and unreal, and favored histonrcal interpretations.
Kaarle Krohn revised the "superorganic" view of folklore which
he first adopted as a heritage from his father. In 1918, he stated
that his view had undergone a complete change, "spontaneous de-
velopment" and "mechanical laws" had to be abandoned. He clearly
understood that his early theory was open to objections; and he
was modest enough to admit his error. I quote a passage which
shows his scholarly Weltanschauung: "The worst danger of a scholar
is his own authority, the view he has adopted. A scholar, however,
must not be an advocate of his own views, he must try to be their
objective judge. When he meets the wall of the facts, he must not
try to break it, but turn back and seek for a way onward in another
direction. A student who honestly has abandoned his favorite idea
because the data he has found, has passed his test as a scholar."
FOLKLORE As THE STUDY OF

ORAL LrERATURE
"A survey of materials published as folklore indicates that the

subject is pretty much what one wants to make of it. I favor a con-
servative definition... .to me the term 'folklore' is most meaningful
when applied to the unwritten literary manifestations of all peoples,
literary or otherwise," George M. Foster writes." The concept of
folklore as unwritten literature is favored by many scholars33 for
two reasons: in practice, these scholars often are students of the
Elli-Kaija Kongais Maranda 79
folktale, and theoretically, the definition gives relatively clear limits

to the field and also shows how it is distinguished from the study
of literature-through its oral nature-and from anthropology or
ethnology-through the folklorist's concern about the form of his
object of study.
As to the "practical" reasoning, the remark can be made that
what an individual scholar is doing is not a starting point for giving
a definition of the entire field. There are always other scholars, too:
the work of all the students of the field may cover the whole, al-
though even this is seldom the case. New aspects open-if scholarship
is making any progress.
Theoretically, one may ask: what is oral literature? It
can be answered as Archer Taylor did: words occurring as con-
nected discourse.88 This is, I agree, a criterion. Taylor explains
his category-for him, it is but one area in the whole field of folklore:
"Folklore in the form of connected discourse includes tales of various
kinds (mirchen, jests, legends, cumulative tales, exempla, fables,
etiological tales), ballads, lyric folk songs, children's songs, charms,
proverbs, and riddles."
Thus, form is the criterion. In oral materials, however, form
is a very vague concept. It is not difficult to find ten proverb
variants which are exactly identical-but it is not easy to find two
marchen variants identical word by word. One could perhaps main-
tain that a tale has a fixed form if the teller believes that it is in
the traditional form. Many story-tellers, however, are deliberately
trying to tell their tales in a novel way, improving the style
consciously. There are genres of folklore which presuppose faithfulness
to the style: charms, which have to be chanted exactly in the "right"
way before they are believed to be effective, for example. There
seems, however, to be a dimension which could perhaps be called
the degree of stylization: on the one hand, there are genres,
as, for example, charms, or (in many cultures) myths, for which
the degree of stylization is high; on the other hand, there are genres
which allow the story-teller a complete liberty as to the form, for
example, anecdotes. Beliefs are usually excluded if folklore is defined
as the study of oral literature; but in what sense are a belief and an
anecdote distinguishable if the style is entirely free for either of
them and if the content is traditional in both cases? In fact, beliefs
are often "more traditional" than jokes.
There is one more objection to be made to the concept of
folklore as the study of oral literature: it is narrow. It isolates but
one part-perhaps the central part-but still one of many sections.
80 Midwest Folklore XI1I:2

VERBAL TRADITION
In 1926, Kaarle Krohn defined folklore in the following way:

"The working field (Arbeitsfield) of the folklorist contains the folk
knowledge as far as it is (1) traditional, (2) modified (bearbeitet)
by fantasy, and (3) genuinely popular (echt volkstiimlich).3 This
compares with Axel Olrik's definition of folklore (folkeminder):
folklore consists of information (meddelelser) which is handed on
from generation to generation in a certain fixed form., as rhythm
(poem, song, melody, proverb, riddle) in telling form (sagn, which
for Olrik includes all narratives), in play, in custom."35
Both definitions exclude material culture, Folklore is, in fact,
often defined in a negative sense: it includes what is left when the
material section of culture is isolated. It is then called "oral tradition."
The term, however, appears to many scholars to be clumsy: they
realize that it separates a song melody from its text, a ring dance
from the song which gives its rhythm, and so forth. This difficulty
then leads to many enumerative definitions of folklore, which very
often are correct-i.e., all that is mentioned belongs to folklore-
but do not really express what folklore is: they define it as an ag-
gregate of genres, but each genre should then be defined separately,
and it should be made sure that no genre has been omitted, before
the reader can learn what folklore really is. Many examples of such
enumerative "definitions" can be found in folklore literature. Jonas
Balys gives such a list in his definition which mentions "sounds and
words in poetic form and prose; belief and superstitions, customs,
performances, dances and plays." These are traditional creations of
both primitive and civilized peoples, he says.'6 The definition could
be summarized, again: Folk culture, its material side excluded.
In Swedish usage, two terms exist presenting different views.
One is folklivsforskning which will be discussed in the next chapter;
the other is folkminnesforskning, which approximately can be trans-
lated as the study of folk knowledge. Carl Wilhelm von Sydow writes:
"Folkminnesforskningen may be best defined as the study (vetenskap)
of the oral traditions and belief, custom and poetry of the folk; the
study of the life of tradition, of its origin and development, its adapta-
tion and distribution, and of the mode of thought of the folk."87
Here, again, definition is given by mentioning verbal tradition and
some other genres, which cannot be included, because words are
not their means of expression (cuistoms).
Elli-Kaija K6ngais Maranda 81
Each of the definitions discussed in this chapter succeeds in

its way in describing the field approximately; but none of them
really gives an answer to the question: what is characteristic of every
genre of folklore when so defined, and, at the same time, characteristic
only of folklore?

FOLK CULTURE
As stated above, there are two terms in the Swedish language

which, both in their own ways, correspond to the term folklore.
Folkminnesforskning was discussed above; folklivsforskning can be
translated as the study of folk life. Sigurd Erixon, in the introductory
article of the first issue of the periodical Folkliv in 1937, wrote a
short survey of the historical background of folklivsforskning in
Sweden: it started with the national antiquarianism in the time
of the king Gustavus II Adolphus (before 1632); the Office of the
State Antiquary was founded in 1630 and "included the making of
an official inventory of the peasant culture." In 1932, Gustavus
Adolphus Academy for folklivsforskning was founded in Uppsala.
Erixon writes further:
This development is no Swedish speciality, however. It has occurred in

various forms also in Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany, Switzerland,
Austria, and in later years to a certain extent also in the east-Baltic states....
What is characteristic of this Nordic research work is its living interest in
the practical side of life, and in the sociological, technical, economical, and
aesthetic perspectives. The psychological factors are considered with special
regard to their co-operation with these factors. . . .The name of Folkliv is
an expression of a fundamental standing. For the cultural science now under
consideration, life itself is the main thing. The material, sociological and
psychological factors are studied with due regard thereto, in as universal
a manner as possible. . . .In this connection the most pressing matter is
considered to be a general analysis of the present phase with its living
tradition-contents, made on sociological and functional bases, and in con-
nexion therewith a mapping of the most important elements of culture in
order to determine their distribution and mutual relationship.38
Basically the concept folklivsforskning differs from the concepts

of folklore reviewed above in that it includes the entire area of
folk culture. In this respect, it agrees with the German concept of
Volkskunde, only Volkskunde usually is considered a national field
of investigation,"9 whereas folklivsforskning works "in as universal a
manner as possible."
82 Midwest Folklore XIIl:2
Dr. Jouko Hautala published in 1957 an excellent book on

the concept of folklore. Among other things, he discusses the dif-
ficulty which is to be faced when the borderline between folklore and
Volkskunde, or folklore and ethnology, is to be drawn. There is no
reason, nor any right to differentiate these two fields as something
separate, he says. If, however, the separation for the practical reasons
which in general have led to distinguishing between special fields
should be necessary, there is also a theoretical basis for this separation,
not only the practical need for it. He then continues:
But the distinction has to be made that, then, the starting point is not the
material and its quality in itself, but the attitude of the scholar and the
way he sets up the problems; not what material he is studying, but what
he is studying in his material. This distinction is not new in science (tiede).
It is comparable, for good reason, mutatis mutandis, with the relation between
two natural sciences, physics and chemistry. Both of these sciences investigate
material objects and processes, each from its angle and for its own purposes,
although the distinction between them is of a very theoretical kind, and
although in addition to them, another science, with its very wide field, called
physico-chemistry, exists."40
Thus, Hautala maintains that, if we think of the material, the

subject of investigation of ethnology on the one hand, and folklore
on the other, remains the same. Hautala answers also the question
of the 'folk' stating that the concept again depends on what the
scholar is studying and how he sets his problems:
As well as all culture can be studied from the point of view of the 'lore'
in it, equally well all people can be studied from the point of view of
'popular' (kansanomainen) in them. This becomes clear if it is understood
that the popular can be, in a satisfactory way, defined as the communal and the
traditional in the mental possessions and the activities of man, but if it is
at the same time understood that nothing purely communal and traditional
as well as nothing purely individualistic can exist. I defined folklore as the
study of folk culture from the point of view of the expressions of the mental
life which it contains and reflects, whether its goals are esthetic ones or
the like, whether it means fantasies or irrational beliefs and activities on this
basis. Now I define the study of folklore as the study of culture which
investigates traditional and communal expressions of mental life and activities
based on them. Here, again, culture is understood as a whole which cannot
be divided into parts, but which can be investigated from different angles
by different fields of scholarship.,"
Hautala says that the task of folklore scholarship is "to study

mental culture, that means poetry, belief, fantasies; activities based
on them, and results of these activities. He states that material
culture then belongs to the domain of folklore, but remarks that, in
practice, a folklorist is concerned more about the "mental folklore"
itself, because material culture primarily is an expression of practical

interests, and rationalistic, cause-effect type of thought, not so much
an expression of poetry, belief, and fantasy.'2
CONCLUSIONS
1. I divided definitions of folklore into three groups in regard to

the scope of their area. The narrowest definitions state that folklore
consists of oral literature. These definitions I rejected because they
exclude too large and too essential sections of mental folk culture,
and because they, additionally, operate with a criterion which is
obscure, style. It is obvious that there are genres for which the
degree of stylization is high, and genres for which it is low;
and between these extremities, all genres of oral literature could be
arranged in regard to how strict the form requirement is in each
case. It seems also probable that there are intercultural differences
in this respect even as to one and the same genre.
It also seems that the basic form element is not the same in
every genre of folklore: in some cases, poetic devices mark the style
(for example, alliteration, rhyme, or rhythm); in some cases, there
are formulas used (e.g., the opening and ending formulas of
miirchen); in some cases, cumulative repetition emphasiz the
structure (in Formelmirchen, cumulative tales); and, in most cases,
the arrangement of content elements gives the structure. It can be
noticed that the difference between various types of form elements
mentioned above is not only that of size, but also of quality.
At first sight the definition of folklore as oral literature seems
clear, but it means only that a new label has been given: now, the
term oral literature should be defined. "Words occuring as connected
discourse" sounds fine, but all speech occurs as connected discourse.
The ontological problem of form in oral transmission has to be solved
before folklore can be defined and studied as oral literature.
2. The widest definitions-by Erixon and Hautala-claim that the

area of folklore is the whole folk culture. Anyone is then considered
to be folk whenever he displays traditional and communal attitudes.
This distinction, made by Hautala, is valuable: it simply abandons
the old problem of vulgus in populo,3 the question who is folk. As
to the question what is lore, folk culture is a possible answer, but,
really, identifies folklore with ethnology, even if we keep in mind the
aspect of the traditional, as Hautala commends. Astutely enough,
he adds "or communal" in this connection: thus, modem folklore
is included, the only requirement is acceptance.
The traditional, for Hautala, means poetry, belief, and fantasies;

cause-effect type of thought is not considered traditional by him. This
distinction-obviously Hautala is here influenced by Bronislaw
Malinowski's distinction between primitive science and religion"-is
hardly justified. I cannot believe that folklore is based only on man's
imagination: it is built upon experience as well. Cause-effect type
of thought can produce folklore, and it does so: we need only to
think of didactical proverbs, or pedagogic wedding songs.
3. Hautala maintains that it is not possible to define folklore so

that the definition is based on the material itself; folk culture is an
indivisible unit, and folklore can be defined as a part of the study
of folk culture only in terms of the attitude of the scholar: emphasis
is not on what material he is studying, but what he is studying in
his material.
I do not think that it is necessary to define folklore as the study
of the entire folk culture. Erixon gave different aspects like "the
practical side of life-the sociological, technical, economical, and
aesthetic perspectives."45 Erixon's folklivsforskning abandons folklore
as an independent branch of scholarship. It becomes a matter of the
scholar's attitude, as it became in Hautala's definition.
Are we then back in the situation that folklore, as George M.
Foster wrote, "is pretty much what one wants to make it"?"' Or
must we, in folklore, perhaps adapt the view which Sol Tax had
of his field, anthropology, when he wrote in 1955: "Anthropology
is bounded only by the limits of what anthropologists do and use;
and anthropologists are those who intercommunicate in the continuum
founded in 1839 . . . anything that an anthropologist does must, in
the tradition of the field, be considered anthropology.... Hence
anthropology is whatever anthropologists do or whatever they use."4
This is not a definition, and it does not throw any light on the prob-
lem. Scholars who belong to a professional organization or "inter-
communicate," can still cross the limits of their field. Membership
in a society is not a reason for giving sanction to "anything that an
anthropologist does."
Folklore cannot be defined as "what one wants to make it."
It must be possible to find the distinctive feature which shows its
identification and which shows in what respect it differs from
literature, or anthropology.
The middle group of definitions surveyed considered folklore
a field of scholarship which investigates mental folk cultture. The
objection has been made that all culture is mental, that also material
objects, artifacts, are products of human mind.
Elli-Kaija Kon gas Maranda 85
Artifacts are superorganic products of culture. When we are

dealing with folklore, we also investigate products of culture. To
find a way of distinguishing them, I quote a passage of David
Bidney's discussion on Human Nature and Culture: "Further re-
flection reveals that there is more than one type of superorganic
product of the cultural process. In addition to material artifacts
and 'agrofacts' there are conceptual symbols, or 'mentifacts' com-
prising language, traditions, literature and moral, aesthetic, and
religious ideals, as well as the various intellectual instruments of
scientific research which are valid and objective for the mind which
conceives them and reflects upon them as mental phenomena."',
I will try to make use of the term mentifact. Literature is a
mentifact: it differs from folklore in that there is a record, and
although we can speak of literary tradition, the means of transmission
is not that of oral tradition: face-to-face contact between people.
In literature, learning, following, imitating is a result of studying
the record which can be read and reread.
What we call folklore is also a mentifact; and dance and game
are mentifacts as well as verbal traditions. What distinguishes these
mentifacts from literature and other arts is that folklore is not learned
with the help of a record. It is learned in face-to-face contact, in
personal transmission. The remark can be made that one can learn
folksongs which are on record or tape or presented on the radio or
television, but when learned this way, they are no longer living
folklore in its own context, in its proper function. Folklore lives only
in Gemeinschaft.'9 I do not mean that folklore should not be
revived and used in the "civilized" life of modern people; use what-
ever and whenever you want, but do not call it genuine folklore.
A recorded item of folklore, be it on tape or in archive files, is like
any museum piece: youi can stuidy it, you can admire it, but it has
no life of its own.
Artifacts, material culture, are comparable with literature in one
sense: when an artifact is created, the "record," the artifact itself,
remains. To create new artifacts, one need not necessarily learn the
tradition in a face-to-face contact. We can, again, say that the
distinctive feature here is the lack of a record in living folklore.
Thus I maintain that the process of transmission is the key for
defining what folklore is. But in the passage quoted above, language
was also said to belong to the mentifacts. Language in itself is a
field of study. As to folklore, language provides the means of transmis-
sion. It is the code, and folklore is the message which makes use
of this code.
4. Folklore, thus, includes unrecorded mentifacts. It is not neces-

sary to give a list of different types of these mentifacts: the criterion
provided here suits all genres given in the enumerative definitions.
As a field of scholarship, folklore takes care of one section of
cultural anthropology; similarly, linguistics is concerned with another
section. To study folklore is to study culture, or, rather a part of it;
literature provides parallel tasks.
How can culture then be investigated? Different culture theories
lead to different methods. If the scholar accepts the notion which
has been expressed, "omnis cultura ex cultura," he reduces folklore
to antecedent folklore; but it is not enough for understanding folklore.
FoLklore, like any product of culture, can be fully understood only in
connection with its functions in the lives of its carriers, in connection
with its societal and communal contexts. "Omnis cultura ex natura":
folklore is the product of human mind. If we think of its origin as
something created, we emphasize the role of an indiviidual. If we
think of its functions in communal life, we emphasize the fact that
folklore is developed and carried on by man as a member of com-
munity.
NOTES
'-See, e.g., Y. M. Sokolov, Russian Folklore, translated by Catherine

Ruth Smith (New York, 1950), p. 3; Richard M. Dorson, American Folklore
(Chicago, 1959), p. 1.
2 See Jouko Hautala, Suomalainen kansanrunoudentutkimus (Helsinki,
1954), p. 49.
3 Jouko Hautala, op.cit., pp. 66-69.
4 Jouko Hautala, op.cit., pp. 70-79.
6Richard M. Dorson, American Folklore, p. 3.
ff See, for example, J. Podolak, "The Development of Ethnography in
Slovakia,." Midwest Folklore, VIII (1958), p. 69; Adolf Spamer, Die Deutsche
Volkskunde, II (Leipzig, 1935), 429; Adolf Bach, Deutsche Volkskunde
(Leipzig, 1937), pp. 20-27; Oskar Loorits, Estnische Volksdichtung und
Mythologie (Tartu, 1932), pp. 5-10; Henrick Ussing, "Von dinischer
Volkskunde," in John Meier, ed., Nordische Volkskundeforschung (Leipzig,
1927), pp. 45-48; C. W. von Sydow, "Volkskundliche Arbeit in Schwe en,'
in John Meier, op. cit., pp. 33-34; Reidar Th. Christiansen, "Volkskundliche
Sammelarbeit in Norwegen," in John Meier, op. cit., pp. 21-22.
7 E. Gust. Geijer and A. Aug. Afzelius, Svenska Folk-Visor (Stockholm,
1814).
8Just Mathias Thiele, Pr0ver af Danske Folkesagn (Kjobenhavn, 1817).
9Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm and Wilhelm Karl Grimm, Kinder-und
1Hausmarchen, /1812/ (31. ed. Berlin, 1901) Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm
and Wilhelm Karl Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, /1816/ (3. ed., Berlin, 1891).
'0jouko Hautala, Suomalainen kansanrunoudentutkimus, pp. 111-112.
11 Oskar Loon'ts, Estnische Volksdichtung und Mythologie, p. 7.
12 Giuseppe Cocchiara, Storia degli studi delle tradizioni popolari in
Italia (Palersmo, 1947), pp. 62-95.
I8 Giuseppe Cocchiara, op. cit., p. 63. See also, e.

Volkskunde, pp. 17-18.
_1 David Bidney, Theoretical Anthropology (New York, 1953), p. 307;
Adolf Bach, Deutsche Volkskunde, pp. 18-20.
15 Johann Gottfried von Herder, Stimmen der V6lker in Liedern (Halle,
n.d.), p. 58. -About Herder's influence, see, e.g., Jouko Hautala, Suomalainen
kansanrunoudentutkimus, pp. 88-93; Oskar Loorits, Estnische Volksdichtung
und Mythologie, p. 6; Leopold Schmidt, Geschichte der 6sterreichischen Volks-
kunde, (Wien, 1951), pp. 78-79; Adolf Spamer, "Vom Problem des Volks-
geistes zur Volkskunde als Wissenschaft," in Gerhard Lutz, ed., Volkskunde
(Berlin, 1958), pp. 16-17; Y. M. Sokolov, Russian Folklore, p. 50.
I'Robert Tengstr6m in 1844. See Jouko Hautala, Johdatus kansanrun-
oustieteen peruskisitteisiin (Helsinki, 1957), pp. 43-44.
17 Charles Francis Potter, "Folklore," in Maria Leach, ed., Dictionary
of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend, I, (New York, 1949), p. 401.
18 See, e.g., Richard M. Dorson, "The Eclipse of Solar Mythology," in
Thomas A. Sebeok, ed., Myth: A Symposium (Philadelphia, 1955), pp. 15-38;
Jouko Hautala, Johdatus kansanrunoustieteen peruskasitteisiin, p. 44; Y. M.
Sokolov, Russian Folklore, pp. 54-78; Jouko Hautala, Suomalainen kansanrun-
oudentutkimus, pp. 136-139.
19 Y. M. Sokolov, Russian Folklore, pp. 57-59; Jouko Hautala, Suomalainen
kansanrunoudentutkimus, pp. 139-140.
20 E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (London, 1871).
21 E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, I, p. 94. See also David Bidney,
Theoretical Anthropology, p. 228.
22 T. K. Penniman, A Hundred Years of Anthropology (London, 2nd
ed. 1952), pp. 192-193.
23 For example, G. L. Gomme in 1914, Lewis Spence 1921, and Alexander
Krappe in 1930. See Jouko Hautala, Johdatus kansanrunoustieteen peruskisit-
teisiin, pp. 47-52.
24 Charles Francis Potter, "Folklore," p. 401.
25 John L. Mish, 'Folklore," in Maria Leach, ed., Dictionary of Folklore,
Mythology, and Legend (New York, 1949), p. 401.
2f8Gertrude P. Kurath, "Folklore,' 'in Maria Leach, ed., Dictionary of
Folklore, Mythology, and Legend (New York, 1949), p. 401.
27Dr. Bidney in his class (A 774), 3/29/1960.
28Jouko Hautala, Suomalainen kansanrunoudentutkimus, p. 184.
29 Jouko Hautala, Suomalainen kansanrunoudentutkimus, p. 193. The
survey of the Finnish School is based on data given by Hautala, op. cit.,
pp. 174-349, since the studies mentioned here are not available in many
libraries. cf. also "The Study of Folklore in Finland," by W. Edson Richmond,
JAF, LXXIV: 294 (Oct.-Dec., 1961), 325-335.
80 David Bidney, Theoretical Anthropology, p. 142.
81 George M. Foster, "Folklore," in Maria Leach, ed. Dictionary of
Folklore, Mythology, and Legend, I (New York, 1949), p. 399.
82 Melville J. Herskovits, "Folklore," in Maria Leach, ed., Dictionary of
Folklore, Mythology, and Legend, I, (New York, 1949), p. 400, for example.
This concept was presented also by Francis L. Utley, in the paper "Folk
Literature: An Operational Definition" which he read in the joined meeting
of The American Folklore Society, The Central States Anthropological Society,
and The Society of Ethnomusicology in Bloomington, Ind. 4/22/1960.
88 Archer Taylor, "Folklore," in Maria Leach, ed., Dictionary of Folklore,
Mythology, and Legend, I (New York, 1949), pp. 402-403.
84 Kaarle Krohn, Die folkloristische Arbeitsmethode, (Oslo, 1926), p. 16-
3 Axel Olrik, Nogre grundsaetninger for sagnforskning, Danmarks Folk-

eminder no. 23 (Kobenhavn, 1921), pp. 3-4.
88 Midwest Folklore XlIl:2
36 Jonas Balys, "Folklore," in Maria Leach, ed., Dictionary of Folklore,

Mythology, and Legend, I (New York, 1949), p. 398.
37 Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, "Folkminnesforskningens uppkomst och
utveckling," Folkkultur, IV (Lund, 1944), p. 5.
88 Sigurd Erixon, "Introduction"/ to the first issue of Folkliv,/ Folkliv,
I, (Stockholm, 1937), 5-12.
B9 See, for example, Julius Schwietering, "Wesen und Aufgaben der
deutschen Volkskunde," in Gerhard Lutz, ed., Volkskunde, p. 1-6; but the
same attitude is to be gathered in any German study of Volkskunde.
4 Jouko Hautala, Johdatus kansanrunoustieteen peruskisitteisiin, pp. 35-
36.
4' Jouko Hautala, op. cit., pp. 1 18-1 19.
42 Jouko Hautala, op. cit., pp. 37-38.
45 Adolf Spamer, Die deutsche Volkskunde, I (Leipzig, 1934), p. 3. See
also Will-Erich Peuckert and Otto Lauffer, Volkskunde: Quellen und Fors-
chungen seit 1930 (Bern, 1951), p. 7.
4Bronislaw Malinowski, "Magic, Science and Religion," in Magic,
Science, and Religion and Other Essays (New York, 1955), pp. 85-92.
45 See pp. 25-26 above: Sigurd Erixon, "Introduction," p. 10.
46 See p. 20 above; George M. Foster, "Folklore," p. 399.
4' Sol Tax, "The Integration of Anthropology," in William L. Thomas
Jr., ed., Current Anthropology (2nd. ed. Chicago, 1956), pp. 319-320.
'8 David Bidney, Theoretical Anthropology, p. 130.
49 Ferdinand T5nnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundbegriffe der
reinen Soziologic (5th ed., Berlin, 1922), pp. 1-38.
50 In English, folklore means both the subject of investigation and the
field of knowledge. This ambiguity has been avoided in most foreign languages
which make use of the term. In Scandinavian countries it-if it is used-
means only the subject of study. Some South American treatises distinguish
between Folklore and folklore: the former means the subject of investigation,
the latter 'la ciencia,' the field of scholarship. See Paulo de Carvalho Neto,
Concepto de Folklore (Montevideo, 1955), p. 17; Joaquim Ribeiro, Folklore
Brasileiro (Rio, 1944), pp. 17-19.
THE JOURNAL
OF THE FOLKLORE INSTITUTE
Begimning with the year 1964 the newly created Folklore
Institute located at Indiana University and directed by Professor
Richard M. Dorson vill publish a jourmal which, it is hoped, will
take its place along side the books and monographs of the Folk-
lore Series. To be called simply The Journal of the Folklore
Institute, the new magazine will incorporate Midwest Folklore
and will publish articles of serious scholarly interest from all over
the world. The new publication will be edited by a board con-
sisting of Felix Oinas, W. Edson Richmond, Warren E. Roberts,
and Merle Simmons, though all articles submitted will be sub-
jected to a critical reading by appropriate specialists in the In-
stitute. Manuscripts for the initial issues may be sent to the
editors at Folklore House, 714 East Eighth Street, Indiana Uni-
versity, Bloomington, Indiana.

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The Concept of Folklore

Author(s): Elli-Kaija Kongas

MANY STUDIES of the history of folklore state that folklore

German word Volkskunde, the Swedish folkminnesforskning, and the

I have selected my examples from the area which I know the

THE ROMANTIC CONCEPT

The concept of folklore which was characteristic of Romanticism

The romantic concept of folklore as the image of the folk soul,

THE SURVIVAL THEORY

One development of the romantic ideas was the so-called

In 1871, E. B. Tylor published his Primitive Culture.30 In

. . . Frazer set himself to studying primitive superstition and religion

by the loss of the function. The remark is to be made right away

THE FINNISH SCHOOL

The theory of evolution is noteworthy in the European history

stated the fundamentals of the so-called Finnish method. He also

FOLKLORE As THE STUDY OF

"A survey of materials published as folklore indicates that the

folktale, and theoretically, the definition gives relatively clear limits

FOLKLORE As THE STUDY OF

In 1926, Kaarle Krohn defined folklore in the following way:

Each of the definitions discussed in this chapter succeeds in

FOLKLORE As THE STUDY OF

As stated above, there are two terms in the Swedish language

This development is no Swedish speciality, however. It has occurred in

Basically the concept folklivsforskning differs from the concepts

Dr. Jouko Hautala published in 1957 an excellent book on

Thus, Hautala maintains that, if we think of the material, the

Hautala says that the task of folklore scholarship is "to study

itself, because material culture primarily is an expression of practical

1. I divided definitions of folklore into three groups in regard to

2. The widest definitions-by Erixon and Hautala-claim that the

The traditional, for Hautala, means poetry, belief, and fantasies;

3. Hautala maintains that it is not possible to define folklore so

Artifacts are superorganic products of culture. When we are

4. Folklore, thus, includes unrecorded mentifacts. It is not neces-

'-See, e.g., Y. M. Sokolov, Russian Folklore, translated by Catherine

I8 Giuseppe Cocchiara, op. cit., p. 63. See also, e.

3 Axel Olrik, Nogre grundsaetninger for sagnforskning, Danmarks Folk-

36 Jonas Balys, "Folklore," in Maria Leach, ed., Dictionary of Folklore,

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