Folk Traditions

FOLK TRADITIONS. - They are also indicated by the term folklore, coined by the English archaeologist William J. Thoms (1803-85, better known under the pseudonym Ambrose Merton), and which appeared in the London journal Athenaeum (22 Aug. 1846). It is composed of two words of Saxon origin: folk = people, and lore = knowledge: therefore, literally, knowledge of the people. It means both the study of popular traditions and the traditions themselves. But the term did not spread without opposition. Thus, the Germans adopted Volkskunde and claim for Germany the priority of the term, which appeared for the first time in 1808, in the well-known work The Boy's Magic Horn by Arnim and Brentano. In France the term folklore prevailed, but that of traditions populaires has been and is widely used as well, and, by some, traditionnisme; in Spain, alongside folklore we find saber popular, in Greece λαογραφία, etc.

In Italy various replacements have been proposed and tried, such as demopsychology (Imbriani, Carducci, and especially Pitrè), ethnography (Loria), popular literature, demology (Vidossi), popolaressa (Tolomei), laography, etc. But that of popular traditions prevailed as regards content, and that of history of popular traditions to indicate the science that deals with them. Naturally, the use of the different terms is connected with the problem of the concept and the limits of this science.

However, the study of the traditional life of the people begins, as a simple "discovery" of the world of the humble, in which artists and men of letters participate from the second half of the 16th century and throughout the following century; it develops in the 18th century as curiosity and erudite research, finding in certain precursors the first great theoretical lines, until with Romanticism, from interest and admiration one passes to true comparative studies of a scientific character. It is a European phenomenon, and in Italy, to confine ourselves to the literary field, the most significant signs of the "discovery" of artistic interest are given by the popular tales taken as narrative material by prose writers, such as those that appear in the Piacevoli notti of Straparola (first half of the 16th century), or those, told with a style of their own but in perfect adherence to the spirit of the Neapolitan goodwives of the 17th century, that make up the Pentamerone of G. B. Basile (1575-1632), the first organic collection of tales to appear in Europe, and still one of the most important in the history of the popular novella. Only sixty years later there appeared in France the celebrated collection of the Contes de ma mère l'oye by Charles Perrault (1697): the interest in tales then triumphed in Paris in the 18th century, to the point of becoming a literary fashion.

Among the direct precursors and founders of the science of popular traditions, Vico may be considered for certain parts of the New Science, where many of those ideas are already in germ which, with different terminology or more precise formulation, Romanticism would advocate concerning the general concept of "people" and the multiple values attributed to it. Al-

Some of them, indeed, such as those on the character of the mentality of primitive peoples, anticipate views and conquests of contemporary thought. Also noteworthy in Vico is the extensive comparison, for which he makes use of material gathered from the most varied countries and times, as well as the acute intuition of the value, even as an ethnographic document, of those he calls "scraps of antiquity." Still in Italy, the erudite historical current prepares the development of the science of folk traditions: thanks to Muratori with some chapters of the Antiquitates Italicae, the treatise De superstitionem vitanda, etc., to Fr. Michelangelo Carmeli with the Storia dei costumi sacri e profani (Padua 1750), to Nicola Valletta with the Cicalata sul fascino volgarmente detto jettatura (Naples 1787) and to G. L. Marugi with the Capricci sulla jettatura (ibid. 1788), and various other short treatises could be added, such as the De Praeficis of Gerolamo Baruffaldi (Ferrara 1713) and the Pratica agraria of Giovanni Battarra (1788), etc.

The interest that manifests itself in France in the various aspects of folk traditions is also vast, with the Traité des superstitions of Thiers (Paris 1679), the Histoire des oracles (1686) and the Origine des fables of Fontenelle (ed. 1794), besides the contribution brought by the ideas and by some works of Lafitau, Helvétius, Montesquieu and Voltaire.

For Great Britain, numerous notices concerning popular customs and beliefs are already found in the work of the seventeenth-century physician Thomas Brown, Pseudodoxia epidemica, also translated into Italian under the title Saggio sopra gli errori popolareschi, and which represents one of the many manifestations of the struggle that the Church on one side and the Enlightenment on the other conducted against superstition. Of direct interest are the works Antiquitates vulgaris, or the Antiquities of the common people by H. Bourne (1725) and Observations on popular antiquities by J. Brand (1777). Particularly prominent in the eighteenth century, again in England, was the interest in popular poetry, which anticipated and prepared the exaltation that German Romanticism made of such poetry. At the urging of Addison, the Collection of old ballads appeared in London (1723-25) in three volumes; but the greatest influence on the literary tastes of the time was exercised by the Reliques of ancient English poetry (1765) of Percy, followed by other collections, leading to that of Walter Scott, The minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802-1803).

But it is to German Romanticism, and especially to Herder, Goethe and Bürger, that popular poetry and literature owe their rise to the highest aesthetic, political and moral values and symbols, feeding collections and investigations of an ever more scientific character. The methodological study of folk traditions is usually made to begin with the work of the brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, Kinderund Hausmärchen (vol. I 1812, vol. II 1813, vol. III 1810-22, reprinted several times and translated into the principal languages), where, besides the collected texts, there is a comparative investigation and a general interpretive theory. It is not surprising that the impulse given by Romanticism made itself felt predominantly in the study of popular literature, songs and tales: this impulse continued throughout the first half of the nineteenth century and beyond, arousing in the principal nations of Europe, not excluding those of Slavic language, a rich flowering of collections and studies, which served to bring ever greater light to the importance of popular life and its poetic expressions.

For Italy, the most significant work is due to Tommaseo with the great collection of Canti popolari toscani, corsi, illirici, greci (4 vols., Venice 1841-42). The spirit of nationality, which did so much in the European history of the nineteenth century, contributed to it as an animating element, especially in those countries that lacked an ancient and rich literary tradition, and also revived interest in usages and customs. In France, during the Napoleonic period, an official inquiry was promoted, whose questionnaires were prepared by the Académie celtique of Paris, especially through the work of J. A. Dulaure (cf. Mémoires of that Academy, vol. I, 1808, pp. 72-86). The inquiry, conducted through the prefects of the various departments, was continued, even after Napoleon, with a copious and valuable collection of folkloric materials, published in the official annals and statistics. This inquiry was also extended to the first Kingdom of Italy in the years 1800-11 with notable results. As an effect of it must be considered the work of Michele Placucci, Usi e pregiudizi dei contadini della Romagna (Forlì 1818): one of the first works, not only in Italy, to offer a systematic and precise picture of the folk traditions of a given region. The study of folk traditions develops during the nineteenth century, acquiring an ever more systematic character, also because, for all the part concerning popular poetry and tales, it is included within the framework of one of the most advanced sciences, philology. Oral tradition is integrated with literary texts, and there arise the formulations of theories on the origin of tales: the mythical one of the brothers Grimm and of Max Müller (Essay on comparative mythology, Oxford 1856) and the Indianist one of Benfey (1809-81), both developed by numerous followers. From the Romantic phase, of enthusiasm and somewhat fanciful theorizing, one passes to the positivist phase and that of the historical method, where the search for sources and documents becomes a basic condition and serves historical reconstruction and interpretation. For Italy it suffices to recall C. Nigra, D. Comparetti, A. D'Ancona, with numerous disciples and collaborators.

In the second half of the nineteenth century the horizon of folk traditions widens and the collection and elaboration of data becomes more intense in the various nations. The first societies of scholars are constituted (the Folklore Society of London in 1878), the first specialized journals are published, and there is an ever more intense activity of collecting and organizing materials. Representative of this second period is, in Italy, Giuseppe Pitrè (v.), whose multifaceted work reflects the principal orientations and constructive results, in a sphere not only Italian but European. The study of folk traditions receives an impulse, decisive for its definitive scientific affirmation, from the development of ethnography, especially through the merit of the English anthropological school, which, although with a predominantly naturalistic approach, also encompasses the manifestations of the moral and cultural world of primitive peoples. Precisely from the search for the relations and concordances between the usages, customs and beliefs of primitive peoples and those of the common people of civilized nations, folklore receives precious illuminations and fully reveals its character. Among the most significant works of this school may be recalled: Primitive culture (1st ed.

1871) by E. B. Tylor; Myth, ritual and religion (1887) by A. Lang, and The golden bough by J. G. Frazer (1st ed. 1890: 3rd ed., in 12 vols., 1911-15; Italian trans., in 2 vols., 1950). The conceptions of primitive peoples, albeit with different interpretations depending on the author, are also explained with the contribution of the correspondences they find in the popular traditions still alive in the various nations. The inquiry extends to the origin of fairy tales and especially to the similarity of motifs and themes among tales from very distant countries, noting the close affinity of conceptions and customs of primitive peoples and the fundamental identity of the human spirit manifesting itself through the common gifts of imagination and inventiveness. The development of the English anthropological school, which left its mark on scientific activity in this field even outside England, especially in America, was prepared and flanked by the works of certain German scholars, such as Mensch in der Geschichte by A. Bastian (1859) and Antike Wald-und Feldkulte (1876) by W. Mannhardt. Bastian's doctrines on the "elementary ideas" common to all peoples and the "ethnic" ideas proper to individual peoples led to the admission that identical forms of culture can arise anywhere, and culminated in the evolutionist thesis of an almost inevitable development of primitive civilizations outside of any historical connection" (Vidossi). These doctrines have been superseded thanks to the objective investigations carried out by numerous researchers belonging to different scientific currents, first of all the one headed by Fr. W. Schmidt, findings which, although concerning ethnology, are fruitful in their application also in the field of popular traditions.

An appreciable impulse has furthermore come from the development of sociology, because popular tradition has its natural element and its reason for being in the life of associated collectivities. Folklore, therefore, by some scholars, such as the Frenchman A. Van Gennep and the Belgian A. Marinus, is included in a sociological system. The fruitful aspect of this approach consists in positing tradition as a unitary and essential element of folklore and in conceiving it as a perennial activity, not as a mere survival or wreckage of antiquity. The formula "le folk-lore est immortel" belongs to Marinus, while Van Gennep, with his Manuel de folklore français contemporain (in the course of publication since 1937: eight large volumes have appeared so far) offers a model of the complete systematic collection and comparative interpretation of the popular traditions of a great nation. Even if at the bottom of his theoretical principles there are found residues of by now superseded naturalistic conceptions, in the reality of its execution this monumental work serves to demonstrate the importance and value of folkloric science.

Thus we have arrived at the various and sometimes conflicting currents that confront or complement one another in today's folklore. It is mainly to the German F. Naumann, Grundzüge der deutschen Volkskunde (1921), that we owe the revision of the concept of popular tradition, the appreciation of the influence exercised by the culture of the upper classes, the asserted necessity of discriminating, within folklore, "decayed learned matter," of individual origin, from that other matter which he considers primitive and therefore collective. In this way Naumann believes he reconciles the contrast between ethnology understood naturalistically and the history of culture, a contrast which instead is overcome and annulled in the modern historico-cultural conception of ethnology. Along the path he opened moves the Swiss E. Hofmann-Krayer, who critically deepens and then modifies some of the aspects of Naumann's theories, emphasizing the fundamental importance of the creations and innovations due to single individuals even in the humblest strata, and characterizing the phenomenon of the assimilation of a given form of life by the collectivity.

The recent development of general linguistic theories also exerts a favorable influence on the clarification of the concept of popular tradition. The two Russian scholars P. Bogatyrev and R. Jacobson, in the essay Die Folklore als eine besondere Form des Schaffens (1929), starting from the distinction established by De Saussure between langue and parole (the first term understood as a social fact and the second as individual expression) emphasize that innovations or creations of the individual members of the community begin to exist as tradition only when they are assimilated by the community itself through a perpetual process of selection and elimination, which is not a mere passive mechanism but a creative activity. These theories of the two scholars just cited agree only in part with those that dominate today, almost with official sanction, in the USSR and that emphasize the social function of folklore, considering it not so much as an echo of the past as a voice of the present, an expression of the soul and life of the popular classes. It should be noted that in Russia folklore has the restricted meaning of popular literature, excluding the customs and usages that are made to fall under ethnography: this is in strange contrast with the official conceptions of the character of literature, to which a precise task of practical relation with social life is imposed, that very relation which constantly distinguishes popular poetry. In any case, folkloric science, which already in the nineteenth century counted Vesselovski, now numbers M. Azadovski, E. Kazarov, B. and J. Sokolov, V. J. Propp.

To complete the picture of the current positions in the study of popular traditions, one should recall the current that in Germany, in the service of the political interests of Nazism, sought to establish as the fundamental object of folkloric research the characterization of Germanness in its specific racial qualities. But, apart from these deviations and exaggerations, one must recognize the substantial contribution made by German and Austrian scholars with works of systematic investigation and broad synthesis, with the organization of study centers, with the realization of the German Folkloric Atlas and of the Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens (from 1928 in 10 vols.: edited by E. Hoffmann-Krayer and E. Bächtold-Stäubli): it suffices to recall the names of J. Meier, A. Spamer, P. Geiger, W. Pessler, A. Harmjanz, and, for Austria, M. and A. Haberlandt and L. Schmidt.

As for Italy, in these last thirty years there has been a fervent revival, to which philological and aesthetic currents, together with ethnological ones, have contributed in common work. Thanks to Michele Barbi and his pupils, among them Vittorio Santoli, the problems of the history of popular poetry and of the critical edition of popular songs, collected by Barbi over fifty years of research, have been placed on new and rigorous methodological foundations. A notable contribution has also been made by dialectologists: Luigi Sorrento conceived and directed a "Collection of songs, tales, traditions of the regions of Italy" (14 vols., Milan, ed. Trevisini). It is to Benedetto Croce that we owe the introduction of the concept of psychological tone for characterizing popular poetry, a concept fruitful in its application to all the other forms of popular art and to folklore in general. Some of his doctrines in the historiographical field have offered new theoretical bases for a historicist conception of ethnology and of popular traditions. Moreover, his studies on Basile and on popular literature are noteworthy.

The principal orientations and results of international folkloristic science have been absorbed, through critical sifting, and used for original studies by some eminent scholars, among them Giuseppe Vidossi and Raffaele Corso: the latter, with his treatise Folklore (1st ed. 1923; 4th ed. 1953), with the journal Il Folklore italiano (from 1925), with university teaching of ethnography and with important works, has given a valid impulse to the study of popular traditions on ethnographic bases. But a new generation is asserting itself, favored in its work by the recent establishment of chairs of history of popular traditions at the Universities of Rome (Toschi), Palermo (Cocchiara), Catania (Naselli). A course on popular poetry is also held, by Barbi's bequest, at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa (Santoli and Vidossi), where the edition of the "Raccolta Barbi" is being prepared.

As for the domain of folklore, besides the Russian school which restricts it to "oral literature", the Finnish scholars, whose activity is nonetheless so meritorious, take a similar attitude; and the American A. Haggerty Krappe (The science of folk-lore, London 1930) approaches them. The English school conceives folklore, according to evolutionist-anthropological doctrines, as the primitive history of humanity, resolving that history into certain primordial psychic attitudes, so that it does not delimit its field with respect to ethnography. A recent school that arose in France under the leadership of A. Varagnac makes of it a branch of the new science called archeocivilisation, framed within prehistory and archaeology.

On the other hand, there are also divergences concerning the meaning and extension of the word "people", folklore being recognized as more proper to the humble classes, to the common folk, whence Hoffmann-Krayer's formula "vulgus in populo", and the name of laografia given to the science, with reference to laos = common folk, rather than to demos = people. Consequently it also follows that folklore is conceived as a chapter of ethnography, that is, "ethnography of the common folk" (Corso) or as "study of the common folk in modern civilized peoples" (Pettazzoni). But, especially by German scholars, it has been pointed out that folklore is found in every social stratum, that it is not possible to draw clear divisions between the various classes and that therefore the formula "vulgus in populo" appears inadequate, uncertain and too narrow. An attempt is therefore made to use as a delimiting principle a determinate mentality defined as "associative" and which finds correspondence in the Crocean concept of psychological tone.

Also on the basis of this principle, the majority of the most qualified scholars, in France as in Italy, in Germany as in Switzerland and elsewhere, has always included in folklore both popular literature and the complex of uses and customs, beliefs and prejudices. The bond that binds together in the reality of life the folkloric facts, "oral literature" and "objective traditions", as an inseparable whole, is constituted by the functional character of popular poetry, always indissolubly joined to the forms of the life of the common folk, and used, as a rule, for practical purposes. This unitary character then finds its first and profound reason in the fact that all the aspects of popular traditions are manifestations of a single spiritual force proper to associated human life, and necessary for the conservation and development of civilization. Therefore, considered in its being, popular tradition reveals itself as a perennial spiritual force of associated groups, which, through the work of the most suitable individuals, creates, conserves and hands down those forms of practical, aesthetic and moral life that are necessary and congenial to those same groups, while it renews or eliminates one by one those that are dead and superseded.

The study of the manifestations of these forces and the search for the norms that regulate them constitute the object of the science of popular traditions and confer upon it full autonomy. Far from being a simple chapter of ethnography, it therefore presents itself, alongside the history of language, of religions, of juridical institutions, etc., as a branch of the history of human civilization.

Its principal manifestations can then be indicated with these words of Pitrè: "Fairy tales and fables, stories and legends, proverbs and sayings, songs and melodies, enigmas and riddles, spectacles and festivals, uses and customs, rites and ceremonies, practices, beliefs, superstitions, whims, a whole world manifest and occult of reality and imagination moves and stirs, smiles, groans for whoever knows how to approach and understand it." From what has been said above, the relations that the study of popular traditions has with other sciences appear evident: with linguistics, for problems of a general order and for that section which considers together "words and things"; with the history of religions, inasmuch as all traditional life is permeated with religiosity; with psychology, for certain manifestations of the mentality and psychological tone of the common folk; with prehistory and archaeology, with literary history, the history of art and of music, of law, of the natural sciences, of pedagogy, etc., for their constant and reciprocal influences.

As for the method of study, it can be traced back to two principal moments: the first of collection and description, the second of interpretation. For collection, one of the working tools which, if well used, renders useful services, is constituted by questionnaires, lists of questions prepared and ordered in relation to the purpose of the research. Very many have been compiled by societies and committees as well as by individual scholars: those of Van Gennep are cited as models. For the documentation of customs, festivals, scenes of life, etc., the widest possible use of modern technical means is advised: photography, cinema, phonographic recording, phonofilm. An effective complement is constituted by cartographic representation (Van Gennep), which reaches its most complex and perfect form with demological atlases, where the principal folkloric facts are represented with the same methods as linguistic atlases. That for the folklore of Germany has already been realized; that of Switzerland is in the process of compilation; for Italy a systematic program was outlined by Vidossi. Such atlases are also a highly valuable instrument for comparison and interpretation. The Finnish method — so called because it was devised and applied by Finnish scholars, among them, first, Julius and Kaarle Krohn — has rendered notable services to the study of popular literature. Based on geographical-historical research, this method aims to follow fairy tales (and analogously popular songs and other folkloric facts) through their complicated history, to establish the forms proper to each area of diffusion, and, through the forms proper to each area, to arrive at the archetypes supposed to be compositions due to a single author. The application of folkloric geography to popular song has received new impetus from R. Menéndez Pidal: in this order of research one must also place the transfer of the areal linguistic norms, formulated by Matteo Bartoli, into the field of popular poetry and of folklore in general. The interpretive research of a folkloric fact, carried out by means of comparison and historical documentation, aims to establish its original character, its fields of irradiation, the innovations and adaptations through time and space, in form and in meaning, in order to arrive at a full understanding that situates it within the general conceptions by which it is inspired and within the current of social life in which it moves.

Of valid help to the development of the studies of popular traditions are the folkloric and ethnographic museums established in the various countries with a national and regional character, especially in northern Europe. In Sweden the Nordiska Museet arose as early as 1872: characteristic and of great cultural and social importance is the Open-Air Museum of Stockholm, founded in 1908 by Azelius. On the same principles the Norsk Folkemuseum of Oslo arose for Norway, that of Arnhem in Holland, and others. Notable for the richness of their collections are the National Museum of Helsinki, the Museum für Völkerkunde and the Museum of Industrial Art in Berlin, the Deutsches Museum of Munich, the Museum für Völkerkunde of Vienna; folkloric museums of great interest are possessed by Antwerp and Liège for Belgium; Basel for Switzerland; Warsaw and Kraków for Poland; Prague, Lubalovice and Brno for Czechoslovakia; Ljubljana, Zagreb and Split for Yugoslavia; Cluj for Romania; Thessaloniki and Athens for Greece; Madrid for Spain; Lisbon for Portugal. For Italy the Museo di etnografia italiana, founded by Lamberto Loria and his collaborators, holds precious collections with over 35 thousand objects (provisionally housed at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli). Among the regional museums, the Museo di etnografia siciliana in Palermo, founded by Pitrè and reorganized by Cocchiara, stands foremost; others have arisen at Forlì, La Spezia, Tolmezzo, Bolzano. Of capital importance, moreover, are the specialized journals, the principal ones of which are in England: Folklore (since 1889); France: Mélusine (1877-87, resumed, but only briefly, in 1897), La tradition (1888-98), Revue des traditions populaires (1886-1923) and Nouvelle revue des traditions populaires (recently resumed); Germany: Zeitschrift für Volkskunde (since 1891); Poland: Lud (since 1895); Austria: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde; Switzerland: Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde (Basel); Spain: Revista de dialectología y tradiciones populares; America: Journal of American Folk-lore (Philadelphia), Western Folk-lore (Los Angeles), and, of an international character, Folk-liv (Stockholm) and Journal of international Folk-music Council (London); for Italy: Archivio per la raccolta e lo studio delle t. p., ed. Pitrè and S. Salomone-Marino (1882-1907); Rivista delle t. p. italiane, ed. A. De Gubernatis (1893-95); Lares (1st series, ed. Loria and Novati, 1912-13; 2nd series, ed. P. Toschi, since 1930); Il Folklore italiano, ed. R. Corso, since 1925, resumed under the title Folklore; besides other minor and regional ones: Il Giambattista Basile, Ce fastu, La Piè, etc.

Even with diversity of motives and difference, and at times contrast, of orientations, it must be recognized that the studies of popular traditions are everywhere in full flower. Such activity is reflected in the Volkskundliche Bibliographie which, edited by E. Hoffmann-Krayer and P. Geiger, has been published periodically in Berlin since 1919, now resumed after the interruption due to the war. - See pl. XLIII.

Paolo Toschi