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Folklore Electronic Journal of Folklore http://www.folklore.ee/folklore Vol. 77 2019 Folk Belief and Media Group of the Estonian Literary Museum Estonian Institute of Folklore Folklore Electronic Journal of Folklore Vol. 77 Edited by Mare Kõiva & Andres Kuperjanov Guest editor Mirjam Mencej ELM Scholarly Press Tartu 2019 Editor in chief Mare Kõiva Co-editor Andres Kuperjanov Guest editor Mirjam Mencej Copy editor Tiina Mällo News and reviews Piret Voolaid Design Andres Kuperjanov Layout Diana Kahre Editorial board 2015–2020: Dan Ben-Amos (University of Pennsylvania, USA), Larisa Fialkova (University of Haifa, Israel), Diane Goldstein (Indiana University, USA), Terry Gunnell (University of Iceland), Jawaharlal Handoo (University of Mysore, India), Frank Korom (Boston University, USA), Jurij Fikfak (Institute of Slovenian Ethnology), Ülo Valk (University of Tartu, Estonia), Wolfgang Mieder (University of Vermont, USA), Irina Sedakova (Russian Academy of Sciences). The journal is supported by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (IUT 22-5), the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies), and the Estonian Literary Museum. Indexed in EBSCO Publishing Humanities International Complete, Clarivate Analytics Web of Science (Arts & Humanities Citation Index), MLA International Bibliography, Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory, Internationale Volkskundliche Bibliographie / International Folklore Bibliography / Bibliographie Internationale d’Ethnologie, Open Folklore, C.E.E.O.L., Scopus Editorial address: Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore Vanemuise 42–235 51003 Tartu Estonia phone: +372 737 7740 fax: +372 737 7706 e-mail: [email protected] home page: http://www.folklore.ee/folklore All rights reserved © Estonian Literary Museum Estonian Institute of Folklore Authors Design Andres Kuperjanov According to Creative Commons licence BY-NC-ND 4.0 ISSN 1406-0957 doi:10.7592/FEJF2019.77 www.folklore.ee/folklore CONTENTS Introduction: The Human-Animal Relationship in Belief Narratives 7 Mirjam Mencej Animals, Tale Types, and Belief Narratives in Argentinean Folklore 11 María Inés Palleiro Playing with Nezumi Toys, Dreaming of Unattainable Utopia: Unique Portrayals of Nezumi in Japanese Folk Tradition 39 Fumihiko Kobayashi What Can the Mythical Frog Tell Us? The Symbolism and Role of the Frog in History and Modernity 63 Jelka Vince Pallua The Werewolf as a Religious and Ethnic Other in a Herzegovinian Legend 91 Mirjam Mencej Belief Narratives of Spirit-Animals: A Case Study on Estonian Contemporary Folklore 115 Reet Hiiemäe Cockroaches: From Belief Narratives to the Contemporary Visual Practice of Catherine Chalmers, or How Cockroaches Have Survived on Earth for More than 320 Million Years 139 Suzana Marjanić Listening to the Elder Brothers: Animals, Agents, and Posthumanism in Native Versus Non-Native American Myths and Worldviews 159 Tok Thompson Folklore 77 5 FROM THE EDITORIAL BOARD The Wolf: Human/Non-Human Relations on the Basis of Etiologies and Verbal Communication 181 Mare Kõiva INTERVIEW To Reach History, We Need Imagination. Interview with Mieke Bal 199 Henri Zeigo NEWS IN BRIEF 9th Annual Conference of the Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies. Piret Voolaid 205 Symposium Dedicated to the 80th Birth Anniversary of Academician Arvo Krikmann at the Estonian Literary Museum. Liisa Granbom-Herranen 206 Doctoral Dissertation on Transnational Family Life Across the Gulf of Finland. Maarja Kaaristo 209 BOOK REVIEWS An Intriguing Fieldwork Document. Jonathan Roper 212 Kyrgyztan from the Perspective of Legal Anthropology. Aimar Ventsel 214 www.folklore.ee/folklore INTRODUCTION: THE HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONSHIP IN BELIEF NARRATIVES Mirjam Mencej Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology Faculty of Arts University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Email: [email protected] Since time immemorial, humans have lived in a mutual relationship with ani- mals, and have, indeed, been dependent on them, that is, their help with domes- tic work, protection, the food and clothing they provide. The close link between animals and humans throughout history has been reflected in various forms of expressive culture such as ritual, dance, religious practices, art, and so forth, as well as in material culture and other everyday practices. Folklore around the world also reflects the close interrelation between humans and animals in various ways. In cosmogonic myths, animals are sometimes ascribed the role of the creators of the universe; in tales of magic they often figure as supernatural helpers to heroes and heroines on their journey towards a happy ending; they can mimic and mock human characters in animal tales; animals are sometimes addressed with requests in incantations, etc. Legends in particular often address the close animal-human relationship: humans and animals can have sexual intercourse, which can result in offspring; humans can be temporarily, or even permanently, transformed into animals; a person’s soul, when they are asleep or in a trance, can, according to belief nar- ratives, temporarily detach from the human body, in a shape of a small animal, such as a fly, a butterfly, a mouse, etc.; strangers and foreigners, who come from beyond the boundaries of the community, can be perceived in terms of animals and ascribed animalistic attributes, and so on and so forth. Moreover, animals leave their traces not only in narratives that stem from the rural way of life which would foster human-animal contacts, but also in legends that spread in urban environments. One only needs to recall the “urban” or “contemporary” legends about albino alligators thriving in the New York City’s sewer system, spiders that nest in people’s dreadlocks, mice that people find in Coca-Cola, Kentucky fried rats, and so on. http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol77/introduction.pdf Mirjam Mencej The continuous significance of animals, and their relationships with humans in folklore, and more specifically in belief narratives, led the Belief Narrative Network (BNN) Committee to select it as the general topic of the BNN con- ference that was held as part of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research (ISFNR) interim conference in Ragusa in 2018. While we initially expected the BNN members to focus especially on human-animal transforma- tions, the proposals we received were much more varied than we had antici- pated. In eight sessions, the participants discussed not only werewolves and other were-animals, but also narrative expressions of sameness and otherness through the images and notions of animals, respectful inter-species coopera- tion, and many other roles that animals fulfil in belief narratives and folklore in general (see Koski 2018: 316–319). The papers presented at the conference covered a huge geographical scope and time-span. From those discussing ancient mythical texts to those that focused on contemporary narratives, the authors unravelled the underlying symbolism and connotations of the animals in the narratives, discussed the messages these narratives convey and their mean- ings within a wider social context, but also problematized Western attitudes towards animals in the past and present, and offered new ways of looking at and treating animal cultures in the future. The enthusiastic responses of the BNN members, and the ample number of submissions to the conference titled “Human-Animal Relationship in Belief Narratives” have proved that the Com- mittee obviously made the right decision in dedicating the BNN conference to this particular theme. This issue of Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore therefore features seven papers that were presented at the BNN conference in Ragusa. They approach the topic of human-animal relationships from very different perspectives and angles, and within various genres of folklore. Argentinian folklorist María Inés Palleiro focuses on Argentinian animal tales and argues that animal tales, in their local transformations, are often intertwined with belief narratives as well as with ritual discourse. Based on an analysis of several animal tales she demonstrates that it is precisely through this intertwinement that the narrators are able to express their local identity. Moreover, in order to make the role of local beliefs in the transformation of narrative patterns and their expression of vernacular identities visible, Palleiro even suggests that the classification of Argentinean folktales in a catalogue of tale types should not (only) follow ATU tale types, but should be carried out within narrative matrices, i.e., “sets of thematic, structural, and stylistic fea- tures which serve as a pre-text to be transformed in different contexts”. Japanese folklorist Fumihiko Kobayashi discusses the ambivalent views of mice and rats in Japanese history. While on the one hand they were detested and killed in daily life, they have had a favourable reputation in the folk tradi- 8 www.folklore.ee/folklore Introduction: The Human-Animal Relationship in Belief Narratives tion, as revealed at least since the eighth century’s mythological chronicle Kojiki. Kobayashi argues that the positive view of vermin stems from the notion of a hidden fantasy world where they were believed to keep treasures, including a limitless supply of foodstuffs that they had hoarded. While covering vari- ous oral and written genres as well as visual forms throughout a long span of Japanese history in which the favourable attitude towards mice and rats has been expressed, he particularly