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Endangered Folk Traditions
Published by CARP
(Concerned Anthropologists for Ritual Preservation)
A
Letter from President: Alfred E. Garbanzo, Ph.D.
Folklore includes traditional arts, beliefs and curious
ways that have come down through the ages binding social
groups by their various commonalities. Symbolic activities range from adornment rituals to bestiality,
and from food-gorging feasts to primitive festivals and bawdy celebrations. All
activities reinforce group identity with their shared eccentricities, illogical
conclusions and mass psychosis. In this way a group maintains and passes on a shared way of life,
such as
semi-obscene dances or foods that always end up being dried entrails or fresh eyes.
The
rituals serve another purpose: the reaction by those
outside the group, which range from mild annoyance to a feeling of threat. As folklorist
Bob Akwad al-el Baku wrote in 1898:
Groups are bound together by
common interests, purposes and goals, usually based on desperate
subsistence survival and general mistrust of foreigners. What we modern assimilated
Americans see as charming folkways actually harken back to a body of
traditions arising from either our most base, darkest prehistory, or the need
to fight the sheer tedium of pastoral life. Through
tedious repetition over the ages, sometimes enflamed by nationalist opportunists,
but more often tempered
by modernity, most of these rituals we find "charming and quaint"
have their origins in tribal blood
feasts, human sacrifice and the wanton slaughter of strangers -- the
"them," as opposed to the "us."
The Appalachia Hasidim of West Virginia
(also known as the "curly Amish") are distinctive from other Hasidic groups by their four-inch curls and
mitzvah-clogging rite held after Sabbath. Their curls, a quarter inch longer
than those of other Hasid groups, make them objects of derision and subject to
charges of unorthodoxy.
"Group identity" may be defined by age, gender, ethnicity,
avocation, region, occupation, religion, nationality or any variety of
exclusivist, and sometimes ugly, chauvinism. As folk anthropologist Alice
Smith-Qlgorogborimba wrote in
her landmark 1963 study, Fancy pants and Flaming Blades -- Ancient Folkways as
Stylized Butchery:
Next time you watch a folk
festival with colorfully
clad big-toothed virgins clomping their heels in
delightful synchronicity, or behold spry young men
in airy pantaloons and high boots flipping gourds
or twirling brilliant banners, imagine them wielding
axes, slaughtering virgins and smiting enemy prisoner
slaves to the savage cheers of the village folk.
In my own worldwide studies I have found these traditional forms of knowledge are learned informally within a one-to-one
or small group exchange, through performance or by example. In all cases,
folkways are learned and perpetuated by obsessive and mindless
parroting within the context and shelter of the
"group identity." It is usually expressed in forms of solidarity that in almost
all cases I have examined shares at least two of the following five elements: log hurling,
cross dressing, bark eating, soup-bone marrow sucking and baby tossing. Though
rituals can be wonderful as they are terrifying to us moderns, they are
nonetheless a shared experience that shapes and gives
meaning to the group. Mostly they result in an always glorious, and many times
gory festival with its attendant filled
bellies, sumptuous twirling of brightly colored objects and big smiles
showcasing bad teeth on all -- and occasionally internecine warfare lasting for centuries.
Below are examples of rare, authentic ancient folkways
that, though threatened by modernity, continue today. They stand out as
direct links to the past and, because of their isolation,
are uncontaminated by the social pressures of
urbanization, secularization, technology, literacy, the dawn of science,
rudimentary hygiene and
simple common sense. To be honest, it might not be bad for these peoples to
think about moving on to experience the joys of modern life, though it would
indeed be a great loss for cultural anthropologists like myself if these few remaining rituals and celebrations are subsumed into the
increasing homogeneity of emerging global culture and we had to find new
jobs. -- A.E.G.
EDITOR'S NOTE: All depictions are artist's
conceptions, since these ceremonies would be hopelessly tainted if
exposed to modern technology, including cameras.
Alfred E. Garbanzo, Ph.D., is a cultural anthropologist
at Okefenokee Swamp State and has written a two-volume history of obscure folk
customs in the southern hemisphere, The Goofy Folkways of Southern Madagascar
and They're just as Goofy in Vanuatu.
Artwork by Kenneth Silber
We start with the exception to the
rule. Here we see, rather than a celebration of triumph, or a remembrance of
prevailing after a calamity or invasion, a private and intimate celebration of
uneventfulness, shared by a sect of monks in an informal, absolutely
minimalist setting.
 | IN KUTUFU JAPAN, the Flu-kubuku, an obscure Buddhist sect, celebrates
every November 17th as the day when nothing ever happened. |
Not much more happens on other days in Kutufu.
INTERESTING: To preserve the sanctity of non-ness,
and to insure that anything out of the ordinary will ever taint the day, Flu-kubukui
are encouraged to sleep in; only small talk is allowed; only tasteless dry
biscuits prepared earlier are eaten and the day is spent
replacing worn shoelaces, straightening wall pictures and catching up on
labeling photo-album snapshots.
Desmond Vlapp, "The minimalist festivals of the Flu-kubukui,"
Garbanzo, ed. Folk Groups and Folklore Genres:
What Were They Thinking? (University of Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1993), pgs. 89-117.
Many rituals
involve rites of passage and sexual awakening of puberty -- the transition to
adulthood and the passing of power from one
generation to another.
| AT THE END of
the rainy season, the Bgnuko Tribe in western Burkina Faso, Africa, celebrates the rite of Oukgagumba. In each village,
the
pubescent males gather in a circle. Rings of fire are lit inside and
outside the circle. With the beat of drums, the teens must stuff
dung-covered twigs in their mouths and continuously hop on one foot until
only one remains standing -- no easy feat in 100-plus degree
temperatures. Outside the circle all the village girls watch and cheer
on their favorites. |
Long, plump gourds are not only a mark of prosperity, but
also extreme potency in Bgnuko life.
INTERESTING: Oukgagumba can go on for over 24 hours,
with each boy driven to continue until he is the last one standing by his
overheated desire for one thing: The winner is rewarded with the longest and plumpest
gourd harvested that season.
Atlee Schkeputzekopff, "On the Befuddling Folkways of the
tribes of the Oukgagumba Basin," in Garbanzo, ed. Folk Groups and Folklore Genres:
What Could They Be Thinking? (University of Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1993), pgs. 19-22.
For isolated, homebody type groups who live in harsh
environments, yet have never thought to migrate to milder climes, folklore is a
direct tie to a common, traumatic past of centuries-long bouts with subsistence
survival, and the triumph of the tribe over nature. It also makes current
tribulations seem trivial and serves to remind the current generation that
they've never had it so good.
| IN THE AUTONOMOUS region of Tunis Tuva in Russia, there is the Festival of
Hibborreah. This involves making headdresses from mud and chestnuts
along with twig tutus for livestock to wear.
The animals are forced with flaming prods to tip back and forth as they witness
humans, garbed in colorful leather pantaloons, make guttural sounds while feasting on stringy
fermented tubers called pf-phloops. |
Frequently during this frenzied celebration, a cow's
tutu is accidentally set ablaze
and a special barbecue is held for the men that can go on until past dawn.
INTERESTING:
Hibborreah symbolically and physically celebrates the primacy
of humanity over lower animals by forcing their submission and humiliation, and
finally on the last night, by hacking them to death and eating them.
Vladimir Kruptupmupkin, The
Emergence and Evolution of Sociopathic Enclavist Activity in Our Former Soviet Republics -- A
Return Visit to Tunis Tuva.
(Moscow: Trotsky Press, 1999),
pgs. 1847-49.
Memories, buried deep in the tribe's collective
consciousness, are codified into symbolic forms that continually renew for succeeding generations ancient calamities, plagues
and pestilence.
In a society where there are no words to express, "What have we done
lately?" the past is precious. This outlook, along with a craving for a
day when seared lichen isn't dinner's only course are symbolic expressions of
basic human instincts both to survive, and, perhaps someday, to prosper.
| UUGHESE WOMEN IN
Uurkmar, Norway, prepare a huge feast of smutterbons, a
musky pudding made of fermented pine-bark resin, reindeer-antler paste and
pickled sparrow entrails. After being boiled down for two weeks, the
delectable treat is charred over an open-pit fire and served on the last
day of Uuklog, a winter festival that marks the vanquishing of the
last giant lemming that ended the Great 40-Year Pestilence sometime during the 13th
century. |
The distinctive stench of smoldering antlers can be detected
over 100 miles away
and is a sure sign that it's festival time for the Uugh people of
Uurkmar, Norway.
INTERESTING:
Before the smutterbons are
roasted, the village’s youngest male teen is dipped into the aromatic batter
and must stand naked in the frigid air until the coating freezes. Then
everyone gathers in a circle. They chortle and, calling him a stinky,
no-good-for-nothing hairball, poke him with scwafkrets --- long, pointy sticks originally used
around 700 years ago drive away the annoying and disease-ridden lemmings.
Renee Zuchinni, Primal
Comfort Foods in the Subsistence Societies of Sub-Arctic Europe: the Uugh
Response. (University
of Saskatchewan. Moose Jaw: Permafrost Press, 2000),
pgs. 33-57.
Sometimes celebrations of national identity,
combined with generations of inbreeding, can become pathological as a remembrance of the historical tally of military victories and defeats,
oppression and liberation, and the necessary vendettas which always remain
urgent, are obsessively and continually
recalled, retold and repaid, again and again and again -- over hundreds, if not
thousands of years. It doesn't matter if it started with a stolen sheep, or
the enslavement of the nation,
all is remembered with equal fervor. Their drama and awful beauty can be extreme, and the tribe’s past
is always accessible and omnipresent; it is sometimes reshaped and used as a
fearsome force to bolster the political ambitions and goals of
its nationalistic hotheads..
IN
THE
MUDKLUMPA-DROGNOZNAGA People's Republic,
the third week in August is officially set aside to celebrate petroleum-based lubricants. But this is really an attempt by the secular Stalinist
regime to co-opt The Seven Days of Frahpoo, an always ribald and sometimes violent
week celebrating Mudkvy -- loosely translated as "the simple joy of
being Mudklumpian." Yet recently, orthodox nationalists have preferred
another version for its celebration: the older phrase from the catastrophic
defeat in
A.D.
199 that ended the grimy Sod Wars -- Mudkvee ootoo O klugnugwit eoO
pood, !! spiff'-kapah!!, or "We happy Mudnovy to be alone;
painful ugly torture death to lowly pig-dog Drognozy invaders and all unpure foreign filth
who may infest the sacred sod of our Sisterland."
On the Third Day of Frahpoo
colorful and intricate knogginbaskets are weaved
by virginal teen girls delightfully festooned with characteristic, mushroom-shaped
hats, thick hog-leather mittens and brilliant cobalt-blue smocks. The reason they
stand on 10-foot tall stilts for hours as they weave has been
lost in the mists
of Mudklumpan history, but the baskets, according a recently revived chant,
were used to hold "the tiny, lizard heads of scurvy Drognozgy
devils."
INTERESTING:
Recently Drognozy
citizens, who make up 30 percent of the population, have revived one of their
ancient rituals, The Seven Days of Hiding, which happens to fall at the same
time as The Seven Days of Frahpoo. Original efforts to transform
each nationality's secret rites into a more benign
"Happy To Be Each and Any of Us Happy Workers Week" by the jittery socialist
regime have proved
fruitless. The only thing holding this hapless republic together is the
iron rule of their fearsome leader, Enzyoop Kremeeta, an aging charismatic
totalitarian who relies on the fading memories of the Glorious Magenta Revolution and
the resigned compliance of the population brought on by chronic
starvation due to the colossal failure of state collective farms for the
last five decades.
Bog Drinak, from: Murderous Folk
Rituals of the Upper Transylvanian Region. (Zagreb:
Hrgrjky Mrjj Precc, 1979),
pgs. 87-88
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