University of Cincinnati

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date:___________________ I, _________________________________________________________, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in: It is entitled: This work and its defense approved by: Chair: _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ Paul Bunyan and The Evolution of the Tall Tale. By: Christopher T. Gier BS, BA 11/15/05 In accordance with requirements for: Masters of Anthropology Department of Anthropology McMicken College of Arts and Sciences Committee Chair: Martha Rees Abstract In Anthropology the tracking of cultural changes is paramount in understanding a culture’s present ideals and the past ideals from which they originate. In the case of many past cultures these changes are not recorded and may not be present in archaeological data, thus subtle but significant changes in the culture can go largely unnoticed. This thesis presents a way of determining cultural change through the changes in a culture’s folklore. Through analysis of the Paul Bunyan stories and the changes occurring to them over the course of 65 years, a depiction of cultural changes over this time can be produced, which prove to be fairly historically accurate. This theory could in turn be used to help determine previously unrecorded cultural change from societies where little cultural background has been recorded. I’m a lumberjack, and I’m ok, I sleeps all night, and I works all day… -The Monty Python Table of Contents Illustration 1: Created by Eben Given ……………………………………………….p.37 Illustration 2: Created by Michael McCurdy ………………………………………...p.38 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………p.41 They begin around a campfire, men come in from a hard day of work to sit a spell, attempt to drive away their thoughts and concerns and relax. They begin with a Grandfather sitting before the fire, his grandchild with him as they rock and stare into the flames. They begin with a mother tucking her child into bed, they begin “once upon a time” or “I recall a time” or “There we were, Ol' Paul and me”. They begin thousands of ways, amongst thousands of people in thousands of places around the world, but the result is always the same; they are always a story. Mankind has always had stories, and one thing that cannot be denied is that stories serve a purpose. Some stories are told to teach lessons, such as fables. Some are told to explain the world around us, such as earthquakes, lightning and even the seasons. Some are told to teach about the culture, to give insight to the way a society thinks and feels, and some explain the way the cosmos is designed and functions. Some exist merely to entertain, and some do some of these or all at once, the point being that there is a purpose to a story, a purpose given to it by the people who tell it, a purpose which has long been thought of as unchanging. But now we might raise the question, can the purpose of a story change? Is it possible that a story that once functioned to teach or explain can lose its original meaning and if so, what causes this to occur? In this thesis I intend to examine these questions and present evidence suggesting that in fact, stories do lose some of their original function due to changes in the society from which the story originates. I will begin with some background on this idea of change as well as some basic definitions of commonly used (or in some cases misused) words in these analyses. Then I will look at two different telling of the story of Paul 2 Bunyan, one from the early 1930s and one from the early 1990s in an attempt to see how these stories relate to the culture of their time, how that culture has changed and in turn how the story changes. Through this analysis it should become apparent that as the society from which a story originates changes, the story and its meaning change with it. In his work “Myth and Social History in the Early Southeast” Gregory Keyes brings forth a different idea regarding the nature of myth. Myth was once thought to be unchanging, that is to say that myth does not lose key elements in its story over the course of time. Myths still retain their original content and purpose even as the society changes (Rosenberg, 1997). Keyes suggests otherwise. It is his opinion that myth does lose vital details when the society changes to the point that the original purpose of the myth is no longer relevant. He reviewed two tellings of the same Apalachee myth, one from 1697 and the other dating some hundred years earlier. His findings suggest that over the course of a few hundred years the myth had changed, the motifs remained untouched but key details were removed. These details (such as character names and details regarding rituals) that were present over a hundred years ago in the myth no longer existed by 1697. Only through careful analysis and study did he find that these details related to specific details of the tribes life, giving legitimacy to their rituals and chiefdoms, which were later abolished by Spanish settlers around the late 1600s. The disappearance of social strata in Apalachee culture coincides with the disappearance of details in their myths which help to define those social strata. With no culture to reflect back on, these details were lost and all that remained was the general story. As society changes, so does myth, and that which was important and gave insight to the culture is lost as that aspect of culture is lost or transformed. 3 This brings to light the idea that it is possible for stories to change if the society from which it originates changes. If this is true then the question is why is this significant? If this holds true, then one could take the same story from two different time periods and through determining what factors are lost between the two and what could cause those losses, determine changes within the culture, either subtle or prominent, that may not have appeared from historical or archaeological data. By seeing how their stories changed, we could in turn find cultural changes either overlooked or not recorded. There are however a few key issues within Keyes’ study that can give rise to doubt. He suggests that the primary reason for the change is that the Spanish abolished much of their rituals and their chiefdom society resulting in a loss of social strata that was legitimized by their myths. Myth legitimizes culture, and if there is no culture left to legitimize, myth loses its purpose. I agree this is the primary reason for these changes occurring; however he overlooks a few factors that should be taken into consideration. These changes in this myth occur over the course of a couple hundred years. This allows for a large time period for these myths to be truly lost to interpretation and error by the teller. These stories are primarily told via oral tradition, and as with all stories passed down orally they are subject to numerous changes. Storytellers can forget details, story tellers can leave out information, they can accidentally not mention something, mistakes can be made and the story passed on is unintentionally different from its original version. What is retained is what is significant to the storyteller at the time, and if the detail that was once important no longer is deemed important, it can easily be forgotten. Hundreds of years are quite a bit of time for a story to change unintentionally and with only a few written versions details can be easily lost. So while the primary cause of change in the 4 myth may be culturally based, one cannot rule out the possibility of random change over the course of time. Thus in order to be sure change is indeed due to cultural changes and not due to random change over time, one must minimize the timeframe of the change in both the culture and the story. One need not go back to the 1600s to find examples of these changes. Societies as we know them are in a constant state of change, adapting more and more each minute. Over a hundred years ago America was a much different place, with different lifestyles, ideas, and even folktales; the prime example of the American folktale being the tall tale. Before I continue on there needs to be some clarification over what is considered a myth and what is considered folklore. Often the terms “myth” and “folklore” are interchangeable, which is not entirely accurate. While stories are designed to entertain to say the primary purpose of either of these is entertainment and therefore nothing changes is not effective, as one cannot argue that a myth or a folktale is designed to entertain while the other serves a deeper purpose. Both can be shown to be entertainment for an audience, and are at least at that level on the same field. We must look at deeper purposes to determine the overall purpose of a story. Myth has been defined as a story that grants some universal truth about the greater world to a culture (Rosenberg, 1997). These are often religious in nature and have to deal with large scale global and universal interactions, such as the movement of stars, seasons, etc. Levi-Strauss defines myths as stories passed from person to person which, regardless of its objective truth, capture something culturally or symbolically significant (Levi- Strauss, 1979). Thus a myth contains some aspect or idea which is considered significant by a culture; the myth is a representation of something significant to the culture.

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