UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

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Paul Bunyan and The Evolution of the . 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 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 , 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. Folklore

5 follows a very similar pattern, and has been used interchangeably with the word myth for quite some time. Levi-Strauss himself uses the two for the same meaning, thus one could say his definition of myth applies here too. However, folklore tends to encompass more than merely stories, including customs, dances, sayings and other cultural interactions

(Dundes, 1965). Perhaps a better definition would be that folklore is a collection of cultural interactions, including stories, dances, sayings, etc. that captures something significant to a particular group within the society at a particular time. While myth tends to focus on the overall ideals of the culture, folklore deals with the specifics of the culture it originates from. It functions to give insight into the ideas of society, to define, explain and legitimize roles and duties within the society, and even define the moral ideals of the society. Thus there is a distinction between folklore and myth on the levels of a cultural significance of their ideas. A myth may contain something significant to the society as a whole, while folklore contains that which is significant to a particular section of that society. However that is not to say that which affects the realm of folklore has no effect on the realm of myth. Both folklore and myth draw heavily upon the cultures from which they originate. The contain something of significance to the society from which they originate. Folklore is linked to a more specific aspect of the society than myth, but a connection is there. Myth and folklore are ways for a culture to express what is significant to them.

Contained within the definition of folklore is a particular type of story which we will be focusing on, the tall tale. A tall tale is a story which reflects upon a specific aspect of a society, such as a lifestyle or personality type, but does so in a humorous and exaggerated way. While representing ideas of the society, much of these types of stories

6 are exaggerated for entertainment. This is an important detail to keep in mind during the analysis of the Paul Bunyan tales, as we must separate out what is truly a reflection of the society, and what is merely added for entertainment value.

The tall tale served two functions in the American society in the early 1900s, first and foremost like any myth or folktale it was meant to entertain. In a time without our modern distractions such as television or radio, stories were shared to pass time and entertain on all levels of society and throughout all ages. However there is a second role of the tall tale, not quite as apparent but serves the same purpose as a myth; it gives legitimacy to the aspect of society it reflects back on. Each of the tall tale heroes represents an aspect of society that occurred during the time of its creation. was a representation of the railroad worker and the power of the human spirit, a representation of the “Wild West” and the cowboy ideal, and Paul Bunyan represented the , the woodsmen and outdoorsmen in the society.

Assuming this is true and the tall tale heroes do represent aspects of their society as well as merely an entertaining story, then we are left to wonder what happens to these myths when that aspect of society they are based upon disappears. Keyes suggests that the myth will change, details which reflected back on the society these characters are based in will be removed and only the bare story will remain, since people will not persist in telling details that legitimize a society long past. To test this theory, I look at one of the more prominent figures in the tall tale pantheon, the legendary lumberjack Paul

Bunyan.

One last idea that needs to be addressed is the notion of “” or stories which masquerade as folktales for a specific time or culture when in actuality they are not

7 developed by that culture but from an outside source. This idea, originally put forth by

Richard Dorson, is commonly used to refer to the Paul Bunyan myth, citing its origins to professional writers hired by the lumber companies to give a positive image to the lumber industry. Since this is not the focus of my work, but could undermine my research, I will address it briefly. The written stories appear in the 1930s, a period where lumberjacking is still active. Even if its origins do not come from lumberjacks but rather hired authors, the point remains that these stories we adopted by the people they are supposed to be coming from, so much so that there is documented conflict over who the stories originate from. The point is that if these stories were fabricated and are not traditionally created folktales, they were whole-heartedly adopted and accepted into the community they supposedly came from and thus became the folktales for those people. Much like a person can be adopted and accepted into a culture not their own, and in turn become a person recognized as part of that culture by others and those of the culture itself; the origin is irrelevant if the people accept them as one of their own. If the culture holds these stories to be their own, and from Dorson’s evidence there is indeed a mass acceptance of these stories as belonging to the lumberjack community and not as a fabrication reflecting on the community but not of the community, then these stories are part of that culture, since the people of that culture claim them to be so, and as such origin is irrelevant (Dorson, 1976). With that being said, I will turn now to the analysis of the Paul Bunyan stories.

The story of Paul Bunyan was selected for numerous reasons: First it is a relatively recent example of a folktale, having a much shorter period of time to change in.

This should help rule out any change due to time. One would expect to lose less of the

8 story over 70 years due to people forgetting it than over 200 years. Second it is directly linked to a lifestyle of our society which at the story origin existed but no longer exists today so there is potential for change due to cultural changes. It is one of the more well documented and recorded folktales, allowing us to encompass as much of the stories of

Paul Bunyan as possible to help determine if and when certain aspects of the story are lost.

My method is fairly simple; I have two fairly complete tellings of the Paul

Bunyan stories, one collection from 1930 when the folktales was first written down in their entirety (Here’s Audacity by Frank Shay) and one collection from 1991 (American

Tall Tales by Mary Osborne). The collection from 1991 has cited these 1930s tellings as sources, suggesting the writer has knowledge of the entirety of the story before they began the modern retelling. This is important for two reasons: it helps to lessen chances of any loss of the story due to simply forgetting the details and it suggests that the writers of the modern retelling selected which aspects of the story to tell and which to ignore.

There is no loss of information from the speaker that could be attributed to oral tradition.

I have selected a series of passages from the original tellings of the stories which

I believe function to give relevancy only to the lumberjacking lifestyle. That is, these are the passages that seem to show some ties to their origin culture and are not just entertainment. If there cannot be change in these kinds of stories, I would expect these passages to appear in the modern retellings even though the culture no longer requires them. If however these stories can change and do change with the culture, then these segments of stories which hold relevancy to the lumberjacking lifestyle should not be

9 present in the modern retelling, as they are no longer supported by our new culture base, similar to the titles and positions of chiefs and leaders in Keyes’ analysis.

Therefore if it is possible to alter folklore by altering the society from which it originates, and then it should be possible to alter myth with a large enough change (Rosenberg,

1997).

What I am supporting in Keyes research is not that the nature of myths can change, but rather that as societies change the stories directly linked to them change as well. This possibility for change suggests that one cannot with complete confidence say that any story linked to a culture cannot be changed when the culture it is based in changes, no matter if its focus is a strictly cultural aspect or a revelation of a “world truth”. By determining that stories tied to culture can change when the culture no longer has need for their purpose, then one can question if any form of story, myth or folklore, no matter what its purpose, is truly free of change. If both folklore and myth are linked to their respective societies, and if it can be shown that a change in the society can alter the purpose of a folktale, then it should indeed be possible to alter the purpose of a myth, if given a strong enough cultural change.

This does not however mean that the primary purpose of myths and folktales will be lost or changed. What it does mean however is that the secondary purposes of the story could disappear and ultimately the overall function of the story changes. One would not hesitate to say the life of a lumberjack was an easy one and hard work is to be praised, and the story of Paul Bunyan to this day still supports that notion (it is the primary purpose), however what can be lost is the legitimacy of being a lumberjack as a lifestyle. Similarly with Keyes’ analysis, the history of the ball game remains but the

10 legitimacy of the chiefdom disappears. The point is not that the main idea leaves, but the secondary meanings that defined the culture are lost.

Let me begin first with a brief background of the origins of this myth and the society from which the myth came. The first real appearance of the Paul Bunyan myth to the general public dates to 1910 as a brief mention in a Detroit newspaper story by James

MacGillivary (Hoffman, 1952). Before this time the stories of the mighty lumberjack were told via word of mouth making them very localized in occurrence and they rarely made their way from the logging camps. It wasn’t until the 1920’s that these stories became of interest to the general public and were recorded and printed as collections of the extravagant tales (Hoffman, 1952). During this time most of New England and the upper Midwest were undergoing serious logging and deforestation. Being a lumberjack in these areas was a common job, but one that required hard work and long periods of time from family (Hoffman, 1952).

The life of a lumberjack was not an easy one. One faced numerous problems both with nature and with technology. Logging camps were usually on site, far from any town and could range in size from 30 to over a hundred workers, including cooks, foremen, dishwashers, bookkeepers, blacksmiths as well as actual fellers (tree-cutters). Workdays would run 12-14 hours each day with cramped sleeping spaces and little protection from the elements (Cox, 1983). Tools included hand axes, broad axes, saws, climbing spikes, and ropes. Trees were hauled by hand to rivers where they were floated downstream to sawmills for processing. Often the shipment was escorted down by one or more men literally riding a log downriver, attached with a series of spiked boots and corkscrew-like grips as well as a steering rod to guide the log they rode on (Hoffman, 1952). The life

11 was not without its problems from nature either; drying rivers, heavy storms, bitter winters, insects, wild animals, mudslides all of which had to be dealt with regularly by the lumberjack (Hoffman, 1952). With minimal shelter, no sign of civilization for miles, and minimal technology lumberjacks were literally outdoorsmen, forced to overcome nature and deal with the wild using what little tools they had and their wit. It was a life many of us would rather avoid, particularly today, and yet to the lumberjacks it was a valid and justified life. They were proud of who they were and what they did, and to express it the created a hero who was one of them. Someone who grew up with nature, who understood the trials they had to face and the life they lived. Someone who embodied their ingenuity and what they held dear. They created Paul Bunyan.

The first appearances of Paul Bunyan in 1910 to the mainstream public were limited at best. He appeared only as a name but with none of the exaggeration of his person. It wasn’t until 1916 that a professor Homer A. Watt and Bernice Stewart put forth an academic but brief analysis of the stories in an article called “Legends of Paul

Bunyan, Lumberjack” (Hoffman, 1952). This along with a publication by W.B. Laughead put out the image of Paul as a giant lumberjack, capable of his know super human size, strength and feats. These early publications did not include the full stories, but rather a report of what details the stories contained. It wasn’t until the 1930’s that the Paul

Bunyan stories were presented as they were told with very detailed information on Paul’s history and personality.

If we are to assume that there are aspects of the story that change when the lumberjack lifestyle no longer exists, we must first isolate these aspects in the earliest tellings of the stories and show how they function to give legitimacy and support to the

12 lumberjack lifestyle. That is to say we need to find things that are beneficial to supporting lumberjack life or give praise to the lumberjack lifestyle and then see if over time they vanish. This analysis can be split into two major groups, stories involving Paul himself and stories involving his crew and Babe, his blue ox. I will get to what makes the crew important in a moment but first we need to look at what stories of Paul do more than merely entertain.

Let’s begin first with the general description of Paul Bunyan as presented in the

1930s. He is seen as a giant, even as a baby, with incredible strength, a physical trait that would indeed be important to logging. As a child he showed a general playfulness as well as his uncanny affinity for chopping wood and wielding an axe. He began work like all lumberjacks around the age of 15 and aside from his particular differences due to his massive size lived a typical life of a lumberjack. (Shay, 1930) He was in the wild, dealt with nature and worked a hard day. He was said to have the stamina to work a week on end and required only 20 minutes of sleep. (Shay, 1930) He was said to have a particular hatred for machinery, feeling more affinity towards his axe and his own two hands.

Looking at this we can see a few minor details that strike as more than merely what is needed for telling an entertaining story. He is described as a giant, even as an infant, and possesses incredible strength. These are ideal traits for a lumberjack, but at the same time an ideal description for an entertaining hero for a story. So while there is some match up of these traits as support for lumberjacking it is primarily a description of the character so probably isn’t linked to the society. Second we have the image of him as a child loving to use his axe, again showing dedication for the field but the image of a child, a giant child, wielding an axe and playfully, almost unknowingly chopping down

13 everything is sight is more entertainment then for support of a lifestyle. The next comment regarding him beginning work at 15 and living the typical life of the lumberjack however does not follow merely an entertainment value. Rather it appears more like a setup for his character to relate to the lumberjack lifestyle. He started just like every other lumberjack, and lived the life of every other lumberjack, thus he is for all intents and purposes both a tall tale character and at the same time the standard lumberjack.

Next we get details regarding his stamina, being able to work a full week on twenty minutes of sleep. This is a mighty impressive feat, and makes Paul all the more impressive but why mention it? It could be merely a device to add to Paul’s unbelievable person, but at the same time could be saying something about lumberjacks in general.

They can work long hours on little sleep, maybe not on the same scale Paul could, but on the same token Paul lives a typical lumberjack life, so while the numbers are skewed, there is a reflection that lumberjacks have a sort of enduring stamina for work. Lastly we have this particular hated for machinery, preferring his axe and his two hands. New technology tends to have one of two effects upon a person, either it is embraced and used or it can be feared and shunned. On a side note this could also demonstrate a fear that the lumberjacks could indeed be replaced by machinery, a common fear in Tall Tales such as this, shown particularly well in the tale of John Henry. Machinery takes away from really being a lumberjack, a way of separating the true lumberjacks from merely the tree- choppers. A fear of technology and a preference for hard manual labor also suggests that the people of this time hold some amount of respect for hard work and a job done by hand, as well as a desire to keep their jobs. All of these are viable options, and only analysis into the actual stories can tell us for sure which of these seem to fit.

14 Having taken a quick glimpse into the relationship of Paul Bunyan and the characters relationship with the society from which he came, let us now turn to the actual passages from the 1930s telling which seem to show a link to what life was like as a lumberjack and legitimizing the lumberjack lifestyle. The first passage we come across that seems to show significance outside of mere entertainment is a brief statement regarding Paul's educational background.

“…Those of us who worked with Paul and knew his as well as anybody could tell you that he’d never been the great logger he was if he had a schooling. If he had been able to read and write one of those big colleges down east would have made him an offer to join their football team. All Paul would have got was his picture in the paper.” (Shay, 1930 p.167)

Here we have a fairly interesting comment regarding this character. Not having a formal education, or even being literate was not a hindrance to Paul Bunyan, it was in fact to his benefit. By not having a formal education and by not going to school he became a great and legendary person as opposed to a picture in the paper and soon forgotten. The question then becomes why have this passage? Why not make Paul educated, or even at the basest level literate? The answer in fact is because most lumberjacks were not formally educated or even literate. During the 1900s formal education and literacy were traits of the upper class, while a majority of lumberjacks were members of the lower classes. This is a statement to relate lumberjacks to the great deeds of Paul Bunyan, the idea being that "Paul wasn't educated and he wasn't literate but look what he could do, so why does it matter that I am not educated or literate." In this case they go so far as to say it is better that you not be educated, the idea that education is what keeps you from your true calling. This statement as one other purpose as well. It

15 adds to the overall ingenuity of Paul's later achievements and inventions. By making him uneducated, his inventions seem all that more impressive as one cannot merely tie his ingenuity to he formal education. Again, a device that causes this character to reflect well on the lumberjacking society. Just because a person is uneducated, it does not mean that they are not intelligent and cannot handle situations the same or better than an educated person. It makes Paul Bunyan’s deeds a testament to the uneducated and illiterate, the majority of people from which this story originates.

The next passage we look at comes from a series of stories regarding Paul’s ingenuity. The first occurs when Paul is a young man learning to be a lumberjack.

"It was while he was working for Old Man Curry that he first learned of his ingenuity. He studied the swing of his axe and decided that if there was a tree behind him he could cut that on the backwards swing. He then invented the double-bit ax and wove a grass handle to make it pliant. Up and down the forest he went, one cut on the forward swing and another on the backward." (Shay, 1930 p.171)

This invention ties in with a second invention dedicated to Paul Bunyan early in his life, the grindstone.

"Another invention of Paul's was made while he was at the Curry camp. This was the grindstone that is used on every farm and in every factory today. Before Paul's time, axmen used to sharpen their tools by rolling rocks downhill and running alongside of them. It took an axman seven days to properly sharpen his ax, and the waste of time, when you stop to think they had to be sharpened every other day, was something awful. Paul's first grindstone was so large that every time it made a single revolution it was payday. He built it for himself. It took two hundred engineers thinking for two months to adapt it so ordinary men could use it. Now you find them everywhere and does a man sharpening his ax ever give Paul Bunyan a thought? (Shay, 1930 p.172) "

The first example gives us a general idea of the common ingenuity of Paul and in turn

16 lumberjacks in general. Without an education Paul was still able to observe a situation and develop a way for it to be in his favor. In this case he observes that on his swing back he could chop another tree, thus allowing him to cut down more trees, so he develops a two-headed axe with a very flexible handle so that he can get the most out of his actions. Now we know that the two bit ax wasn't likely invented by Paul Bunyan, but the point is that he is able to observe his surroundings and develop a way to make the most of his actions. This of course reflecting back on all lumberjacks as being observant and resourceful.

The better example of this, although far more exaggerated, can be seen in the second passage. Here we have young Paul producing a tool well known in many fields, the grindstone. If we remove everything that doesn't cover the main point, the entertaining bits about size and number and merely look at the base of this story we get an image very much in praise of Paul. He develops an object, in this case a tool, which is used commonly across the globe. We have a situation set up where there is no good way to sharpen axes (exaggerated in this case to requiring seven days to perform), so Paul takes it upon himself to develop a new way, and he develops a grindstone designed for him. The image given is a common man at this time, with little education, is able to produce an extremely useful tool merely by recognizing a problem and observing the world around him. This idea alone would be beneficial to the image of the lumberjack, as it reflects that they can produce and develop useful and clever ways of doing work faster and more efficient. However it is the last part of this passage that truly suggests that this story is indeed intended to reflect well upon the average lumberjack. The comment about two hundred engineers thinking for two months to develop this device for common use is

17 preposterous at best, but it does say something. It tells the listener that a common man, little education but some observation and know-how can show up the educated scientific person. Its a direct example of the common man triumphing over those commonly considered his superiors and therefore would be ideal in placing common men, like lumberjacks, equal or above the people often seen as superior, the educated upper class.

So we've seen some situations now where there is support for a person being uneducated and even illiterate and turning out to be fine and in some cases superior in society. Lumberjacks began their career around the age of 14, many coming from lower class families and having little to no education. They would not be a group held within high regard within society. They served a purpose, worked hard, but would never be recognized as much of anything since they lacked the education and renown of the upper class. Naturally this would generate conflict; people who are considered of lower standing often do have some disregard for members of a higher class. The idea that a lower class person can become the peers of nobility is not a recent notion and has appeared in stories throughout history, such as Cinderella or the story of King Arthur. It makes sense then that the lumberjacks would have a story that supported them as well. A character that shared their background and succeeded in being equal to, or superior to the upper society. These two stories above are some of the prime examples of this.

In keeping with this trend that the common man can rise above his limitations and be equal or superior to those who would be above him, the next passage gives a direct example of how this simple, uneducated lumberjack can’t be outsmarted or manipulated unfairly by the upper class. The story begins with Bill Puget, a man given a grant to produce Puget Sound in two years time. As his deadline draws near a friend (George

18 Hood) suggests first he fire his workers and hire badgers to do the job, which he has work on the job night and day for nine months. Finally when things looked bleak Hood suggested he get Paul Bunyan to finish the job for him.

“Get Paul Bunyan to finish it up in a hurry” said Billy’s mentor. “He’ll cost too much” objected Billy. “Not if you work it right. Take him in on shares, give him tenth interest in the contract and he’ll work his fool head off for you.” (Shay, 1930) The plan is simple, offer Paul Bunyan a cheap price and since he won’t know any better he’ll take it and work himself to death. A common motif, the lower class break their backs while the upper class benefits and laughs because they cheated the common man. Certainly a situation that would have been encountered by lumberjacks as well as any member of the working class, and it is of no surprise we see it here. How Paul deals with it, however, is what makes this piece empower the lumberjack as a respectable job.

“So Paul Bunyan went out to the State of Washington and looked the situation over. I did not know how shrewd Paul was until I saw him figuring out what the job was worth. He took a stick and with his penknife commenced notching it. For three-four hours he kept silent and made notches on the stick. After a while he looked at Billy Puget and asked “How much did you say you were getting for the job?” “Five million dollars” said Puget “and I lose it all if it isn’t finished on time” “I know you for a liar, Bill Puget” said Paul “and if you admit you are making five million for that job it means you’ll stand to make twice that amount. My price for finishing the job will be just five million dollars.” “Impossible! I’ve already spent two million on the work and at your price I stand to lose that much.” “Take it or leave it,” said Paul as he prepared to return to Oregon. “Come back and I’ll give you three million, just what I stand to make if this is completed.” But Paul Bunyan was already five miles away and didn’t hear him. “Billy” said George Hood “seems to me Paul was reasonable enough. You’re getting ten Million for the job, you’ve spent two million and you stand to make three million clear. I think you should accept.” Two men catch up to Paul and tell him Mr. Puget accepts his offer. “I knew he was going to” said Paul, “I was on my way to get Babe and my assistants. Tell Billy I’ll be back in a few days ready for work.” Paul was good on his word. By the end of the week his team was assembled (Shay, 1930 p.213-215).

19 Here we have a prime example of how respect is given to the common man. The upper class attempts to cheat Paul out of money, offering an unfair price for his work in the belief he won’t know better and will accept. Paul however turns the tables on these men.

He uses what he can, in this case notches on a stick, to tell him the value of this job. It takes time, but he works it out that the price isn’t fair and realizes that he’s being taken for a ride. Rather than accepting, he demands the fair price for the work. At this point the educated man attempts to cheat him by offering him a slightly higher price begging for pity as he will make nothing on the job, but again Paul does not fall for it, and leaves.

It is only when Puget accepts and goes to find Paul that we learn that it was Paul who was manipulating Puget. The common, uneducated man got the better of a person who would try to abuse his ignorance.

This story gives us a few bits of information regarding the culture at the time of the 1930s. First we see the idea that educated people are crooked and underhanded.

They will attempt to cheat and manipulate anyone they can if they believe they can get away with it. This idea suggests a contempt for the upper class by the working class, easily seen by these underhanded meetings between two men of educated upper class status having an almost “secret meeting” to discuss how to get the most out of the lower classes for the cheapest possible price. First these educated men fire the workers and hire someone cheaper and work them twice as hard. Then when that doesn’t work, they get someone who can do the job but cheat them out of a fair price. The story suggests a conspiracy theory; the upper class will lie, cheat and steal with no care or concern to get what they want and benefit as much as possible. Certainly a common belief today amongst the working class, and most definitely held by the lumberjacks of the time.

20 Second it suggests that the lumberjack cannot be fooled so easily. Sure Paul may not be educated, but he can sense when something isn’t right, and he takes his time to work out the problem. Over time he eventually realizes he is going to be cheated, and confronts Puget. Not everyone in the working class is stupid and can be taken advantage of. In fitting with the first motif, the upper class person lies in attempt to take advantage of Paul, but Paul sees through it. Still the upper class continues to shamelessly lie in attempt to take advantage of the working class but Paul, the ideal of the working class, sees the scam and walks off. Eventually the greedy Puget realizes he will make no money if he doesn’t get Paul, and offers Paul the fair price, only to realize that Paul knew he would and was going to do it anyway. The working class can’t be taken advantage of, and is capable of determining when they are being cheated.

Not only did Paul not fall for these underhanded dealings, but is good to his word and does the job for the fair price. So since Paul is the standard for the working class lumberjack, we get the immediate image that the working class is moral and just. They will not be scammed and do not resort to underhanded acts for business. The can be just as tricky as the upper class, but will not abuse or take advantage of others to benefit beyond what is fair. These are the kind of traits one would like to associate with, the kind of traits that make you shrewd and cunning in a world where people would abuse you, but on the same hand, moral, just and fair, all ideals we hold dear. This is the image Paul gives to the lumberjacks, the uneducated working class man who cannot be taken advantage of, who will always come out on top, who is fair and just and will not sacrifice his beliefs for profit or abuse others for his benefit. Lofty ideals and the kind of image any job would want reflected upon them. Certainly these stories give a legitimacy and

21 respect to the trade of lumberjacking as a viable way of life and give lumberjacks an appeal and glamour.

Not every example in Paul Bunyan is an appeal to lofty ideals. Some are down to earth representations of the lifestyle. One prime example of this has to do with family, particularly the family of Paul Bunyan himself. For a champion of lumberjacks and one of the greatest American heroes Paul’s family leaves more than just a little to be expected. Beginning first with Paul’s wife, Minnie, who hardly seems like the ideal woman for a person like Paul.

“Then there was Mrs. Bunyan. How Paul ever came to marry her is more than I know. Paul loved her and she loved him. She was ugly and she had a wooden leg. It’s a fact that we could scrape enough ugly off her face to grease all the skidways. Her wooden leg was a caution. Once I spent a whole year scraping off the old paint and giving it two new coats. She was a demon. Time was when Paul got a job in the off season splitting fence rails. The price was so low that Paul had to put Minnie to work. Well she went right off and worked like Paul, who was right beside her all day. About four o’clock she asked Paul to come over and help her get her ax out of a log that had closed down on it. Paul came over and, by Harry, found that she had no ax-head on her handle. They went back looking for it and they found she had lost it after splitting three-four logs in the morning so she had been splitting logs all day with just the handle.

She was just as dumb as she was ugly. I knew her first on the Big Onion where she was camp cook. Her big specialty was double-holed doughnuts and soft- nosed flapjacks. The double-holed doughnuts were a big saving in her kitchen budget. Time was when she was combing her hair with a crosscut saw and using the Big Onion [River] for a mirror. She must have suddenly realized how ugly she was and opened her mouth. Out popped her false teeth and they sunk in forty feet of water. She set up a terrible yowling and Paul quit work to see what was the matter. She pointed to her teeth way down on the river bed. And then she yowled some more. Paul told her to shut up and went to get one of her double holed doughnuts. He tied a rope to the doughnut and lowered it into the water. Just as the doughnut arrived above the false teeth they snapped at it and Paul pulled them to the surface. After that all was well.” (Shay 1930 p.197-199)

Certainly a creative bit of storytelling but quite effective. Paul’s wife is indeed described

22 as one of the most unattractive people in history and storytelling. Everything about her is designed to repulse us, from her physical features to her personality. From her greatly exaggerated hideousness, described in the raw amounts of “ugly” you could scrape off her face to her poorly kept wooden leg, her hair combed with a cross saw and her false teeth she is a well described abomination. As commonly quoted though, it’s what on the inside that counts, which is just as horrendous as her physical appearance. For starters we have an image of her splitting logs, where we find she is so dumb she not only fails to realize she is missing her ax head but has spent the better part of the day actually splitting logs with only the handle. If Paul is the ingenious inventor of devices to make his work easier, she is easily his superior in making the work more difficult. This is seen again in her creation of the double-holed doughnut. On the basest level it seems like it would make sense. If a doughnut has a hole, then if you add a second hole less dough is used.

Of course then more doughnuts need to be made to feed the men, so in the end her innovation succeeds in creating more work for herself than less work. Then we learn that when a problem arises she can’t deal with it herself; she has to have Paul fix it. This of course forces Paul to stop everything he is doing to help her out of a situation she could probably fix herself. Finally we find that not only is she incapable of handling her own problems but when a problem occurs she yowls and wails like a child at the top of her lungs, making her even less attractive.

Along with his abomination of a wife, Paul has two children who seem to take more after their mother than their legendary father.

“Then Paul had a son named Jean and a daughter named Teenie. Both were pretty big for their size but like all children of genius remained undistinguished. All Jean was good for was mule-skinning and there’s no lower job then that. Teenie

23 sat around all day eating prunes and there’s no lower appetite than that. After Paul became resigned to his funny offspring he put Jean to work hauling Teenie’s prune pits off to the dump. (Shay 1930 p.199)

It is quite apparent that neither of Paul’s children shares his ingenuity or personality traits. In fact the best details we receive about these children tell us that they are the lowest type of person they could possibly be, and Paul has resigned himself to the fact that his children are, for lack of a better word, a disgrace. In the end they serve no purpose and produce nothing other than to try and help with their mutual ineptitude. Jean can’t do anything worthwhile so he’s sent to drag off the pits of prunes that his sister produces.

The question then becomes one of why give Paul Bunyan, this great icon such a horrible family? His wife is hardly an ideal wife for a great man, she is no Penelope to her husband’s Odysseus, and his children so no skills or drive to be like their father, so why should such a great hero have such a horrible family. There are a few explanations for this. First it could become a point to reflect back upon the lives of the lumberjacks, a representation that no matter how bad your own family may seem, Ol’ Paul has it worse--

Sort of a best of the worst to add to Paul’s far better-than-average record, something that makes him stand out, but at the same time boost the image of the people he’s coming from. It seems likely it could also be due to the lumberjack lifestyle. These men would spend months at a time alone in the wilderness; family was a luxury during the few times you went into town, if you had time for a family at all. Certainly the idea of finding a wife and raising a family would be ideal for the men at this time, but due to work finding a wife and raising a family would be difficult if not impossible. To deal with this, it seems simple enough to downplay the whole idea of having a family. If having a family

24 seems less ideal, then trying to have one seems less important. The result then is to give your perfect representation, Paul Bunyan in this case, a family so repulsive that it seems pointless to attempt to raise one of your own. Should someone would ask a lumberjack

“don’t you ever want to settle down and have a family?” the lumberjack can respond to what happened to Paul Bunyan when he did so. Granted it is greatly exaggerated, but it would produce some minor comfort in the fact that a family would be difficult to obtain given the lifestyle.

But family was not the only hardship that had to be endured by a lumberjack; they would more often be forced to deal with nature. In keeping with the last motif of giving a bad situation for your hero to make the listener feel better about their own, we come across a series of stories involving Paul and nature. The first passage involves dealing with creatures of nature, in this case some giant Canadian mosquitoes.

“Man, they were so big they used to pry the shakes off the roof so they could get in at us. Paul put a big gang with spears all about the camp but that did no good. Then Inkslinger came with his big idea. Somewhere he had heard about the big bumblebees down Iowa way. He got Paul’s ear and got permission to import six yolk of them. His idea was that the bees would sting the mosquitoes to death but it didn’t work that way. No sir. Those bees just fell in love with the slender young lady mosquitoes and they intermarried. Their babies all had stingers on both ends and when you saw one of those insects going away from you you were completely fooled. It only ment he was backing and filling to give his other end a chance. These fellows grew so big they had three-gallon stomachs and their bee blood was their undoing. They craved sugar and when all the flowers on the Big Onion country had been destroyed they had a famine amongst themselves. One scout came back with a tale of a molasses ship coming up the Mississippi. He looked so fat and happy that all the other insects made what is now called a bee- line to that ship. They ate so much molasses that they couldn’t fly and all sunk in the Mississippi and drown [sic]. That was known as an Inkslinger victory. Johnny’s best job was with his fountain pen and his ledgers (Shay, 1930 p.196- 197).”

Again, quite a creative story, but it can serve some purpose for the lumberjack society.

25 First and foremost it gives us insight into the problems lumberjacks have with nature; much in the same way Paul’s family was representative of family problems. Anyone who as spent time in the wild can tell you what an annoyance mosquitoes can be, and how painful a bee sting can be, both being common annoyances with lumberjacks out in the woods most of the year. By creating these bee-squitoes, we have a problem far worse than the two common ones, tack on how large they are and they become a colossal problem. The point however is twofold, first it shows that there are all sorts of problems that can occur in the wild, and second it presents yet another “well Paul had it worse” situation. One detail that stands out is the focus on Johnny Inkslinger as the champion of this tale. Johnny Inkslinger is the bookkeeper of Paul’s lumberjacking crew and the only member who can read, write and count. This brings us back into the issues with education. Johnny sees the problem and comes up with an “educated” solution. Of course his solution results in a greater problem, and then eventually a solution in a round about fashion. Johnny didn’t actually solve the problem but rather the problem solved itself by accident. The educated man’s solution only worked by accident, and made the situation worse before it got better. Here we have an idea that the educated man has no benefit in the wild, and in fact seems to be at a loss. This is further proven by the statement at the end of this passage. Leave the educated men to their intellectual work and leave dealing with nature to the men who can handle it.

All of these details give us insight into Paul Bunyan and in turn insight into lumberjacks and the lumberjack lifestyle. Paul’s physical traits, his strength, stamina and innovation give us details into what lumberjacks consider beneficial and ideal for their lifestyle. The stories about education give us insight that while being uneducated is not a

26 hindrance, but rather beneficial to living and surviving in the wild. The story about

Puget’s Sound tells us about the morals and ideals held by the lumberjacks, as well as their feelings about the upper class and the educated. It also tells us about how, while uneducated, they cannot and will not be taken advantage of, an idea any group of people would love to portray in regards to themselves. We also see what kind of problems they run into and how they try to cope with these problems; problems such as nature and the beasts of the wild, and problems of the heart, love and family and the loss that comes when they cannot be obtained. All of these passages give us insight into the culture from which they came, and from the small details we can see what life for a 1900s lumberjack was like, and how they wished to be seen by their peers.

Now let’s move forward in time to the present. Today lumberjacking as it was known in the early 1900s is all but obsolete. In 1890 more than 117,000 people were employed in lumberjacking and sawmill work in Michigan, Wisconsin and alone (Zon, 1940). According to the U.S. Census by 1970 this number had dropped to

79,507 across the entire and has continued to drop. Machinery takes care of most of the work, inventions such as chainsaws and tree-cutters which do the work of multiple men. Cranes and trucks are used to move the lumber on a much larger scale.

Logging camps are almost non existent except in cases where they are attempting to preserve the lifestyle for nostalgia. Being able to cut down more trees quickly means men don’t have to work 12-14 hour days, now no longer permitted by labor laws, and transportation allows them to be home with their families in time for dinner. Likewise it is no longer cost effective for businesses to have men out for 12 hours laboring when twice the work can be done in half the time.

27 Lumberjacking as it is known has become a sport on cable television, save for a few people who still practice old style lumberjacking. The term “outdoorsman” has come to represent recreational campers, backpackers, fishermen, but not someone forced to deal with nature day in and day out like the lumberjack. The actual lifestyle has disappeared; all that remains is nostalgia for the old style of lumberjacking much the same way that the chiefdoms of the Apalachee people disappeared with the Spanish

Conquest. The life of a lumberjack has become a memory.

Without the backbone of the story, without the lumberjack in existence, what then happened to the myth of Paul Bunyan? Around the 1950s the tall tales seemed to disappear from the public eye. There were no lumberjacks, thus there was no support for the stories regarding them. It wasn’t until recently that the tall tale came back into public interest. People began to look for the old stories, to rewrite them, but not as entertaining stories for all ages. Whereas the stories of Paul Bunyan were released for the interest of the general public in 1930, come the 1990s they are released as children stories. They are merely entertaining stories about a time past, but with no details that would explain or legitimize logging as a way of life. Mary Osborne’s work American Tall Tales, the

source of the modern retelling of the Paul Bunyan myth used for this study, cites

numerous resources from which she gathered information, including James Bowman’s

The Adventures of Paul Bunyan, W.B. Laughead’s Paul Bunyan, Glen Round’s Ol’ Paul

the Mighty Logger and Frank Shay’s Here’s Audacity which is in fact the particular

telling of the story selected for the earlier myth of Paul Bunyan. What this tells us is that

she was familiar with the particular telling of the story selected as the origin myth, down

to the last detail. However, what we see is exactly what Keyes proposed in his study,

28 only in this case we can be sure that the present storyteller knows all the details of the story from the past, nothing could be left out by not knowing it was part of the story.

Let us begin by seeing how each of the passages presented by Shay in 1930 appear in these modern retellings and see if they still exist, how much they exist in their original forms and if the secondary insight we gained from those stories still holds true.

Assuming that folklore does not change with cultural changes, then I should be able to find a fairly similar passage in Osborne’s work for each of the passages I have selected and shown as culturally significant. We should be able to find passages showing ingenuity, such as the grindstone or two-headed axe stories, passages regarding Paul’s dealings with more educated people in the Puget story, passages about Paul’s education, or particularly his lack thereof and passages regarding lifestyle such as Paul’s family, dealings with nature, etc. We begin with Osborne’s description of Paul Bunyan. In her retelling we do get obvious mention of Paul’s enormous size and strength, two details which are of most importance in this story since they are what give uniqueness to Paul’s character from other men. “When he was two weeks old he weighed more than a hundred pounds and over 500 at nine months old, but the baby’s strangest feature was his big curly black beard. It was so big and bushy that every morning his poor mother had to brush it with a pine tree (Osborne, 1991). However, we have no mention of Paul’s stamina, his ability to work for long periods of time without sleep. There is no mention of his affinity with an axe, no details at all that make him more human. In fact they go so far as to give him attributes as he was born with a beard and learned to survive in the woods as an infant, all of which make fine details for an entertaining story, but dehumanizes the character. In short we have less of an ideal person, and more of a

29 mythical being with almost no grounding in the real world.

It should be noted that in this retelling Paul invents logging. “It would be nice if those trees could have stayed thick forever. But the pioneers needed them to build houses, churches, ships, wagons, bridges and barns. So one day Paul Bunyan took a good look at all those trees and said ‘Babe, stand back. I’m about to invent logging’. ‘Tim- ber!’ he yelled and swung his bright steel axe in a wide circle. There was a terrible crash and when Paul looked around, he saw he’d felled ten white pines with a single swing.

(Osborne, 1991 p.103-104)” This causes two things, it creates a more outrageous character for the entertainment value of the story, and at the same time it removes Paul from the lumberjacking society. In our 1930s telling of the stories, Paul becomes a lumberjack at the age of 14. He spends time learning the trade under Old Man Curry and then after so many years sets out to form his own logging camp. These were aspects of life the lumberjack could relate to, these were details that defined the course of a lumberjack’s life, and related Paul into the lumberjack culture. Now what we have is a more strongly fictional character, with fewer ties to humanity existing in a lifestyle that seems almost fairytale as well. Instead of extraordinary person coming from a common lifestyle, we have a folk hero developing a folktale life. This is the first key point that with lumberjacking gone, Paul becomes more of a story in a fairy-tale existence and less of a legitimization for a once real way of life.

The first type of passage I am looking for is a general statement about Paul’s education, one of the key themes in the original telling of the stories. I have listed at least five passages so far where the issue between educated and uneducated has come into play, first and foremost being the passage about his schooling. This passage, as can be

30 expected, is left out entirely from the modern telling. In the early 1900s it was commonplace to have little formal education. In fact as we have stated previously formal education was often reserved for he upper class who could afford it. Most people would have training in a trade but little formal education, so naturally it would be heartening to all members of the working class, lumberjacks included, to hear how being uneducated is one of the key aspects leading to Paul becoming a great and well-renown hero. In our world today the idea of education has changed.

Now we work to give everyone an education. We have laws in place requiring that children attend school. We live in a society where education is a high ideal and a worthy goal to attain. Naturally we don’t want to hear about how a person with no formal education has succeeded, unless it makes for a good success story of how even the lowly can make it by, and we certainly don’t want to hear about how a person with no formal education can do better in life than those who have a formal education and even make he educated out into buffoons. We are trying to teach our children that not having an education is detrimental, we are no longer in a society where a basic education is linked entirely to status, and we certainly do not want to go against these messages. The result is not that we avoid Paul’s lack of education in the later retelling, as we can see from the story he had none but what his wits taught him but instead we do not openly flaunt his lack of formal education as is the case with the 1930’s tales. We don’t bring to attention that Paul Bunyan did so well with no education, because many people in

America today believe being uneducated is unacceptable. ‘Everyone needs an education’ is our message today, not ‘just because you don’t have the education the rich have doesn’t mean you can’t do more than them and excel’. Our message has changed, and we

31 draw attention away from this old message in favor of our new one.

The next set of stories I reviewed are the stories involving Paul’s innovation. The two passages I selected, with regards to Paul’s creation of the two-headed axe and the grindstone do not appear in the modern retelling. Part of this I must attribute to the previous point I made about removing Paul from the lumberjack lifestyle. Both of these innovations occurred while Paul was learning under Old Man Curry, which was removed in the modern retelling for favor of Paul inventing logging. This does not mean that Paul is not represented as being innovative in our modern retelling, he is attributed for helping his men out of various situations, but none of which I have listed. The problem lies not with Paul being innovative, but rather in the situations chosen to show this innovation and how those situations were dealt with. For example we are given a passage with regards to the extremely cold winter, a tale I avoided because while it adds to the harshness of life in the wild, it is so extravagant that it is clearly meant to entertain than relate to possible life issues. The passage in the modern retelling is as such:

“Boss, we got trouble!” he said, “When the fellers go out to work, their feet are getting so frostbitten, they’re starting to fall off.” “That’s bad” Paul said, scratching his beard “Well tell the fellers to let their whiskers grow, then when their beards get down to their feet, they can knit them into socks. What else?” “The flames for all the lanterns are freezing” “Well then, just take the frozen flames outside and store them somewhere,” said Paul. “Then wait for them to melt in the spring (Osborne, 1991 p.106-108).”

And with that we have a passage about rain coming up from the ground.

One day that spring, Shot Gunderson burst into Paul’s shanty with his pant legs soaking wet. “Boss, we’ve got a problem! The rains are starting to come up from the ground instead of down from the sky” “They must be coming from China,” said Paul. “Order two thousand umbrellas. When they come, cut the handles off and replace them with snowshoe straps.” Shot did as Paul said and soon all the loggers were wearing umbrellas on their shoes to keep the China rains from shooting up their pant legs (Osborne, 1991 p.108).

32

In these passages we do see Paul’s innovation, but in a much different light than in the first passages. In these situations Paul is in a ridiculous problem, a situation that under no common circumstances could occur. Frostbite was indeed an issue that could have been contended with by lumberjacks, but certainly not frozen flames and rain coming up from the ground. Likewise we have these ludicrous ideas to solve the problems. Paul suggests they grow their beards to cover their feet and produce umbrella snowshoes, outrageous solutions for outrageous situations. In our original telling we see there are situations and problems that occur closer to reality, problems like not being efficient in chopping time and sharpening of tools, things that could have been dealt with on a fairly regular basis by the common lumberjack. And with these problems we have solid, fairly reasonable and highly inventive ideas, such as the production of a two-headed axe, and the grinding stone. If anything Paul is bringing sense into a slightly ridiculous situation, he is living in a folktale with connections to the real world and innovations that we can see. Now in the modern telling he has lost these connections, his innovations are entertaining and silly, and so is the world he lives in. Part of this stems as well into the realm of the education issue. In the old tellings we have Paul creating revolutionary tools to help the lumberjack trade and make life easier despite his lack of education. In our modern retelling he is producing one time fixes for outrageous situations, and shows no innovation that could be credit worthy in our world, not like his old innovations at any rate.

Our next passage was the Puget’s Sound passage, which is left out from the modern retelling. This passage I believe is left out for a couple of reasons. First it is not the most entertaining of passages. It doesn’t involve a greatly fantastical problem and isn’t very entertaining in comparison to passages about rain from the ground or frozen

33 fire. If we are trying to collect passages to make Paul Bunyan entertaining and not worry about culture than it is easily one to leave out of the retelling. It also is a good example of educated versus uneducated which we have already discussed as detrimental to the image of education we wish for our children to have today. Last but not least it deals with class struggle, the idea that the wealthy are trying to abuse the working class to benefit.

We have imagery of this almost conspiracy to manipulate Paul and take advantage of him to use him for profit. The triumph of Paul in this situation strikes a victory to anyone who has ever been cheated, swindled or used by another. It is a harsh reality of the world and Paul in this story is striking a victory for the working class. He is showing that the working class will not be taken advantage of and giving a moral and just attitude for the working class. All of these ideals are praiseworthy and of interest and entertainment to a person that has experienced them. They don’t, however, make for good entertainment for people who cannot relate to Paul or even worse who relate to Bill

Puget. Likewise this is a struggle we often feel children will not understand or should not be told about, and is often a struggle these days glossed over or ignored. In short it’s a series of details that merely would cause questions and open old wounds, and lack real entertainment value as a children’s story, so it is lost.

Next we have one of the more comedic passages, the tales of Paul’s wife and children, which again, are left out. First and foremost we need to think about why this was put into the tale of Paul Bunyan in the first place. If we are to assume that it is indeed to lessen the blow of the difficulty for having a family as a lumberjack, then it makes sense that these passages do not exist. America, with the exception of immigrant

34 work, has all but done away with working most of the year away from civilization, most travel is done by choice and rarely for long periods, or arrangements are made if they need to occur to allow for family. The problem of solitude (or blessing depending on how you interpret the stories) held by lumberjacks doesn’t exist in the same way it once did, so there’s no need to have a story which lessens the blow of solitude. There are other viable explanations of this as well. This passage is anything but nice to Paul’s wife

Minnie. If these are to be told as children’s stories we do not want to present the idea that this form of verbal abuse is acceptable, even in jest. It presents a negative image towards women and their ability to work in an industrial environment. It suggests women are unintelligent and unable to do the labor a man can do, all interpretations countercurrent to the ideals we strive for today... Second our society focuses on the idea of the family unit, and that family is a very important part of our lives. It is until recently the idea of a single parent or the separated family has become more commonplace but we still hold the idea that a family is a good thing and worth striving for. Likewise family members are deserving of love and respect. This story presents us with the idea that Paul tolerates his children and his wife, but seems most at home alone in the wilderness. These ideals are counter to our ideals today, we support the idea that family should be together. Since there has been a change towards a preference to being with family as often as possible, it makes sense that anything supporting separation from family as acceptable would be changed.

The last passage is the story of the bee-squitoes. This in fact does make it into the retelling of the stories, though greatly revised. The new passage follows much the same as the old, a series of giant mosquitoes attack the camp, only this time it is Paul who

35 suggests that they use giant bumblebees. The bees mate with the mosquitoes and the bee- squitoes attack. This time however it ends with Paul getting the mosquitoes to swarm a sugar ship and then he ships them to a circus (Osborne, 1991). Here we have a few minor changes; first off it is Paul who has the innovation of the bees and the sugar, with no mention of Johnny Inkslinger the Book keeper. This could be due to a series of reasons, one if we use Paul instead of Inkslinger then we do not have the issues of educated people causing more problems than giving solutions. Likewise the use of Paul instead of

Johnny doesn’t suggest that educated people should stick to their own job and not try to do the jobs of others. Likewise we give the actual solution to Paul and not due to chance, which is in keeping with Paul's innovativeness and a viable way to explain how the problem fixed itself if the story is not attributed to Inkslinger and the role he is to play. In short if we want to avoid the comments about the educated and people doing their role and not beyond what they should do, we change the story and remove those elements.

Finally I submit two images of Paul Bunyan, one from a woodcarving in 1930, the other a more modern one. This first one is from the 1930s

36 By: Eben Given

If you look you’ll notice a few details of significance. First you’ll notice Paul seems very common and quite similar to the men below him in all ways except stature. You’ll also notice he’s part of the group, there is less focus on him being outstanding, and more of a focus on him being just another one of the crew. We get this image that he’s a regular, hard-working man, just like the rest of his crew, but much larger. He’s a lumberjack, granted the greatest of all lumberjacks, but a lumberjack first and foremost. He is tied to the culture from which he came and we can see it in this image.

This next image is from the modern retelling.

37 By: Michael McCurdy

Here we see a similar image of Paul but with far less emphasis on his human nature.

He’s working here alone; no one else from his crew is pictured. He’s chopping down his

fabled seven trees with one swing. We even have Babe the blue ox in the background.

Here we have a focus on the story Paul Bunyan. He’s not part of the lumberjacks like he

is in the first image; he’s his own larger-than-life self, a lone hero separated from our

world. He lacks a crew, he’s performing a feat to show off his folktale status and his only

companion is his giant blue ox. Here we have Paul Bunyan the fictional character, not

Paul Bunyan, the mightiest of lumberjacks.

This all sounds very much like a conspiracy theory, with hidden meanings in the story being removed to alter our perceptions, but it in fact is not. As we can see when

38 lumberjacking was a major lifestyle in society Paul Bunyan functioned as a way to project an ideal image of lumberjacking. Paul was what lumberjacks wanted people to think of when they heard the term lumberjack. However, as the lifestyle vanished, so went the reasons for Paul to representative of the lumberjacking society. All that remains was the entertaining stories, none of the deeper meanings or respect that was once associated with the character. Paul was no longer the champion of the lumberjack way of life, he was a fictional character designed to entertain, as we can see both by the loss/changing of passages and even the images of the character.

So what we have with the story of Paul Bunyan is a recurrence of what happened with Keyes’ analysis. We have a folktale which reflected back on a people. A story which showed those people in a specific light, strong and intelligent, skilled in survival and dealing with nature, on par if not better than any other man even if they were viewed as uneducated or lesser, a story that showed the traits that were praiseworthy of the lumberjacks. Now in our modern world there are no lumberjacks like Paul. Our technology, our machinery and our demands for lumber have made them obsolete. The story of Paul has gone the same route. People have no need to hear praiseworthy traits about lumberjacks, there are no lumberjacks to praise. Our ideals have changed, we no longer promote educated vs. uneducated, but rather strive to promote education to all people. We now promote family unity and attempt to avoid ideas which promote separation. We try to avoid negative imaging of races and sexes. What we want reflected about our society no longer matches that from the 1930s and the changes in the stories reflect this. All we have now is nostalgia for a time that has passed and all we care to know about Paul Bunyan and his logging crew is their fantastic adventures to entertain

39 our children. The icon that once represented the strength and glory of the lumberjack has now become a character in children’s movies and the mascot of a theme park.

So what I have found is that Keyes theory does hold true. Having taken two telling of the same collection of stories originating in a society which has greatly changed, losing many of its original aspects over a minimal amount of time and comparing them, I have found that there is a connection between the changing of the society resulting in the loss of information in its folklore that helped to legitimize that society. When the society changes, the details that supported the old way of life are lost to allow for the new ideals the society finds significant.

The question then becomes is this loss significant? The answer is yes. These secondary details provide us with insight to the nature of a culture, and their changing and disappearance help us to determine changes within a culture that may not have detailed records of their history. If we accept that these stories are indeed changing due to cultural changes, we must in turn reconsider our analysis of these stories and how they relate back to the culture, and likewise we can record major cultural changes within the society based upon the changing of these ideals. If we accept that they do change, we can then use myths and folktales to derive our understandings of their origin cultures.

Our ideals changed and Paul Bunyan changed because of it. What was once the story about a people is now the story of a children’s hero. With that I’ll end by saying this, not every children’s tale is merely fiction to enjoy, and sometimes that which is holds no meaning now, held more meaning than we can hope to image in the time from which it came. As all folk stories end, Goodnight.

40 Bibliography

Bowman, James Cloyd. The Adventures of Paul Bunyan. Century Co. 1927.

Carvalho Neto, Paulo de.. The Concept of Folklore. Coral Gables, Fla., University of Miami Press. 1971

Cox, T. R... “Trade, development, and environmental change: The utilization of 's Pacific coast forests to 1914 and its consequences”. In R. P. Tucker & J. F. Richards (Eds.), Global deforestation and the nineteenth-century world economy Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 1983

Dorson, Richard M. “Folklore and Fakelore: essays toward a discipline of folk Studies” Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press. 1976

Dundes, Alan. Study of Folklore Englewood Cliffs, N. J., Prentice-Hall 1965.

Hoffman, Daniel G. Paul Bunyan: Last of the Frontier Demigods University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, Penn. 1952.

Keyes, Gregory “Myth and Social History in the Early Southeast” In Patricia Kwachka (ed.) Perspectives on the Southeast. University of Georgia 1992

Laughead, W.B. Paul Bunyan. Red River Logging Co. 1926

Levi-Strauss, Claude. Myth and Meaning Schocken Books, New York 1979.

Osborne, Mary P. American Tall Tales Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, New York, NY. 1991.

Rosenberg, Donna. Folklore, myths, and legends: a world perspective Lincolnwood, Ill.: NTC Pub. Group 1997.

Rounds, Glen. Ol’ Paul the Mighty Logger. Holiday House, Inc. 1949.

Shay, Frank. Here’s Audacity! American Legendary Heroes. The Macaulay Company New York NY. 1930

Shepherd, Esther. Paul Bunyan Harcourt, Brace & World. Inc 1952

Toelken, Barre. The Dynamics of Folklore Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1972.

Zon, Raphael, 1940 Testimony of Raphael Zon, Director, Lake States Forest Experiment Station from the Tolan Committee Hearings

Old Image of Paul (Illustration1) done by Eben Given from Here’s Audacity by Shay

41 New Image of Paul (Illustration 2) done by Michael McCurdy from American Tall Tales by Osborne.

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