2 March 2008

Contents

Friends in Folklore Research by Ülo Valk ...... 3 Message from the Membership Committee by Cristina Bacchilega ...... ISFNR Interim Conference “Folk Narrative and Society”, September 20th-22nd, 2007, Argentina Sharing Difference: A View on the Interim Conference in Santa Rosa, La Pampa, Argentina by Ricardo Kaliman ...... 5 Folk Narrative and Society Meeting in Latin America by Eerika Koskinen ...... 7 About Favorable Surprises, Interactions and Particular Behaviour that We Call Folklore. E-mail Interview with Martha Blache by Elo-Hanna Seljamaa ...... 10 Call for Papers: 15th Congress of the ISFNR Narratives Across Space and Time: Transmissions and Adaptation, Athens, Greece, June 21st-27th, 2009 ...... 13 Call for Papers: ISFNR Symposium “Folk Narrative: Genres, Social Function and Cultural Arena” at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya, September 2nd-4th, 2008 ...... 15 Message from the Committee on “Folktales and the Internet” by Theo Meder ...... 16 The Charms of Pécs. News from the Committee on Charms, Charmers and Charming by Jonathan Roper ...... 16

International Call for Papers: One-Day Seminar on Encounter Charms/ Begegnungssegen, Society May 9th, 2008, Tartu, Estonia ...... 17 for Folk Narrative Belief Tales: Call for Cooperation ...... 17 Research In Memory of Kirill Vasilyevich Chistov (1919-2007) by Pekka Hakamies ...... 18 ISFNR Newsletter is published by the In Memory of George Mifsud-Chircop (1951-2007) International Society of Folk Narrative by Mare Kõiva ...... 19 Research. Archives of Argentinean Folk Narrative: Trends, Topics and History of Argentinean Folkloristics ISSN 1736-3594 by María Inés Palleiro ...... 20 International Conference Charms, Charming and Charmers in Pécs Editors: Ülo Valk ([email protected]) by Ülo Valk ...... 29 th Elo-Hanna Seljamaa The 7 Folklore Fellows Summer School in Karelia ([email protected]) by Mészáros Csaba ...... 33 Language editor: Frank Carney Symposium The Concept of Time and Space in European Folklore in Design and layout: Marat Viires Ljubljana Editorial Office: by Katja Hrobat ...... 37 ISFNR Newsletter Joint Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society and Folklore University of Tartu Studies Association of Canada in Québec Department of Estonian and Comparative by Liisi Laineste ...... 40 Folklore Folklorists’ Festivity in Latvia Ülikooli 16-208 by Toms Ķencis ...... 43 51003 Tartu Conference and Festival of South Asian Folklore in New Delhi Estonia by Ülo Valk ...... 45 Once More about the Origin of Fairy Tales. A Parable and its Exegesis ISFNR on the Internet: by Heda Jason ...... 48 http://www.folklore.org.il/ISFNR/ March 2008 3

Dear Friends in Folklore Research, The year 2007 marked a new step in positive examples of co-operation in tury. While Palleiro focuses on changes the history of the ISFNR as many of us well-defined fields of research. This in research paradigms, Heda Jason’s travelled to Argentina to our first official Newsletter marks the establishment of follow-up comment on the orality and meeting in the Western Hemisphere. yet another research group, a commit- literacy debate mediated in last year’s Members of our folk narrative society tee dedicated to belief narratives and Newsletter draws attention to the stub- gathered to hold the ISFNR Interim open to all interested scholars. born persistence of certain topics and Conference “Folk Narrative and So- the tendency of history to repeat itself. ciety” in Santa Rosa, La Pampa. We Another initiative taken by our mem- met in a small university town with bers and supported by the Executive As many of you already know, and a lively academic atmosphere and Committee is to broaden the scope of hopefully have noted in your diaries, in a strong school of folkloristics, well events organized under the auspices June 2009 the ISFNR will meet in Ath- known among Latin American scholars of the ISFNR. Ezekiel Alembi – our ens, Greece to hold its 15th Congress who had visited the town before for its vice-president representing Africa – “Narratives Across Time and Space: Conferences for the Study of Folk Nar- has, together with his colleagues, invited Transmissions and Adaptations”. The rative. The ISFNR Interim conference us to take part in the ISFNR research Athens Congress will also mark the was organized jointly with the 7th Jor- symposium “Folk Narrative: Genres, So- 50th anniversary of the ISFNR and an nadas de Estudio de la Narrativa Folk- cial Function and Cultural Arena” at the exhibition dedicated to the society’s lórica. For most guests from the rest Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya in history will feature at the meeting. As of the world this was their first, exciting September 2008. For participants of the mentioned in the call for papers, all of trip to this lovely town in the hospitable ISFNR Interim Conference aof 2000, you are invited and encouraged to par- country of Argentina. The conference this offers an opportunity to go back and ticipate in assembling this display and was a remarkable success thanks to refresh old acquaintances while for oth- in helping document what is part of the the efforts of Ana María Dupey, María ers this will be a new experience. In May, history of our discipline and a frame- Inés Poduje, María Graciela Eliggi and the Committee for “Charms, Charmers work for networks of friendship and the other organisers as well as to the and Charming” will convene in Tartu, collegiality that span the decades. supporting institutions: Instituto Na- Estonia, for a one-day seminar on En- cional de Antropología y Pensamiento counter Charms/ Begegnungssegen. These approaching milestones and Latinoamericano, Secretaría de Cultura Information about subtopics and dates cyclically recurring gatherings, as well de la Nación and Departamento de In- of both meetings can be found on the as the new initiatives, gain significance vestigaciones Culturales Sub-Secre- pages of this Newsletter as well as on also from the steadily growing member- taría de Cultura de La Pampa. Martha the ISFNR web site. ship of the ISFNR. Cristina Bacchilega, Blache and Manuel Dannemann – the our vice-president representing North vice-president of the ISFNR represent- The call from Africa, like the projects of America and Chair of the Member- ing Latin America – also deserve our the committees, serve as reminders of ship Committee accounts for the steps gratitude for planning and preparing the simple truth that the life and activities taken by the Membership Committee this forum. of the ISFNR depend on the efforts of all to facilitate the procedure for joining of its members. The Executive Commit- the society. We are glad to welcome The third issue of the ISFNR Newsletter tee of the ISFNR welcomes initiatives seventeen new members who joined offers to our readers some impressions, taken by members in order to make us in 2007: Camilla Asplund Ingemark ideas and reflections about our recent the ISFNR into a more active society (Finland/ Sweden), Simon J. Bron- meeting in Argentina, including an inter- that effectively carries out the mission ner (USA), Anne Duggan (USA), Ana view with Martha Blache. It also shares established in our Statues: “to develop María Dupey (Argentina), Marja-Liisa with you memories of folklore events in scholarly work in the field of folk narra- Keinänen (Sweden), Desmond Khar- Canada, Hungary, India, Karelia (both in tive research and to stimulate contacts mawphlang (India), Chan-Hoe Kim Finland and in the Russian Federation), and the exchange of views among its (Japan), Pauliina Latvala (Finland), Lea Latvia and Slovenia, where members members”. I am pleased that this issue Olsan (USA/ UK), Hanne Pico Larsen of the ISFNR and friends of our society of the Newsletter makes several contri- (Denmark/ USA), Radvilė Racėnaitė participated in over the past year. One of butions towards these goals by bringing (Lithuania), Soumen Sen (India), Hanna the priorities of the ISFNR is to develop to you not only news about recent and Spychalska (Poland), Jūratė Šlekonytė and support contacts among scholars forthcoming academic events but also (Lithuania), Daiva Vaitkevičienė (Lithua- sharing similar goals in the field of folk a research essay by Argentinean folk- nia), Sinikka Vakimo (Finland) and Katr- narrative research. The ISFNR Commit- lorist María Inés Palleiro on practices ien van Effelterre (Belgium). By now, tees for Charms, Charmers and Charm- of collecting and publishing folk narra- more applications will have reached ing and “Folktales and the Internet” set tives in Argentina during the past cen- Cristina Bacchilega, who deserves our 4 March 2008

gratitude for her effective work. I also ting several recent volumes of Folklore. this Newsletter, our artist Marat Viires, thank Elo-Hanna Seljamaa for her kind Electronic Journal of Folklore to papers language editor Frank Carney, and fi- readiness to combine doctoral studies at delivered at the 14th ISFNR Congress nally all the ISFNR members for their the Ohio State University with the secre- “Folk Narrative Theories and Contem- active support and for paying the mem- tarial work of the ISFNR and I thank the porary Practices“ held in Tartu in July bership dues that have helped us bring Executive Committee for their valuable 2005. To enjoy free online versions of this Newsletter to you. and friendly company. Mare Kõiva and these publications, please visit the web her team at the Estonian Literary Mu- site http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/ (Vol. Ülo Valk seum deserve our gratitude for dedica- 33, 35-37). I also thank the authors of President of the ISFNR

Dear Colleagues,

During my term as chair of the Mem- web site if we want to reach our col- members can send an e-mail to me bership Committee, it has been a leagues across the world. in lieu of signatures. It is also help- pleasure to welcome thirty-one new ful to send two recent abstracts that members to the ISFNR. Our new There is one more change. Those who are representative of the applicant’s colleagues include folk-narrative are interested in joining the ISFNR scholarship. (Any offprints, however, specialists from Argentina, Belgium, can submit materials at any point dur- should be sent to our President who Canada, Estonia, Finland, Germany/ ing the year, but they should be aware is building an ISFNR library/archive.) New Zealand, India, Japan, Latvia, that the Board will consider nomina- Once the vote takes place (June and Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, tions/applications twice a year (May December), new members will receive Portugal, Slovakia, Sweden, the Unit- and November). Nominees can thus a message welcoming them to the ed Kingdom, and the United States. expect to hear back either in June or Society and information about mem- Their involvement in our organization in December. In addition to making bership fees and benefits. strengthens not only the ISFNR but the procedures clearer to nominees, also the disciplines of folkloristics and this timetable also regularizes the Please contact me directly if you have narrative studies. As per our statutes, tasks of the Membership Committee any ISFNR Membership questions. the official announcement of new and Secretary; it also makes it pos- I wish you a productive and healthy members will be made at the next sible for the new members’ names to new year, filled with good research ISFNR General Assembly. be announced in the ISFNR Newslet- and good stories! ters. (We shall add the information I’d like to thank the Executive Com- about this timetable to the Nomination Cristina Bacchilega, mittee of the ISFNR for showing vi- Form.) Chair of the Membership Committee sion and flexibility in making it pos- E-mail: [email protected] sible for interested scholars to join Let me end by encouraging all of us our organization in the time between to let other scholars who work with conferences. Based on the materials narrative and folklore know about the that the Membership Committee (my- International Society for Folk Narrative self and Gabriela Kiliánová) presents Research. Or, if you are one of our to the Executive Board, we proceed to colleagues who has attended ISFNR an e-mail vote, and the process has meetings but never joined our Society, been running quite smoothly. please consider doing so in 2008. Not only do we have a fabulous confer- I take this opportunity also to thank ence coming up in Athens in 2009. It Elo-Hanna Seljamaa, the ISFNR is now easy to join the ISFNR, and Secretary. Our membership records, there are some clear benefits to doing including the especially helpful e-mail so—including the Newsletter. and mailing addresses of ISFNR members, continue to be updated and As for the membership process, have become more accurate thanks the nomination form is online and, Cristina Bacchilega’s book Legendary Hawai’i to her initiative and ongoing attention! together with the nominee’s CV list- and the Politics of Place: Tradition, Transla- This means that members are receiv- ing publications in folk-narrative re- tion, and Tourism (2007) received the Chicago Folklore Prize – the oldest international award ing the Newsletter and that we have search, it goes to me as the Mem- recognizing excellence in folklore scholarship access to information on the ISFNR bership Committee chair. Nominating Photo by John Rieder. March 2008 5 Sharing Difference: A View on the ISFNR Interim Conference in Santa Rosa, La Pampa, Argentina by Ricardo Kaliman, CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Argentina

time, it was a milieu for discovering, coordination of the complex network through argument as well as compari- of international contacts; and those son, links – resting on the deepest of María Inés Poduje, a scholar from foundations of the human condition the Under-Secretary of Culture of La – that can still be perceived between Pampa, who, backed by a team of the world’s peoples. It was a politi- attentive, cordial and efficient young cal milieu, that is to say, in the most people, was responsible for the coor- productive and enriching sense of the dination of local infrastructure, from phrase. rooms and equipment to hospitality and social events. The ISFNR, in turn, The 2007 Interim Conference of the was represented by its major authori- ISFNR took place simultaneously ties – President Ülo Valk, together with Ricardo Kaliman at the opening dinner of the with the VII Jornadas de Estudio de Vice-Presidents Ezekiel Alembi (Afri- ISFNR Interim Conference in Santa Rosa. His research interests include music industry la Narrativa Folklórica (VII Conference ca), Mehri Bagheri (Asia) and Manuel and commercial folk music in contemporary for the Study of Folk Narrative) and Danneman (Latin America), as well as Argentina. without it being possible to tell the the Treasurer, Ulf Palmenfelt. Photo by Elo-Hanna Seljamaa. one from the other. This confluence has its own story, one which tells how institutional continuity may echo col- “Pampa” is a word in the Quechua lective projects. The Jornadas have language – spoken in the South been held periodically and uninter- American Andes – meaning an extent ruptedly since 1987, with the support of flat land. During colonial times, the of the Subsecretaría de Cultura de word managed to travel southward La Pampa (Under-Secretary of Cul- and to become the proper name for ture of La Pampa) and of the creative a vast prairie in the territory of Ar- and hardworking Martha Blache, one gentina, of limitless horizon, a piece of the seminal figures of folkloristics of the infinite which most accurately in Argentina. While in charge of the reflects its name. Today, La Pampa ISFNR Vice-Presidency representing (“The Pampa”) is also the name of a Latin America, Martha Blache shared young province of Argentina, located her initiative of La Pampa Interim at the very heart of this extensive Conference with Galit Hasan-Rokem, On the right, Ropo Sekoni (Lincoln University, USA) giving a speech during the asado, local landscape. And the capital city of La then the President of the ISFNR, and Pampa, in turn, is the little big city of barbecued meal organized on the first evening. thereby this joint effort was conceived. On the left Brazilian scholar Roberto Benjamín Santa Rosa, where from September It has now finally been realized, when (Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco), 20 through 22, 2007, the Interim Con- both of them have relinquished their one of the plenary speakers. ference of the ISFNR took place. respective posts to other trustworthy Photo by by Ülo Valk. hands. It was an intense, warm and friendly Simultaneous sessions were organ- meeting. Connoisseurs of and spe- The Argentine hands were those ised according to the language in cialists in short narratives arrived from of Ana María Dupey, Professor of which contributions were presented. the most diverse corners of the planet Folklore at the University of Buenos There was the locally predominant to speak about the feelings, memo- Aires and Researcher at the Instituto Spanish, and, to a lesser extent, ries and hopes of the peoples among Nacional de Antropología y Pensami- Portuguese; and also English, the whom these narratives make their ento Latinoamericano (INAPL, Na- academic lingua franca, its empire sense. A milieu emerged for celebrat- tional Institute of Anthropology and spontaneously subverted and diversi- ing difference, as if it were possible Latin American Thought, one of the fied by dialectal variety. The constant to imagine that the fearsome ghost institutions organizing the meeting transit of bilingual and multilingual of globalization will never be able in Santa Rosa), who took charge of participants from one zone of the to expunge the fascinating diversity planning the sessions as well as the conference to the other was a symbol of human culture. And, at the same 6 March 2008

Christine Shojaei-Kawan (Enzyklopädie des Märchens) discussing with the audience after her presentation on xenophobia and female mourning in the tale of three oranges. On the right, chair of the session, Argentinean ethnomusicologist Ercilia Moreno Chá. Photo by Alejandra Regunaga.

of this climate of shared difference. hending, in generic terms, strictly Some visitors, like Wolfgang Karrer verbal recitation as well as popular (University of Osnabrück, Germany) songs, theatre and performance in and Taro Nagano (Seisen University, general. Various papers on murga Japan), veterans from previous Jor- or street bands in different cities in nadas de Narrativa’s, chose to deliver the area of Río de la Plata provide a their papers in Spanish. In plenary nice illustration of the latter. It seems sessions, this zeal for rapproche- as if “narrative” is understood by us ment was embodied in the practice as the way in which different cultural of Mariela Eliggi, interpreter from the groups, of varying sizes, recount Universidad Nacional de La Pampa, their own past, present and future, who, with a pleasant professionalism, even by means of fantasy, children’s managed to insert translations into the songs, dance, etc. lectures. A certain political dimension, a mili- Some generalizations about the tant concern about the threatened state of the discipline could be ven- silencing – by different forms of tured, based on the sessions I could power – of smaller cultural perspec- attend myself, and the comments I tives characterised the papers and gleaned from participants of other debates, perhaps more explicitly sessions. Case studies seem to in Latin American and African ap- have been the preferred academic proaches, but also implicitly in the option, suggesting a favoring of the rest of the contributions. It is as if multiplication of particular cultural we were somehow impelled by the views. Very few papers, in propor- desire to define the nature of the tional terms, involved strictly theo- profession of folklore studies vis-à- retical discussions, although there vis our societies, the cultural groups were a number, some intellectually whose expressive cultures we study, very provocative indeed. Taxonomic even international organizations efforts, on the other hand, seem to (as in the substantial paper by Ana be in the process of being replaced María Dupey about recent policies of by the search for identitarian spe- UNESCO), and, of course, vis-à-vis cificity, aspiring, perhaps, towards ourselves. This may be one of the conceptual frameworks yet to come. most stimulating points to emerge The very notion of narrative has cor- from the experiences shared in the respondingly widened, covering both Argentine pampas. fiction and testimony, and compre- March 2008 7

Folk Narrative and Society Meeting in Latin America: ISFNR Interim Conference “Folk Narrative and Society” in Santa Rosa, Argentina, September 20th-22nd, 2007 by Eerika Koskinen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Latinoamericano), Government of San- and allude to a couple of the keynote ta Rosa (Gobierno de Santa Rosa) and speeches. the University of Santa Rosa. Begin- ning with the asado, a rich local bar- Folk Narratives and Changing So- becued meal on the first evening, the cieties three-day conference offered plenty Keynote speaker Diarmuid Ó Giolláin of new experiences, as well an op- (University College Cork, Ireland) dis- portunity to exchange opinions and cussed the challenges of addressing knowledge. large-scale issues such as moderniza- tion and postmodernism – grand narra- Conference sessions were organized tives and their death – in folk narrative around five different themes: Folk Nar- research. Referring to Ulrich Beck’s rative: Structure, Process and Context, theories, he outlined some guidelines Folk Narrative and Mass Media, Folk for current research and argued that Narrative and the Construction of So- if the first phase of modernization has cial Identities, Folk Narratives and been characterized by concepts like Social Memories, and Storytellers and Eerika Koskinen is a doctoral student of Ethno- individualization, globalization and their Audiences. Official languages of logy at the University of Jyväskylä. Her doctoral mass production, the extreme fragmen- thesis “Intersections of Gender, Class and Work: the conference were Spanish, Portu- tariness of the second phase is even Strategies of a Female Worker in 20th Cen- guese and English; with the exception tury Finland” is part of Professor Laura Stark’s beyond conceptualization. Ó Giolláin of the last day, sessions in English and research project “Strategic Practices: Hidden emphasized that the multiplicity and Histories of Gender in Finland 1880-2005.” Spanish were held separately. How- complexity of popular culture and other Photo by Ülo Valk. ever, the organizers had translated all current cultural phenomena can only of the abstracts into both languages1 be approached at the intersections of and the keynote speeches were pro- In autumn 2007, the International Soci- different, old and new, cultural proc- vided with a simultaneous interpreta- ety for Folk Narrative Research invited esses and products. tion. In the following, I intend to refer folklorists to the Argentinian Pampa, to some examples from each session to the University of Santa Rosa (Uni- versidad Nacional de la Pampa) in the capital of the Province of Pampa. Located 600 kilometers from Buenos Aires, Santa Rosa offered a journey to the heart of Latin America, the world of gauchos, Mapuches (the indigenous Indian inhabitants of southern Argen- tina), and their traditions. Discussed in relation to mass media, social identities and various other perspectives, folk narratives brought together research- ers from many different parts of the world.

The conference was organized in co- operation with Argentinian colleagues and the following institutions: Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Isralean folklorists Ravit Raufman (on the left) and Rachel Ben-Cnaan revealing supressive mes- Thinking, Buenos Aires (Instituto Na- sages expressed in an ultra orthodox Jewish version of the Little Red Riding Hood. cional de Antropología y Pensamiento Photo by Risto Järv. 8 March 2008

Israeli nationalist and religious Internet … and Fresh Approaches forum which is addressed to the young, The Slovenian scholar Nina Vodopivec and to young girls in particular. In their (Institute for Contemporary History) ac- joint presentation, they analyzed the quired her research data by working in social, political and psychological mes- a textile factory and sharing the experi- sages expressed in this ultra-orthodox ences of working life of her informants, interpretation of the fairy tale. Reeli female factory workers. Examining their Reinaus (University of Tartu, Estonia), experiences of the changes in Slov- similarly, studies another phenomenon enian society in the transition from a appearing in Internet forums, a debate socialist system to post-socialist condi- between advocates of active birth and tions, Vodopivec has been interested defenders of hospital childbirth, criti- in the possible changes in the working cized by the former as a technocratic mentality and identity of women work- model of birth. The aim of both parties ers, in the values attached to work dur- seems to be to prove the correctness ing the period of socialism and at the of their values and practices. Reinaus present time; and in the re-organization Ana María Dupey, one of the main organizers focusses in her studies on the rhetoric of work according to capitalist rules. of the ISFNR Interim Conference in Santa Rosa used in the debate by each group. She has found that even though the so- giving a speech in the closing ceremony. cialist past can be remembered as “the Photo by Risto Järv. Interesting new materials were also good old days”, female textile workers found in another realm of life, in the evaluate both periods critically and are rhetoric relating to a very common di- well aware of the meanings attached to Accordingly, several of the presenta- sease, breast cancer. Mojca Ramšak both. I think that this kind of reflexive tions dealt with the continuities and (Graduate School of Humanities, attitude in informants should be taken transformations of traditions in con- Slovenia) talked about the symbolic seriously. temporary societies. Torunn Selberg metaphors used in pathographies of (University of Bergen) and Stein R. breast cancer patients as well as in the Challenges of Ethnopolitics and Mathisen (Finnmark University Col- medical language of physicians. Her Ethnogenesis lege) both examined the new modes analysis has shown these metaphors Ezekiel Alembi (Kenyatta University, that older Norwegian traditions have to be embodied by, and often based on, Kenya) drew attention in his keynote adopted in the media. Selberg de- binaries such as dark/light, sweet/bit- speech to an important ethical issue scribed a pilgrimage to the Isle of Selja ter, etc. Both parties, professionals and and a constant dilemma in folk narra- that takes place once a year and which patients alike, represented the body as tive research by asking to whom the is based on a Celtic legend; after dis- a battlefield and treatments as a war stories of villages and different groups appearing for many hundred years, against the intruder, cancer, though pa- belonged. Alembi has studied children’s the legend has recently re-emerged tients at the same time experienced folklore in African village communities in new narratives and iconographic the medical language of physicians as and criticized researchers who, after representations. According to Selberg, unfamiliar, even hostile to their body. I conducting fieldwork and collecting ma- the Celtic past lends relevance to this found Ramšak’s study very significant, terials for a long period, have published peripheral place. Mathisen has found since, by analyzing the power and im- anthologies of children’s folklore with cartoons and stories about persons pact of language, she listened to the their own name on the cover. Relying with shamanistic characteristics ap- patients’ voices. Ramšak also faced on his own continuous and extensive pearing in contemporary newspapers ethical dilemmas when entering the fieldwork, Alembi stated that children’s and has analyzed the representations field of medicine; in addition to concea- folklore belongs to the whole commu- of these magically-gifted Sámi charac- ling the patient’s identity, the computer nity, and, since everybody knows the ters – called nojda. files containing research data had to corpus, it is impossible to tell who has be destroyed once the analysis was rendered particular songs or plays. New Materials … completed. I would like to know more Alembi suggested that anthologies and For me, it was interesting to discover about the ethical and methodological studies based on such material should that the Internet offers new ways of challenges posed to folklore studies by be published under the names of the collecting material for folk narrative re- this kind of new material coming from very same communities the folklore originates in. He also hoped that the search. Rachel Ben-Cnaan and Ravit other fields or easily available on the members of these communities could Raufman (University of Haifa) from Internet. Maybe these issues could be participate in the study process and Israel have found interesting versions brought up at the next ISFNR Cong- even visit conferences. of Little Red Riding Hood in a radical ress in Athens? March 2008 9

From right to left: Manuel Dannemann with plenary speakers Marita Fornaro and Antonio Diaz (Universidad de la República, Uruguay). In their richly illustrated presentation, Fornaro and Diaz analyzed the annual cycle of a Murga group called “Nunca Más” from Colonia Sacramento, Uruguay. Photo by Alejandra Regunaga.

Ana María Dupey (Institute of Anthro- Buenos Aires, it can be rather difficult pology and Latin American Thinking, in today’s Argentina to say to which Buenos Aires, Argentina) analyzed the group an indigenous people belong: role of researchers in UNESCO’s world their lands have been taken away from heritage politics. She warned of issues them, and they have moved to different that lie at the basis of concepts such regions. Tribes and their cultures have as ‘cultural identity’ (identidad cultural) intermixed and have also integrated and ‘cultural heritage’ (patrimonio cul- with the white Creole people. tural). While studying local traditions of indigenous tribes, researchers recog- It would be interesting to get more in- nize, name, define and categorize the formation relating to the history of the cultural heritage and cultural identity of indigenous people of Latin America, these groups from the outside. There- as well as to hear more about the re- by, the academic discipline takes away search conducted in these countries, people’s right to their culture, to self- and I hope to meet Latin American definition and cultural identity. Aimed at scholars again at future conferences. saving and protecting the disappearing However, highlighting the political di- traditions of indigenous peoples, the mension of folk narrative research is work of UNESCO is dependent on the also an important issue in Europe and kind of information about, and know- other parts of the world. Information ledge of, past and current oral tradi- about the situation of different peoples, tions of illiterate cultures that our field, the history of the discipline and current the study of folk narratives, provides. research in various countries are vital to ethical and critical study in the con- In Latin America, the ethnogenesis text of this international field. Finally, (mestizaje) that characterizes folk nar- I want to express my deep gratitude ratives and was also addressed in key- to the Organizing Committee of the note speeches given by Latin American conference, the whole Society, and scholars, raises the question of people’s especially to Ana María Dupey and right to their cultural heritage. It became María Cecilia Pisarello for the great clear from many conference presenta- opportunity to share my thoughts with tions that researchers are often asked them and to get new ideas. to give their expert opinion on issues such as granting a certain group the status of indigenous people. However, as I found out when visiting the Ethno- 1 Abstracts can be found on the ISFNR web logical Museum and Institute of Anthro- site: http://www.ut.ee/isfnr/files/santa_rosa_ pology and Latin American Thinking in abstracts.pdf 10 March 2008 About Favorable Surprises, Interactions and Particular Behaviour that We Call Folklore. E-mail Interview with Martha Blache (Sección Folklore Instituto de Ciencias Antropológicas, CONICET, Argentina) by Elo-Hanna Seljamaa, Ohio State University, Columbus, USA

Inés Poduje for their dedication and Your own paper was about social in- hard work. teractions and stereotypes in a bor- der area, in an Argentinean town bor- I was favorably surprised to see the dering Paraguay. Could you please friendly interactions among folklorists tell us more about this project and from different continents during the how you came to this topic? intervals between sessions, as well The reason I chose this topic is be- as during social encounters. Like- cause international frontiers are sen- wise, I was surprised by the plenary sitized regions where two political sessions, simultaneously translated, systems and two cultures come face where the audience attentively fol- to face. Borders usually provide a lowed the presentations of foreign valuable resource for a better under- scholars and participated with ques- standing of the effects from which so- tions and comments. Martha Blache, initiator of the ISFNR Interim cio-cultural identities arise within folk Conference in Argentina and former Vice- groups, those groups that produce, The theme of the conference was President representing Latin America reflect- perceive, perform, recognize or value “Folk Narrative and Society”. How ing on her impressions of the meeting. a particular behaviour that we call would you interpret that? Photo by Risto Järv. folklore. Intercultural communication is I suppose that the local organizers much more frequent on borders than had chosen this theme because they in other areas, and the in-group as wanted to emphasize the close inter- well as the out-group often strengthen What were your impressions of the relation between folk narrative and so- identity-features, local pride, conflicts 2007 ISFNR Interim Conference in ciety, as well as to stress the important and nationalistic reactions. Besides, Santa Rosa? Was there anything role that folklore plays in the process people living at the border use stereo- that surprised you? of socialization. types to describe their neighbours on The conference in Santa Rosa was an exceptional opportunity for Latin American scholars since it was the first time that the ISFNR had organized an interim conference in our region. Folklorists from this area were eager to participate and to meet colleagues from abroad, to register the current situation of our field of study, and in addition to learn from different ap- proaches.

We are deeply grateful to all those who facilitated this interim confer- ence: to Galit Hasan-Rokem, former President of the ISFNR, whose idea it was to initiate this meeting; to Ülo Valk, current President of the ISFNR, who strongly supported the proposal

and made it possible; to the local or- Closing ceremony of the conference in the University of La Pampa. ganizers, Ana María Dupey and María Photo by Risto Järv. March 2008 11 the other side; as Alan Dundes used that both of them would periodically Dannemann, at the present time the to say, folklore supplies one of the invite folk narrative scholars to par- vice-president of the ISFNR represent- principal sources for the articulation ticipate in the Jornadas de Estudio ing Latin America. and communication of stereotypes. de la Narrativa Folklórica, which And, according to the classification would be held in the city of Santa In your view, what is the position of Roger D. Abrahams, stereotypes Rosa, La Pampa, Argentina, in the of folk narrative research in Argen- belong to the conversational genres month of September. tinean folkloristics? In 1983 you pub- of folklore. lished an article titled “El Concepto According to this schedule, the first de Folklore en Hispanoamérica”. In Social interactions among folk groups Jornadas was held in 1987, and since your opinion, has the concept of has been thoroughly examined from then they have taken place every three folklore in Hispano América changed different perspectives by folklorists be- years. For the first time, and from the in recent decades and if yes, in what longing to various academic centers, very beginning, these meetings gave ways? but what have been particularly inspir- researchers and professors from dif- As regards the position of folk narrative ing for me are the influential studies ferent universities of our country the research in Argentinean folkloristics, done by two distinguished folklorists, opportunity to get together, to raise we are far behind other areas such as, Américo Paredes and José E. Limón, different problems of folk narrative for example, Europe and the United who analyzed the border culture of and to share information as well as States – although there are some out- México and the United States. There- standing scholars in Latin America de- fore, my paper dealt with stereotypes voted to this area of study, for instance that people living in a border town lo- the late Yolando Pino Saavedra from cated in Northeastern Argentina en- Chile, the late Susana Chertudi from tertain about their Paraguayan neigh- Argentina and Braulio do Nascimento bours. The two groups are connected from Brazil, all three of them members either by family and friendship ties or of the ISFNR. by commercial activities, and they usu- ally have peaceful interactions. The As far as the concept of folklore in distinct features Argentineans have Latin America is concerned, it has attributed to Paraguayans are related certainly gone through significant to language, hospitality and work-skills changes. Up to the middle of the or to the aesthetic criteria they use 1970s, folklorists tended to identify to choose their clothing. But conflicts folk with peasants, rural communi- arose when Paraguayans applied for ties or with those urban poor who Argentine citizenship or used illegal preserved survivals of cultural traits procedures to obtain it; also when they that are no longer viable. For these used magic objects to either attract scholars, folklore denoted the entire someone or to cause him or her physi- lifestyle of the rural people. From the cal or psychological harm. l980s onward, although slowly, folk- lorists incorporated some of the new The ISFNR conference was organi- Antonia Díaz-Fernández from Argentina dis- concepts that enjoy full acceptance zed jointly with the VII Jornadas de cussed in his paper the dynamics and terminol- ogy of Mapuche kinship system. among international researchers. Estudio de la Narrativa Folklórica. Photo by Alejandra Regunaga. They define folklore as social be- Could you please tell us about the haviour, detaching it from particular history of this event and its role in social sectors or geographical areas. Argentinean folklore studies? The focus shifts to the importance of engage in discussions and stimulat- In l986 the National Institute of An- the communicative process and the ing debates. The subsequent con- thropology, where I was working at social rules governing it. During the ferences slowly started to integrate the time, received a request from first period, there was a strong folk- scholars from other Latin American the Executive Cultural Board of La lore tradition in Latin America, and countries such as Chile, Uruguay, Bra- Pampa for a course on oral nar- folklorists of this region maintained zil and Venezuela, and occasionally rative, and I was assigned to that scholarly connections in order to ex- from the United States and Denmark. task. Starting from there, and owing change information. In the course of The person who has attended every to firm support from the heads of the more recent period folkloristics conference from the very beginning is both institutions – Rita Ceballos and has declined drastically and inter- our well-known and much-appreciated Norma Medus respectively – these communication among colleagues colleague, the Chilean scholar Manuel organizations made an agreement became infrequent. Besides, as far 12 March 2008

as I know, throughout Latin Ameri- and methodological approaches, as New members have the chance to ca there are few folklore programs well as critical, thought-provoking become acquainted with the latest where students can receive training discussions within our field of study. advances in this field as well as with in folklo-ristics. In Argentina, for ex- Although special interest is devoted new theoretical and methodological ample, there is only one course at to Argentine and Latin-American pro- approaches. At least, this has been the Anthropo-logy Department of the duction, translated papers presented my own experience. In addition, they University of Buenos Aires. In spite by well-known European and Ameri- have the opportunity to attend the of this decline, nowadays it seems can folklorists are welcome, not only congresses that the ISFNR organ- that students as well as scholars from because these articles are hard to izes in a different country every four different social sciences are showing find in our part of the world, but also years. more interest in folkloristics. It is an because of our interest in keeping incipient movement, but it could be our academic community informed a sign that in Latin America this field about the current state of the disci- of study might be recovering some pline globally. From the beginning, of its strength. and due to our periodical’s continuity, we have been able to fulfill our goal, Could you please tell about Revista which has mainly been to establish a de Investigaciones Folklóricas, the communication channel that allows journal you founded in 1986? the interchange of research experi- ences in folklore studies and other When I was in charge of the Folklore social sciences, which exchange Section of the University of Buenos promotes a valuable dialogue among Aires, we decided, with some col- colleagues from different latitudes. leagues, to establish a folklore jour- Up to RIF 17, 2002, the journal was nal to be published once a year, in published in paper-form, but due December. That is how the Revista to the severe Argentinian politico- de Investigaciones Folclóricas or economic crisis of 2001-2002, we RIF – Journal of Folklore Research – published the subsequent volumes emerged. We were interested in the only on the Internet: Argentine and Latin American folklore http://www.investigacionesfolclori- production scattered in various peri- cas.com odicals and thus difficult to locate. The first volume of RIF appeared in 1986, What would you say to younger and twenty-one volumes have been scholars joining the ISFNR today? published so far. I would say that they have made a From the beginning, RIF has pub- very wise decision in joining this so- lished articles concerning folklore ciety that connects the world’s most research and about new theoretical reputed scholars of folk narratives.

From left to right: Diarmuid Ó Giolláin, Repo Sekoni, Isidoro Okpewho, and Joseph McLaren capturing the opening ceremony. Photo by Elo-Hanna Seljamaa. March 2008 13 CALL FOR PAPERS 15th Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research (ISFNR) “Narratives Across Space and Time: Transmissions and Adaptations” Organizer: Hellenic Folklore Research Centre - Academy of Athens Athens, Greece, on June 21-27, 2009

The 15th Congress of the ISFNR will convene in Athens, Greece, on June 21-27, 2009. The International Society for Folk Narrative Research is an international academic soci- ety whose objective is to develop scholarly work in the field of folk nar- rative research. The research inter- ests of ISFNR members around the world cover a number of disciplines in the humanities and social sci- ences, including, in addition to folk- lore, anthropology, cultural studies, comparative literature, language, history, museology, education and ethnography from the point of view of narratives.

The 15th Congress in Athens coincides with the 50th anniversary of the foun- dation of the ISFNR in 1959, in Kiel and Copenhagen. It is the second time in the history of the ISFNR that Athens will host the Conference. The 4th In- ternational Congress for Folk-Narrative Research, held in Athens in September 1964, consolidated the foundation of the ISFNR in that it approved its Stat- utes by means of the General Meeting of the Members of the Congress.

Topic: “Narratives Across Space and Time: Transmissions and Adaptations”

Subtopics: I. History and Future of Folk Narra- tive Research II. Mythologies, Ecology and Envi- ronmental Representations III. Migrant and Diaspora communi- ties: Adaptation and Memory IV. Social Strategies and Collective Identities V. Storytelling and Storytellers VI. Folk Narrative in the Modern Hellenic Folklore Research Centre in Athens. Media Drawing by Aggeliki Svoronou. 14 March 2008

Panels: Participants wishing to Late Registration from April 21, 2009 Panayotis L. Vocotopoulos suggest a panel are most welcome. and on-site: Constantinos Krimbas Those wishing to organize a panel Full Registration: 300 Euros Spyros A.Evangelatos need to submit their suggestions fol- Accompanying persons: 180 Euros lowing a specific form (chair/convenor International Scientific Committee: of the panel, topic, titles of papers Submission of Abstracts [Deadline: Aikaterini Polymerou-Kamilaki (chair, and participants). In doing so they September 30, 2008] Athens) must comply with the thematic guide- Sessions and panels will be structured Eleutherios Alexakis (Athens) lines of the sub-topics and general according to topics (with a maximum Ulrich Marzolph (Göttingen) topic of the congress [Deadline: of four participants). Papers are ex- Marilena Papachristophorou (Athens) September 30, 2008]. pected to investigate historical and Ülo Valk (Tartu) geographical aspects of folk narra- Two exhibitions are scheduled in the tive research in relation to questions Further Information context of the 15th Congress of the of transmission and adaptation. Sug- ISFNR in Athens: A second circular containing further infor- gestions for panels are going to be a) an exhibition of books and the la- mation will be issued in January 2009. treated as separate units, organized test periodical publications released A third circular including the congress and submitted by the panel organizer/ since the last Congress of the ISFNR programme will be issued shortly be- chair. in 2005; fore the Congress. Please find regularly updated informa- Participants are kindly asked to in- b) an exhibition celebrating the 50th tion regarding the conference, forth- dicate the sub-topic for their papers anniversary of the establishment of coming circulars, registration proce- when submitting the abstracts. the ISFNR. Members of the ISFNR dures, etc., on the web sites: N.B. Presentations should not exceed and other participants are kindly invit- www.academyofathens.gr/ 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of ed to contribute documentation mate- www.ut.ee/isfnr/page discussion. rial (such as photographs, programs, posters, proceedings, speeches, cor- Format: RTF, Rich Text Format respondence, registration forms and Typed: Times New Roman, 12 point. audiovisual material) before Septem- Length: up to 300 words. ber 30, 2008. Space: single [double space between title/subtopic/author/address and the Symposium: The ISFNR Committee body of the abstract] on Charms, Charmers and Charm- ing will hold its second symposium in You will be notified about approval Athens, at the 15th Congress of the any abstract submitted by January ISFNR. 31, 2009. For more information please contact: Jonathan Roper [[email protected]] Please submit your abstract:

Registration for the Congress: by e-mail: [email protected] [Deadline: June 30, 2008] by fax: + 30 210 3313418 by mail: ISFNR 15th Congress Please submit your registration Hellenic Folklore Research Centre - (registration form attached): Academy of Athens by e-mail: [email protected] 3, Ipitou street - Athens 105 57 by fax: + 30 210 3313418 GREECE by mail: ISFNR 15th Congress Online: available soon. Hellenic Folklore Research Centre - Academy of Athens 3, Ipitou street - Honorary Committee (Members of Athens 105 57 - GREECE the Academy of Athens):

Registration Fee [Regular Registra- Nicolaos Matsaniotis tion until April 20, 2009]: Panos Ligomenidis Constantinos Drakatos Full Registration: 250 Euros Chrysanthos Christou Accompanying persons: 150 Euros Iakovos Kambanellis March 2008 15 CALL FOR ABSTRACTS International Society for Folk Narrative Research Symposium at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya

Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya its people, wildlife and landscape. A Accommodation – is hosting the 2008 International description of the different packages Details of accommodation will be Society for Folk Narrative Sympo- available scholars and details of the communicated in the next circular. sium between 2 and 4 September cost are contained in the attachment 2008. Kenyatta University is located we are sending with this call for ab- The Symposium address is: in a quiet, serene environment about stracts. We encourage you to com- KENYATTA UNIVERSITY, 20 kilometres north of the capital municate directly with Jet Travel re- LITERATURE DEPARTMENT, city, Nairobi. It has a student pop- garding the tours. P.O. BOX 43844, ulation of about 23,000 and is the NAIROBI. second-oldest and largest univer- The theme of the Symposium is: KENYA sity in Kenya after the University of Folk Narrative: Genres, Social Func- Tel: +25420819901 Ext. 454 Nairobi. Kenyatta University is ar- tion and Cultural Arenas. +254720614407 guably the most cultural University Email: [email protected] in the region. This is not only be- The Sub-Themes are: cause it runs vibrant culture-based Narrating Belief Organizing Committee: disciplines such as Anthropology, Cognitive Worlds Dr. Ezekiel Alembi Literature, Sociology and Religious Cultural Arenas of Folk Narration Chairman Studies but also because it presides Inter-Generic Relations Dr. Mbugua Mungai over the annual Cultural Week, one Genres as Orientation Frames Secretary of the most elaborate cultural festi- Construction of Social Realities Dr. Waveney Olembo vals in the country. Treasurer All abstracts should be sent so as Prof. Francis Imbuga The organizing committee is putting to reach the secretary by April 30, Prof. Muigai Wa Gachanaja in place a programme that is a com- 2008. Prof. Kitula King’ei bination of academic work and so- Mr. Peter Mugambi cial events that will include theatre Participation Fee for Scholar and Dr. Beatrice Digolo and cultural performances, and Accompanying Person is: an excursion that will expose par- ticipants to the local culture. The Kshs. 5000 for African scholars excursion will include a visit to the US$ 200 for all other scholars Bomas of Kenya where participants will have a guided tour of the Bo- a) Cheques for payment of the regis- mas – traditional huts of the differ- tration fee should be paid to Kenyatta ent ethnic groups of Kenya – as well University as a performance by the Bomas of b) Early Registration up to 30th April, the Kenya Dance Troupe. There will US dollars 185 also be a short paper presentation c) Registration during the Symposium, on Kenyan culture. Participants US dollars 200 will also have a guided tour of the d) Accompanying persons, US dol- Kenya National Archives, the Na- lars 150 tional Museums of Kenya and the Registration during the Symposium Karen Blixen Museum and Butterlfy will be in cash. Park. The fee will enable us offer the follow- The local organizing committee is ing services to the participants: ex- working with Jet Travel to organ- cursion, ticket for theatre and cultural ize pre-conference as well as post- plrformances, Lunches, refreshments conference tours. These are aimed at 10.00 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. and a at introducing participants to the rich concluding banquet. scenery and beauty of Kenya through 16 March 2008 From the Committee on “Folktales and the Internet” by Theo Meder, Meertens Instituut, the Netherlands

Preparations have started for the 15th storytelling, roleplaying and creating I am making this announcement at ISFNR Congress in Athens in the sum- identities, by means of for instance the this early stage so that colleagues will mer of 2009 (June 21-27). The main mobile phone, game consoles and the have ample time to consider if, and theme of the congress will be “Narra- PC, including e-mailing (sending jokes, on what subject, they could contribute tives across Space and Time: Trans- Powerpoints, Photoshop-lore, movies, to the sub-theme of digital mediation. missions and Adaptations”. One of the chain-mails, virus-warnings), blogging, In due time, please contact me if you sub-themes will be dealing with “Folk chatting (MSN, MySpace, IMVU) and might be interested or if you know of Narrative in the Modern Media”. game playing (Second Life, World of any other colleagues who are. Warcraft). On the other hand I am in- As coordinator of the committee for terested in online folktale databases Dr. Theo Meder Folktales and the Internet I would like and especially in the question of how Meertens Instituut to organize one (or more) session(s) folklorists should collect, preserve, PO Box 94264 on the subject of digital storytelling present and research the new digital 1090 GG Amsterdam and online folktale databases. On means of storytelling. I myself hope to The Netherlands the one hand I would be interested present a demo version of an Interna- [email protected] in modern digital ways of interacting, tional Folktale Database.

The Charms of Pécs News from the Committee on Charms, Charmers and Charming by Jonathan Roper, School of English, University of Leeds, UK

In May 2007 we had a very pleasant desirability of expanding our range of become a useful source of informa- and scholarly conference in Pécs, contacts, especially to include spe- tion on reliable collections and stud- Hungary. For more information, see cialists from south-western Europe, ies, and that its coverage becomes as the report elsewhere in this issue. I classicists, and scholars from beyond geographically wide as possible. can simply observe that one sign of Europe, and also the desirability of the growth in interest in charms stud- publishing anthologies with partners Finally, we can mention that a fresh ies (albeit quantitative) is that whereas of the most representative (and most book of charms studies will shortly London 2003 was a 1-day conference, interesting) charms texts in bilingual appear. Edited by Jonathan Roper, and London 2005 a two day confer- editions. A fuller report of the commit- Charms, Charmers and Charm- ence, Pécs 2007 lasted three. Our next tee’s meeting is on our website, within ing (Palgrave Macmillan) ISBN conference won’t be a four-dayer how- the larger ISFNR website. 978-0230551848, features both spe- ever – instead we plan to hold a one- cially commissioned papers and work day charms studies symposium in Tartu Also on our website, you can see the first presented at London 2005. Au- on May 9th this year. Papers are particu- first fruits of one project conceived at thors include Lee Haring, Laura Stark, larly sought on ‘encounter charms’, i.e. Pécs: an online annotated bibliogra- Éva Pócs, and Andrei Toporkov, and those charms which contain a narrative phy of charms collections and studies. the cultures covered in its nineteen in which a healing power or an evil spirit Eleven areas/languages are covered chapters include those of Malaysia, is met with. See the call in this issue for to date – England, France, Hungary, Georgia, Slovenia, and England. more details. We also intend to have a Lithuanian, Mari El, Norway, Romania, Topics include charms to deter rats, number of sessions on charms, charm- Russia, Scottish Gaelic, Serbia and gender and snakebite charms, the ers and charming during the main Swedish. But this is very much a work charmer’s body and behaviour as a ISFNR meeting in Athens in 2009. in progress, and anyone interested window into early modern selfhood, in adding information on an area/lan- and charms as a means of coping. The committee itself discussed vari- guage they know about is welcome The publication date is June 2008. ous issues, among which were the to contact us. We hope that this will March 2008 17 Call for Papers One-Day Seminar on Encounter Charms / Begegnungssegen May 9th 2008, Tartu, Estonia

Organised by the Committee on buch des deutschen Aberglaubens. tions of encounter charms with other Charms, Charmers and Charming But little concentrated work has been charm types, the relationship between of the International Society for Folk done on encounter charms since then charms and other genres, and other Narrative Research in collaboration – a situation this seminar intends to related themes. with the Department of Estonian and remedy. Please send your proposals of 75-150 Comparative Folklore, University of words, by the deadline of March 31st, Tartu, and Department of Folklore, This seminar will be dedicated to ad- either by email to: Estonian Literary Museum. dressing encounter charms across cul- [email protected] (with copies to tures and over time, and papers are re- [email protected] and Many narrative charms feature an en- quested dealing with topics such as: [email protected]) counter between the chief protagonist or by post to: of the historiola and another key fig- history of particular types of encounter Ülo Valk ure. These may be encounters with charms, the genre characteristics of Department of Estonian and a supernatural helper or encounters historiolas, the role of protagonists, Comparative Folklore with an evil power. The great charms antagonists and helpers in historio- University of Tartu Ülikooli 16-208 scholar Ferdinand Ohrt termed such las, the nature of encounters and dia- 51003 Tartu charms ‘Begegnungssegen’ in a se- logues in charms, the links (or lack of ESTONIA ries of influential articles and in his links) between the historiola and the Fax: +372 737 5310 entry on ‘Segen’ in the Handwörter- remainder of the charm, the connec-

Belief Tales: A Call for Cooperation

Belief tales (“belief tales” like “folk tales,” (4) sociological, (uses, performance, Gillian Bennett (England) “fairy tales,” “trickster tales,” “tall tales”) functions); (5) psychological and socio- Kishore Bhattacharjee (India) form a significant part of narrative folk- psychological (uses, functions); etc. Lina Būgienė (Lithuania) lore. We call those of us who are in- Isabel Cardigos (Portugal) terested in delving into the secrets of Activities: An electronic “Newsletter” Irma-Riitta Järvinen (Finland) these tales to join the group: we intend will be issued, available to everybody, Heda Jason (Israel) to come together for our mutual benefit. on the ISFNR web site (http://www. Eda Kalmre (Estonia) Interested folklorists please write to: ut.ee/isfnr). It could publicise a current Zoja Karanovic (Serbia) [email protected]. bibliography (annotated); descriptions Vera Kuznetsova (Russia) of work-in-progress and projects; in- Ulf Palmenfelt (Sweden) Description of intentions formation on meetings and teaching; Paul Smith (Canada) Genres: Legend (= legend of the calls for cooperation and help; etc. Timothy Tangherlini (USA) sacred), daimonon (= demonic leg- Ülo Valk (Estonia) end), magikon (daimonon on magic Finances: At the moment, all the work actions), urban belief tales (= urban is being done on a voluntary basis. / modern legends) and other genres For the future, members are called of belief tales. on to be inventive.

Aspects: As the work is a unity, with Early responses would be very wel- several aspects, all aspects of the come, in order to plan a first meeting tales should be included: (1) histori- at the next ISFNR congress (Athens, cal, comparative; (2) classification June 21−27, 2009). and cataloguing; (3) literary-semiotic; 18 March 2008 In Memory of Kirill Vasilyevich Chistov (1919-2007)

Kirill Vasilyevich Chistov was born in Besides research and administrative 1919 in the town of Detskoje Selo, for- Kirill Chistov was an active developer work in the institute, Chistov taught merly Tsarskoje Selo, close to Petro- of folkloristics. He always participated regularly at Leningrad University as grad (from 1924 Leningrad, and from in the theoretical discussions launched well as at Moscow University and at 1991 again St. Petersburg). He studied from time to time among Soviet schol- the Pedagogical University of Petro- in the Philological Faculty of the Lenin- ars, and he was interested in the zavodsk. grad State University from 1937-1941. definition of the aim and field of folk- He had just finished his studies when loristics. This theoretical orientation In 1967 Kirill Chistov defended his the war broke out and he joined the was well balanced by his expertise doctoral dissertation on Russian so- army as a volunteer. Kirill Chistov as a field worker, and he had a good cial-utopian legends. His work was an served in the Soviet army in the Great feel for living oral traditions, both ar- innovation in Soviet and world folk- Patriotic War, became a prisoner of war, chaic and of later origin. In the 1960s loristics at that time. His materials and subsequently fled from the Ger- he also wrote about the necessity of consisted for the most part of juridical man camp in which he was held and documents of the XVII-XIXth centu- fought again in a partisan unit. ries, texts concerning rumors about the fugitive, benevolent, “real”, czar After WWII Kirill Chistov worked in the – not the cruel “fake” emperor ruling Institute of Language, Literature and in the capital (in connection with the History of the Academy of Science peasant revolts in the Russian pro- in Petrozavodsk, in Soviet Karelia, a vinces); and also other documents region well known for its archaic folk concerning notions of the “paradise” culture and rich folklore, both Russian located in some distant part of Rus- and Karelian. In Karelia it was still pos- sia. Kirill Chistov carefully studied his sible to hear the singing of old Russian material in the context of the Russian bylinas, and Kirill Chistov met famous feudal society of the time, and inter- bylina singers and other talented per- preted the legends as social protest formers of old folklore. He participated against the miserable conditions of in a field work group which recorded peasants under serfdom. His study 74 bylina texts from 38 performers. He was naturally written in accordance published a monograph based on his with the ruling Marxist ideology, but it candidate thesis about the lamenter was by no means dogmatic. Later, in I. A. Fedosova, who lived in the XIX Photo: Web site of the “Folklore and Post- a more influential position, he used his century and was one of the most fa- Folklore: Structure, Typology and Semiot- authority in defending a thesis that in- mous Russian lamenters – and as Ki- ics” project: http://www.ruthenia.ru/folklore/ cluded serious criticism of vulgarly de- rill Chistov later wrote, perhaps one of chistov.htm terminist methods of applying Marxist the greatest practitioners in the world philosophy to the study of folklore. of the lament tradition. studying modern popular culture, but In 1981 Kirill Chistov became a cor- Kirill Chistov did not study only old, this was impossible of realization in responding member of the Academy classic folklore. From the beginning the atmosphere of the Brezhnevian of Science of the Soviet Union. Dur- of the 1950s he was already widen- Soviet Union. ing the years 1980-1991 Kirill Chistov ing the scope and field of folkloristics, worked as the editor-in-chief of the investigating a realm which today Leningrad was the old home city of journal “Sovetskaya etnografiia” and would be called Oral History. He be- Kirill Chistov, and the traditional pe- as the editor and co-author of doz- came interested in the stories about culiarities of St. Petersburg Russian ens of books, among them important a pair of partisan girls who during the were often heard in the speech of compiled works concerning the eth- war were sent behind enemy lines Kirill Vasilyevich. At the beginning of nography of the Russians and other and who were subsequently killed. A the 1960s he returned to Leningrad, peoples of the former Soviet Union. post-war radio programme about the and subsequently worked there as the One of them, dealing with Northern heroic deed of the girls generated a lot head of the Department of the Eth- Russian folk culture, was translated of new tales to add to the established nography of East Slavonic Peoples into Finnish and published in Finland stories, and all this began to acquire in the Institute of Ethnography of the in 1976. 1998 saw the publication of a folkloric character. Academy of Science of the USSR. “Overcoming Slavery. Folklore and March 2008 19

Language of the ‘Ostarbeiters’” (in In Memory of George Mifsud-Chircop Russian, translated into German) (1951-2007) which was compiled and annotated by Kirill Chistov and his wife Bella Chistova. In 2000 he was awarded a On December 19, 2007 we received German medal for his contribution to As one of the few professional folk- the sad news that Maltese folklorist the Russo-German cultural life. The lo-rists in Malta, he played a crucial George Mifsud-Chircop, long-term total number of his publications is ap- role not only as a scholar, teacher member of the ISFNR and contri- proximately 570. and collector of folklore, but also butor to the ISFNR Newsletter has as an expert on the Maltese lan- died. He was one of the founding Contacts across the iron curtain were guage and culture. Always involved members of “The Ritual Year” wor- complicated during the Soviet era, but in several projects, broadening the king group of SIEF and the orga- Kirill Chistov clearly wanted to build a scope of local folklore studies and nizer of its first conference. Mem- bridge to the western scientific world, introducing folklore to the school bers of the working group will re- a fact which is evident in the sources curriculum, he achieved a lot before member him as a tireless introducer of his writings; and several of his arti- illness led to his untimely death. of and expert on Maltese folklore cles were published in German, which he spoke fluently. One result of his Mare Kõiva, Tartu, Estonia international activity was his position as the vice-president of ISFNR during 1974-1989. During the later years of his career Kirill Chistov was an invited member of several foreign scientific societies, among them membership of the Finnish Literature Society. In the 1990s age and health problems gradually affected the intensity of his work, but as recently as 2005 an im- portant collection of his articles was published with the title “Folklore, Text, Traditions” (in Russian), in which he examined many important theoretical issues in folkloristics. It is retrospec- tive in character, but the themes and the authorís insights have not lost their urgency. George Mifsud-Chircop at the ISFNR Congress in Tartu in 2005. In addition to folk narratives, Kirill Chistov was a prominent person he took a special interest in għana, traditional in Soviet and later Russian science, Maltese folk song. and was often very busy with all his Photo by Alar Madisson. duties. Nevertheless, many guests found him to be a kind, hospitable host when they visited Leningrad/ and are thankful for their unique op- St. Petersburg and met him, either portunity to learn about the island’s in the institute or at home – where he customs under George’s warm and and Bella Yefimovna showed genuine humorous guidance. In December Russian hospitality and, as I expe- 2006, in collaboration with various rienced as a young student, did not European institutions, he organized accord undue importance to the po- the First International Folk Narrative sition of their guest in the hierarchy Conference on “The Wise Fool in of science. Narrative Cultures” – supplemented by the first Malta Storytelling Fes- Kirill Chistov passed away on tival. 29.10.2007.

Pekka Hakamies, Turku, Finland 20 March 2008 Archives of Argentinean Folk Narrative: Trends, Topics and History of Argentinean Folkloristics by María Inés Palleiro, Sección Folklore Instituto de Ciencias Antropológicas, CONICET, Argentina

The general archives of Argentinean traditional narrative: the influence of the historic-geographic method The initial link in the chain of archives: the 1921 Folkloric Survey Encuesta Folklórica de 1921 or the Folkloric Survey carried out in 1921 constitutes the first attempt at a systematic collec- tion of folklore materials in Argentina. The Survey was directed at school teachers, convoked to work as inter- mediaries between their pupils and scholars and to write down folklore materials containing prose narratives.2 The idea of this Folkloric Survey, ini- tially conceived by the French-born Argentinean writer Paul Groussac (1848-1929) in 1893, coincided with the initiative taken by Ricardo Rojas (1882-1957) in planning an integral collection of folkloric expressions as part of the curriculum in Argentina María Inés Palleiro and Manuel Dannemann in Santa Rosa. (Fernández Latour de Botas 1981). Photo by Alejandra Regunaga. As the title of the project indicates, teachers had to carry out a survey Considered from a diachronic per- (Derrida 1997) and narration as a cog- among their pupils according to a se- spective, the methods of collecting nitive method for the sequential articu- ries of institutional instructions sent by and archiving folk narratives exem- lation of experience (Bruner 2002). I the National Council of Education. The plify the different currents, trends and emphasize the status of these archives survey format presupposes the poly- epistemological convergences related or collections as material and symbolic phonic presence of a plural enuncia- to the transdisciplinary field of folklore supports for the cultural memory of a tor, in which converge the institutional in the Argentinean context. group and suggest that at the same voice realized in the instructions, the time they are useful as configurational voice of the teachers in charge of the In this article, I intend to examine differ- frames of collective memory (Goffman collection and the voice of “informers” ent folklore archives selected accord- 1990). Firstly, I will discuss the three whose oral testimonies are turned by ing to their organizing collections of central collections of traditional Argen- teachers into an exercise in textual Argentinean prose narratives. In order tinean narratives from a diachronic re-writing. This modality corresponds to demarcate the object of study, I will perspective. Secondly, I will proceed to the paradigm of Folklore centred on concentrate on archives of prose nar- to regional archives selected on the compilation rather than on the inter- ratives, while at the same time bearing basis of their varying ways of arrang- pretation of materials. in mind that the flexibility of this genre ing materials; as such they reflect with favours the narrators’ free expression, greater sharpness the different trends Among the instructions given by the and in comparison to verse genres and disciplinary convergences of folk- Council of Education is one that tells bound up with stereotypical metre and lore studies in Argentina. The article the teachers to compile “all the cultural rhyme1 demonstrate more clearly the draws on the results of my research products without exception: crafts, dynamic transformation of folklore. I project “Archives of Argentinean Tradi- games, beliefs, customs, rites, tech- thereby consider archives in the ety- tional Narrative” sponsored by the Na- niques, instruments, manufactures, mological meaning of the word arkhé tional Council for Scientific Research decorative elements, etc.” Such as a principle of memory-organization (CONICET). products include the “literary forms” in March 2008 21

“verse” and in “prose”, the latter “sto- Perkins Hidalgo and Julián Cáceres are normalized to meet the standard ries or fiction” being characterised as Freyre, as well as fieldwork materials rules of writing, and narratives are “the most important genre in folklore by Chertudi and her husband Ricardo repositioned in order to give them narrative” and classified according to Nardi. a certain cohesive structure and a the classificatory parameters of the greater textual coherence. However, Aarne-Thompson index of folktale The collection consists of two volumes the narrative texts maintain the indi- types.3 In addition, the teachers were or “series” of a hundred narratives cial markers of orality and this is how instructed to distinguish between II. each, beginning with an introduction Chertudi was able to include lexical Legends, III. Cases and events, IV. and concluding with a register of types, regionalisms and other phonic, syn- Traditions, and V. Explanatory Narra- general bibliography, “Lexis” and an tactic and morphological forms of the tives or Myths. This mode of classifi- index. The introduction to the first local dialect. cation is based on a priori parameters series gives an overview of the state independent of concrete textual reali- of affairs in folk-narrative scholarship With regard to the methods of docu- zations and is transmitted to teachers both at the international and national menting these narratives, it needs to as the required model or paradigm for level, alluding also to the concept of be underlined that recorders and other organizing the material when interro- folklore studies initially outlined by technologies of sound reproduction gating their informants and asking W. J. Thoms and mentioning Aarne’s were not available at that time, so the them for referential information. The and Thompson’s classificatory system work was based on the re-writing of adoption of the survey modality aims, in order to contextualise systematic previous archives. Including materials in fact, to prioritise the semantic con- folklore and folk-narrative studies in from different regions of Argentina, the tent over the narrators’ performance Argentina within an international am- Los Cuentos Folklóricos de la Argen- itself. The paradigm of folklore applied bit. The introduction also mentions the tina documents with great precision in the instructions stands very close documentation of the 1921 Folkloric the geographical diffusion of narrative to the W. J. Thoms’ foundational let- Survey and pays tribute to scholars types according to the principles of the ter to the Athenaeum in 1846, which such as Augusto Raúl Cortázar. The historic-geographic method. However, characterises “Folk-Lore” as the study introduction to the second volume some notes and observations in the of the customs of former times, thus refers to studies by Vladimir Propp introduction refer to questions of struc- situating it in the antiquarian tradition. and to other international scholars of ture and style, revealing the beginning With regard to narratives, the Folkloric crucial importance to the opening up of new paradigms of folklore, research Survey aimed at the identification of of folklore studies to new formal and orientated towards the communicative “versions” and “variants” of an Urform, structural text-centred paradigms. dimension and the poetic structure of which was also the goal of the histor- However, the collection itself maintains the message. ic-geographic method of the Finnish the above-mentioned modality of the School. The result of the 1921 Folk- Survey adapted to the parameters of The register of orality in a monumen- loric Survey was a vast manuscript collectionism. In fact, the series could tal collection: Cuentos y leyendas archive, now located in the National be described as a collection of “sto- populares de la Argentina (Folktales Institute of Anthropology and Latin ries” or versions compiled on the ba- and Popular Legends of Argentina) American Thought in Buenos Aires. sis of an anthological criterion rather (1982-1995) by Berta Elena Vidal de than one of analytical interpretation: Battini Textual re-writings of the 1921 Sur- variants are ordered neatly according Cuentos y leyendas populares de la vey: Los Cuentos Folklóricos de la to the typological parameters of the Argentina is a nine-volume work ed- Argentina (Argentinean Folktales) thematic indexes of Aarne-Thompson, ited by Berta Elena Vidal de Battini (1960-1964) by Susana Chertudi Thompson and Ralph S. Boggs – with (1900-1984) and published in Buenos each narrative being identified in a ta- Textual re-writing of the narrative ma- Aires by Ediciones Culturales Argen- ble by a number indicating its place in terials of the 1921 Folkloric Survey tinas, with a tenth volume issued the universal typological classification. constitutes the axis of the Los Cuen- posthumously. The series focusses At the foot of each narration the col- tos Folklóricos de la Argentina collec- on two narrative genres – tales and lector also gives the name, age and tion put together by Susana Chertudi legends – which are linked by means geographic origin of the narrator or “in- (1925-1977), a researcher of folk nar- of an anthological criterion that privi- former”. Furthermore, each particular ratives who had a competence both leges collecting and organizing rather narrative is subclassified according to in literature and folklore. “Argentinean than interpretation and analysis. The the parameters listed in the indexes: Folktales” aims at more precise clas- archive was initiated by Berta Elena I. “animal tales”, II: “marvellous tales”, sificatory criteria and contains ad- Vidal de Battini, teacher and scholar III. “religious tales”, IV: “human tales” ditional versions by other collectors of regional speech, who collaborated and V. “formula tales”. The orthogra- like Jesús María Carrizo, Guillermo with educational institutions in order phy and syntax characteristic of orality 22 March 2008

to carry out folk narrative collections. well as among the “legends”. Among theorizers of folklore, Augusto The modality of arranging materials Raúl Cortázar (1910-1974), the author likewise accords with the paradigm of The distinctive feature of “The Folk- of Ciencia Folklórica Aplicada (1960) folklore sustained by collectionism and tales and Popular Legends of Argen- (Applied Folklore Science) stands out. adheres to the rules of the historic- tina” is the extensive scope of the Aiming at raising folklore studies to geographic method. For the organi- compiled material, which is directly the category of “science”, he defines zation of the archive, Vidal de Battini proportional to its classificatory im- folklore pieces as “popular, anony- adopts Aarne-Thompson’s principles precision. Glosses concerning the mous and orally transmitted since of thematic classification and divides linguistic features of some narrations immemorial times”, with the capacity narratives into two great categories. are outstanding, as is the inclusion of to “enrich the tradition that maintains The first is “folktale”, which is further cartography in order to illustrate the its collective force in the bosom of the divided into 1) “Animal Tales”, 2) “Magi- distribution of the narrative material regional environment where the texts cal or Marvellous Tales”, 3) “Human, in different geographical areas. The were documented from the people”. Moral Tales and Others”, 4) “Tales of collection combines trans-national This adjustment to the paradigm of Popular Characters…like Pedro de classificatory criteria like typology the Finnish School is also evident in Urdemales”, 5) “Accumulative Tales”, with other systems adjusted to the collections of regional folk narratives and 6) “Jokes”, 7) “Riddles”, 8) “Novel- specificity of the Argentinean corpus, such as the Cuentos de la Tradición lae”, and 9) “Indigenous Narrative”. e.g. the method adopted for legends. Oral Argentina (Folktales of the Ar- The second main category is “legends” This, together with the documentation gentinean Oral Tradition) (1948) by and for this the compiler adopts her of some features of speech, shifts Jesús María Carrizo and Guillermo own rules of thematic ordering, distin- the classificatory spectrum towards Perkins Hidalgo in a critical edition guishing between legends referring to a contextual paradigm appropriate with references regarding types and 1) places, 2) stones and hills, 3) lakes to the “new perspectives in folklore” classification of folktales by the folklo- and rivers; as well as 4) legends of a (Parades and Bauman 1972). rist Bruno Jacovella (1910-1996), and lost city, 5) legends of burials or hid- the significant anthological collection den treasures, 6) legends of plants, Narrative collections and other folk Cuentos populares de La Rioja (Popu- 7) legends of animals, and 8) legends archives: universal models in Argen- lar Stories of La Rioja) (1965) by Juan of heaven. The editor also refers to tinean folklore Zacarías Agüero Vera. This collection the classification of Budapest – pro- includes both a preliminary study by These three collections of prose narra- posed after the corpus selection had Augusto Cortázar titled “El método tives are framed within the classifica- already been started. “The Folktales histórico-geográfico y el estudio de tory mode of the historic-geographic and Popular Legends of Argentina” los cuentos populares” (“The historic- method: based on recognition of the- includes a classification according geographic method and the study of matic regularities, they are orientated to geographical regions, along with popular stories”) and Susana Cher- towards the reconstruction of universal maps of the regional distribution of dif- tudi’s precise typological classification models of which the different regional ferent narratives. This, in addition to of the stories according to the para- manifestations constitute “versions” the general classification, corresponds meters of Aarne-Thompson. At the and “variants”. As such they are also to the rules of the historic-geographic time of publication of the above-men- orientated towards the documentation method. Narratives are grouped into tioned works, Cortázar and Chertudi of the regional distribution of these “versions” and “variants” of narrative were two of the leading representa- universal models. Further examples “types” or “models”. Vidal de Battini tives of the theorization and system- of such collections are those of the also refers to the use of question- atic compilation of folk narratives in provinces of Catamarca (1957), as naires as instruments of collecting the Argentinean context. well as La Rioja (1942) and Tucumán folklore data, and regards narrators (1937) compiled by Juan Alfonso Car- as “informers”, so granting privilege The most recent archives: differen- rizo (1885-1957), the first director of to the semantic content rather than tial modalities of filing narratives in the Instituto Nacional de la Tradición; the style or performance of these regional contexts the dance collection initiated by Ven- narratives; although in footnotes she tura Lynch (1850-1888), Jorge Furt Instead of creating monumental cor- sometimes does comment on the par- with his Coreografia Gauchesca puses of the folkloric prose narratives ticular artistic talent of one narrator or (Gauchesque Choreography) from of the whole of Argentina, the general another. Many times the same group 1927; Danzas y canciones argenti- trend of later archives has been to of stories appears in different sections, nas (Argentinean Dance and Songs) focus collections on specific regional which shows the dynamic character of (1936) by Carlos Vega (1898-1966), contexts, following, among others, the all classification; e.g. “The crop divi- and Antonio Barceló, the first direc- examples of the above-mentioned ar- sion” can be found in the “stories of tor of the National School of Dance. chives of Carrizo and Perkins Hidalgo, animals”, the “wonderful stories” as March 2008 23 and Agüero Vera. Furthermore, as I verbal art as performance, with an- and legends. Instead of analysis of will try to show in the following, these tecedents in the historical particular- particular versions or groups of them, new archives indicate a shift towards ism of Franz Boas. I also mentioned the book offers general commentary a paradigm of folklore based on stud- Hermann Bausinger’s contributions on all of them. “Tales” are classified ies of regional contextual variation, as and his theory of contexts as well into tales about animals, humans, into well as towards research reflecting on as other studies of contextualization jokes and brief narratives of Pedro de the process of constructing narrative centred on the problem of variation, Urdemales, fool’s tales, tales of ex- messages (Jakobson 1964) as well as which I discuss in depth in my doctoral aggeration, fictional tales ornovellae , on channels and codes of circulation thesis (Palleiro 1993). I related this marvelous stories, and religious and of the narrative material. dynamic between regularity and vari- moral tales. Legends, on the other ation to the historical development of hand, are divided into religious, etio- the field of folklore: in order to acquire logical (related to the origin of places the status of science, folkloristics had of the pampa) legends, to legends of to first center on the identification of plants and animals, and legends of regularities, on systematic invariants belief. In the “Prologue” an interesting indispensable to the configuration of reflection on the concept of folklore is a disciplinary system. This scientific presented which can be perceived as advance was correspondingly marked a harbinger of the contextual studies by a turn towards the study of con- of folklore. A tension between different textual variations with regard to the paradigms is certainly noticeable in regularities identified in the previous this work, a shift from an adjustment stage, and towards a reflection on the to general principles of the Finnish communicative role of folklore. The School’s thematic classification to most recent archives of narratives incorporation of contextual variation exemplify this turn. both in the register of regional speech as well as in the organization of the Tension of paradigms: Cuentos y archive – which includes the category leyendas de La Pampa (Tales and of “lo pampeano” as a classificatory Legends from La Pampa) (1988) parameter. The authors also reflect on compiled by Nélida Giovannoni and the codes and channels for transmit- María Inés Poduje ting folktales, and on the difficulties of adjusting a priori classification catego- The “Folktales and Legends of La ries to the specificity of the corpus, Pampa” (1988) compiled by Nélida on the gap between universal catego- Giovannoni and María Inés Poduje ries and the specific characteristics of Provinces of Argentina. and edited in Santa Rosa by the Di- Argentinean narratives. Giovannoni rection of Culture of La Pampa, adopt- and Poduje thus recognize the ten- ed classification principles similar to In a previous discussion of the prob- sion between paradigms of folklore those used by B. E. Vidal de Battini lem of the state of art of folklore based on the identification of regulari- and based on the Aarne-Thompson studies in Argentina (Palleiro 2004b) ties and those focussed on studying index of tale types and Thompson’s I proposed a distinction between cur- variation. motif-index. In the case of legends, rents of folklore studies based on however, the compilers combined (1) the study of thematic regularities The analytic dimension and the ar- the parameters proposed by Vidal de (historic-geographic method, evolu- chive configuration: La Estructura Battini with those of the international tionism and diffusionism, functionalism del Miedo (The Structure of Fear) classification of Budapest, adding the and psychological as well as mythic- (1991) by Martha Blache category of “legends of belief” studied archetypical methods); (2) the regu- by Susana Chertudi. While part of the The work of Martha Blache marked a larities of composition (the methods materials derives from the Survey of decisive turn from the anthological crite- and formalist and structural currents 1921, the other part is based on field- rion of organizing archives, cha-racteris- of Propp, Roland Barthes and Algirdas work conducted by compilers. tic of the collector-paradigm of folklore, Greimas); (3) on stylistic regularities to an analytical dimension of interpreta- (approaches similar to Olrik‘s epic As with Vidal de Battini’s “Folktales tion; from a paradigm of folklore based laws); and (4) on studies of varia- and Popular Legends of Argentina”, on the study of regula-rity, especially tion initiated by Dell Hymes with his the collection of La Pampa narratives thematic regularities, to one centred on ethnography of speaking and contin- grants privilege to anthological criteria the study of contextual variations and ued by Richard Bauman’s notion of and similarly focusses on the folktales narrators’ artistic performance. 24 March 2008

Blache’s collection entitled Estructura and include the following classes: The dimension of the quotidian and del Miedo or “The Structure of Fear” a) mysterious appearances, b) un- scriptural fiction: Cuentos de las tres was compiled between 1972 and materializations, c) precognitions, d) abuelas (The Stories of Three Grand- 1974. It uses a corpus of the legends messages from beyond the grave, mothers) (1995) by Silvia García and of Paraguayan migrants in Buenos e) mythical animals, f) metamorpho- Diana Rolandi Aires as an “instrument to reach the sis, g) the devil and deals with the Compiled by two anthropologists, this universe of values, beliefs and tradi- devil, h) the Salamanca6, i) the “luz collection presents a particular mo- tions … [that configure] the ethos of mala” (bad light), j) elves and mythi- dality of arranging narrative materi- the Paraguayan migrant people.”4 The cal beings, and k) UFOs, aliens and als that provides an account of the distinctive feature of this work cen- strange beings. different phases in the production of tred on methodological reflection is the a folklore text. The book is based on archive configuration as a pretext for a group of tales of “three grandmoth- the study of the cultural representa- ers” collected by the authors from the tions of a determinate group context, region of Antofagasta de la Sierra in starting from a paradigm of folklore the Catamarca Province, and pres- open to both structural and contextual ents three different phases of scrip- currents. The study is based on the tural production. Thus the first part in- material of the author’s doctoral thesis cludes the “poetic history” of the three presented at Indiana University, but re- grandmothers narrated by means of visited from the standpoint of Greimas’ different anecdotes arranged accord- “actantial categories” and Peirce’s ing to the cyclical change of seasons semiotic categories of iconic, indicial in such a way that the quotidian be- and symbolic signs. Thus Blache in- comes the principle of the sequential- corporates approaches from narrato- ity of the narrative materials (“Spring, logy and semiotics for a communica- day of the dead…Summer, Señala- tive study of folklore understood as da…, etc.).7 This “first part” becomes aesthetically marked messages, and Berta Elena Vidal de Battini (1900-1984), editor an object of scriptural re-elaboration leaves the evaluation of the efficiency of one of the major collections of Argentinean in the second part, where the same of each narrator’s performance for the folktales and legends. narratives are re-written into “stories audience to decide. Photo: private collection. for children” and accompanied by il- lustrations done children. The organi- Oral and written folk narrative: De zation of this “second part” is based Duendes, Ánimas y Otras Historias: on thematic categories similar to the Relatos Orales de Adolescentes Cor- Among other things, the collection ones used by Aarne and Thompson, dobeses (Of Elves, Souls and Other incorporates numerous versions of so that narratives are classified into Histories: Oral Narratives of Teenag- “The Lady Ghost” and thus gives evi- “marvellous tales”, “animal tales” and ers from Córdoba) (1995) by Stella dence of its wide distribution among “human tales”, but also context-spe- Watson and Nelson Herrera teenagers in Córdoba. The above- cific categories like “la Pacha” – the mentioned topics reveal a certain This archive, gathered by secon- goddess mother earth in Quechua, a predilection that narrators of this age dary school teachers, focusses Native American language of South have for the frightful – situated in an on the genre of “strange histories” America. In addition, the stories are ambiguous zone between reality and of arguably real events circulat- arranged according to the anthologi- fiction, which represents one of the ing among teenagers in the urban cal principle. distinctive features of materials of area of the city of Córdoba. It also this archive. incorporates written versions by stu- The contribution of this collection con- dents that manifest the emergence sists in giving an account of the differ- What makes this archive interesting of new topics like the UFO narra- ent stages of scriptural re-elaboration and significant is that it opens up the tives.5 While the collection is based of oral materials to adjust them to dif- paradigm of folklore both to written on the anthological criterion, it also ferent audiences and, furthermore, in materials and to “strange histories” includes an interesting preliminary the framework of a project promoting or stories dealing with new topics like reflexive study on the classificatory the “intangible patrimony” of oral cul- UFO narratives or urban legends – modalities of narratives. The stories ture in a specific regional context of classified according to the thematic are arranged according to thematic Argentina. The successive transfor- criterion, but also acknowledging the parameters adjusted to the col- mations of the material demonstrate specificity of teenagers’ narrations. lection’s particular characteristics, the fictionalisation processes of the March 2008 25 discourse according to the scriptural and stylistic characteristics of each The archives in their linguistic dimen- conventions that anthropologists rely narrative included in the anthology. sion: the collections of indigenous on. In this way, there is an intertex- The first collection comprised ten narrative tual gap between different stages of and both of the succeeding volumes Another important set of collections of this enunciative process. By means twenty narratives. Argentinean folk narrative is those of of such mediation, primary orality is indigenous narratives, which also rep- transformed into ethnographic docu- The critical edition Fue una historia resent a contribution of linguistics. An ments as well as into children’s tales, real. Itinerarios de un archivo (It has important antecedent of these archives into a text implicated in the “fiction of been a Real Case. An Archive with Dif- is Berta Koessler-IIg’s Tradiciones anthropological writing” to express it ferent Itineraries) (2004a) consisted of Araucanas (Araucanian Traditions) in Clifford’s terms. materials of my post-doctoral research (1962) the second edition of which was and contained twenty oral versions of published in 2007 in Chile under the Textualisation processes in folk the same “Meeting Death” (Encuentro title of Cuenta El Pueblo Mapuche (The narrative: María Inés Palleiro’s ar- con la Muerte) pattern that presents Mapuche People Tell). Koessler-Ilg chives common elements with Thompson E was a German folklorist who came to 332.3.3.1.,“The vanishing hitchhiker”. My own archives consist of three an- Argentina to live close to the Mapuche This collection, organized like a ge- thologies and a critical edition of folk people as the wife of a medical doctor. netic dossier (Grésillon 1994), pres- narratives that sums up the results of She included in her work not only tran- ents a particular modality of register more than twenty years of field work scriptions of narratives, but also tradi- in three levels of complexity: Spanish in both rural and urban settings. While tions like songs and prayers, even rid- that goes from the phonic register col- the anthologies give an account of the dles and magical practices, children’s loquial oral speech to a register cor- research undertaken for my disser- games, proverbs and traditions (that is responding to standard conventions tation, the critical edition comprises to say, memorates and chronicates). of writing, with an intermediate stage post-doctoral work. My doctoral thesis The new edition, translated from Ger- called “dialectical writing”. The aim focussed on fictionalization processes man into Spanish, comprises three of this register modality is to reflect of context of materials dealing with the volumes, the first of “traditions”, the the scriptural textualisation processes topic of “The deal with the devil” (El second of “myths and legends” and the of oral narratives as well as the gap trato con el Diablo; Aarne-Thompson third of “tales and fables”. The texts are between oral and written text. The 330A “The Smith and the Devil”) and neatly annotated and accompanied by work is arranged around the axis of including tales, case studies, events sharp linguistic observations about the the register and analysis of dispersion and stories. While editing the antholo- characteristics of Mapuche speech as itineraries of the same narrative pat- gies, I experienced the influence of well as by ethnographic comments on tern or “matrix” in different contexts certain paradigms of folklore in the the special features of the culture of and channels of discourse. The nar- editorial market. I classified the nar- this ethnic group. In fact, one of the ratives include both oral and written rations according to the parameters distinctive features of Koessler-Ilg’s versions as well as mediated recre- of type and motive indexes compiled work is that it illuminates not only the ations in the periodical press, filmic by Aarne and Thompson. The first register of the narratives but also, in and video transpositions and literary and the second of anthology, titled an ethnographic mode, the universe elaborations. While this work deals El escondite mágico y otros cuen- of cultural representations of this ab- with textualisation processes of narra- tos folklóricos riojanos (The Magic origine community from the south of tives, it also emphasizes the analytical Hiding-Place and other Argentinean Argentina and Chile. Although it mani- dimension. It considers the messages Folktales) (1990) and Los tres pelos fests a sharp ethnographic perceptive- of folk narratives as an expression of del Diablo (The Three Hairs from the ness, the collection is dominated by the differential group identity, highlighting Devil’s Beard) (1992) respectively, in- anthological criterion. the compositional and stylistic proce- cluded marvellous tales while the third dures by means of which a narrator one, La fiesta en el cielo (The heav- By way of contrast, the analytical imprints the narratives with the seal of enly banquet) (1998), was dedicated dimension is privileged in the pio- his/her authorship. As such, this study to animal tales. Each text was accom- neering work by anthropologist Else can be situated in the tradition of con- panied with footnotes explaining the María Waag titled Tres Entidades textual studies of folklore, and relies context and commenting on the style Wekufü en la Cultura Mapuche (Three on Richard Bauman’s performance and performance of each particular Wekufü Entities in the Mapuche Cul- theory as well as on approaches de- narrator. In the introduction, I reviewed ture) (1965). Waag looks at cultural veloped by French genetic criticism the present state of studies on each representations of evil entities in the (Grésillon 1994, Hay 1993) for the narrative genre and added a very brief Mapuche community, starting with register and analysis of textualization analysis of the thematic, compositive the study of narrative testimonies. It processes. 26 March 2008

is situated, in this way, in the school companied by a CD. These and other forms. Such collections, bearing the that Martha Blache will later develop similar works privileging the linguistic stamp of the ethnography of speaking, in a systematic way. Another collection aspect are clearly influenced by Dell privilege the textual register of linguis- of narratives of the same social group Hymes’s ethnography of speaking. tic forms and often include information was complied by César A. Fernandez Yet their scope of analysis is bound to about the language system and occa- and titled Cuentan Los Mapuches remain restricted since major empha- sionally also an account of the perfor- (The Mapuches Tell) (1999). Like sis is put on the register of indigenous mances of individual narrators. the volume by Berta Koessler-Ilg, it languages and dialects on the verge of is based on the anthological criterion extinction, though the register of differ- As a general trend in all archives, one and includes an interesting introduc- ent speech genres is remarkable and registers a greater inclination towards tion about the aesthetics and poetics reflects also on the poetic dimension. anthological principles than to analyti- of the Mapuches, also differentiating cal interpretation, with exceptions like between their discursive genres. This Conclusion: topics and trends in ar- Martha Blache’s collections and my preoccupation with discursive genres chives of Argentinean folk narrative own, preceded by the pioneering work as well as with poetics reveals the of Else María Waag. This tendency In this brief diachronic journey, I have stamp of the ethnography of speech corresponds to the different profiles noticed, in the case of the first gene- developed by Dell Hymes and in To- of individual compilers, who ascribe to ral archives an adjustment to what I ward New Perspectives in Folklore, the folkloristic paradigm of collectio- have called a folkloric paradigm of col- which put emphasis on the commu- nism, to linguistic or literary studies, or lectionism. The first collections were nicative dimension of folklore and to the analytical school – which tends organized according to the anthological on its character as an aesthetically to be adhered to by those scholars criterion and on the basis of type and marked message orientated towards closer to anthropological studies. motive indexes that tend to adjust local the audience. archives to parameters of transnational This brief resume adumbrates the classification and prioritize the re-col- One would also have to mention the richness and variety of the collections lecting of the same story. The modality work by the eminent Argentinean lin- of Argentinean folk narratives the dy- of the register is based on re-writing guist Ana Fernández Garay and her namism of which is able to survive the orality according to conventions of team on the narratives of the ranque- most diverse political, economical and literacy, whereas the latter are slowly les, an ethnic group of the Mapuches, cultural crises. In sharp contrast to the becoming flexible enough to admit and their bilingual collections in the amplitude of the first general collec- forms of oral speech. During this first aborigine language and Spanish. Testi- tions, the current trends in organizing period of Argentinean folkloristics, monios de los últimos ranqueles (Testi- archives are orientated towards em- philological and historic-geographic monies of the Last Ranqueles) (2002), bracing a more limited spectrum and approaches dominate the main goal of for instance, presents the results of a modern approach that provides the which is to collect texts in archives.8 the systematic investigation of the tools to connect the past to the pre- Mapuche ranquelino that Fernández sent. These collections view traditional A second moment is marked by a shift Garay began in 1983 on the indigenous narratives as a privileged instrument of towards the contextualist paradigms reservation of Colonia Emilio Mitre in communication, the semantic content of The New Perspectives in Folklore the province of La Pampa. The work of which is linked to the expression of and towards performance studies includes transcriptions – accomplished identities and social memories. developed by Richard Bauman, with with a remarkable precision – as well special emphasis laid on the aesthetic as a CD. Linguistics provides this kind One must also mention the shift of dimension and the poetics of the mes- of research with valuable instruments paradigm from the “oral and anony- sage. In addition, there is developing for a careful registering of the phonic, mous” production in the rural ambit an interest in new topics such as UFO morphosyntactical and semantic levels, characteristic of the first archives to- narratives, new narrative genres like which in turn makes possible an accu- wards an urban setting and the study “strange histories” and memorates, and rate transcription that segments phras- of problems of authorship and of style new channels of discourse such as the es into shorter linguistic units. Register in narrators. These new approaches written and mediated registers. modality of this kind can give a pre- enable us to highlight the narrators’ cise idea of the linguistic organization capacity to recreate in an aesthetic Another group of collections are cen- of aborigine languages facing extinc- message the multiethnic and multi- tred on indigenous narratives and with tion. From the same team of scholars, cultural character of Argentina. The the help of ethnolinguists attempt to Marisa Malvestitti recently published a differential features of this culture are document registers of languages and study titled La variedad mapuche de also reflected in the narrative archives, dialects facing extinction, with their la Línea Sur (The Mapuche Variety of in the radical heterogeneity provided poetical forms reflected in narrative the Southern Line) (2003), which is ac- by contributions of different kinds – March 2008 27

European, créoles and indigenous by Ana Aguilar). people, western and eastern – and accentuated by the multiple diasporic BRUNER, Jerome (2003). La fábrica de histo- movements that revitalise the Argen- rias. Derecho, literatura, vida. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. tinean cultural patrimony with their richness and diversity. CARRIZO, J. and G. PERKINS HIDALGO (1948). “Cuentos de la tradición oral argen- tina”: comp. por Bruno C. Jacovella, Revista del Instituto Nacional de la Tradición I, Nº1: 209-257. 1 Adjustment to stereotypes coincides with meeting the standards of Spanish traditions. CARRIZO, Juan Alfonso (1933). Cancionero A clear example of this trend is the Tradi- popular de Salta. Tucumán: Ediciones de la Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. tional Argentinean Romancer (Romancero Tradicional Argentino) which keeps a close CARRIZO, Juan Alfonso (1935). Cancionero relationship with the Traditional Spanish Ro- popular de Jujuy. Tucumán: Ediciones de la mancer (Chicote 2002). Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. 2 Engaging schoolchildren in collecting folk- lore was a common practice in Estonia in the In Fue una historia real. Itinerarios de un ar- CARRIZO, Juan Alfonso (1937). Cancionero 1920-30s: in 1922, Walter Anderson intitated chivo (It has been a Real Case. An Archive with popular de Tucumán . Tucumán: Ediciones de a nationwide collection of children’s songs Different Itineraries, 2004), María Inés Palleiro la Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. examines textualization processes of folktales and poems; in 1938-1939, a competition for on the basis of twenty versions of the same collecting local legends and placelore was “Lady Ghost” story. CARRIZO, Juan Alfonso (1942). Cancionero popular de La Rioja. Buenos Aires: Espasa- carried out. [Editor’s comment.] Calpe. 3 According to the given classification, the “stories” are sub-categorized to 1) wonderful, Bibliography CARRIZO, Juan Alfonso (1953). Historia del 2) religious and moral, 3) animist or scary, 4) Folklore Argentino. Buenos Aires: Dictio edi- human, 5) animalistic and jokes. AARNE, Antti & Stith THOMPSON (1928). The ciones. 4 Literally, in Spanish, Blache speaks about Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bi- the “ethos de un pueblo.” This expression bliography. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum CHERTUDI, Susana (1960). Cuentos folklóricos refers to the cultural background of a certain Fennica. de la Argentina. Primera Serie. Buenos Aires: group from the perspective of an ethnograp- Ediciones del Instituto Nacional de Filología hic approach differentiating between the ethic AGÜERO VERA, Juan Zacarías (1965). Cuen- y Folklore. and emic. It also refers to the Greek word tos populares de La Rioja. La Rioja: Imprenta CHERTUDI, Susana (1964). Cuentos folklóri- ethos as to the set of values of a certain del Estado y Boletín Oficial. cos de la Argentina. Segunda Serie. Buenos community. BARTHES, Roland et al. (1974). Análisis Aires: Ediciones del Instituto Nacional de An- 5 An investigation of UFO narratives has estructural del relato. Buenos Aires: Tiempo tropología. been undertaken by Patricio Parente, who Contemporáneo. has collected a great number of them for his CHICOTE, Gloria Beatriz (2002). Romancero doctoral dissertation. BAUMAN, Richard (1972). “Differential Identity Tradicional Argentino. London: Department of 6 The Salamanca is a local ritual, in which a and the Social Base of Folklore”: Toward New Hispanic Studies of the Queen Mary University man or a woman makes a deal with the devil Perspectives in Folklore, ed. by Américo Pare- of London. in order to gain youngness, beauty, a lot of des and Richard Bauman. Austin and London: money, or special abilities. University of Texas Press, pp. 31-41. Colección de Folklore. Encuesta folklórica del Consejo Nacional de Educación a los maes- 7 The señalada is the action of marking tros de las escuelas Ley Láinez (1921), Buenos cattle in the form of a ritual ceremony that in BAUMAN, Richard (1974). “Verbal Art as Per- Aires, Hemeroteca del Instituto Nacional de An- certain places takes place in the beginning of formance”: American Anthropologist, Nº 67, pp. 290-297. tropología y Pensamiento Latinoamericano. summer. 8 This trend seems to be similar to the one BLACHE, Martha (1991). Estructura del mie- CORTAZAR, Augusto Raúl (1976). Ciencia Fol- in Estonian folklore described by Valk (1999: do. Narrativas folklóricas guaraníticas. Buenos klórica Aplicada. Reseña teórica y experiencia 207): “Philological approaches have domi- Aires: Plus Ultra. argentina. Buenos Aires: Fondo Nacional de nated in Estonian folkloristics; it has become las Artes. a scholarly tradition to work with the texts BOAS, Franz (1993). “Los métodos de la etno- in archives. Estonian folkloristics has been logía”: Antropología cultural, ed. Por Juan Re- DERRIDA, Jacques (1997). Mal de archivo. Una impresión freudiana. Madrid: Trotta. influenced by the historic-geographic method, nold. Buenos Aires: CEAL, pp. 47-57 (transla- known also as the Finnish school.” tion from American Anthropologist XXII, 1920, 28 March 2008

FERNÁNDEZ GARAY, Ana Valentina (2002). Narrative Research. Bloomington: Indiana Uni- THOMS, W. J. (1991 [1846]) “La palabra ‘Fol- Testimonios de los últimos ranqueles. Buenos versity Press. klore’”: Introducción al folklore comp. By G. Aires: Instituto de Linguística de la Facultad Magrassi and M. Rocca. Buenos Aires: CEAL, de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Bu- PALLEIRO, María Inés (1990). “El escondite pp. 33-36. enos Aires. mágico” y otros cuentos folklóricos riojanos. Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Sol. VALK, Ülo (1999). “Traditional Legends in FERNANDEZ LATOUR DE BOTAS, Olga Contemporary Estonian Folklore”: Traditional (1981). “Sesenta años después. Visión crítica PALLEIRO, María Inés (1992). Los tres pelos storytelling today. An International Sourcebook actual de la Colección de Folklore de 1921”: del diablo: Cuentos maravillosos de la cultura edited by Margaret Read MacDonald. Chicago Revista Nacional de Cultura Nº10, (Diciembre popular argentina. Buenos Aires: Ediciones and London: Fitzroy Dearborn publishers, pp. de 1981), Ediciones Culturales Argentinas, pp. del Sol. 207-211. 105-138. PALLEIRO, María Inés (1993). “La dinámica de VEGA, Carlos (1956). El origen de las danzas FERNÁNDEZ, César (1995). Cuentan los la variación en el relato oral tradicional riojano. folklóricas. Buenos Aires: Ricordi. mapuches. Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Nu- Procedimientos discursivos de construcción evo Siglo. referencial de la narrativa folklórica. Síntesis de VIDAL DE BATTINI, Berta Elena (1980-1984). los planteos principales de la Tesis de Docto- Cuentos y leyendas populares de la Argenti- FURT, Jorge M. (1927). Coreografía gauchesca. rado”: Formes textuelles et matériau discursif. na. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Culturales Argen- Apuntes para su estudio. Buenos Aires: Coni. Rites, mythes et folklore. Sociocriticism IX, 2, tinas. No. 18, Montpellier (France), pp. 177-182. GARCÍA, Silvia P. y Diana S. ROLANDI (2000). WAAG, Else María (1982 [1965]). Tres enti- Cuentos de las tres abuelas. Buenos Aires: PALLEIRO, María Inés (1998). La fiesta en el dades wekufü en la cultura mapuche. Buenos UNESCO. cielo. Cuentos populares de animales. Buenos Aires: EUDEBA. Aires: Ediciones Del Sol. GIOVANNONI, Nélida y María Inés PODUJE WATSON, Stella M. and Nelson A. HERRERA (1988). Cuentos y Leyendas de La Pampa. PALLEIRO, María Inés (2003). “Clementina (1996). De duendes, ánimas y otras historias. Santa Rosa: Dirección General de Cultura de Cambacères: ¿una historia oculta? Oralidad y Córdoba: Narvaja Editor. la provincia de La Pampa. memoria en una matriz folklórica”: Archivos de la memoria comp. by Ana María Barrenechea, GOFFMAN, Irving (1990). Ritual de la interac- Rosario, Beatriz Viterbo editora, pp. 99-120. ción. Buenos Aires: Tiempo Contemporáneo. PALLEIRO, María Inés (2004a). Fue una histo- GREIMAS, Algirdas (1976). Semántica estruc- ria real. Itinerarios de un archivo. Buenos Aires: tural. Madrid: Gredos. Ediciones del Instituto de Filología y Literaturas Hispánicas ”Amado Alonso” de la Universidad GRÉSILLON, Almuth (1994). Eléments de cri- de Buenos Aires. tique génétique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. PALLEIRO, María Inés (2004b). “Aproximación a las colecciones de narrativa tradicional argen- HAY, Louis (1993). Les manuscrites des écri- tina”: Contar y bailar. Recreaciones literarias vains. Paris: CNRS Editions-Hachette. y trasposiciones coreográficas a partir de la narrativa tradicional comp. by María del Carmen HYMES, Dell (1975). “The Contribution of Fol- Arcaro. Buenos Aires: Dunken, pp. 12-57. klore to Sociolinguistic Research”: Toward New Perspectives in Folklore ed. by Américo Pare- PAREDES, Américo and Richard BAUMAN des and Richard Bauman. Austin and London: (1972). Toward New Perspectives in Folklo- University of Texas Press. re. Austin and London: University of Texas Press. JAKOBSON, Roman (1964). “Closing State- ment: Linguistics and Poetics”: Style in Langu- PEIRCE, Charles S. (1987). Obra lógico-semi- age comp. by Th. A. Sebeok. Massachussetts: ótica. Madrid: Taurus. MIT Press, pp. 350-377. PROPP, Vladimir (1972). Morfología del cuento. KOESSLER–ILG, Berta (2007). Cuenta el Buenos Aires: Juan Goyanarte editor. pueblo mapuche. Santiago de Chile: Mare Nostrum. THOMPSON, Stith (1946). The Folktale. New York: The Dryden Press. LYNCH, Ventura R. (1953). Folklore bonaeren- se. Buenos Aires: Lajouane. THOMPSON, Stith (1993). Motif-Index of Folk Literature. New Enlarged and Revised Edition. OLRIK, Axel (1992[1909]). Principles for Oral Copenhagen and Bloomington (CDRom). March 2008 29

Charms, Charming and Charmers. ISFNR Conference at the Pécs Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Pécs, Hungary, May 11th-13th, 2007 by Ülo Valk, University of Tartu, Estonia

tem of folklore – to prose narratives, delivered a paper that had been writ- hymns, folk songs and prayers. Eccle- ten with Tatyana Agapkina. He pre- siastical traditions, religious and theo- sented an outline of their project of logical writings and the Bible offered compiling an index of East-Slavic many insights into popular charms. charms as a major contribution to the Several scholars showed how the adumbration of a European typology verbal magic and religious practices of charms, comparable with the Aarne- of clergymen, once officially approved Thompson-Uther index of international by the church, have been taken over folktales. by the peasantry and modified as ex- pressions of vernacular religion. Many Edina Bózoky (Poitiers, France) dis- papers demonstrated that one of the cussed the thematic classification, Éva Pócs opening the conference Charms, important contexts of charms, past sources, language and function of me- Charming and Charmers. and present, is folk medicine. How- dieval narrative charms. She showed Photo by Ülo Valk. ever, charms are polyfunctional, as how miraculous events of the past, they also appear in neo-pagan rituals, narrated in historiolae, were meant The lovely South Hungarian town of weather magic, divination and many to integrate the patient into a mythic Pécs turned for three days into the other spheres of religious and lay cul- order – a state of protection, security European capital city of magic, when ture. Their link with folk narratives is and health. She interpreted the uses the ISFNR Committee on Charms, crucial, starting with myths, historiolae of charms a mediating process, such Charmers and Charming held its first and saints’ legends and leading on as projecting the present into a mythi- conference in May 2007. This interna- to folktales, belief legends and per- cal time and assimilating the present tional forum offered a wide range of sonal anecdotes. It seems that oral situation to the prototypical situation approaches and topics and covered narratives about the effectiveness of described in the historiola. Vilmos an extensive time period, starting with charms also contribute towards their Voigt (Budapest, Hungary) discussed the Hellenistic age, continuing with the effect in various magical practices. the historical development of charm Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, Obviously, we need to study charms terminology in Hungary. Although the and concluding with contemporary Eu- not in isolation as single textual items, word báj (‘magic’) is a borrowing from rope. Some papers utilised philological but in their folkloric, religious, cultural Old Turkic, its semantics does not methods of studying old manuscripts, and social contexts, either from the reveal an Old Turkic heritage but a others dealt with typological issues, diachronic or synchronic perspective close connection with West European the international spread and historical or in a combination of the two. magic lore, with benedictions and mal- development of charm types, or of- edictions. Lea T. Olsan (Cambridge, fered ethnographic and folkloristic in- Arne Bugge Amundsen (Oslo, Nor- England/ University of Louisiana at sights into modern magical practices, way) analyzed the work of 19th and Monroe, USA) talked about the mar- their social uses and interpretations. early 20th century folklorists whose ginalization of charms in Europe from One of the key issues, addressed by theological background shaped their the 10th to the 16th centuries. Charms all participants, was the question of attitudes towards folklore. A. Chr. are relatively rare in manuscripts and the contextualization of charms – of Bang’s monumental work on Norwe- cannot be easily distinguished from finding the relevant empirical, theoreti- gian magic books represents a com- other formulaic expressions, such as cal and historical framework for the parative, historical and philological prayers and medical prescriptions. formulation of research problems, and approach to charm texts. His clerical As charms had an insignificant role making charms meaningful as textual position engendered an ambivalent in academic medicine, only some of phenomena, religious practices or ele- attitude toward his object of study, them were written down. At the end of ments of culture. Some papers dis- subsequently marginalized as a genre the Middle Ages charms were further cussed charms in the context of the with little aesthetic and cultural value. marginalized by suppression. Dom- history of folkloristics, others in relation Andrey Toporkov (Moscow, Russia) hnall Uilleam Stiùbhart (Edinburgh, to ritual practices or to the genre sys- 30 March 2008

Scotland) discussed the Gaelic back- Marks (Zagreb, Croatia) analyzed Finno-Ugric and Turkic peoples who ground and textualization of Alexander the occurrence of magical formulae live in the Volga-Ural region. Although Carmichael’s monumental work Car- in Croatian legends about flights of their religious traditions range from mina Gadelica (1900). He showed that witches and their appearance in court Orthodox Christianity to Islam and his literary rendering of the texts was cases. Legends stress the importance to heathen belief systems, there are not literal and involved multi-faceted of the faultless recitation of these many similarities in their respective translation – between the Gaelic and charms, accompanied by correctly folk medicine, charming and charm English languages, between concepts, performed actions to guarantee their texts. Udmurts and the Besermyan beliefs, knowledge, genres of literature magical effect. Daiva Vaitkevičienė ethnical group attribute the greatest and narratives. (Vilnius, Lithuania) compared Baltic power to “ancient charms”, a vernacu- and Eastern Slavic charms, focusing lar expression that signifies incanta- Aigars Lielbardis (Riga, Latvia) com- on parallels in mythological tropes, tions about the sun, moon, stars, hills, pared charming in traditional, rural both Christian and Indo-European, stones, water and other astronomical Latvian culture with its uses in con- and in magical formulae that ac- and natural objects. The charmers, temporary urban settings. In contrast company ritual and magical actions. whose power comes from nature, are with earlier healers, who worked Vladimir Klyaus (Moscow, Russia) dis- regarded most effective in their ability on their own, modern healers form cussed the historical development of to cure illnesses and handle the con- communities, and their activities are Eurasian charms, based on a broad sequences of witchcraft and demonic strongly influenced by the market range of comparative material, collect- possession. economy. Christa Agnes Tuczay (Vi- ed among Slavonic peoples and the enna, Austria) gave a paper on the native peoples of Siberia. The paper Jonathan Roper (Sheffield, England) magical flight of witches, which has demonstrated the range of variation of discussed the Estonian narrative been described in demonological trea- topics and motifs used in charms, and charms, recorded in approximately tises, literature and legends since the certain invariants among charm texts 800 variants, that form less than 10% novel “The Golden Ass” by Apuleius – collected among peoples who have of the huge collection of charms in the and Canon Episcopi, the first clerical not had any historical contact. Tatiana Estonian Folklore Archives in Tartu. discussion of the topic – which inter- Minniyakhmetova (Innsbruck, Austria/ Topics of vernacular Christianity domi- preted the ecstatic experience as an Bashkortostan, Russia) gave a paper, nate among these texts, which have illusion induced by the Devil. Ljiljana based on her fieldwork among various parallels among many other European

Andrey Toporkov from Moscow listening to Zuzana Profantová’s paper about word magic in contemporary Slovakia. Photo by Ülo Valk. March 2008 31

tween church benedictions, exorcisms and popular charms in Hungary. She demonstrated the constant interaction between official and vernacular uses of magic that was once practiced by members of all layers of society. Most charms familiar to rural people in the 19th and 20th centuries derive from the ecclesiastical benedictions that earlier belonged to the priestly tradition.

Maarit Viljakainen (Joensuu, Finland) discussed charms that were used in rural Finland among the Lutheran Finns and Orthodox Karelians. She focussed on the image of the Virgin Mary in birth incantations, where she appears as a divine helper and “merci- ful mother” who actively assists in de- Discussions continued at coffee breaks. Jonathan Roper from Sheffield, one of the main organis- livery, while the woman who gives birth ers of the conference, has something to say to Emanuela C. Timotin (Bucharest, Romania) and to Maria Vivod (Strasbourg, France). remains passive. Tatiana Bužekova Photo by Ülo Valk. (Bratislava, Slovakia) explored charms against the evil eye that are still prac- peoples. Some of them are historiolae, ticed in Slovakian villages. Some are others derive from hymns that have Emanuela Cristina Timotin (Bucha- widely known and used; others – those gone through a genre shift and been rest, Romania) explored magical texts that are close to Christian prayers – adopted in folk magic. The charm against năjit (‘neuralgia’) written down are kept secret. Only one woman in th th types, “Bone to bone…” and “Three in Romania in the 18 and 19 cen- a family can use these charms, which roses” are represented in the greatest turies and used by the clergy. These are transmitted from mother to daugh- number of variants. Judit Domány’s spells, identified both as “charms” and ter or daughter-in-law. T. Bužekova (Budapest, Hungary) philological pa- “prayers” in the records, manifest con- interpreted such deathbed transmis- per analysed the Second Idyll of the nections with the Slavonic manuscript sion of secret knowledge in the light Hellenistic Greek poet Theocritus. This tradition, with oral charms and with of Pascal Boyer’s works in cognitive text recounts courtesan Simaitha’s un- Christianity – as Christ is the healer anthropology. The lack of crucially im- successful attempt to win back her lost who banishes năjit into deserted plac- portant information about the social lover by using magic. Zuzana Profan- es. Taisto-Kalevi Raudalainen (Tallinn, environment leads to the mystification tová (Bratislava, Slovakia) presented Estonia) interpreted some Kalevala- of this secret knowledge as an aspect the results of her work on the magical metric charms of Izhorian and In- of the sacred and supernatural. Ritwa function of language. She analyzed grian Finns as a syncretic fusion of Herjulfsdotter Andersson (Göteborg, curses and swearwords as acts of pre-Christian and Christian elements. Sweden) analyzed charms against communication in the context of con- The religious legend concerning the snakebites in Swedish folklore, and temporary Slovakian culture. Marion chaining of the Devil by Jesus (ATU the folk-medical practices that were Bowman (Milton Keynes, England) 803) stems from clerical tradition, but linked with these texts. The Virgin highlighted the uses of magic in con- it has been folklorized in narratives Mary is the most common figure in temporary paganism, with a focus on and charms. Dániel Bárth (Budapest, these charms, but Jesus, Peter and the forms of Celtic spirituality, such as Hungary) examined the impact of Joseph also appear. The paper dis- modern Druidry. The influential belief Franciscans, Jesuits and Benedictines cussed the connection between the in reincarnation and karma is having on popular religiosity in early modern healing practices described in charms an effect on the whole belief-system Hungary as a part of the Central Eu- and those that were used by folk heal- and on magical practices. Whereas ropean region. The paper focussed ers. blessing is accorded positive values, on benedictions and exorcisms, used cursing is supposed to have negative both in official and unofficial religious Judit Kis-Halas (Budapest, Hungary) effects on its practitioner in this or the practices. Éva Pócs (Pécs/ Budapest, gave a paper, based on her fieldwork next life. Hungary) studied the connection be- in Töröcske village near Kaposvár in 32 March 2008

Dallos (Szeged, Hungary) presented a paper on the tale type “The Magician and his Pupil” (ATU 325), compar- ing Hungarian and European Tartar variants and analyzing them from an ethnosemiotic perspective.

The conference, arranged by the ISFNR Committee, the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Pécs, The Hun- garian Ethnographical Society, and by The Folklore Society (London), and held in the historical building of the Pécs Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, was a great success – due to its clear focus and to the rich variety of perspectives that Discussions lasted long, thanks to the amazingly warm nights and good company. From the left: were offered. Charms, which were Taisto-Kalevi Raudalainen (Tallinn), Jonathan Roper and Vladimir Klyaus (Moscow). once regarded as a marginal genre Photo by Ülo Valk. in folklore, have become a lively field of interdisciplinary knowledge produc- south Hungary. She had studied the popularly divided into two categories: tion. Here we should acknowledge the prayers and magical practices of a the condemned female practitioners of role of some international leaders – dynasty of female folk healers, such magic who cast spells in order to dam- such as professor Éva Pócs, one of as the ritual of pouring bee wax, used age somebody’s health or economic the main organizers of the conference for divination and healing. J. Kis-Halas well-being; and healers of both sexes, – who has initiated a strong school of discussed the tradition of transmitting who break these spells and have a research on charms, charming and knowledge in the family and the nar- high reputation. Jenny Butler (Cork, witchcraft. This school was repre- ratives about becoming a healer. She Ireland) explored the worldview of sented at the conference by several interpreted the secret magical texts as Druidry, Wicca and other forms of neo- Hungarian scholars of the younger a symbolic fund of knowledge, con- pagan witchcraft in Ireland, focuss- generation, whose papers wisely nected with the power of the healer. ing on the uses of talismans, amulets synthesized textual analysis with re- Laura Iancu (Pécs, Hungary) ad- and verbal charms. She showed that search on the ethnographic, religious, dressed the folk-medical practices Irish traditional folk religion has had social and historical context of the rel- of Moldavian Hungarian communi- a considerable impact on the modern evant magical practices. Arranging the ties in Romania. Magical bathing to pagan culture. conference with no parallel sessions, cure “severe illness” is performed by with no plenary papers and offering an a ritual specialist, who possesses the In addition to these oral presentations, equal amount of time to all speakers relevant secret knowledge. The ritual some posters were presented to the generated discussion in a democratic, has psychic and social functions such conference participants. Evgenia Troe- friendly and hospitable atmosphere. as giving new life to the cured child, va-Grigorova’s (Sofia, Bulgaria) paper The participants are thankful to the who is reintegrated into the family and discussed interaction with demons in effective team of local organisers and community. Maria Vivod (Strasbourg, Bulgarian folklore. In critical situations, to Jonathan Roper, who is the leader France) discussed the magical prac- such as illness or poor crops, special of the ISFNR Committee on Charms, tice of ear whispering (suskálás), rites were performed to neutralize the Charmers and Charming, and who used in some villages in north Hun- demonic beings. Urszula Lehr (Kra- played a crucial role in arranging this gary, where Slovakians form an ethnic kow, Poland) offered a paper on air international forum, bringing together minority. The secret prayer is said in demons and weather wizards in folk scholars from many countries. The Slovakian in order to cure any psycho- religion in Poland. These experts in Folklore Society of London gener- logical disorders by “chasing away evil ritual and magic had to defend villages ously sponsored the wine reception spirits” from the patient’s body. Vesna from storms. Lehel Peti’s (Szeged, of excellent Hungarian wines, inspiring Petreska (Skopje, Macedonia) talked Hungary) poster studied the contem- dialogues and supporting participants about the status of experts in magic porary magical practices in Csángó in building networks and friendships. in Macedonian folk culture. They are villages of Romanian Moldavia. Edina March 2008 33

The 7th Folklore Fellows Summer School in Karelia by Mészáros Csaba, Comparative and Hungarian Folkloristics Doctoral Program, ELTE University of Budapest, Hungary

I Information Center for Kaleva and discussions about folklore and for After a break of five years the Folklore Karelian Culture, the organizer of our transmitting knowledge on novel meth- Fellows Summer School (FFSS) was stay in Viena Karelia, to safeguard the ods of understanding folklore, the or- reborn in the cradle of the Kalevala in cultural heritage of this unique area by ganisers of the 2007 Summer School Viena Karelia: the 7th FFSS was held recording the performances of the older undoubtedly once again achieved this on June 11-20 in Kuhmo, Finland, and generation and to revitalise the villages important target. in Vuokkiniemi, Haikola and Paanajärvi and settlements by means of tourism in the Russian Federation. This divi- and small-scale handicraft businesses. II sion between two countries gave the Here again we had a double position Inspired by the Karelian landscape, Summer School a double character with regard to the representation and the 2007 Summer School aimed to that among other things raised the consumption of authentic folklore: on focus on questions concerning oral question whether Viena Karelia or the the one hand, we listened to lectures poetry and fieldwork. However, the writing-desk of Elias Lönnrot is to be and papers about the policy of creating spectrum of lectures and presenta- perceived as the birthplace of Kale- authenticity and about problematising tions was much broader, with some vala. Both lecturers and participants village tourism, but on the other hand papers reflecting on other loosely at the Summer School were involved were present in this environment as related subjects. As such, this FFSS in theoretical discussions about the simple tourists (at least in the eyes was a meeting-place for young folk- methods of and contemporary con- of the villagers). These peculiar sur- lorists, anthropologists and philolo- cepts in folklore research, as well as roundings gave – as was pointed out gists dealing with various folklore in visits to elderly villagers performing by some veteran attendants and lectur- materials and representing distinct authentic Kalevala-metric songs. Viena ers – a special character to the whole scientific schools and heritages. The Karelia and the FFSS thus offered us of the 2007 Summer School. 2007 FFSS brought together thirteen a highly inspiring environment in which lecturers from Iceland, Norway, Scot- to understand the role and place of One of the general features of Finn- land, the United States, Russia and folklorists in a symbolically important ish folklore scholarship has been its of course from Finland, and sixteen area in an age of transition. Moreover, constant eagerness to build networks participants from ten countries. Yet it was illuminating to see the efforts between researchers of various coun- despite this seeming heterogeneity, on the part of the Finnish Juminkeko tries. By creating a forum for holding during discussions participants eas- ily found points of common interest and understanding, which was also due to the aptly chosen lectures and panels concentrating on three major subjects: 1. The scientific and political context of folklore research and fieldwork, 2. The interpretation of orality, and genres of oral poetry, 3. Karelia and Karelian oral poetry in the larger context of Scandinavia. Since the abstracts of the participants’ papers are bound to be published on the website of the Folklore Fellows (http://www.folklorefellows.fi), I will concentrate in this brief report on the lectures and discussions on these three major subjects.

Happy ending of the ISFNR Interim Conference in Santa Rosa, Argentina. L-R: Martha Blache, On the first day of the FFSS a panel Mehri Bagheri, Ulf Palmenfelt, Elo-Hanna Seljamaa, Ana María Dupey, Ülo Valk, Ezekiel Alembi, María Inés Poduje, Manuel Dannemann. adumbrated the role of the Kalevala Photo by Risto Järv. and the creation of the canon of folk 34 March 2008

dissimilar positions of fieldwork and the divergent use of fieldwork materials in folkloristic research in the context of various research methods and political environments. The last of John Miles Foley’s (USA) three lectures could be regarded as a summary of these dis- cussions: surveying various contem- porary methods of researching oral poetry, he concluded that there is no sole method for the analysis of oral po- etry by which a researcher could reach the “ultimate truth”. Looked at from this point of view, research methods are fundamentally only interpretations of folklore material, and the pluralism of From left to right: Markku Nieminen, Eila Stepanova, Galina Misharina, Pekka Hakamies, and interpretations serves the purpose of a Anna-Leena Siikala listen to the singer and storyteller Santra Remsujeva from Vuokkiniemi. better and more complex understand- Photo by Elo-Hanna Seljamaa. ing of texts and performances.

poetry during the 19th century, intro- of the Kalevala in conjunction with the Several lectures and presentations fo- ducing one of the major themes of the changes in research methodology, as cussed on various problems arising subsequent lectures. Contemporary Pertti Anttonen (Finland) showed in during the interpretation and analysis folkloristics has frequently acknow- his lecture. Lauri Harvilahti’s (Finland) of oral poetry and oral texts, which ledged that at the dawn of observa- summarising, concluding lecture on formed the second major topic of the tions on folklore, researchers did not the last day of the Summer School Summer School. Two stimulating lec- simply find a previously neglected po- provided a concise history of Finnish tures by John Miles Foley reported etry, but, rather, that they created it. folklore research by drawing attention on his research on Muslim Serbian, In addition, they emphasised certain to its decisive turning-points. Basque, Mongol and contemporary characteristics of oral poetry that ac- U.S. oral poetry. His first lecture con- corded with the particular objectives Further lectures investigated the centrated on genres and genre-com- of collectors and publishers alike. problem of the influence of research petence in orality, pointing out the dif- Terry Gunnell (Iceland) pointed out methodology on the corpus of collect- ferences between the attitudes toward in his lecture that one cannot gain ed materials. As a useful comparative and evaluations of epic and non-epic insight into early folk-tale collections history, and an interesting case study, texts. In his second lecture, Foley re- in Norway, England and Iceland with- John Shaw (Scotland) presented a viewed the orality-literacy debate in out taking into account the scientific brief survey of the history of collect- modern folklore studies, arguing that context of the collectors, since the ing Gaelic oral poetry in Scotland from it is impossible to have real insight latter were in close contact with one the 17th century up to the present. By into oral texts if one is bound to the another, they influenced each others’ citing 18th and 19th century collectors’ opposition between the two media; approaches, and the scientific works diaries and notes, he revealed the instead the researcher should focus written by them thus followed common collectors’ changing attitude towards on the register or the way of speak- patterns. This was very much the case their material. One of the most exciting ing in which the given texts are for- in evaluating and criticising the Kale- lectures of the Summer School was mulated. The example of long-term vala from the point of view of Finn- given by Seppo Knuuttilla (Finland), fieldwork conducted by John Shaw in ish folklore research, as was shown whose colourful personality and witty Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, Canada by Satu Apo (Finland) in her lecture. delivery further elevated his already elucidated the social life of oral po- Judgements as to the authenticity and interesting lecture, which dealt with etry and its related music, as well as the value of the Kalevala have been the relation of fieldworker to the field the interdependence of knowledge changing constantly in accordance and with the fieldworker’s attachment and competence in performing texts with changes in ruling scientific meth- to the locus of fieldwork. The need to belonging to dissimilar genres. Lotte ods and milieux. This process could understand the whys and hows of the Tarkka (Finland) addressed in her lec- be examined not only from the point changes in the episteme of folklore ture the relation between texts belong- of view of folklore research, but also studies was one of the recurring dis- ing to different genres but formulated from that of society and politics, which cussion topics during the whole Sum- in the same Kalevala-metric register, have been forming their assessments mer School, helping us to evaluate the showing that they are interdependent March 2008 35

The village of Paanajärvi by the river Kemijoki is one of the oldest settlements in Viena Karelian area. In 2005, the local people of Paanajärvi and the Juminkeko Foundation were awarded the Europa Nostra medal “for the preservation of the fine wooden architecture of a remote village, the revitalisation of the traditional building techniques and safeguarding of its unique cultural heritage through sustainable income-generating initia- tives” (http://www.europanostra.org/lang_en/index.html). Photo by Elo-Hanna Seljamaa. and should not be analysed separate- the world of Karelian laments, with the only “aboriginals” of Scandinavia, and ly. Using this method, she examined help of Anna-Leena Siikala, who kindly maintain an explicitly traditional and the whole corpus of Kalevala-metric provided simultaneous translation from authentic lifestyle and economy, from oral texts collected in Vuokkiniemi be- Finnish into English. It is good to know which they benefit by emphasising cer- tween 1821 and 1921. that Aleksandra Stepanova is handing tain of its characteristics in presenta- down the study of Karelian laments to tions aimed at tourists. The third focal point of the lectures her daughter Eila, whose paper simi- was an introduction to Karelian folk larly dealt with the Karelian lamenting III culture and to the whole cultural area of tradition. In addition to focussing on Certainly, the 2007 Folklore Fellows Scandinavia and western Russia more the Karelians, the situation of a small Summer School was more than just a generally. Pekka Hakamies (Finland) people in the context of Scandinavia simple series of presentations, lectures focused his lecture on the modernisa- was also illuminated by the case of the and discussions to be reported in a dry tion of Soviet Karelia during the So- Sámi living north-west of Karelia. Two and boring manner. A productive ambi- viet era, thus offering an introduction lectures by Stein R. Mathisen (Norway) ence was ensured by the location of to the development of the contempo- (who has mastered the Finnish tango the Summer School – both in Finland rary Karelian lifestyle. This view from a as well as he has the Sámi culture) and the Russian Federation. It was an Finnish folklorist on the everyday life of reflected on questions concerning the environment that exuded an informal the Soviet state in Karelia provided us double character of the image of the atmosphere, differing radically from the with the means to interpret the present Sámi. On the one hand, this image familiar venues of university lecture hall state of the Karelian villages we visited was created by the Norwegians, Finns and academic institute, and it drew lec- during the Summer School. However, and Russians according to their spe- turers and participants together. it would also have been interesting to cial objectives in the area. As is often compare his notions of the changes the case, these majority cultures were The first three panels were held in Kuh- during the Soviet era with those of a more interested in exploiting the natural mo, at the Juminkeko Center, which Karelian researcher raised and educat- resources of the area than in under- offered a perfect milieu for initiation into ed in this system. Representing Kare- standing the local culture, creating both the experience of the Kalevala phe- lian folkloristics in the 2007 FFSS were good and evil images of the Sámi as nomenon, created, maintained, used, Aleksandra and Eila Stepanova, Jelena savages. On the other hand, nowadays protected and analysed in Finland and Dubrovskaya, and Maria Vlasova. Ale- the Sámi themselves are very much worldwide. Here we met the heads of ksandra Stepanova introduced us to aware of their peculiar position as the the Juminkeko Foundation, Markku 36 March 2008

and Sirpa Nieminen, who proved to be perfect hosts in Finland. Later, in Karelia, it turned out that Markku Niemi- nen is not only a good host, but also a zealous guide to Karelian villages. After spending a couple of days in Kuhmo, the Folklore Fellows Summer School moved to Viena Karelia, where we resided principally in Vuokkiniemi. The overwhelming majority of discus- sions and presentations were held in the sometimes chilly gym of the local secondary school. This environment conveyed a different message to the participants than the Kuhmo institution had done.

First, one could witness the changes introduced into the local traditional cul-

ture in the past century (public educa- Seminars in different settings: tion, mechanisation and the centralisa- on the right, Hanne Pico Larsen and Terry Gunnell listening to presentations in Paanajärvi. tion of settlements in villages). These On the left: Yin Hubin in the house and museum of Karelian national writer Ortjo Stepanov changes, along with the process of (1920-1998) in Haikola. globalisation, restructured the context Photos by Elo-Hanna Seljamaa. of oral poetry, offering novel challenges us as their guests, and that our visit transported us from Finland to the tini- to folklorists – and this situation was was an important, meaningful event. est villages of Karelia and back. We are addressed in the discussions of the The small, cosy rooms of the village also indebted to the organisers, Maria Summer School. Nevertheless, our school and the cottages, the saunas Vasenkari, Pauliina Latvala and Emilia impressions concerning the changes and the all-night parties of Finnish Karjula for their stimulating company in the villages took on a gloomy tinge, tango, humpa dancing and bottles of and for co-ordinating practical organi- since our short visits in Vuokkiniemi local liquor helped mightily to cement zational issues. Finally, many thanks and the village of Shomba to the last the company, and to ease communica- go to the lecturers, and especially to old singers competent in the use of au- tion in this multi-lingual group, where Anna-Leena Siikala, whose tenacity thentic registers for composing songs English, Finnish and Russian were in once again organising the Folklore emphasised the fact that the process equally frequent in informal discus- Fellows Summer School gave the par- of transition witnessed by us in Karelia sions. Tasting Karelian homemade ticipants a good opportunity to meet involves the loss of cultural heritage. dishes, floating in small boats on the and to learn. river Kemi at Paanajärvi and travelling Secondly, the Karelian villages offered for long hours on Russian village roads Participants of the 2007 FFSS: the participants of the FFSS a good on buses filled with alcohol fumes are Joonas Ahola opportunity to understand the situation undoubtedly unforgettable memories Elena Dubrovskaya and position of Karelia as a borderland for all the participants, proving that we Frog and a multicultural environment, where had much more in common than just Eldar Heide the local Karelians and Russians ex- an interest in studying oral poetry. This Kati Heinonen perience the presence of non-villagers auspicious choice of site for the 2007 Hanne Pico Larsen not only through welcoming city-born Folklore Fellows Summer School thus Leah Lowthorp relatives and friends or through the im- created a truly inspiring environment, Mészáros Csaba migration of Russian and Belorussian not only for the official panels, but also Galina Misharina newcomers, but also by hosting Finn- for the informal discussions before and Elo-Hanna Seljamaa ish or Swedish tourist groups for one or after. Pihla Siim two nights. And who represented this Jūrate Šlekonytė multiculturalism better in these small To end this report, in the name of all the Eila Stepanova villages than the participants of the participants, I would like to express our Venla Sykäri Summer School? It was indeed notice- gratitude towards our attentive hosts Maria Vlasova able that our kind hosts in the villages in both Paanajärvi and Vuokkiniemi, Yin Hubin were sometimes really excited to have and to our local drivers, who tirelessly March 2008 37

Symposium “The Concept of Time and Space in European Folklore” in Ljubljana, Slovenia, September 6th-9th, 2007 by Katja Hrobat, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

At the beginning of September 2007, the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology organized an international symposium on the theme of time and space in European folk- lore. The initiator and prime organ- izer of the event was Mirjam Mencej (University of Ljubljana), assisted by an organizational board consisting of Francisco Vaz da Silva (ISCTE, University of Lisbon), Zmago Šmitek and Katja Hrobat (both University of Ljubljana). The three-day conference was of an interdisciplinary character. The participants came from across Europe and covered different fields Mirjam Mencej (University of Ljubljana), initiator and prime organizer of the symposium “The of activity, from ethnology/folklore, Concept of Time and Space in European Folklore” in Ljubljana, Slovenia. archaeology, history and art history Photo: private collection. to linguistics and philology. The sym- posium was financially supported by Filozofska fakulteta (Zbirka Županičeva an otherworldly time-flow from death the Slovenian Representation of the knjižnica 6)). The concept of danger to rebirth – which is a position held by European Commission and its suc- and the suspense of the moment Plato. cessful realization was also due to the determining the reversal of time can support of the head of the Department also throw light on the phenomenon of Based on folklore research, Mirjam of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropol- the “wheel of St. Catherine” in Bohinj, Mencej demonstrated that the inter- ogy, Rajko Muršič. which was the topic of Andrej Pleter- action between the world of the living ski (Institute for Archaeology, SASA, and the world of the dead occurs on The introductory lecture, delivered by Ljubljana). In this legend, on the day of the basis of circular movement. This Emily Lyle (University of Edinburgh), in- St. Catherine, one of the community’s movement has been proved to be a troduced the problem of cyclical move- two streams supposedly turned the mill distinguishing feature of many folklore ments in the Indo-European concept wheel in a direction which decided the creatures (for example, Balkan fairies), of time. Instead of the familiar rep- village’s fate in the following year. of people endowed with supernatural resentation of continuous movement powers (the seventh/ninth/tenth child, in one direction, Lyle highlighted the By way of Plato’s myths and compari- magicians) and of people mediating existence of an analogical movement sons with other cultures, Francisco Vaz between the two worlds. The move- of time in the opposite direction, of da Silva commented on the modern ment of souls to and from the other temporal reversals in the year. At the European folkloric data on the theme of world is characterised by circling; in annual level, the idea of the reversal of alternating space-time in three dimen- a similar manner, encounters with time is closely connected with the idea sions – cosmographical, geographical, mythical creatures generate circular of death, which finds expression not and biographical. Mentioning the folk movements. At the symbolic level, the only in the twelve days in the middle of perception that newborns resemble old same idea is also present in the circu- winter, but also in the time of Carnival people, da Silva discussed analogies lar movement of the spinning wheel, and of Easter. The reversal “dangerous with Plato’s model of time-inversions the mill, the circular (spiral) dance, etc. time” corresponds to the dangerous between this world and the other world, According to Éva Pócs (University of “wolf festivities” at the beginning of win- which accounts for the similarity betwe- Pécs), werewolves alternate between ter, which have been thoroughly inves- en newborns and corpses. The alterna- the two worlds in a similar manner, tigated by Mirjam Mencej in her book tion between two opposite time-flows, and experience the time-cycles of life “The Master of Wolves in Slavic My- hinging on dangerous turning points, and death as well as of death and thology” (Gospodar volkov v slovanski applies to the so-called life cycle, which re-birth. The spatial alternation of the mitologiji (2001), Ljubljana : Oddelek posits that the visible time-flow of life, types of existence corresponds to the za etnologijo in kulturno antropologijo, from birth to death, is completed by cyclic conception of time: “wolf time” 38 March 2008

and “human time”, life and death. The miliation and disempowerment. These of the carnival puppet, it is not good or werewolf occupies a liminal position could be explained as ritually-produced bad that is being burnt; rather, it is the between nature and culture, and at states of weakness, corresponding to conflict of antitheses: consequently, the the same time represents a duality, van Gennep’s rites de passage. ritual enables a new cycle of everyday embodying both nature and culture. At life to begin. Ljupčo S. Risteski (Uni- the beginning of each new time- cycle According to Mare Kõiva (Estonian Lit- versity Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Sko- a metamorphosis between the human erary Museum, Tartu), different catego- pje) demonstrated that as well as the and the animal-like occurs, a struggle ries of charms can display a cognitive notion of cyclical time, the perception of the two, the ritual of deciding the map of mythical spaces and creatures of time as a permanent but unrepeat- fate of the werewolf, and the initiation (three maidens/sisters/maids in the sky, able passing category – with the basic into the alternate existence. “Green the abode of the sky), of biblical lo- measure of the length of a human life George”, a mythological figure from cations (the Red Sea, Jerusalem), or – is also significantly present in Mac- Slovenia and Croatia, also moves be- even impossible spaces which ordinar- edonian folk culture. People maintained tween the underworld and this world. ily cannot exist. Charms were recited their identities through oral transmission Zmago Šmitek demonstrated that par- at specific times and specific places, of information and family history. The allels with this mythical creature are but with certain fixed elements. In a other type of linear time in folk culture found across Europe and the Middle similar manner, different categories of is “historic time”, which is interwoven East as far as India (chthonian Zeus/ symbolic time and space become “sa- with mythical characteristics of the world Zeus Georgeus, Dionysos, Khidr, In- cred” only at specific moments of con- and its creations. This was discussed dra). His cyclical movement presents tact, a topic discussed by Lina Būgienė by Ivan Marija Hrvatin (Institute for Ar- an orientation in time and space from (Institute of Lithuanian Literature and chaeology, SASA, Ljubljana) who has the human and phenomenological Folklore, Vilnius). Būgienė analysed studied oral traditions concerning the point of view. In contrast to Merlin, Lithuanian folklore in terms of symbolic origins of settlements in Slovenia after he does not re-occupy his home, but time: the time of breaking taboos (Sun- the dragon’s death and the liberation “dwells in his transmigration”. The days, Thursdays, Mass time); moments of the waters, which marked the pas- “tenth brother/sister”, who may be of supernatural experiences (midnight, sage from chaos to cosmos. Monika perceived in the Slovene space both dusk); special, “marked” spaces, which Kropej (Institute of Slovenian Ethnology, as a mythological and/or human per- include sacred spaces (church, chapel, SASA, Ljubljana) addressed the issue of son, is also in a state of continuous funeral grounds); as well as everyday personifications of abstract time in my- movement. localities or household buildings. Ac- thology and folklore, which are given a cording to Kaarina Koski (University more concrete form in anthropomorphic Radvilė Racėnaitė (Institute of Lithu- of Helsinki), one example of such figures marking the days, months, sea- anian Literature and Folklore, Vilnius) contact between a tabooed time and sons, or simply time itself. In Slovenian investigated the funeral customs of the an interdict space is a church at night, folklore, the individual days of the week Balts in Lithuanian folklore, and came when we find displayed entirely differ- are represented by female figures, such to the conclusion that in the afterlife ent ontological traits from the everyday, as Torka (Tuesday), Četrtka (Thursday), both space and time exhibit an inverse profane sphere. Karen Bek-Pedersen Petka (Friday), Sobotka (Saturday) and symmetry with their equivalents in the (University of Edinburgh) showed that Nedelja (Saint Sunday). Lubomir J. human world. Thus, the objects gifted the ordinary space for spinning, called Konečný (City Museum, Brno) identi- to a man by mythical creatures under- “djinga”, could also be a space of strong fied concepts of time depicted in the go a transformation when brought to symbolism, connected with ideas about Romanesque painting of the Rotunda the human realm. Time in the afterlife is fate. In Scandinavian medieval folklore, in Znojmo (Moravia) – from the mythi- concentrated – three days spent in the and in the archaeological find featuring cal cycle of the Přemyslids dynasty to afterworld represent three hundred or a weaving tool depicting figures wield- the circular space of the temple-cosmic even three thousand human years. ing swords, Bek-Pedersen discerned a house – as the representation of the strong symbolic meaning of spinning cycle of the year. Jūrate Šlekonytė By means of an examination of medie- in “djinga”, which performed the role of (Institute of Lithuanian Literature and val inauguration rites (curial, the ground deciding the outcome of distant battles, Folklore, Vilnius) presented the theme floor of St. Mary's church in Aachen, births and deaths. of human time as understood in Lithua- the Carinthian inauguration stone, the nian folklore as a gradation, stretching imperial crown (Reckoned) etc.), An- Ivan Lozica (Institute for Ethnology and from the narrative of a giant woman nette Kehnel (University of Manheim) Folklore, Zagreb) discerned in the car- (ajdinja), who brings little people in her demonstrated that the ritualistic power- nival festivities the annual victory of the apron to a period when human beings transfer is preceded by a liminal phase cyclic concept of time over the linear, will be so tiny that they will have to look when the person undergoing a “change historical concept promulgated by the up to the cock (with a witty conclusion of status” has to submit to suffering, hu- ruling order. In the case of the bonfire that it might be the cock that becomes March 2008 39 a giant). city/a specific space, indicates a certain Petrović (Institute for Balkan Studies, genius loci. Analogies with the mythic Belgrade/SRC SASA, Ljubljana) pre- Andrej Pleterski emphasised that while figure bringing the rain and the wind sented a spectrum of commonly ac- time and space have not been per- can be found in the folklore of the Slavic cepted theories of time and space, ceived as separate entities since Ein- and Western worlds, as well as in Greek which argue for independence of cog- stein, this same insight was very much myths. Josef Blaha (Palacky University, nition from particular languages, and alive in the folk cultures of the past. Olomouc) presented the history of the concluded with contemporary theories Space-time as a single dimension was cult of Olomouc, the centre of medieval more conscious of the differences be- a crucial element in the understand- Moravia, from pre-history to the Middle tween the two concepts. Petrović put ing of the natural order, and ultimately Ages: until the Middle Ages, the central particular emphasis on research that enabled the invention of the solar clock. cult role was played by Michael Hill, an explores the differences in ways that Pleterski spoke about measuring time area with a chthonic character centred time and space are coded in various with space, looking at the examples of on St. Michael’s Church. After the de- languages and cultures. an early medieval mythological land- struction of Olomouc and the constitu- scape at Mislinja Valley (calculation tion of a diocese, this significant cult Miha Pintarič (University of Ljubljana) of the duration of winter: 2 x 45 days) role was taken over by “Předhradí” and demonstrated the shift in the conception and a country house in Bohinj, Slovenia. “Hrad”. of time in the 13th century, when time be- came a “thing” and was no longer con- ceived as an integral, constitutive part of the self; in other words, when it became “measurable” and like “money”, devoid of any moral or other inherent content. Cyclic, mythic-temporal patterns, suc- ceeded by the sacred aspects of linear time, were banished to the margins of collective consciousness.

The international interdisciplinary sym- posium discussed the categories of time and space from different perspectives and using diverse approaches, and thereby brought up and opened up some fundamental questions – while also indicating directions future research may take. Moreover, the gathering Katja Hrobat (right) and Nina Vodopivec – both from Ljubljana, Slovenia – enjoying Argentine- enabled experts from across Europe an spring in September 2007 during the post-conference fieldtrip to the pampas near St. Rosa. to engage in a fruitful and enjoyable Photo by Ülo Valk. exchange of ideas and opinions. The organizers are looking forward to a re- Vitomir Belaj (Faculty of Arts, Zagreb) sult of this highly informative event – a corroborated the observations of Pleter- Pieter Plas (University of Ghent) has compendium, which should be pub- ski with examples from Croatia, namely pursued research into the mechanisms lished in 2008. the cases of spatial points dedicated through which the “language of locality” to Slavic deities, which form a triangle connects “real” topographies with sym- To adumbrate a summary of the the- with fixed geometric features. Belaj thus bolic spatial concepts, the time of social me of space and time, let us quote convincingly read and interpreted the relations, and other categories. Draw- an excerpt from a poem which in an Slavic mythic tradition from the topo- ing on Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian imaginative way discloses the evasive graphic records of Croatian space. The ethnographic accounts, his analysis nature of these two concepts: author of this report discerned similar focussed on discursive developments spatial patterns, marking the space of topics of “locality”: the sense of local A house, a garden, are not spaces: of water, fire, and thunder, in stone belonging, local identity, local history, circling, coming to and fro. monoliths, which personify the mythic and local “roots”. It is possible to discern Their apparitions figure of Old Baba in Slovenia, Croatia in the latter how the spatio-temporal open another space in the space, and Macedonia. The threat made to anchoring of village communities is another time in time. (...) children that they will have to kiss the verbally (re-)produced and performed. (Excerpt from the poem A Tale of Two stone monoliths before they enter the Adopting a linguistic point of view, Tanja Gardens, Octavio Paz; V: Paz 1993, 35.) 40 March 2008

Joint Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society and Folklore Studies Association of Canada in Québec, October 17th-21st, 2007 by Liisi Laineste, Estonian Literary Museum/ University of Tartu, Estonia

acknowledging the many problems that might arise in a multicultural so- ciety such as the United States when trying to extract more “valuable” prac- tices from the intricate pattern of lived experience. The board stressed the value of NGOs and other means of citizen-participation in deciding upon such issues.

Liisi Laineste is a doctoral student of Folklor- istics at the University of Tartu and has dealt Besides these intensely political and extensively with ethnic jokes in Estonia. practical issues concerning the role Photo by Aado Lintrop. of the folklorist in a globalizing world, about 17 simultaneous, more specific The joint annual meeting of the Ameri- panel sessions completely filled all can Folklore Society (AFS) and the four days of the conference sched- Folklore Studies Association of Can- ule. The very intense conference pro- ada entitled “The Politics and Prac- gramme probably left the majority of tices of Intangible Cultural Heritage” attendants with the feeling that a lot of valuable insights were being missed The Lower Town of Québec City, not far from allowed a number of different issues the site of the 2008 AFS/FSAC joint annual and viewpoints to be discussed during in choosing some panels over oth- meeting. the four intellectually enriching days ers. Among this abundance of topics, Photo by courtesy of the AFS. of the conference. Despite the great some of the more prevalent issues will variety of presentations, many com- be presented in this overview. teraction are not only changing the mon themes characterised the event subject matter of folklore, but also – one of them being the interaction A persistent theme was that of space: the methodology necessary for de- of lived/embodied heritage and aca- the symbolic meaning of the concept, scribing such changes. Researchers demic descriptions of these practices. different (emic-etic) interpretations of need to be mindful of the content and Some more general plenary sessions space, the politics of these interpreta- specificities of the new media in order (“The 2003 UNESCO Convention on tions (as described vividly in a paper to generate more insightful analysis. the Safeguarding of ICH (Intangible by Anna Lydia Svalastog (Dalarna Folklorists and ethnographers bear a Cultural Heritage): The Political and College), “Colonizers, Maps, and great responsibility in designing the Cultural Stakes”, “The Inventorization Creation Myths: The Swedish Case” in study of new media. The academic of ICH: New Technologies, New Ap- the panel on Scandinavian identities), public is still waiting for a comprehen- proaches” I-II, etc.) directly addressed and the (most often etic) detachment sive theory and adequate description the academic and political discourse of time and space with the related of the field of online studies. influencing the categorization of intan- politics of representing the other. An- gible cultural heritage. The speakers other topic that featured in a number Questions concerning identities were gave an overview of the developments of panels was the medium itself: how also discussed, for example, in relation that have taken place since the en- the medium, above all the Internet, to the creative creolization of traditions actment of the UNESCO convention changes the tradition it conveys. The and indigenous folklife as well as to on safeguarding intangible heritage, Internet includes all kinds of distinct multiple and negotiated identities in and expatiated on the possibility and and mixed genres, and transmits multicultural societies (e.g. the paper necessity of definitive lists of cultural remakes and “mash-ups” of known by James Leary (University of Wiscon- masterpieces. They also discussed stories, beliefs, etc (e.g. as exempli- sin), “The Importance of being Ole”). the inevitable question of why the fied in the paper by Elizabeth Tucker This topic is especially relevant as USA has not yet signed the conven- of Binghampton University, “Guard- the site of this year’s conference was tion, with Rieks Smeets (Intangible ians of the Living: Characterization Canada, a country that has success- Cultural Heritage Section, UNESCO) of Missing Women of the Internet”). fully combined two official languages giving an insider’s view of the issue, New media, with their opportunity for and multiple nations in a stable state multivocal, simultaneous, global in- of integration. It is also an issue worth March 2008 41 studying in the Estonian (or more gen- erally Eastern European) context, and it has been studied intensively over the years; nevertheless, a more prac- tically-oriented approach could also be developed here, one that would not only describe and analyse issues of identity, but also engage in dialogue with everyday political decisions, thus intervening in the otherwise dis- embodied and estranged politics of the state. This (qualitative) orienta- tion is absolutely vital in creating a knowledge-based, stable society and even in predicting or avoiding conflicts based on identities inside and between AFS Executive Board members Dan Sheehy (Smithsonian Folklife Recordings) and Guha nations. Another relevant theme was Shankar (American Folklife Center) sharing ideas for US-China folklore collaborations with also the ever-present problematics of Fang Xiao of Beijing Normal University, a member of the official China Folklore Society delega- tion to the AFS, and Juwen Zhang of Willamette University, the convener of the AFS Eastern postcolonialism, represented by case Asia Folklife Section. studies from many parts of the world Photo by courtesy of the AFS. (India, Siberia, also a more general approach presented by Diarmuid Ó in tradition on several levels. First of sians in Estonian jokelore. Academics Giolláin (University College, Cork), all, there is the tradition itself, which should ask through whose eyes is it “Folklore, Folkloristics, and Colonial is said to be violent “in essence”. This ethical to collect racist jokes, and who and Postcolonial Power; or the Logic can be the traditional fox hunt in Eng- will decide what is racist and what is of the Modern State”). land, or female circumcision in Africa, not definitively racist. or even offensive jokes in the USA. My choices included all the panels on But on a second level, it can only be Another interesting branch of thought doing folklore online, but also those violent “in essence” in the eyes of the unfolded itself through the presenta- on immigration, identities and creoli- onlooker. There is an agent involved, tions of Tok Thompson (University of zation, and on methodological tools who makes the decision. If a once- Southern California) (“Man or Digi- (e.g. phenomenological analysis) in important tradition is losing ground, it Man?: Folk Music for the 21st Century: the discipline. Out of sheer curiosity, can be included in the list of items that Beat-Boxing, Mashups and More”), of and in order to experience a more need safeguarding. It will be evalu- Lynne McNeill (Utah State University/ panoptic view of the event, I also at- ated, and an important part of this Memorial University of Newfound- tended sessions on the interconnec- process is ethical evaluation. Here the land) (“The End of Internet: A Folk tions of literature and folkloristics, on values of the dominating (Western) Response to the Provision of Infinite health, Scandinavian studies, dietary culture are of great importance and Choice”), and others who touched customs, queer studies, and Mormon will influence the decision. Accord- upon the Internet as a resource for identities. ing to these cultural norms, it is not folklore studies. The vastness and ethical to sustain a violent tradition, as ungraspable nature of the medium is I will now briefly discuss the papers supporting violence is opposed to the readily apparent in meta-folklore about that most tickled my academic inter- exercise of human (or for that matter the Internet itself. In many ways, the ests. The subject of aggression and vi- animal) rights. Thus, some “live” tradi- medium not only transmits content, olence is closely tied to academic dis- tions that might be of importance to but is also used to discuss the me- cussions about the nature of humour, the people practicing them can con- dium itself. This tendency can be ob- the main field of my study. Though sequently be negatively stigmatized vious or completely incorporated into William Westerman’s (Princeton Uni- and forced to alter on (alien) moral the form and content of the tradition versity) presentation (“Folklife, Trans- grounds. That is also why it is nec- – as in stories describing the medium lations, Migrations: Intangible Cultural essary to involve people in compiling (end-of-the-Internet tales) or in paro- Heritage and the Violence Question”) the lists of UNESCO heritage objects, dies, mash-ups and collages. Both of on intangible cultural heritage and its but even more importantly, to reflect these express the idea of postmodern violence did not deal with violent tradi- on the politics of decision-making and individuals facing the advantages and tion in itself, it alluded to it on several categorization. From similar consid- drawbacks of infinite choice available occasions and forced the participants erations arose the recent polemics on online. Overabundance of information to think about the violence inherent ethnic jokes about Blacks and Rus- about catastrophes, for instance, can 42 March 2008

similarly result in news parodies, jokes was the enlightening session on psy- brilliant and cordial storytelling event. and pictures that, in a way, serve as a choanalytical approaches in folklore On the metalevel it was a reflection on cognitive tool for the audience. Many research. At the risk of dealing the the main (and much-discussed) de- studies have shown that less choice in listeners a true Freudian overdose, vice in the folklorists’ armoury. It was shops leads to more purchases, and Greg Kelley (University of Guelph) the materialization of the notion that more choice just leaves people with an presented an analysis of alterations folkloristics is the art of “listening with uncomfortable feeling of not grasping to the folk tale “Snow White and the love”. Simultaneously a symbol of the the whole picture. These mash-ups Seven Dwarfs” and of jokes featur- folkloristic experience from both an that help people cope with information ing Snow White (“When Snow White academic and a layperson’s point of overload are also present in all kinds of Drifts: From Grimm to Disney and Be- view, and also the very act itself, the Internet portals (e.g. YouTube), which yond”), criticizing the “disneyfication” storytelling event was an unforgettable serve as a perfect location for describ- of traditional fairy tales. By making his experience. ing new trans-cultural and geographic film more child-friendly, Disney actu- music traditions, e.g. beat-boxing. This ally highlighted the very elements he Social events also included numerous is an especially interesting case as had sought to expunge. The absolute organized and unofficial meetings of the collage here consists not only in absence of sexual cues was also high- work groups (e.g. Newfolk@AFS, Folk mixing different songs, videos and mu- lighted in Kelley’s presentation, after Narrative, etc), banquets, and a lunch- sic, but it also in presenting a hybrid which I will never be able to watch the eon meeting with newcomers, where form of man-imitating-machine. And Disney version of the fairy tale without the main rules for a successful con- mastering this new electronic vernacu- laughing hysterically. ference attendance were pinpointed. lar is simultaneously empowering to Every evening ended with instrumental some, while leaving others power- For many participants, the cream in and vocal music jam-sessions, which less in terms of Internet literacy. And the AFS and FSAC joint meeting was were great fun for active participants resonating with this, though focuss- the Daniel Crowley Memorial Storytell- and onlookers alike. For an intellectu- ing more on Internet identities, was ing Concert and book signing, which ally enriching conference experience I Sarah Moore’s (Memorial University represented a unique experience would like to thank the AFS board for of Newfoundland) paper (“Coming of doing and viewing folklore at the granting me an International Student Out Online: Recognition of Gay Self same time. During this event, Barbara Award. Through a Virtual Community”), which Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (New York Uni- analysed how people find yet another versity) interviewed her father Mayer function for the Internet, making use Kirshenblatt on stage, presenting to of its anonymity: the Internet is very the auditorium a book of his drawings helpful in taking a step in a “rite of from memory of Poland before the passage” (in this case revealing one’s Holocaust. The slideshow of paintings homosexuality online). was complemented by her questions and his stories of childhood – ways of Last but not least, though more en- life, people, activities, relationships, tertaining than strictly academic, emotions. At the factual level, it was a

The 2008 members of the AFS Executive Board. L-R: Sandy Rikoon, University of Missouri; Dan Sheehy, Smithsonian Folklife Recordings; AFS President-Elect [2008-2009 President] Elaine Lawless, University of Missouri; Lucy Long, Bowling Green State University; Diane Goldstein, Memorial University of Newfoundland; Kay Turner, Brooklyn Arts Council; Guha Shankar, Ameri- can Folklife Center; Patricia Turner, University of California-Davis; AFS Executive Director Tim Lloyd; Bill Ellis, Pennsylvania State University; AFS President [2008 Past President] Bill Ivey, Vanderbilt University. Not present: Olga Nájera-Ramírez, University of California, Santa Cruz; Elaine Thatcher, Utah State University. Photo by courtesy of the AFS. March 2008 43

Folklorists’ Festivity in Latvia: Annual Krisjanis Barons Conference in Riga, Latvia, October 30th-31st, 2007 by Toms Ķencis, University of Tartu, Estonia

of different historical celebrations. Speakers examined such long-de- funct festivities and rituals as the first night-watch of horses at pasture (pirmā pieguļas nakts), the fisher- men’s spring celebration (zvejnieku Vastlāvis) and the syncretistic rites of St. Agate’s day (February 5th). In particular I would like to single out the presentation by Sandis Laime on the watching of horses at pasture – a tra- Dace Bula, chair of the Latvian Folklore Archive. dition that has not been studied since Photo by Una Ciemleja. the 1970s. This very ancient tradition is linked with the patronage of horses and can be viewed as one of the most In summary, it could be said that the ambiguous issues in ancient Latvian traditional was discussed in a tradi- mythology. Ieva Pigozne-Brinkmane tional manner. The day was closed Toms Ķencis is a doctoral student of Folklor- with the presentation of “Magnificent istics at the University of Tartu. He is studying analyzed, in a very interesting manner, works on Latvian mythology from the 1920s on the basis of historical and archaeo- songs” (Greznās dziesmas, edited by to 1940s in the ideological context of these logical materials, one particular motif Rita Treija) – a book by the Latvian decades. theologian and folklorist Ludis Ber- Photo: private collection. in folklore materials – “danced-out shoes.” Thus, she disproved claims zins that analyses the history of col- by previous researchers about the lecting, publishing and interpretation Within the framework of the sec- metaphorical nature of this motif in of Latvian folk songs from the first th ond Letonika congress1, the annual celebration-related folksongs and fairy written songs in the 16 century until Krisjanis Barons conference was tales. Syncretism in Latvian festivity 1844 when the first substantial collec- held in Riga during October 30-31, traditions was excellently exemplified tion was published by G. Bitner. The 2007 (Krisjanis Barons, 1835-1923 by Rita Treija, whose account of St. book had been awaiting publication th – father of Latvian folkloristics2). The Agate’s day revealed both the theo- since the mid-20 century and as the theme chosen for this year’s meet- logical and folkloristic content of this first in a series of publications about ing was “Festivities and celebration: originally Catholic celebration. Other Latvian folklore, it can be considered the processes of tradition in Latvia”. participants, similarly, analysed differ- an important milestone in the history Representatives of various disciplines ent elements of traditional festivities of Latvian folkloristics. offered 24 presentations in all, and in their social and historical contexts, some of them featured traditional with two presentations being dedi- The second day of the conference performances. As was metaphori- cated respectively to the etymology was different both in terms of the cally said at the opening by the Chair of celebration titles and to the eu- topics discussed and the disciplines of the Latvian Folklore Archive, Dace phemistic use of the term ‘festivity’ represented, for celebrations were Bula, the conference itself resembled (svētki) in the context of reproductive analysed from the viewpoint of social traditional celebrations in the sense taboos. While the majority of presenta- anthropology, philosophy and com- of bringing to a conclusion several tions were based on archive materials munication science. Papers focussed th projects carried out in the course of re- and field research, that given by Elga mostly on festivity traditions of the 20 st cent years. Although united under one Melne was exceptional in that it used and 21 centuries and especially on common title, the presentations were autobiography as the primary source. transformations of celebrations re- surprisingly diverse with respect both Her report on the dialectics of every- lating to paradigmatic socio-political to the fields and objects of research day life and celebrations in the course changes. Thus winter solstice and and to the methods applied. of her lifespan provided unique mate- midsummer night rites, International rial about several minor rites from the Women’s day and other specific fes- The first day of the conference was beginning of the 20th century. tive traditions were analysed in the dedicated primarily to the analysis context of media, gender, politics, etc. 44 March 2008

Dace Bula was the only contributor to Aivita Putniņa. She looked at both the practices and their objects topical in cover not just Latvian but Baltic festive emblematic aspects of this event as Western disciplinary meetings. Tra- traditions more broadly. Her presenta- well as the discursive practices sur- ditions and processes of expressive tion “Celebration of gender: the 8th rounding it, emphasizing the role this culture provide so many opportunities of March in the Baltics” looked at the celebration plays in the forming of a for research that the work of several transforming meanings of International community. Anda Beitāne reported on generations is needed before we can Women’s Day since the collapse of several representative cases where engage in the appraisal of those re- the Soviet Union: on account of its as- celebrations have built the context for searches and conduct discussions sociation with the totalitarian regime, traditional music. In view of the time about specific theoretical questions the celebration of Women’s Day was period covered, the methods applied of this kind. rejected at first, but has now expe- were not limited to the analysis of ar- rienced a comeback and acquired chive or field-research materials, but new meanings both within the popular drew also on contemporary mass 1 Letonica is an umbrella concept that inclu- culture and officially. Guntis Pakalns media. des all scholarly activities related to the idea examined the winter solstice celebra- of Latvia and Latvian – various disciplines of tions on the Internet, offering rich illus- One could say that Latvian folkloris- language, customs, history, biography, music, trations of these new forms of expres- tics fully engages with the reality of etc. Thus this congress contains fourteen sive culture and festive traditions that new technologies, and besides ad- virtually separate sections, and the folklorists’ are more or less exclusively virtual. dressing the classical objects of the conference is just one of these. Baiba Krogzeme-Mosgorda looked at discipline – ancient folk traditions and 2 K. Barons gathered the greatest collection the same tradition, but in a different vernacular culture – its representa- of Latvian folk songs and played an important medium – the postcard, which has at- tives categorize, analyze and interpret role in Latvian national awakening of the 19th tracted no previous scholarly attention contemporary expressive culture in its century. and is thus a new genre in Latvian various forms. Because of the time folkloristics. Sergejs Kruks, one of the constraints, the majority of partici- most famous public figures among pants chose to introduce listeners to Latvia’s intellectuals, analysed ana- the wider context of their research as logue, non-digital reality from a very opposed to the details of a particular different point of view. His presenta- issue or expanded analysis. However, tion was devoted to monuments as there were also presentations that fo- centres of ritual and anti-ritual activi- cussed in an original fashion on the ties in Latvia, and focussed on the role scholarly praxis itself or on the exist- of monuments in public mass-cele- ence and dynamics of a tradition. brations in particular. The most recent tradition discussed at the conference To conclude, the state of Latvian was Riga Pride, a festival of sexual folkloristics is hardly comparable minorities, analysed by anthropologist with the deconstruction of scholarly

Audience of the 2008 Krisjanis Barons conference or the harvest festival of Latvian folklorists. Second row first from the left: Rita Treija, editor of Ludis Berzins’s monograph Greznās dziesmas on the history of collecting and studying Latvian folk songs. Photo by Una Ciemleja. March 2008 45

Conference and Festival of South Asian Folklore New Delhi, December 6th-9th, 2007 by Ülo Valk, University of Tartu, Estonia

The South Asian Association for Re- est ranks of politicians to the children The three-day meeting of about fifty gional Cooperation (SAARC) compris- and youth of Delhi, for whom perform- South Asian folklorists was modestly es eight countries: Afghanistan, Bang- ances were arranged in schools and called a seminar by the organisers, ladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives, colleges. Thus indeed, folklore be- but its scope and academic quality Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The came a key-word during these days was equal to a successful profes- Foundation of SAARC Writers and Lit- in Delhi – comparable to Dharma as a sional conference. Shri Nihal Rod- erature (FOSWAL), led by its founder- noble doctrine, symbolised by a chariot rigo’s (Sri Lanka) inaugural address president Ms Ajeet Cour, has a long wheel, setting things into motion and gave a broad picture of the contem- history of building bridges between causing positive changes in people’s porary manifestations of folklore in the these countries by arranging writers’ lives and their thinking. SAARC region. While some traditions conferences and other major cultural are thriving, others are neglected and events. Now, for the first time FOSWAL South Asian folklore is rich in strongly disappearing; therefore a more enlight- invited folk artists and folklorists to the expressive genres that enchant the ened approach to folklore is needed capital of India for four intense days audience in spite of language barri- to support its true practitioners. In his ers, mysterious symbolic, mythical keynote address Jawaharlal Handoo and religious tropes – either Bud- (India) showed the incapacity of the dhist, Hindu, Islamic or of indigenous elite to understand the folk discourse traditions – to a great extent unknown in India and other countries of the to outsiders. More than four hundred SAARC region, where 80% of the performers from Afghanistan, Bangla- people live in a predominantly oral desh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan culture. Handoo showed the potential and Sri Lanka mesmerised the audi- of folklore for creating public space in ence, but also engendered spontane- civil societies. He also emphasized the ous dancing, laughter and even awe. need to establish a single institution Witnessing ritual possession, heroic solely devoted to the study of folklore adventures from oral epics, the ap- of the SAARC countries. In her com- pearance of deities in mask dances, ment on the keynote lecture Sadhana martial arts’ mock-fights, dramatic or Naithani (India) stressed the need for comic folk theatre and dozens of other empowerment of the marginalised folk vivid performances open one’s eyes artists, who often live in the poorest to the non-verbal aspects of folklore. conditions and whose work tends to be I was truly enchanted by the scenes misused by the media industry. Lauri from the ancient epical traditions of Harvilahti (Finland) discussed the dy- Vasumally Pothily, a tribal artist belonging to the Toda Tribe from the Nilgiri Hills, breaking the Mahabharata and Ramayana, namics of oral and literary processes coconut for inauguration. brought to life by folk performers from in contemporary Asia, where ethnoc- Photo by Satyajit Das. the Kushan Gaan troupe from Bang- ultural and linguistic diversity is endan- ladesh and Teejan Bai and her troupe gered. Safeguarding folklore requires of performances and discussions. It is from Chattisgarh. Foujdar Singh of- the documentation and archiving of hard to imagine a more central place fered another magical performance – oral traditions, supplemented by the for a folklore festival – every day per- of battle scenes from the heroic epic training of young scholars to carry on formances were held in Central Park, Aalha from Bundelkhand. Remark- the discipline. According to Lauri Harvi- the heart of the circular Connaught ably, several folk groups were invited lahti’s vision, archives should be seen Place, from where streets proceed in to Delhi from tribal areas and remote as resources for creation, used both eight directions like the spokes of a corners of the Indian subcontinent, by folk artists and researchers, whose huge Dharma Wheel. Both festival and such as the Bhils from Gujarat, To- work need a solid empirical basis both conference were broadcast by differ- das from the Nilgiri Mountains of Tamil now and in the future. ent TV channels and widely covered Nadu, Jenukurubas from Karnataka by the mass media. All of a sudden, and performers from the North East- Mahbubul Haque (Bangladesh) has folklore was the centre of attention ern States of Manipur, Nagaland and studied the transformations of the of millions of people from the high- Arunachal Pradesh. folklore, popular culture and national 46 March 2008

Sen (India) examined the formation of Hindu ideologies, domestic life and city-lore among the middle-class of the emerging metropolis of Calcutta (Kolkata) in the 19th century. His main focus was on the discourse of the reli- gious leader Shri Ramkrishna, whose teaching combined elements of god- dess-worship (shakti) and practices of devotion (bhakti) and relied to a great extent on urban folklore. Desmond Kharmawphlang (India) examined the social context of folklore in con- temporary North-East India, which has long been seen as a secluded area of wildlife sanctuaries and ethnic commu- nities with “unspoiled” identities. As an example of such ancestral traditions, Ülo Valk and Lauri Harvilahti (Helsinki, Finland) in the Folk Arts Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts and Literature. Desmond Kharmawphlang has studied Photo by Satyajit Das. the ethnic genres and oral histories of the Khasi people, who have a strong, identity of Bangladesh. A growing processes. Proceeding from Walter even tangible connection with an an- tendency seems to be the integra- Ong’s concepts of oral and literary cient megalithic culture. In Khasi tradi- tion of elements of local and regional cultures and secondary orality domi- tions, stones are charged with mythi- folklore traditions into the national cul- nated by mass media and electronic cal and legendary narratives from the ture. Fouzia Saeed (Pakistan) gave modes of communication, he argued past. Mahendra Kumar Mishra (India) a thought-provoking paper about the that the age of primary orality is re- discussed the contents and ritual con- place of women in the folklore of the turning. Web-blogs, online chatting, text of the oral epics in Orissa and SAARC region. She challenged the sending SMS messages and the ad- the status of singers who nowadays romantic concept of folklore as a valu- vent of visual news are all challenging lack patronage. However, the epic able ancestral heritage, to be passed the former modes of communication culture is strong, as performances on to the next generation with minimal based on the static word of print. As last up to six hours and songs han- distortions. Instead, she laid emphasis South Asian folklores manifest a dy- dle diverse topics, such as the origin on changing traditions and the poten- namic flow of different cultures into the of castes, the creation of gods, god- tial of folklore to support emancipation synthetic culture of the mainstream, desses and human beings, and other of those who have been suppressed. this basic contradiction and opposition myths. Syed Jamil Ahmed (Bangla- Fouzia Saeed adduced several exam- between ‘synthesis’ and the ‘other’ has desh) gave a dense paper on the cult ples to illustrate the negative aspects to be deconstructed. Tulasi Diwasa of Manik Pir – an anthropomorphized of ancient traditions – such as poly- stressed the need for developing new entity, worshipped by both Muslims andry, which is not a free choice for folkloristic theories and methodologies and Hindus in Western Bangladesh women (as opposed to polygamy); the instead of borrowing them from other and South Eastern regions of West exclusion of women from the public disciplines. Kishore Bhattacharjee (In- Bengal in order to overcome pesti- sphere and the imposition of rigid re- dia) presented a synopsis of the devel- lence among domestic animals and strictions during their periods – all con- opment of folkloristics in India, Nepal sometimes to cure people of serious nected to the old concept of impurity and Bangladesh, starting from the diseases. The role of priests is per- and its related taboos. However, the 1970s. During recent decades leading formed by Muslim faqirs, but Hindus paper also offered positive examples, folklorists have maintained a creative sponsor most of the performances. such as the matriarchal traditions of dialogue with trends in international Syed Jamil Ahmed interpreted this cult Bhutan and the Maldives, where wid- scholarship, such as the schools of as a resistance strategy of a subordi- owhood or divorce are not seen as performance studies, psychoanalytic nate group, manifesting cultural differ- stigmas, in contrast with many other approaches, structuralism, oral liter- ence to subvert the officially approved regions. ary criticism, and reflexive and post- practices and doctrines that dismiss colonial research. various forms of popular religion as Chandrabhanu Pattanayak (India) of- superstition. Shandrasiri Palliyaguruge fered a theoretical insight into ways Several papers offered in-depth case (Sri Lanka) gave a paper on histori- of communication and related folklore studies from different regions. Soumen cal legends from Matara township, the March 2008 47

Folk artists from Rajarhat, Kurdigram, Bangladesh who continue the indigenous art form Kushan Gaan, presenting scenes from Ramayana. Photo by Abhijit Das. southernmost part of Sri Lanka. There A resolution was accepted and sent as to Ms. Ajeet Cour, Prof. Chandrabhanu is a place there, called “the garden of a memorandum to the SAARC sec- Pattanayak and Prof. K. Satchidanan- the seven Bo trees” (Hath Bodiwatta), retariat to safeguard folklore and cul- dan and their team, who did marvel- where the ashes of the royal family tural and linguistic diversity in the re- lous work to guarantee the success and the poet Kalidasa are supposed gion. The document says that folklore of this major event. The conference to have been buried. According to “needs to be protected against abuse venue was provided by the Founda- folk legends, Kalidasa was visiting his by the burgeoning culture-industry and tion of SAARC Writers and Literature; friend, the poet king Kumaradasa, but the consequent distortion and loss.” generous financial support to cover was murdered by a courtesan, who The resolution also urges the govern- the travel costs, board and lodging of wanted to claim the prize money for ments of SAARC countries to support the participants was provided by the his couplet. Because of this tragic in- folkloristics and the documentation of Indian Council for Cultural Relations cident, the king and the five queens folklore. A proposal was made that “An and the Ministry of External Affairs, burned themselves to death on the institute to this purpose may be estab- Government of India. pyre together with the poet. Though lished in one chosen country in the featuring in folklore, this episode is region, and the concerned Ministries not described in the official history may establish link-institutions in their of Sri Lanka or in Sinhalese classical respective countries, as well as found- literature. Shandrasiri Palliyaguruge ing chairs and initiating programmes discussed the discrepancies between in the major universities for folklore folkloric and literary discourse and the studies and research”. links between these legends and the epic Ramayana. Thus, this meeting in Delhi has a great chance of becoming historic – Of course, it is impossible to review with positive effects for South Asian here all the papers that were delivered and world folkloristics. Some concrete and ideas that were adumbrated at the steps have already been taken since conference. One fundamental point the conference to strengthen the in- was made by Jawaharlal Handoo, who stitutional grounds of folkloristics and said that the weakness of folkloristics develop the discipline in the SAARC is due to the fact that much attention region and India in particular. The ISF- has been paid to the “lore” and the NR and the international community of “folk” has often been forgotten. Indeed, folklorists are involved in making these the conference laid strong emphasis future plans. The folklore festival and From left to right: Jawaharlal Handoo, Kikkeri Narayan (both from Mysore, India) and Nihal on the social dimensions of folklore the conference are to become annual Rodrigo (Sri Lanka) at Connaught Place, New and the daily life of the traditional com- events in different SAARC countries. Delhi. munities of contemporary South Asia. The gratitude of the participants goes Photo by Ülo Valk 48 March 2008

Once More Concerning the Origin of Fairy Tales. A Parable and its Exegesis by Heda Jason, Israel

I was highly surprised to read in the of swimming in the lake which the ISFNR Newsletter no. 2 (2007), pp. work of our scholarly predecessors 17-19, the report on the discussion prepared for us? of the problem of the age and ori- gin of fairy tales, adorned with the References: photos of the proud leaders of the Anderson, Walter 1935. Zu Albert Wesselskis two camps, namely the “from written Angriffen auf die finnische folkloristische to oral” camp, i.e. from written col- Forschungsmethode [Contains A.W.’s attack on lections/early modern written works the Finnish folkloric method of investigation]. to the oral tradition of the 19th−20th Acta et Commentationes Universitatis Tartu- century” vs. the camp “from oral ensis. Humaniora XXXVIII. Tartu. to written”, i.e. from oral traditions of the preliterary 4th–3rd millennia Bach, Adolf 1960. Deutsche Volkskunde B.C.E. to the oral tradition of the [Ethnography]. 3.Aufl. Heidelberg: Quelle & Heda Jason has published works on ethnopoet- 19th−20th century, with occasional Meyer. ics, Jewish and Indian folktales, genre theory documentation in collections of an- and many other topics. She is the author of Bausinger, Hermann 1968. Formen der Volkspo- “Motif, Type and Genre. A Manual for Compila- tiquity (e.g., Aesop, Panchatantra, esie [Forms of folk literature]. Berlin. tion of Indices & A Bibliography of Indices and Jatakas), the Middle Ages (e.g., Indexing” (FF Communications 273. Helsinki, Gesta Romanorum, the Arabian 2000). Benfey, Theodor (transl.) 1859. Panchatantra. nights, Kathasaritsagara) and early Photo by courtesy of FF Communications. 5 vols. Leipzig. modern collections (e.g., Boccaccio, Straparola). I rubbed my eyes: did Lüthi, Max 1979. Märchen [Fairy Tale]. Ed. the Newsletter misprint the date of pr. 1961. Stuttgart. Walking and Swimming the discussion and should it have One of two brothers left home and been 1807? Or 1859 (Benfey?), or Wesselski, Albert 1931. Versuch einer Theorie went to the woods to practice tapas 1931–1935 (Wesselski/Anderson)? des Märchens. [Towrds a theory of the fairy (= austerities). The other brother re- Have the toilers in our discipline tale]. Reichenberg i. B. mained in the village as a house- forgotten everything, but abso- holder. After 25 years, the ascetic lutely everything, that was written brother returned to the village, na- before the last quarter of the 20th ked, emaciated and dirty. century or before the advent of the PC? Very sad. How about taking a − Welcome home, brother! Oh, my! break with a good cup of coffee, for What do you look like! What hap- consolation? And after the rest, we pened to thee, poor brother? – said can ask for instruction from histo- the householder-brother by way of ries of our discipline, e.g., A. Bach’s greeting. Volkskunde (1960), H. Bausinger’s Formen der “Volkspoesie” (1968, − I made tapas. 25 years of tapas chapter I, pp. 9–64), and M. Lüthi’s have given me the power to walk Märchen (1961)? These books are on water! – proudly answered the old, from the ante-PC times, but, as other brother. the problem has been solved long ago, they give a good overview and − To walk on water? In 25 years? a bibliography bound to enhance our What for? Didn’t both of us learn in folkloric education. Sorry, they are two months how to swim? not in English, but should we follow (Adapted from Tibetan Folk Tales the meek and the poor in spirit to and Fairy Stories, ed. by S. N. order to become virtuous? And prac- Ghose. Bombay: Rupa, 1986) tice tapas to attain the ability to walk on the water of scholarship instead The International Society for Folk Narrative Research is a scientific society whose objectives are to develop scholarly work in the field of folk narrative research and to stimulate contacts and the exchange of views among its members. Executive Committee of the ISFNR:

President: Vice-President representing Asia Gabriela Kiliánová Ülo Valk Mehri Bagheri Institute of Ethnology, Dept. of Estonian and Comparative Folklore Tabriz University, Faculty of Letters, Slovac Academy of Sciences University of Tartu Deptartment of Culture Klemensova 19, SK-81364 Bratislava Ülikooli 16-208, 51003 Tartu Tabriz SLOVAK REPUBLIC ESTONIA IRAN E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Fumiko Mamiya Vice-President representing Latin America Department of Developmental Psychology and Manuel Dannemann Children’s Literature/ Culture Vice-Presidents: Casilla 51413, Correo Central, Shirayuri College Santiago 1-25 Midorigaoka, Chofu-shi, Tokyo 182-8525 CHILE, S.A. JAPAN Vice-President representing Africa E-mail: [email protected] Ezekiel Alembi E-mail: [email protected]

Department of Literature, Kenyatta University Vice-President representing Europe P.O. Box 43844 Lauri Harvilahti Treasurer: EAK-00100 Nairobi Finnish Literature Society, Folklore Archives Ulf Palmenfelt KENYA Hallituskatu 1, P.O. Box 259, FI-00171 Helsinki Gotland University E-mail: [email protected] FINLAND SE-62167 Visby E-mail: [email protected] SWEDEN Vice-President representing North America, E-mail: [email protected] Chair of Membership Committee Members: Cristina Bacchilega Donald Haase Secretary: Department of English, German & Slavic Studies Elo-Hanna Seljamaa University of Hawai’i at Manoa 443 Manoogian Hall, 906 W. Warren Ave., Dept. of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, Kuykendall 402, 1733 Donaghho Road, Wayne State University University of Tartu Honolulu HI 96822 Detroit MI 48202 Ülikooli 16-208, 51003 Tartu USA USA ESTONIA E-mail: [email protected] Email: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Happy ending of the ISFNR Interim Conference in Santa Rosa, Argentina. L-R: Martha Blache, Mehri Bagheri, Ulf Palmenfelt, Elo-Hanna Seljamaa, Ana María Dupey, Ülo Valk, Ezekiel Alembi, María Inés Poduje, Manuel Dannemann. Photo by Risto Järv.