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Abrahams, Roger D.  1968.  “Introductory Remarks to a Rhetorical Theory Of Folklore.”  Journal of American Folklore 81 (319): 143-158.

“Introductory Remarks to a Rhetorical Theory of Folklore”
Roger D. Abrahams
 

[beginning of page 143]

The gulf between the literary and anthropological folklorists is nowhere more clearly seen than in the ways in which the two view the form and performance of elements of traditional expressive culture.  The literary folklorist, trained in the analysis of form and distribution, looks at the construction of the specific traditional item in order to discuss its constituent elements and the variations which occur in the item as it is transmitted traditionally.  The anthropologist, generally lacking this aesthetic training and predilection, rather looks at the ways in which the traditional performance fits into the day-to-day life of a specific group, or he focuses on the cultural content of the various items of performance in order to explore those manifestations which interest him most: cosmology, value structure, family system, and other institutional matters.

From the aesthetician’s point of view, both of these approaches do violence to the art of traditional expression.  The folklorist, by emphasizing construction and dissemination, ignores the expression of energy and the beauty of order inherent in these materials.  We seldom have insights provided by him as to how or why these pieces function effectively or remain in traditional currency.  On the other hand, the anthropologist, by neglecting the stylistic components of traditional expression, often fails to relate cultural value to cultural style, but if he does, the relation commonly emerges in such an insular context (because of his concern with the specific groups with whom he had done field research) that the value of his analysis is severely limited. 

The limitations of these divergent points of view are perhaps more easily discernible when they are compared with the full range of aesthetic approaches used [beginning of page 144] in the past.  There are four basic ways in which a work of art, traditional or otherwise, has been approached.  The first underlines the importance of the shaping hand of the artist, seeing the work of art and its effect upon the audience as by-products of the manipulative energies of the performing creator or interpreter.  This approach we know best through Romantic criticism, but is that used by most Freudian art critics as well.  The second centers upon the work of art as an object, divorcing the artist and his audience from consideration (at least for the critical moment). This approach sees all creations of art as self-sufficient entities; it implies that once a work is created it is capable of speaking for itself, and must be analyzed in terms of its internal characteristics and the interrelationships of its parts.  This approach is the one followed by the practitioners of the New Criticism, though this focus was used long before that movement began (for instance, by Aristotle where he formulated his concept of the dramatic unities).  The third approach is primarily concerned with the way in which the performance affects the audience.  Once again in Aristotelian terms, this approach examines the cathartic effect of a work.  The fourth focuses on the way in which the audience affects the performance.  It analyzes the way in which public values and conventions arise and are encouraged, and how the performer is affected by the presence of the audience and by public values and tastes. The last two approaches, in other words, emphasize the public nature of the attistic occasion, as opposed the more private concerns of the first two.  Those who have used this public point of view have therefore gravitated toward the analysis of the popular arts or the popular aspects of belles lettres.  Recent works on communications and popular culture by Father Ong, Marshall McLuhan, and Reuel Denney, for instance, have approached art from this point of view.

In terms of these four alternatives, the anthropological folklorist is more interested in audience values in most of his forays in the area of aesthetics.  He is usually concerned with the public nature of symbolic action and representation within specific groups, or with the public values and practices depicted.  The literary folklorist, on the other hand, is more directly centered upon the art object divorced from artist and audience.  Those of the “Sources and Analogues” or “Geographical-Historical” schools are not concerned with the esthetic effect of the object so much as the distribution of its component parts in time and space.  The recent structuralist criticism, on the other hand, is more directly in tune with the New Criticism, viewing the item in terms of the relationships of its constituent parts.  By comparing the conventions of dramatic or linguistic movement by genre or within a specific group, they drive toward recognition of patterns of expectation inherent in the aesthetic style of the genre or the group, and thus provide both an analytic and predictive tool for handling traditional materials.

These are not the only possible approaches to the analysis of traditional expression.  In fact, what is needed is a method which would emphasize all aspects of the aesthetic performance: performance, item, and audience.  Such an approach would use the insights provided by the Functionalist School of anthropologists, who see folklore in its contextual frame, and would also bring to bear the formalistic perceptions of recent literary criticism.  Just such an approach to literature and other expressive manifestations of society has been explored by recent critics who have revived the concept of rhetoric as the art of persuasion, and [beginning of page 145] seen that the essence of persuasion resides both in effective form and compelling performance. 

Perhaps the most important forerunner of this method was Sigmund Freud, in his book, Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. (1)  He argues that jokes function as a way of saying things that need to be said -- but which are generally prohibited by society -- by the framing of these subjects in witty form.  By doing this, the jokester is capable of duping society temporarily and of achieving a persoanl ego gain in the process.  Furthermore, Freud emphasizes that this could not occur if the members of the audience did not want the jokester to perform in this way.

The most important and persistent exponent of the rhetorical method has been Kenneth Burke.  He has shown in a number of works that words have power and that performance therefore is a way of persuading through the production of pleasure, as well as the assertion of idea or course of action.  He argues that all language is a process of naming, that naming gives comfort by creating a feeling of control, that for one to know the name of a thing is to achieve magical control over it, and that this control can be used by the speaker to influence simply by voicing the “name.”  Utterance assumes a dimension of personal power which becomes more profound as the utterance becomes more self-conscious.  Therefore, the more artistic the utterance (or performance), the larger amount of word-magic is being brought to liar.  The importance of this theory is that it causes us to consider the form and function of the isolated item; we look simultaneously at the performer, at the piece he performs, and at the effect which this has on the audience.  He distinguishes between “situations” and “strategies”: “We think of poetry [or any self-consciously voiced expressions] as the adopting of various strategies for the encompassing of situations.  These strategies size up the situations, name their structure and outstanding ingredients, and name them in a way that contains an attitude toward them.” (2)
 

I

Expressive folklore is made up of items of traditional performance which call attention to themselves because of their artifice.  Each piece of folklore is artfully and artificially organized.  As with any work of art, materials are manipulated so that they appear coherent and vital.  Further, items of expressive folklore differ from other modes of experience because they come to life only through that special kind of organized and habitual action called “performance.”  Both form and performance emphasize the artificial nature of the expression.

The full analysis of a tradition or genre calls for study of the organizational elements of both items and performances.  A recent barrage of studies by folklorists and anthropologists has emphasized the organizational principles of one or another genre of lore outside their performance context.  Such “structural” analyses have directed attention to linguistic and dramatic principles of construction, without much attempt at discussing the artistic quality of the organization or the way the expressive object achieves its effect. (3)  In other words, only one aspect of the stylistics of traditions has been investigated by these structuralists.

On the other hand, one of these investigators, Alan Dundes, has noted that the performance dimension is similarly capable of being analyzed in terms of its [beginning of page 146] traditional organization, and, given his bias, he calls this “the structure of context.” (4)  A number of recent studies have analyzed just such matters in regard to traditions within specific cultures, most notably those of Degh, Crowley, and Finnegan. (5)  Examination of “structure of context” calls for an analysis of the relation between the participants in an aesthetic transaction (in actors and observers) as the relation is modified by time and place and occasion.  Such a description invites a fuller understanding of the affective dimension of performance.  Each item of lore can be discussed meaningfully in terms of linguistic and dramatic organization and relationship of performer to the rest of the group.  In fact, understanding of an item (and by extension, the tradition in which it exists) begins with an interrelating of all of these stylistic matters.  It is not enough to perceive how ideas and attitudes are embodied in forms that produce pleasure and beauty and edification.  Function, and the relations between form and usage, are equally critical. 

The relationship between levels of stylistic ordering cannot be established without an understanding of the principle that each item of expressive culture is an implement of argument, a tool of persuasion.  A piece is enacted by a performer who tries to use it to affect an audience in some way.  He embodies his argument in traditional form, and this makes his technique of argument traditional as well -- but argue he does, even when he seems to be entertaining.  The rhetorical approach would deal with all levels of style simultaneously in order to show how they interrelate through the direction of argument.  Each argument must have a method of attack, a “strategy,” and each level of item-performance contributes in some way to the implementation of the strategy.  An utterance asks for some kind of sympathetic reaction on the part of the hearer, a reaction induced by manipulation of materials (words, gestures, dramatic movement) in combination with the technique by which the speaker relates to his audience.  The rhetorical approach centers upon the aesthetic techniques by which this sympathy is evoked, but insists upon placing equal emphasis on the area of affect.  By analyzing strategy, it relates the performer and audience to the item being performed.

Once this frame of reference is established it is relatively easy to study not only the aesthetic construction of an item, but also patterns of use and relations between performer and audience.  The problem is how to relate the levels of structure effectively, and this is what the rhetorical approach attempts to do; it assumes in the performance situation the existence of both an item and an affect and proceeds to ask, “how?”

As the rhetorical approach considers techniques of argument, it assumes that all expression is designed to influence, and that we must simply discover the design.  Folklore, being traditional activity, argues traditionally; it uses arguments and persuasive techniques developed in the past to cope with recurrences of social problem situations.  In fact, the very traditional nature of the expression is one of the impottant techniques of persuasion in a tradition-oriented group.  The problems specifically attacked by folk expression are those that threaten the existence of the group.  Folklore functions normatively, as a cohesive force. 
 
...folklore operates within a society to ensure conformity to the accepted cultural  norms, and continuity from generation to generation through its role in education  and the extent to which it mirrors culture... 

 [beginning of page 147] Viewed in this light, folklore is an important mechanism for maintaining the stability of culture.  It is used to inculcate the customs and ethical standards in the young, and as an adult to reward him with praise when he conforms, to punish him with ridicule or criticism when he deviates, to provide him with rationalizations when the institutions and conventions are challenged or questioned, to suggest that he be content with things as they are, and to provide him with a compensatory escape from the “hardships, the inequalities, the injustices” of everyday life. (6) 

In rhetorical terms, this means that folklore, using persuasive techniques developed in the past, argues for adherence to the normal course, the middle way already tested by past usage.  These persuasions work by providing charter for action, by legislating, by justifying, by educating, by applying social pressure, by providing socially approved outlets for anti-social motives. 
 

II

The addition of the dimensions of rhetorical intent and contextual structure allows an emphasis upon the dynamic qualities of folklore in performance.  Discussion of linguistic or dramatic structure does not generally explain these qualities in dynamic terms.  Structural technique does include discussion of a progression of sounds or motives or ideas, but progression is less dynamic than movement.  Movement is, in fact, the most important characteristic of an item of folklore.  The discernment causes us not only to see the item as an entity but also to recognize that for it to succeed we must feel with it.  This sympathetic (or empathic) reaction is inherent in the aesthetic construction of the piece, but it takes effect only as the item is performed.  Consequently, our clearest insight into affect is achieved by studying the relation between the performer and his audience.  For the strategy of a piece to succeed, the sympathy of the audience must be elicited.  In the performance, the performer and the item must come together congruently.  The item must exist and the performer must know how to use it -- each is equally important if the audience’s interest and sympathy are to be aroused.

It is precisely because we have both an item and a performer that our understanding of the nature of the sympathetic experience is clouded.  On the one hand, the performer performs to achieve some kind of status within the group, however temporary that achievement may be.  The performance is, therefore, an active part of the social drama, reflecting in a small way the ever-present existence of conflict in everyday life.  On the other band, the item has an existence of its own, since it can be re-enacted by any of a number of performers.  As such, it enunciates artificially a conflict of its own.  Agonism is at the core of dramatic structure.  There is a perceivable relationship between the conflicting elements of social existence and the artificially agonistic components of a work of art.  This is made clear in forms like fables or proverbs, which one invokes as an “answer” to a social question.  Furthermore, as many traditional expressions give artificially described interplay in terms of observerable social conflict, such art reflects and projects “reality.”  Hence the analysis of folklore in terms of ethnographic detail.  But to point out this element of cultural projection explains the sympathetic response only in part; it merely emphasizes the self-evident point that one can sympathize only with a struggle which one can comprehend.

The essence of sympathy seems to reside in the paradox of culture: that social [beginning of page 148] cohesion is most fully sensed in terms of the antagonisms felt within the group.  Community is achieved through a balance of dissociative as well as associative forces.  Membership is announced and preserved not only through unity and adherence to “the law,” but also by culturally approved expressions of egotism and hostility.  Sympathy, in life as well as art, is essentially a mediating force, a recognition of the universality of strife through the ability to imagine oneself “in the shoes of another.”  And folklore as a sympathetic activity functions mediationally as an imaginative projection, creating a world of conflict which for each individual in the group is both a negation and an affirmation of community.  Each item of traditional expression articulates conflict in some way; it also provides some manner of temporary resolution.  Its very traditional nature promotes community.  It can do this mediating because it is a “play” phenomenon, a projection of conflict in an impersonal and harmless milieu.

In this, the performer does more than present his piece -- he stands in a relationship of creative opposition to his audience, affirming himself as well as the world he is recreating by manipulating the response of the others.  This he does by appearing to control the materials out of which the piece is fashioned.  Insofar as this is an egotistic expression, it is an aggressive art from the social point of view, but inasmuch as it calls upon sympathy as the core of its affect, it reaffirms community.  Further, its traditional character diverts attention from the egotistical essence of the performance.  Performance is but one of the many acceptable ego-centric activities.  But the more this personal aggressiveness becomes evident in the content of the performance, the more it must be controlled in some way -- by rules and boundaries, or by the distance created between the play world and the real world.

By emphasizing the hostile character of the performer, we risk losing sight of the fact that he is permitted this position because the attitudes and plans of action which he transmits are those condoned by the community.  Expressive folklore embodies and reflects recurrent social conflicts, thus giving them a “name,” a representative and traditionally recognizable symbolic form.  To handle the materials of this representation is to reveal the problem situation in a controlled context.  This atmosphere of control is the primary tool of the rhetoric of a performance, the control is “magically” transferred from the item to the recurrent problem when the performance operates successfully, sympathetically.  Because the performer projects the conflict and resolves it, the illusion is created that it can be solved in real life; and with the addition of sympathy, of “acting with,” the audience not only derives pleasure from the activity but also knowledge.

The controlling power of folklore, the carrying out of its rhetorical intent, resides in the ability of the item and the performer to establish a sense of identity between a “real” situation and its artificial embodiment.  This sense of identity is engineered through the exercise of control, allowing the audience to relax at the same time it identifies with the projected situation.  This is done by creating a “psychic distance,” by removing the audience far enough from the situation that it can see that it is not going to actively involve them immediately.  Presented with an anxiety situation but relieved from the actual anxiety, he listener gains control, and with this limited control, relief.  This relief becomes pleasure when the performance exercises control by the use of wit, by the imposition of rules and [beginning of page 149] boundaries, by the creation of an imaginary world, or by some other limiting device which proclaims artifice.  Such controls make the problem seem more impersonal and universal and less immediate.  This is the essence of play: the objectifying and impersonalizing of anxiety situations, allowing the free expending of energies without the threat of social consequence.  This removal process serves rhetoric by clearing the way for the production of pleasure and the sympathetic response.  Rhetoric in its turn serves society by promoting accepted attitudes and modes of action.

Expressive folklore not only provides pleasure and catharsis but also attempts to guide effectively.  This is achieved by allying sympathy and strategy with movement.  Folklore, in other words, not only confronts and projects anxiety-producing situations; it also proposes potential solutions and attempts to produce action in accordance with its proposals.  This is especially true in the case of overtly normative forms of folklore (like proverbs, hero tales, and fables).  In the case of forms which embody antisocial motives, folklore projects these into patently ridiculous or fantastic worlds and allows for their expression in a harmless milieu, guiding action through formulas of avoidance.  This we see in forms as diverse as trickster tales, riddles, and festival maskings.  Thus, in both normative and antisocial forms, sympathy arises in an atmosphere of control, and control emerges from the fruitful coming together of an effective performer and a meaningful traditional expression.

The rhetorical approach therefore asks the observer to see the control of both the aesthetic object and of the context to witness how the two interrelate in creating pleasure and proposing action.  It demands a recognition of an intimate sympathetic relation between a proposed solution of a recurrent societal problem and the movement involved in the artistic projection of the problem.  And it suggests that the most feasible way of seeing this relationship is to understand what the strategy of the piece is: of what it wants to convince the hearer, and how it goes about convincing.  It does this, not at the expense of the play element of culture, but rather by insisting on the essential utility of the “playing-out” on an apparently impersonal level. 
 

III 

The rhetorical approach is not like the scientific method, a set of procedures to be used in attacking any test situation.  It is rather a point of view which proposes areas in which insights might be gained by using comparative or relational methodology.  To illustrate the uses of this approach, I will compare two genres, proverbs and riddles, in terms of organizational and persuasive techniques.  Similar in their linguistic organization but differing in their context of performance, the difference between the two forms is most easily articulated through variance in strategy.

Proverbs and riddles are short forms; both use the sentence as their linguistic frame.  Both use the devices of poetry as the stylistic basis of their linguistic organization: rhythm, balanced phrasing, rhyme, metaphor, and assonance.  Both are descriptions whose referents must be inferred through aptness of their elements.  They differ only in that a riddle must supply its referent and a proverb need not, as the referent is clear from the context of its usage.

[beginning of page 150] Proverbs are traditional answers to recurrent ethical problems; they provide an argument for a course of action which conforms to community values.  They arise in the midst of a conversation, and are used by speakers to give a “name” to the ethical problem confronting them, and to suggest ways in which it has been solved in the past (though the suggestion is not necessarily directed immediately to the ones confronted by the problem).  The use of a proverb invokes an aura of moral rightness in a conversation; the comfort of past community procedure is made available to the present and future.  Proverbs may be used directly to teach or to remind and measure those who already know them.  The proverb says at once, “This is the way things are and have been,” and “This is the way of responding properly to such a situation.”  The strategy of the proverb, in other words, is to direct by appearing to clarify; this is engineered by simplifying the problem and resorting to traditional solutions.

Riddles, on the other hand, do not occur in everyday speech, but rather in the midst of a stylized performance, a “riddle session.”  The riddle is a device used to entertain by formulaically creating confusion.  Where the proverb persuades by providing answers, the riddle confuses by posing enigmatic questions.  To promote confusion seems to be to court chaos, but the riddle does in fact eventually clarify by providing an answer as well as a question.  Riddles are fundamentally aggressive in design and purpose.  In encouraging such aggression, riddles seem to be extensions of antisocial motives, as opposed to the apparently normative proverbs which propose and support group amity.

This is the reason riddles occur only in riddling sessions with all the restraints on aggressive conduct that accompany such a performance.  Proverbs, under most circumstances, need no such rules or boundaries.  Society, to countenance aggressive behavior, insists that it be enacted in a harmless milieu or be directed utside the group.  Riddles are just one of the many traditional forms of licensed aggression that, though antisocial in tendency, are not antinormative.  They take energies potentially destructive of the community and its values and channel them into harmless, indeed psychologically helpful, creative avenues of expression.

Significantly, many of the techniques by which license for hostile in-group behavior is obtained are the same as those used by normative expressions to effect guidance of action.  This can also be seen through the comparison of proverbs and riddles.  A proverb works primarily by cloaking a recommended course of action in the garb of artful expression; it gives the impression that much thought has at some time been given to the problem to which the proverb is presently addressed.  Wit serves wisdom in this way -- as a device of control.  But in riddles, wit promotes perplexity in the service of aggressive motives.  Aggression is permitted only under restricted circumstances, and the formal unity provided by wit in riddles serves as one of the restricting elements; under the guise of wit, all sorts of subjects and motives can be exercised which are otherwise forbidden.

One of the principal distinctions between the proverb and the riddle is in the context of their use.  A riddle reported by one of my students from East Texas states: “The people of Holland make what the children of England break.”  The answer is “toys.”  In the context of a riddle session, this is indeed an enigmatic description (especially to a Texan, one would imagine!).  But it is easy to see how this little rhyme was used at some time as a moral comment on English children -- [beginning of page 151] used, in other words, as a proverb directed toward overprivileged and careless young ones in a context in which the referent would be understood immediately.  Proverbs exist in a conversational context in which there must be a clear relation between description and referent; otherwise the strategy of the proverb fails.  Riddles, on the other hand, are found in the permissive atmosphere of the riddle session, in which the relation between described traits and referent must be blurred to carry out the intent of the riddler.

There is something inherent in the construction of the riddle or the proverb that, in conjunction with its context and its voicing, embodies strategy.  That is, there is something intrinsically clarifying and edifying in the construction of proverbs; and there is an inherent confusing quality to riddles apart from their presence in a riddle session.  Both are economical and witty descriptions, but they differ in the way they cohere.  Both have two or more elements or traits in their descriptions, but the elements stand in different relationships to each other in proverbs and in riddles.

In a proverb, the elements of the description have an inevitable and organic relationship; they make sense together, and they cohere in an active way.  To put it another way, the combination of elements of description sets up an image or idea in an immediately meaningful and dynamic Gestalt.  The clarity of this pattern, in combination with the felicity of phrasing of the proverb, provides a tone of appropriateness and moral weight enabling it to function as a guide for future action.  Technical organization of materials extends beyond sound and rhythm to sense, and provides the needed feeling of order; this in turn promotes sympathy and encourages future action in accord with the dictates of the proverb.  But sympathy and action also are induced by the dynamic relation between the elements of the description.  Repeatedly, proverbs tie together the elements of their descriptions through active verbs, relating them causally or equationally, and it is this activity which promotes the sympathetic response.  (The rolling stone, for instance, gets its force from “gathering” even when it gathers nothing.)

The riddle, on the other hand, brings together its elements in such a way that Gestalt is impaired before the referent is voiced.  The relationship of the descriptive elements is necessarily confused, causing one of four Gestalt impairments to occur: 

1.  A contradiction is set up between the traits, generally some sort of opposition between them.  (What has eyes but cannot see? -- a potato.  What goes up the chimney down but cannot go down the chimney up? -- an umbrella.) 

2.  Not enough information is given in the description to provide a complete Gestalt and allow the recognition of the referent.  (What is white, then green, then red? -- a berry growing.) 

3.  Too much inconsequential or misleading evidence is provided, causing a “scramble” effect.  (As I was crossing London Bridge, I met a man who tipped his hat and drew his cane, and now Igaveyou his name.  What is it? -- Andrew Cane.) 

4. A false Gestalt is created; the traits seem to combine meaningfully with the description as given, but the apparent referent is not the same as the true referent.  This usually leads to a “catch” situation in which a wrong answer, often obscene, is [beginning of page 152] given by the answerer.  The effect is very like that of the trick picture that can be read in two ways.  (What goes in hard and smooth and comes out soft and gooey? -- a piece of chewing gum.)

The riddle is, when successful, a description whose referent cannot be guessed; a proverb is one whose referent can be guessed.  The answer must be supplied in the riddle to bring about Gestalt and it is in the triumph of the parts coming together in a meaningful pattern that the contest-strategy of the riddle is most dearly seen.  The proverb enunciates a recurrent conflict (a social problem) and proposes a resolution.  The riddle works more artificially; it establishes a little internal conflict of its own in its combination of descriptive elements, and then provides its own solution when its referent is voiced. 
 

IV

These similarities and differences in proverbs and riddles are the result of social forces achieving expressive form.  The normative nature of the proverb and the aggressive and licentious character of the riddle are not the only attributes of these forms as rhetorical entities; however, they are the ones which are usually dominant.  But for purposes of clarity it must be noted that proverbs are also to some extent aggressive in purpose; the speaker is, after all, attempting to impose his ideas and his will upon his audience.  Conversely, a riddle has a kind of clarifying effect when the riddle and its referent-answer are considered as a unit.

In certain situations, in fact, these secondary or recessive characteristics may take precedence, and proverbs may be used, like riddles, for aggressive purposes.  Significantly, when proverbs are so used they become part of a proverb “session” or contest with appropriate rules.  This is true, for instance, among the Anang, as reported by John Messenger. (7)  In this West African group, proverbs serve as a device of argument in the judicial system; their use and misuse can profoundly affect a legal case, much as precedents are used in courts of common law.  An even more extreme example of such proceedings is reported among the Mataco Chaco of Argentina (8), who devote their entire adjudication system to a trading of proverbs between the opposing parties.  Such proceedings emphasize the paradoxical, enigmatic nature of the contested occurrence; the parties seek to daze each other with traditional expressions in attempting to gain the upper hand.

Similarly, riddles can be used for normative purposes.  A riddle, when it is known to all in the audience, is still proposed in riddle sessions, not because anyone will be confused but precisely because everyone knows the answer and all can  demonstrate their knowledge together.  The pleasure in the performance arises only out of the mimesis of conflict, not out of any real agonistic interplay.  In its recitation there is a demonstration of group knowledge and cohesiveness.  When riddles are regarded as part of traditional group knowledge and are therefore items to be learned by initiates, the recitation of the riddle with its answer is a traditional demonstration of group solidarity.  In such a situation the riddles function as catechism, and thus exist primarily to clarify and edify, a rhetorical intent not very different from that usually employed by proverbs.  However, such usages are exceptional, and in most groups the dominant strategy of proverbs is to clarify and instruct, and of riddles it is to confuse and entertain.

[beginning of page 153]
 

V

This distinction between proverb and riddle, useful in discerning genre, can also cast light on the function of these forms in specific cultural situations.  We can say with assurance that in most cases when riddles are invoked in a group, those who use them are trying to assert power by inducing confusion.  And when proverbs are employed, someone is attempting to control by appearing to clarify a problem situation and to propose a future approach to the problem.  Both are used in an interpersonal situation as a means of establishing status through the exercise of wit.  It is obvious that in the uses of both genres there are important conventional differences from one culture to the next.  If one considers all levels of structure simultaneously and interrelates these levels through rhetorical strategy, one can gain important insight into the habits of organization and expression of specific groups, while more fully understanding the range to which individual genres can be put to use.  Three distinct groups provide three distinct uses of riddles: urban American sub-cultures, the Bantu Venda, and communities in the British West Indies.

Descriptive riddles (such as “true riddles”) are seldom found in the repertory of riddlers in urban groups of whites in the United States.  When riddling descriptions do occur, confusion commonly turns on the use of a pun or some other ambiguous word usage.  Joking technique prevails over other expressions of wit.  In the most common forms of enigmatic questions in such groups -- the joking question, the conundrum type of enigma -- the question simply serves as a “set-up” for the punch-line answer.  The recent elephant, grape, and Polack joke-riddles, as well as those formulaic questions popular among children -- the “What is the difference between...” or the “What did the _____ say to the _____?”-type rely on puns or word play.  The most widespread joke cycles of the last thirty years have, in fact, resorted to joke-riddle form, from the moron jokes of the pre-World War II era to the present.  In this cultural milieu, riddles function not in the riddling session alone, but in the equally restricted joke-telling session.  The fact that riddles here are functional equivalents of jokes is significant, for it says something not only about the use of riddles in white urban America, but also about the emphasis on brevity and word play and wit-contest in these oral entettunments.

Essentially, this joking activity is peripheral to our major cultural concerns.  Though riddling among children does, in a real sense, train the young for adult joking, the adult activity is looked upon as unessential by society in general and even by the erformers themselves.  This aggressive verbal activity is regarded as of little importance because it exists in a culture in which words tend to be mistrusted or denigrated.  Hence such proverbs as “One picture is worth a thousand words” and “Judge a man by his actions, not his words.”  The devaluing of words, in fact, may be the primary reason for the reliance on shorter forms of expression, of which the riddling joke-cycle is only one representative.

One may compare this peripheral use of riddles to the practice in cultures which place higher value on words and word-usage; in such groups riddling is an activity closer to the central concerns of the group and encountered more often as part of important social occasions.  Such is the case among the Venda of the Northern Transvaal in South Africa, as reported by John Blacking:

[beginning of page 154] 
 

...Venda riddles are used in the course of a competitive game for young people.  They are educational chiefly because they may be an asset to fuller participation  in Venda social life; they are not important as exercises of intellectual skill, and their contents do not appear to instruct or stimulate the imaginations of those who know them.  Both riddle and answer were learned as a linguistic whole, and it is more important to know the riddle than to be able to puzzle out the answer or understand its content.  Amongst the Venda, knowledge of formal language is in a sense equivalent to magical power; the individual increases his status by joining social groups, the memberships of which are assured by his knowledge of certain word-formulae.  The form of riddles resembles that of milayo formulae, which must be known by anyone who claims that he has been to certain initiation schools.  Knowledge of riddles helps a Venda child to establish his identity as an individual and as a member of a junior social group, when he distinguishes himself during a riddle-contests. (9)


Blacking emphasizes the importance of words, and the fact that riddles help the child learn the exercise of wit to achieve status and to prepare him for an adult activity which will further this aim.  He thus underscores the use of this verbal aggressive behavior in terms of ego growth and the achievement of identity in a group in which the range of such individual expressions are few.  He is, in terms of rhetorical analysis, emphasizing a special use of confusion-strategy in its contextual structure.  He does not particularize the context by reporting an individual riddling session, only types of contests.  He notes that there are two ways in which riddling may proceed: 1) “A asks B riddles, which B answers successfully.  Eventually B is stumped, but A does not give him the answer...  B must then ask A riddles until A too is stumped, and A then reveals the answer to the original...”  2) “A asks B a fiddle.  B does not answer it; instead he ‘buys’ A’s answer by posing another riddle.  A answers his own first riddle and then ‘buys’ an answer to B's riddle by posing another...  B then answers his own first and ‘buys’...” and so on.” (10)  The most important element of this discussion is that Blacking goes on to discuss the relative importance of the two games, not just in terms of frequency but also in terms of ways in which they reveal the values of the community: 
 

In both games, the honors go to those who pose the problem rather than to those who solve it.  Many prefer the second game as it is “easier to play“ and “lasts longer”; a team can maintain its supply of riddles longer, instead of having it decimated in one blow by opponents who either know all the answers or ask the best riddles first.  Moreover, in the second game a player can escape the penalties of not being able to answer a riddle by “buying” the answer with a riddle that he knows; this again stresses the importance of knowing the riddle as a linguistic whole rather than being able to puzzle it out by intellectual reasoning.  In the second game a player avoids loss of face and has the satisfaction of compensating for his deficiency by striking a bargain; this might be called a more typically Venda pattern of behavior than the fiercer, ruthless competition between two individuals, whilst the others sit back and listen.  The second game also reflects the Venda love of elaborating social activity with rituals that both lengthen the proceeding, and hence the enjoyment of the occasion, and also endure a balance of power and orderly behavior between parties that are in opposition. (11) 


By considering the riddle as an expressive and fundional object in a dynamic context, Blacking is able to tell us much about the Venda, not only about their riddling or even verbal behavior, but about their larger patterns of attitudes and institutions. 

A similar attitude toward words as a source of power exists in many peasant communities in the British West Indies.  And in these groups, riddling is also a common technique by which virtuosity in words is acquired by any member of the community.  But the place, manner, and patterns of performance are very different from the Venda.

[beginning of page 155] Riddling is a common activity in the British West Indies, and that in itself is of importance in analyzing the behavior patterns of peasant culture in this area. (12)  This significance becomes understandable when note is taken of the central role of the man-of-words in West Indian life, not only in regard to traditional entertaintments but also in terms of institutional life, especally in government and economics.  As opposed to urban United States, more value is placed on working of the voice than of the hands.  Traditional symbolic gestures, for instance, are seldom encountered in the West Indies, while equivalent verbal forms are abundant.  Riddles, being available to nearly anyone in these peasant communifies, serve as a minimal way of developing and demonstrating power with words.  Furthermore, the man-of-words functions most effectively (in fact, nearly exclusively) in a contest situation, and riddling serves virtually as the model for such activity.

Though riddling may occur at any social event, especially the spontaneous activities on moonlit nights, for purposes of analysis I want to center on this activity during dead-wake ceremonies, in order to suggest some paths the rhetorical approach might take the investigator that he might not travel otherwise.  I will focus briefly on some characteristics of texture and content of West Indian riddles, and then attempt to suggest ways in which they might be related to some aspects of the structure of context through an elaboration of the strategy of confusion.

The most noticeable textural characteristic of West Indian riddles is their outlandishness; though they are in English they seem almost totally foreign to any other riddling tradition in that tongue.  Though the tradition is primarily made up of true riddles, the subjects of the descriptions are quite different from those in the mainstream of English riddling.  The techniques of description also show a different emphasis.  West Indian riddles tend to dramatize and personalize, to tell vignette storiees in first person or familistic terms.
 

I went to town, my face turn to town; 
I came from town, my face turn to town.
        -- climbing a coconut tree. 


Such observations are important in relation to other traditional expressions, for the West Indian commonly finds it important to become dramatically involved in all events in their lives (that is, break down the distinction between life and art).  They naturally dramatize the undramatic and personalize the potentially impersonal.  This element of the riddle is further emphasized in the telling, for each riddle becomes an extension of the ego of the riddler and in order to insist upon this identification he will dramatize its presentation as much as possible.  There are riddlers, for instance, who go out of the house during the session not only to think up new enigmas but also to time their re-entrance so they can deliver their invention from the darkness of the door, eliciting a laugh as attention is gained.  A really clever riddle well-delivered will draw applause and appreciative murmuring that can last for minutes.

The major question about these sessions in an analysis of group values is why riddling occurs during wakes.  Every activity at the death of an individual is calculated to involve as many people as possible.  These activities pull the group together in the face of death.  (The digging of a grave, for instance, often involves fifty or sixty men who dig to pay respect to the dead.)  Riddling, with storytelling, [beginning of page 156] singing, dancing, and game-playing are the West Indian activities that involve the whole group as performers or observers, and all of these occur at some time during the memorial celebration.  Each of these traditional activities emphasizes a sense of removal and of stoppage of time, and the invocation of a spirit of license which aids in bringing the group through a time of crisis.  And there is crisis, for death is imagined as a malevolent force which can strike anyone.  (This feeling is generally rationalized in Christian terms but the attitude toward the dead is in essence a retention of ancestor-worship.)  This license permits performances which demonstrate the life-principle in the most primal ways, perhaps most notably in the erotic motives which are enacted in the midst of these gatherings.  Songs, games, and stories repeatedly focus on sex organs and sex acts, subjects seldom discussed on other occasions; this eroticism is observable in riddling as well.  For instance, one of the most common West Indian riddles is: 
 

Poppy take longy-longy, push it in a mommy hairy-hairy. 
        -- making a broom. 


But one subject arises over and over again in riddling sessions that seems even more important in the wake context: the living emerging from the dead, or the living carrying over the dead.  (There is, for instance, a notable riddle describing the living pallbearers carrying the dead in the coffin to the graveyard and then coming back to the village.)  This theme was made all the more dramatic when a woman died while we were collecting in Tobago.  She made a request that the Bongo (wake) be held in a certain way so that she could be there celebrating with everyone; she had so enjoyed Bongos in life and this would make death a little easier.  (She was afraid the wake wouldn’t be held because she died during Lent.)

Here is a vivid (and perhaps melodramatic) example of the possible relationships between texture and context.  But there is a further dimension which needs to be examined, in light of the period of license and the “carrying over” aspect of stopping time for performance.  How can such an aggressive phenomenon as riddling contribute to the establishment of a sense of well-being and continuity in the troubled group?  Part of an answer lies in the nature of riddling as a group observance in which time is stopped and troubling phenomenon are depersonalized and “played out” in the removed riddle play world.  But one could also point out that riddling, in a very real sense, atomizes the death problem (as a “life riddle”); by providing solutions which emphasize the triumph of life, riddling uses devices of confusion to create an atmosphere of clarification.  Perhaps in this wake situation, riddles when given with their solutions suggest sympathetically that the larger riddle also has a solution.

A number of other remarks could be made about the structure and function of West Indian riddles and riddling, but the intent here has been to point out what can be said about the culture and the aesthetic patterns of any community by considering structure and rhetoric.  In all three groups discussed, riddles are equally formulaic, competitive, confusing, and witty, but they fit into the life of the group and disclose its values and expressive habits in widely varying ways.  Stylistic analysis has been placed in a rhetorical framework and permitted insights into culture that could not otherwise have been realized.  Investigators such as Blacking have [beginning of page 157] been groping toward something like this intuitively.  But, without a theoretical framework, they have not been able to realize the potential of cultural insight inherent in the analysis of traditional performance.

Clearly if we are going to relate folklore to the dynamics of culture we need to develop a methodology which will focus on the movement of items as constructed and performed, as used by people in a living situation.  We must ask ourselves what values and attitudes reside in specific groups, and how these find expression.  One way of doing this is to see items of lore as functional objects and to delve into the relationship of form and attitude and performance.

Too long have the anthropologists and psychologists seen folklore as data which merely project ethnographic or psychosocial detail.  Too long have folklorists emphasized the internal attributes of folklore as aesthetic constructs without a consideration of how the lore reflects the group in which it exists, persists, and functions.  Too long have all investigators been willing to divorce folklore from the people who perform it, or to regard it as peripheral -- and therefore meaningless -- or debased.  Most folklore studies in the past have been used more to justfy our vision of ourselves as advanced human beings than to cast light on the life of others.

Folklore, like any other discipline, has no justification except as it enables us to better understand ourselves and others.  To label traditional phenomena as “quaint” is to fail in this burden.  To objectify for the purpose of analysis without making an attempt to put together again also must fail.  The only way in which phenomena of this sort can be comprehended and used as a tool for greater understanding is to approach them from an involvement-centered point of view.  Structure and content analysis can be important techniques, but only when brought together with a performance-oriented approach.  Together they will lead to the kind of cultural insights which forecast a growth of understanding. (13) 
 
 

Notes

1.  James Strachey (trans.), (New York, 1960). 

2.  Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form (Vintage reprint edition, New York, 1961), 3. 

3.  The most important works on structure are conveniently and cogently discussed by Butter Waugh, “Structural Analysis in Literature and Folklore,” Western Folklore 35 (1966), 153-4. 

4.  Alan Dundes, “Texture, Text and Context,” Southern Folklore Quarterly 28 (1964), 251-65. 

5.  Linda Degh, “Some Questions of the Social Function of Storytelling,” Acta Ethnographica 6 (1957), 91-143; Marchen, Erzahler und Erzablegemeinschaft (Berlin, 1962); Daniel C. Crowley, I Could Tell Old Story Good (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966); Ruth Finnegan, Limba Stories and Story-Telling (Oxford, 1967). 

6.  William Bascom, “Four Functions of Folklore,” Journal of American Folklore 67 (1954), 349 

7. “The Role of Proverbs in a Nigerian Judicial System,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 15 (1959), 64-73. 

8.  From personal communication, Dr. Niels Fock, University of Copenhagen. 

9.  John Blacking, “The Social Value of Venda Riddles,” African Studies 20 (1961), 1. 

10.  Blacking, 3. 

11.  Blacking, 3. 

[beginning of page 158]

12.  For a more detailed description of the man-of-words in the British West India, see my “The Shaping of Folklore Tradition in British West Indies,” Journal of Inter-American Studies 9 (1967), 456-80. 

13.  I am indebted, in the formulation of these ideas, to my colleagues Joseph Moldenhauer, Joseph Malof, and Americo Paredes, and to Ed Cray.  Through discussion and critical readings of earlier drafts they have been most helpful.  The first draft of this essay was written while on a year of independent research sponsored by the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and The University of Texas Research Institute. 
 

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