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Unit 4 Folklore As Discourse

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Unit 4 Folklore As Discourse Documentation, Preservation and UNIT 4 FOLKLORE AS DISCOURSE Conservation of Culture Structure 4.0 Objectives 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Popular discourse of insurgencies 4.3 Crime and criminality: a counter-discourse 4.3.1 Crime and poverty 4.3.2 Crime and punishment 4. 4 Religious discourse and folk cults 4.4.1 Worship of the killer 4.4.2 Invoking the defending deity 4.5 Counter-belief and elements of its discourse 4.5.1 Evil spirits 4.5.2 Benevolent ghosts 4.5.3 Carnivalisation of a deity 4.5.4 Nature 4.6 Let us sum up 4.7 Activity 4.8 References and further readings 4.9 Glossary 5.0 Check your progress: possible answers 4.0 OBJECTIVES After reading this Unit you will be able to: x see the connection between folklore and some common discourses; x acquire some idea about the way popular discourse of insurgency has made way into our folklore; x understand the idea of 'Counter-Discourse'; x become familiar with the functioning of religious discourses as part of folk life and memory; and x know the operation of counter-beliefs as shown in folk customs about ghosts, spirits, the supernatural, etc. 4.1 INTRODUCTION Studies of folklore gained momentum in the early 19th century with the efforts of several folklorists and collectors of folklore both in colonial India and in other countries all over the world. Though the basic aim was to trace archaic customs and beliefs, nationalistic aims of reinforcing ethnic identity became a great motivating factor for the study of folklore. Records of folk struggles and 46 tales of folk heroes inspired generations of people struggling for political Conservation and Preservation: Some independence. A prominent goal which can be called a methodological goal was Ethical and Legal to make comparative study of tales across regions and times. A catalog of motifs Issues or prominent themes and events bearing similarity across various cultures was drawn up by various folklorists towards making comparative studies easier. There was a shift of emphasis in the mid-20th century, "from the past to present, from the search for origins to the investigation of present meaning and function", as the Britannica Ready Reference Encyclopedia notes. Indeed the role of folklore in changing economic and socio-political conditions worldwide is being seen as a resource for both understanding societies and enriching the self perception of communities. During the recent decades attention has been turned from actual narration to the embedded discourses hiding behind the narration. The apparent meaning may cover a deeper meaning and often contradict the values manifested at the surface. Discourse theory sees power as manifested in relationships which can be traced in behavioural rules, conduct rules, social mores and strictures, among others. However, at the same time there can be protest within the discourse. Thus discourse structures are also subject to change and variations and mutual conflicts. Discourse involves grounds on which social relations between individuals can be negotiated. In what ways do folklore and discourse coincide with each other? While looking at folklore as a source of the history of the 'folk' or common people and a record of the ways in which they engage with prevailing power structures to affirm their social identity is one way of understanding the relation between folklore and discourse, there can be other approaches. Some of the typical approaches to folklore today as broadly enumerated by eminent folklorist, M.D. Muthukumaraswamy include, the discourse of Regionalism, historical discourse including social history and literal history, the discourse of colonialism, the discourse of festival, popular discourse, the discourse of gender and the discourse of ideology, religion and worldview. This includes a wide spectrum of topics and indeed looking at folklore as discourse can involve many more approaches suited to particular social and political conditions. Given below are some perspectives on the ways in which folklore can become the discourse of various communities through history. 4.2 POPULAR DISCOURSE OF INSURGENCY Rebellions and insurrections are sometimes envisioned as a divinely sanctioned activity. The Munda tribes of the eastern states of India have a rich lore of rebel leaders who are believed to have been divinely inspired. On the eve of the Munda rebellion the rumour of the advent of 'Birsa Bhagwan', a great healer and religious guru, at a remote village called Chalkad, spread through songs and stories. Large numbers of Mundas, Oraons and Kherias set out for Chalkad, each with a gift of a small amount of rice. Among them were also crowds of armed men who came and stayed on. The armed mobilization was thus done as if it were a pilgrimage. "Quite clearly a religious enthusiasm fanned by rumour had laid the basis for a massive and armed mobilization of the Munda peasantry…" (Guha, Insurgency 267). The political was thus made to acquire a religious dimension and sanction. Some of the rumours on the eve and during peasant rebellions in our country in the 18th and 19th centuries which envisaged divine interference also attributed 47 Documentation, divine qualities to the leaders, real and imaginary. Thus on the eve of the 'hool' Preservation and Conservation of there was rumour of the appearance of a Subah, a deliverer, around Hazaribagh, Culture a man born of a tribal virgin. Kanu Santhal too, a leader of the 'hool', said, "The sonthals went for Shikar to Charichunaro… 1 man, 1 woman and one girl/a virgin/were there & cut the Lyo / a sort of grass/ they rubbed it & threw it about & it became Lyo fort or Lyghur the girl had a son who grew up at once and began to talk & became a soubah" (Guha 269). Eventually such rumours became part of the collective repository of legends. The deliverer, folk hero or rebel leader was to be divested with magical power. He was believed to be a healer, magician, saint or trickster.Asimilar phenomenon can be noted in Africa where the insurgents against foreign rule would ascribe to their leaders the attributes of a saint, healer, or magician. The tribal people, with their few and inadequate weapons perhaps sought confidence and affirmation in spreading such lore. The belief of the tribal insurgents that the bullets of the British would be turned to water by the magical powers of their leaders is an example of such lore. Similar myths were propagated about Birsa Munda, the great tribal hero from Chhotanagpur. A Munda song about a summer day of 1895, when "deep amidst [the] wild forest on [a] burnt and cleared upland Singbonga entered [Birsa's] heart" (Guha 274) describes the beginning of Birsa's career as a rebel-hero. After this Birsa could walk on water and heal, and deliver people. Similarly legends of the magical power of the queen of Jhansi were circulated by folk songs and ballads during 1857: The Queen can make soldiers Out of earth and stone. She can mould a wood Into a sword. She has made every hillock A horse - on which She has chased upto Gwalior. (Hemango Biswas) Similar legends about a leader of the 1857 mutiny, Khan Bahadur Khan abound. A rumour spread like wildfire through Bareilley in June 1858 "that Khan Bahadur Khan will re-enter Bareilley under [the] shelter of a miraculous dust-storm and annihilate his enemies" (Guha 270). This is no clever hypocritical propaganda. The collective imagination, eager to believe and regenerate their sense of identity, created these myths in an act of spontaneous imagination. Rumour, an 'intermediate form' (Levi-Strauss) between tale and myth, plays a very important part in this popular discourse. It is a free folk form that arises from the mass, changes quickly and gets increasingly stronger in the course of transmission. Thus it can have tremendous impact during insurgencies, rebellions or any kind of mass movement. Rumours are not spread as part of a planned scheme-rumours come up automatically from an ideology operating among the insurgents. The rumour about the polluting agent in the cartridges during 1857 48 proved inflammable and led to the first war of Independence. “The unity of all Conservation and Preservation: Some Indians and the opposition between them and their alien rulers were thus expressed Ethical and Legal in terms of a single theme-that of ritual pollution … That a little fear could Issues spread so far by means of simple verbal manipulation… was what made this type of popular discourse so alarming to “the rulers”. (Guha Insurgency 263- 264). Images of the enemy as perceived by the insurgent people are an important subset to myths, legends and rumours. During the times of insurgency the enemy was perceived in terms of a binarial frame: oppressor/oppressed, enemy/friend. Diku was the connotation of betrayer for the Munda rebels under Birsa Munda. The Mundari images for Diku signified the 'Other' or one that was not part of the community. The zamindar, the moneylender and the colonial overlord, all were referred to by this term. The big enemy or the colonial masters were bing (snakes), najom (witches), kula(tigers), etc. The victims standing up in defiance and revolt thus defined the oppressors from their own standpoint in terms of betrayal, treachery and depravity. Space formed a vital part of the discourse of tribal insurgency. Behind every tribal insurgency there operated a notion of a real space and the consequent grievance of dispossession along with a longing for reclamation of the same. Thus the discourse of a lost home and space as age-old birthright gave tribal people a certain impetus for the movement.As Singrai, a Cole leader, said: 'They have taken away from us our trees, fishes, lands and jagirs.' On the eve of the ulugan the Mundas sang ritual songs that lamented the loss of an original homeland and was meant to stir a longing towards the reclamation of the same.
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