Editing Folklore (section)

== Folklore genres ==
[[File:UAE Folk Dance- Khaliji.jpg|thumb|United Arab Emirates' traditional folk dance; the women flip their hair sideways in brightly coloured traditional dress.]]
Individual folklore artifacts are commonly classified as one of three types: material, verbal or customary lore. For the most part self-explanatory, these categories include physical objects ('''material folklore'''), common sayings, expressions, stories and songs ('''verbal folklore'''), and beliefs and ways of doing things ('''customary folklore'''). There is also a fourth major subgenre defined for [[Childlore|children's folklore]] and games ('''childlore'''), as the collection and interpretation of this fertile topic is particular to school yards and neighborhood streets.{{sfn|Opie|Opie|1969}} Each of these genres and their subtypes is intended to organize and categorize the folklore artifacts; they provide common vocabulary and consistent labeling for folklorists to communicate with each other.

That said, each artifact is unique; in fact, one of the characteristics of all folklore artifacts is their variation within genres and types.{{sfn|Georges|Jones|1995|pages=10–12}} This is in direct contrast to manufactured goods, where the goal in production is to create identical products, and any variations are considered mistakes. It is, however, just this required variation that makes identification and classification of the defining features a challenge. While this classification is essential for the subject area of folkloristics, it remains just labeling and adds little to an understanding of the traditional development and meaning of the artifacts themselves.{{sfn|Toelken|1996|page=184}}

Necessary as they are, genre classifications are misleading in their oversimplification of the subject area. Folklore artifacts are never self-contained, they do not stand in isolation but are particulars in the self-representation of a community. Different genres are frequently combined with each other to mark an event.{{sfn|Sims|Stephens|2005|page=17}} So a birthday celebration might include a song or formulaic way of greeting the birthday child (verbal), presentation of a cake and wrapped presents (material), as well as customs to honor the individual, such as sitting at the head of the table and blowing out the candles with a wish. There might also be special games played at birthday parties, which are not generally played at other times. Adding to the complexity of the interpretation, the birthday party for a seven-year-old will not be identical to the birthday party for that same child as a six-year-old, even though they follow the same model. For each artifact embodies a single variant of a performance in a given time and space. The task of the folklorist becomes to identify within this surfeit of variables the constants and the expressed meaning that shimmer through all variations: honoring of the individual within the circle of family and friends, gifting to express their value and worth to the group, and of course, the festival food and drink as [[Signified and signifier|signifiers]] of the event.

=== Verbal tradition ===
[[File:Prince Salim (the future Jahangir) and his legendary illicit love.jpg|thumb|The story of [[Jahangir]] and [[Anarkali]] is popular folklore in the former territories of the [[Mughal Empire]].]]
The formal definition of verbal lore is words, both written and oral, that are "spoken, sung, voiced forms of traditional utterance that show repetitive patterns."{{sfn|Dorson|1972|page=2}} Crucial here are the repetitive patterns. Verbal lore is not just any conversation, but words and phrases conforming to a traditional configuration recognized by both the speaker and the audience. For [[narratology|narrative types]], by definition, they have a consistent structure and follow an existing model in their narrative form.{{efn|[[Vladimir Propp]] first defined a uniform structure in Russian fairy tales in his groundbreaking monograph ''Morphology of the Folktale'', published in Russian in 1928. See {{harvnb|Propp|1968}}}} As just one simple example, in English, the phrase "An elephant walks into a bar…" instantaneously flags the following text as a [[Joke#Telling jokes|joke]]. It might be one you have already heard, but it might be one that the speaker has just thought up within the current context. Another example is the child's song [[Old MacDonald Had a Farm]], where each performance is distinctive in the animals named, their order, and their sounds. Songs such as this are used to express cultural values (farms are important, farmers are old and weather-beaten) and teach children about different domesticated animals.{{sfn|Sims|Stephens|2005|page=13}}

Verbal folklore was the [[Folklore studies#From antiquities to lore|original folklore]], the artifacts defined by [[William Thoms]] as older, oral cultural traditions of the rural populace. In his 1846 published call for help in documenting antiquities, Thoms was echoing scholars from across the European continent to collect artifacts of verbal lore. By the beginning of the 20th century, these collections had grown to include artifacts from around the world and across several centuries. A system to organize and categorize them became necessary.{{sfn|Georges|Jones|1995|pages=112–113}} [[Antti Aarne]] published the first classification system for folktales in 1910. This was later expanded into the [[Aarne–Thompson classification system]] by [[Stith Thompson]] and remains the standard classification system for European folktales and other types of oral literature. As the number of classified oral artifacts grew, similarities were noted in items that had been collected from very different geographic regions, ethnic groups, and epochs, giving rise to the [[Folklore studies#Aarne–Thompson and the historic–geographic method|Historic–Geographic Method]], a methodology that dominated folkloristics in the first half of the 20th century.

When William Thoms first published his appeal to document the verbal lore of the rural populations, it was believed these folk artifacts would die out as the population became literate. Over the past two centuries, this belief has proven to be wrong; folklorists continue to collect verbal lore in both written and spoken form from all social groups. Some variants might have been captured in published collections, but much of it is still transmitted orally and, indeed, continues to be generated in new forms and variants at an alarming rate.

Below is listed a small sampling of types and examples of verbal lore.

{{div col|colwidth=13em}}
* [[Aloha]]
* [[Ballads]]
* [[Blessing]]s
* [[Bluegrass music|Bluegrass]]
* [[Chants]]
* [[Spell (paranormal)|Charms]]
* [[Cinderella]]
* [[Country music]]
* [[Cowboy poetry]]
* [[Creation stories]]
* [[Curses]]
* [[:wikt:Category:English similes|English similes]]
* [[Epic poetry]]
* [[Fable]]
* [[Fairy tale]]
* [[Folk belief]]
* [[Folk etymologies]]
* [[Metaphor|Folk metaphors]]
* [[Ethnopoetics|Folk poetry]]
* [[Folk music]]
* [[Folksongs]]
* [[Slang|Folk speech]]
* Folktales of [[oral tradition]]
* [[Ghostlore]]
* [[Greetings]]
* [[Hog-calling]]
* [[Insults]]
* [[Jokes]]
* [[Keening]]
* [[Latrinalia]]
* [[Legend]]s
* [[Limericks]]
* [[Lullabies]]
* [[Myth]]
* [[Oaths]]
* [[Parting phrase|Leave-taking formulas]]
* [[Fakelore]]
* [[Place name origins|Place names]]
* [[Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep|Prayers at bedtime]]
* [[Proverb]]s
* Retorts
* [[Riddle]]
* [[Roast (comedy)|Roasts]]
* [[Sagas]]
* [[Sea shanty|Sea shanties]]
* [[Hawker (trade)|Street vendors]]
* [[Superstition]]
* [[Tall tale]]
* [[Taunting|Taunts]]
* [[Toast (honor)|Toasts]]
* [[Tongue-twisters]]
* [[Urban legends]]
* [[Word games]]
* [[Yodeling]]

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=== Material culture ===
[[File:Horse and Sulky weathervane - SAAM - DSC00796.JPG|thumb|Horse and [[sulky]] weathervane, Smithsonian American Art Museum]]

The genre of [[material culture]] includes all artifacts that can be touched, held, lived in, or eaten. They are tangible objects with a physical or mental presence, either intended for permanent use or to be used at the next meal. Most of these folklore artifacts are single objects that have been created by hand for a specific purpose; however, folk artifacts can also be mass-produced, such as [[dreidel]]s or Christmas decorations. These items continue to be considered folklore because of their long (pre-industrial) history and their customary use. All of these material objects "existed prior to and continue alongside mechanized industry. … [They are] transmitted across the generations and subject to the same forces of conservative tradition and individual variation"{{sfn|Dorson|1972|page=2}} that are found in all folk artifacts. Folklorists are interested in the physical form, the method of manufacture or construction, the pattern of use, as well as the procurement of the raw materials.{{sfn|Vlach|1997}} The meaning to those who both make and use these objects is important. Of primary significance in these studies is the complex balance of continuity over change in both their design and their decoration.

[[File:At a goldsmith's workshop Podhale region.webm|thumb|Traditional highlanders' pins hand-made by a goldsmith in [[Podhale]], Poland]]
In Europe, prior to the [[Industrial Revolution]], everything was made by hand. While some folklorists of the 19th century wanted to secure the oral traditions of the rural folk before the populace became literate, other folklorists sought to identify hand-crafted objects before their production processes were lost to industrial manufacturing. Just as verbal lore continues to be actively created and transmitted in today's culture, so these [[handicrafts]] can still be found all around us, with possibly a shift in purpose and meaning. There are many reasons for continuing to handmake objects for use, for example these skills may be needed to repair manufactured items, or a unique design might be required which is not (or cannot be) found in the stores. Many crafts are considered as simple home maintenance, such as cooking, sewing and carpentry. For many people, handicrafts have also become an enjoyable and satisfying hobby. Handmade objects are often regarded as prestigious, where extra time and thought is spent in their creation and their uniqueness is valued.{{sfn|Roberts|1972|pages=236 ff}} For the folklorist, these hand-crafted objects embody multifaceted relationships in the lives of the craftspeople and the users, a concept that has been lost with mass-produced items that have no connection to an individual craftsperson.{{sfn|Schiffer|2000}}

Many traditional crafts, such as ironworking and glass-making, have been elevated to the [[fine art|fine]] or [[applied arts]] and taught in art schools;{{sfn|Roberts|1972|pages=236 ff, 250}} or they have been repurposed as [[folk art]], characterized as objects whose decorative form supersedes their utilitarian needs. Folk art is found in hex signs on Pennsylvania Dutch barns, tin man sculptures made by metalworkers, front yard Christmas displays, decorated school lockers, carved gun stocks, and tattoos. "Words such as naive, self-taught, and individualistic are used to describe these objects, and the exceptional rather than the representative creation is featured."<ref>{{cite web |publisher=[[Library of Congress]] |work=American Folklife Center |title=Material Culture |date=29 October 2010 |url=https://www.loc.gov/folklife/guide/materialculture.html |access-date=8 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170820221339/https://www.loc.gov/folklife/guide/materialculture.html |archive-date=20 August 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> This is in contrast to the understanding of folklore artifacts that are nurtured and passed along within a community.{{efn|[[Henry Glassie]], a distinguished folklorist studying technology in cultural context, notes that in Turkish one word, sanat, refers to all objects, not distinguishing between art and craft. The latter distinction, Glassie emphasizes, is not based on medium but on social class. This raises the question as to the difference between arts and crafts; is the difference found merely in the labeling?}}

Many objects of material folklore are challenging to classify, difficult to archive, and unwieldy to store. The assigned task of museums is to preserve and make use of these bulky artifacts of material culture. To this end, the concept of the [[living museum]] has developed, beginning in Scandinavia at the end of the 19th century. These open-air museums not only display the artifacts, but also teach visitors how the items were used, with actors reenacting the everyday lives of people from all segments of society, relying heavily on the material artifacts of a pre-industrial society. Many locations even duplicate the processing of the objects, thus creating new objects of an earlier historic time period. Living museums are now found throughout the world as part of a thriving [[heritage industry]].

This list represents just a small sampling of objects and skills that are included in studies of material culture.

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* [[Autograph book]]s
* [[Bunad]]
* [[Embroidery]]
* [[Folk art]]
* [[Folk costume]]
* [[History of herbalism|Folk medicines]]
* [[Challah|Food recipes and presentation]]
* [[Foodways]]
* [[Handicraft#List of common handicrafts|Common handicrafts]]
* [[List of wooden toys|Handmade toys]]
* [[Hay#Stacking|Haystacks]]
* [[Hex signs]]
* [[Ironwork|Decorative ironworks]]
* [[Pottery]]
* [[Quilting]]
* [[Stone carving|Stone sculpting]]
* [[Tipis]]
* [[Wattle (construction)|Traditional fences]]
* [[Vernacular architecture]]
* [[Weather vane]]s
* [[Woodworking]]

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=== Customs ===
[[Tradition|Customary culture]] is remembered enactment, i.e. re-enactment. It is the patterns of expected behavior within a group, the "traditional and expected way of doing things"{{sfn|Sweterlitsch|1997|page=168}}{{sfn|Sims|Stephens|2005|page=16}} A custom can be a [[List of gestures|single gesture]], such as [[thumbs down]] or a [[handshake]]. It can also be a complex interaction of multiple folk customs and artifacts as seen in a child's birthday party, including verbal lore ([[Happy Birthday to you|Happy Birthday song]]), material lore (presents and a birthday cake), special games ([[Musical chairs]]) and individual customs (making a wish as you blow out the candles). Each of these is a folklore artifact in its own right, potentially worthy of investigation and cultural analysis. Together they combine to build the custom of a birthday party celebration, a scripted combination of multiple artifacts which have meaning within their social group.

[[File:Pvt. Evan Allen Dancer, center, smiles as Santa Claus, right, hands gifts to Destiny Hawley and her brother Justin Hawley of Scipio, Ind., during the 3rd Annual Operation Christmas Blessing event at Muscatatuck 111212-A-QU728-005.jpg|thumb|[[Santa Claus]] giving gifts to children, a common folk practice associated with [[Christmas]] in Western nations]]

[[File:Haji_Firuz_on_the_road.jpg|right|thumb|[[Hajji Firuz]] is a fictional character in Iranian folklore who appears in the streets by the beginning of [[Nowruz]], dances through the streets while singing and playing tambourine.]]

Folklorists divide customs into several different categories.{{sfn|Sweterlitsch|1997|page=168}} A custom can be a '''seasonal celebration''', such as [[Thanksgiving]] or [[New Year's Day|New Year's]]. It can be a '''life cycle celebration''' for an individual, such as baptism, birthday or wedding. A custom can also mark a '''community festival''' or event; examples of this are [[Cologne Carnival|Carnival in Cologne]] or [[New Orleans Mardi Gras|Mardi Gras in New Orleans]]. This category also includes the [[Smithsonian Folklife Festival]] celebrated each summer on the Mall in Washington, DC. A fourth category includes customs related to '''folk beliefs'''. Walking under a ladder is just one of many [[List of unlucky symbols|symbols considered unlucky]]. '''Occupational groups''' tend to have a rich history of customs related to their life and work, so the [[Sailors' superstitions|traditions of sailors]] or [[Lumberjack#Culture|lumberjacks]].{{efn|The folklorist [[Archie Green]] specialized in workers' traditions and the lore of labor groups.}} The area of [[folk religion|ecclesiastical folklore]], which includes modes of worship not sanctioned by the established church{{sfn|Dorson|1972|page=4}} tends to be so large and complex that it is usually treated as a specialized area of folk customs; it requires considerable expertise in standard church ritual in order to adequately interpret folk customs and beliefs that originated in official church practice.

Customary folklore is always a performance, be it a single gesture or a complex of scripted customs, and participating in the custom, either as performer or audience, signifies acknowledgment of that social group. Some customary behavior is intended to be performed and understood only within the group itself, so the [[handkerchief code]] sometimes used in the gay community or the [[Masonic ritual and symbolism|initiation rituals]] of the Freemasons. Other customs are designed specifically to represent a social group to outsiders, those who do not belong to this group. The [[Saint Patrick's Day in the United States#New York City|St. Patrick's Day Parade]] in New York and in other communities across the continent is a single example of an ethnic group parading their separateness (differential behavior{{sfn|Bauman|1971|page=45}}), and encouraging Americans of all stripes to show alliance to this colorful ethnic group.

[[File:Deal Hoodeners, 1909.jpg|thumb|right|Practitioners of [[hoodening]], a folk custom found in [[Kent]], southeastern England, in 1909]]

These festivals and parades, with a target audience of people who do not belong to the social group, intersect with the interests and mission of [[Public folklore|public folklorists]], who are engaged in the documentation, preservation, and presentation of traditional forms of folklife. With a swell in popular interest in folk traditions, these [[List of folk festivals|community celebrations]] are becoming more numerous throughout the western world. While ostensibly parading the diversity of their community, economic groups have discovered that these folk parades and festivals are good for business. All shades of people are out on the streets, eating, drinking and spending. This attracts support not only from the business community, but also from federal and state organizations for these local street parties.{{sfn|Sweterlitsch|1997|page=170}} Paradoxically, in parading diversity within the community, these events have come to authenticate true community, where business interests ally with the varied (folk) social groups to promote the interests of the community as a whole.

This is just a small sampling of types and examples of customary lore.

{{div col|colwidth=13em}}
* [[Amish]]
* [[Barn raising]]
* [[Birthday]]
* [[Cakewalk]]
* [[Cat's cradle]]
* [[Chaharshanbe Suri]]
* [[Christmas]]
* [[Crossed fingers]]
* [[Folk dance]]
* [[Folk drama]]
* [[Folk medicine]]
* [[Giving the finger]]
* [[Halloween]]
* [[Hoodening]]
* [[List of gestures|Gestures]]
* [[Groundhog Day]]
* [[Louisiana Creole people]]
* [[Mime]]
* [[Culture of the Native Hawaiians|Native Hawaiians]]
* [[Ouiji|Ouiji board]]
* [[Powwow]]s
* [[Practical jokes]]
* [[Saint John's Eve]]
* [[Shakers]]
* [[Symbols]]
* [[Thanksgiving]]
* [[Thumbs down]]
* [[Trick or Treating]]
* [[Yo-yo]]s

{{div col end}}

=== Childlore and games ===
[[File: Pieter Bruegel d. Ä. 041b.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|''[[Children's Games (Bruegel)|Children's Games]]'' by [[Pieter Bruegel the Elder]], 1560; there are five boys playing a game of [[buck buck]] in the lower right-hand corner of the painting.]]

[[Childlore]] is a distinct branch of folklore that deals with activities passed on by children to other children, away from the influence or supervision of an adult.{{sfn|Grider|1997|page=123}} Children's folklore contains artifacts from all the standard folklore genres of verbal, material, and customary lore; it is however the '''child-to-child conduit''' that distinguishes these artifacts. For childhood is a social group where children teach, learn and share their own traditions, flourishing in a [[Children's street culture|street culture]] outside the purview of adults. This is also ideal where it needs to be collected; as [[Iona and Peter Opie]] demonstrated in their pioneering book ''Children's Games in Street and Playground''.{{sfn|Opie|Opie|1969}} Here the social group of children is studied on its own terms, not as a derivative of adult social groups. It is shown that the [[Childlore|culture of children]] is quite distinctive; it is generally unnoticed by the sophisticated world of adults, and quite as little affected by it.{{sfn|Grider|1997|page=125}}

Of particular interest to folklorists here is the mode of transmission of these artifacts; this lore circulates exclusively within an informal pre-literate children's network or folk group. It does not include artifacts taught to children by adults. However children can take the taught and teach it further to other children, turning it into childlore. Or they can take the artifacts and turn them into something else; so Old McDonald's farm is transformed from animal noises to the scatological version of animal poop. This childlore is characterized by "its lack of dependence on literary and fixed form. Children…operate among themselves in a world of informal and oral communication, unimpeded by the necessity of maintaining and transmitting information by written means".{{sfn|Grider|1997}} This is as close as folklorists can come to observing the transmission and social function of this folk knowledge before the spread of literacy during the 19th century.

As we have seen with the other genres, the original collections of children's lore and games in the 19th century was driven by a fear that the culture of childhood would die out.{{sfn|Grider|1997|page=127}} Early folklorists, among them [[Alice Gomme]] in Britain and [[William Wells Newell]] in the United States, felt a need to capture the unstructured and unsupervised street life and activities of children before it was lost. This fear proved to be unfounded. In a comparison of any modern school playground during recess and the painting of "Children's Games" by [[Pieter Breugel the Elder]] we can see that the activity level is similar, and many of the games from the 1560 painting are recognizable and comparable to modern variations still played today.

These same artifacts of childlore, in innumerable variations, also continue to serve the same function of learning and practicing skills needed for growth. So bouncing and swinging rhythms and rhymes encourage development of [[Vestibular system|balance and coordination]] in infants and children. Verbal rhymes like [[Peter Piper|Peter Piper picked...]] serve to increase both the oral and aural acuity of children. Songs and chants, accessing a different part of the brain, are used to memorize series ([[Alphabet song]]). They also provide the necessary beat to complex physical rhythms and movements, be it hand-clapping, jump roping, or ball bouncing. Furthermore, many physical games are used to develop strength, coordination and endurance of the players. For some team games, negotiations about the rules can run on longer than the game itself as social skills are rehearsed.{{sfn|Georges|Jones|1995|pages=243–254}} Even as we are just now uncovering the [[neuroscience]] that undergirds the developmental function of this childlore, the artifacts themselves have been in play for centuries.

Below is listed just a small sampling of types and examples of childlore and games.

{{div col|colwidth=14em}}
* [[Buck buck]]
* [[Children's song|Counting rhymes]]
* [[Children's song|Dandling rhymes]]
* [[Children's song|Finger and toe rhymes]]
* [[Counting-out game]]s
* [[Dreidel]]
* [[Eeny, meeny, miny, moe]]
* [[Games]]
* [[List of traditional children's games|Traditional games]]
* [[London Bridge Is Falling Down]]
* [[Lullabies]]
* [[Nursery rhymes]]
* [[Playground song]]s
* [[Playground song|Ball-bouncing rhymes]]
* [[Rhymes]]
* [[Riddle]]s
* [[Ring a Ring o' Roses|Ring a Ring o Roses]]
* [[Skipping-rope rhyme|Jump-rope rhymes]]
* [[Stickball]]
* [[Street games]]

{{div col end}}

=== Folk history ===
{{Mythology}}
{{See also|Ethnohistory}}
A case has been made for considering folk history as a distinct sub-category of folklore, an idea that has received attention from such folklorists as Richard Dorson. This field of study is represented in ''The Folklore Historian'', an annual journal sponsored by the History and Folklore Section of the [[American Folklore Society]] and concerned with the connections of folklore with history, as well as the history of folklore studies.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.afsnet.org/page/TFH |title=The Folklore Historian |publisher=[[American Folklore Society]] |access-date=30 September 2020 |archive-date=8 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201008205743/https://www.afsnet.org/page/TFH |url-status=live}}</ref>

{{div col|colwidth=14em}}
* [[List of world folk-epics]]

{{div col end}}