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CROSS-CULTURAL STORYTELLING Stories, Folktales, Folklore, Fairy Tales, Legends, Myths, History, Nursery Rhymes, Fantasy & Facts Scroll down or click on your choice below • SOS: Searching Out Stories/Info - Cross-Cultural Storytelling Advice, Comments and References from Storytellers, Teachers and Librarians |
SOS: SEARCHING OUT STORIES AND INFORMATION ABOUT CROSS-CULTURAL STORYTELLINGS
Advice, Comments and References from Storytellers, Teachers and Librarians
(excerpts from Storytell posts plus original research)
Book titles and online links are in blue and underlined. Click on them to get more information.
Story and song titles are in italics.
To retell any stories, get permission from the copyright holder if the materials is not in the public domain.
In performance, always credit your sources.
Posts are added chronologically as they are received by Story Lovers World.
1) I would like to point out that there is an inherent difference between transplanting (resetting in a different time, place or culture) a story such as The Pickpocket and transplanting some other kinds of stories, especially sacred or creation stories. All stories are not alike. Some stories are highly portable, easily transferable from one geographic or cultural setting to another, and can be found in many forms in many locations. (Think of Cinderella). I would put The Pickpocket in this category. Even though it appears in Jane Yolen's book as an English tale, and that is its derivation, it does no essential disservice to the tale to reset it in another time or place. If you look at tale-type and motif indexes developed by folklorists, you can see that certain categories are more readily adaptable than others. Fool stories, trickster stories, märchen (wonder tales) are the "fiction" of folktales and can move relatively easily from one context to another.
Other stories are deeply embedded in their cultural context, and when transported to another context, it may do a disservice either to the story or to the originating or even the receiving culture. It is much harder to transport a creation myth effectively and honestly than to transport a story like The Pickpocket. As another example, I have no problems with stories like Goldilocks and the Three Bears or The Three Little Pigs being retold in Hawaiian pidgin and recontextualized(folklorist jargon) in terms of Hawaiian contemporary local culture).
However, even when a story is not a sacred story, transporting it wholesale to another culture may be problematic. Someone recently published a picture book retelling of The Empty Pot (An Owlet Book)
This is the story in which the leader, wishing to choose his successor, distributes seeds and tells everyone that whoever grows the most beautiful plant will become his heir. Only one boy is honest enough to return with an empty pot, because the seeds had been boiled and could not grow. This works very well in terms of Confucian culture where despite a normally hereditary system, periodic changes of dynasty were regarded as a sign that the "Mandate of Heaven" had passed from one ruler to another. Confucianism placed great value on leadership being dependent on "merit." (Whether this is how power was in fact passed on is another issue entirely). In Hawai`i, however, genealogy was of primary importance. Although they did not choose strictly on primogeniture (birth order) as in most European countries, they would choose the most meritorious among those who were eligible by birth, able to trace their genealogy back to the proper lines. A commoner "could" not be chosen, regardless of merit. The retelling also shows all the contenders crowding around the ali'i (chief) to show off their plants. This could NOT have happened; anyone who stepped in the shadow of the ali'i would be condemned to death. This was a serious tabu. Anyone reading this story as a traditional Hawaiian tale, therefore, will be misled. As a library, we resolved the issue of how to handle this by putting the book into fiction, rather than into folklore, but that is a subtlety that will be apparent primarily to other librarians. I would have preferred the author to acknowledge the inconsistencies directly in a note in the book (or a teller to make a brief verbal comment) "or" to have the story kept within a context that it would be less in conflict with.
This is an instance where the issue in transporting the story is less that it is no longer true to its originating culture, but that it fails to be true to the culture in which it is ostensibly set. There has to be a good fit between originating culture, receiving culture, and the values reflected in the story. When I suggested above some stories that I feel are portable, it is not the fact that they are European stories that make them so. It is the nature of the specific stories.
(Although to some extent, stories from colonizing cultures are inherently more portable than stories from colonized cultures. It is a goal of the colonizing culture to introduce, or perhaps impose, their stories on the countries they colonize, as well as to adapt the stories of the colonized cultures to fit more closely with the values of the colonizer.)
But that is moving into another thread - or at least another aspect of this thread - and I don't have the energy to go there tonight. I had no intention of going on as long as I have already. I thought I was in the "recovering from flu" category (or at least, a cold and asthma) but it has just turned around and started all over again!
Vicky D.
2) We get into the issue of fraudulence, in other words. Certainly Native people have a legitimate issue, here, with folks taking their stuff.
People are buying this picture book not just (or possibly even primarily) for a good story but for something authentically Hawaiian. They won't like it if it doesn't resonate easily with their ideas of what makes a good story. Many times the authentic stuff does not so resonate. (It's very hard, often the more authentic it is, the harder it can be.) So, you grab something that does resonate easily, tart it up in pseudo-ethnicity, and sell it. At best this is a fraud-- you're selling a lie. At the very worst, the material is slathered with crude and degrading ethnic stereotypes, as was common until fairly recently.
But what if you get it right? I've known several Whites who used to do dancing, crafts, and so forth in pow-wows. They never would get the kind of recognition that Indians would, of course-- the whole thing was not primarily for them-- but they were allowed to compete. Of course, the judges were Indian, there was that level of control. And there will always be a differential in monetary value between the crafts that are of genuine tribal origin, and those made by wannabes, just from scarcity and the market.
I notice from the responses we have gotten here on this topic that many non-telling tribal Americans do not necessarily share the automatic objections of the Indian tellers. Even so, the tellers may have a legitimate concern, especially when the authentic stuff may be tricky to tell in a manner that is intrinsically enjoyable to an ordinary audience "First they take our land, then our language, now our culture!" can also be translated "moving in on our turf *again!*"
Tim J.
Response
I wouldn't go so far as calling it fraud - and I am afraid I may have misled you on one point, which I just realized this morning. The person who did this is a well-respected reteller of folktales, with other books that I admire a lot, and a degree in comparative literature. She may have more knowledge of Hawaiian culture than I have, although most of her earlier books are of Chinese folktales. I must admit I made a mistake last night in my post. She actually did acknowledge in her subtitle that the story was an adaptation, by calling it "a Hawaiian version of an age-old tale." I had forgotten that and I didn't check it when I was writing last night. There may even be more of a note than that - I don't have the book at home with me. However, even this subtitle may be too subtle for many readers, and the appearance of the book gives the impression that it is more authentic than it is. My point is that this is a sincere, high quality, "told from the heart" retelling that I admire in some ways and yet still find problematic in others. These are not easy black and white, yes or no, issues. Good intentions are not always enough, and misleading results are not usually a result of bad intentions. I am not even saying that I wish she hadn't done the book. I just want to point out some of the pitfalls that are not readily apparent when we start talking about these issues.
Vicky D.
3) Do you need to be Finnish to have the right to tell a story from the Kalevela? From India to tell a Jataka tale? Jewish to tell a Chelm story? South African to tell a story of Mantis? French to tell Little Red Riding Hood?
Can you tell any of these stories with more authenticity or depth if you are from these cultures or countries....perhaps...but not necessarily. Maybe we should dig up Joseph Campbell and others and put him through the Storytellers Inquisition for daring to uncover stories from so many sources obviously not of their tradition.
Honor to the stories! Honor to the peoples and traditions from where the stories arise! Honor to the storytellers who keep great stories alive!
Bob K. (who once heard Johnny Moses do a brilliant reworking of a classic contemporary Jewish teaching tale, which deepened for me the meaning of that very tale that I'd heard from my father)
4) Vicki's example of a story inappropriately transplanted to another culture provides a warning to all beginning tellers who rely on beautiful picture books (whose editors may have opted to omit troublesome source notes) rather than researching a story's roots themselves.
The question of "story stealing" reared its ugly head at the first national conference in St Louis (NSN was NAAPS then!). I wrote an editorial for our state network's newsletter. I think it's still relevant:
BEG, BORROW, OR STEAL? by Fran Stallings
(Territorial Tattler, spring 1989)
When we storytellers find a story we love, we want to get hold of it whether we have to "beg, borrow, or steal". We want to make the story our own. But how much should a story change in the retelling? Perhaps it depends on "whose" story it was before it came to us. That can make a big difference.
BEG. Some stories clearly belong to their creators. The authors of literary tales, the tellers who relate personal experience stories or original compositions, have given the world something new. They deserve the credit: that's what copyrights were invented for. Let's ask their permission, assuring them that their names will always be mentioned. They will let us know if there are any conditions. Must we stick to their exact text? Promise not to record it? Remember, as beggars we can't be choosers.
BORROW. Traditional folktales are public domain material, "belonging" to no one -- and to everyone. But we owe a tale from other folks' traditions the same respect and care we would give to a musical instrument we might borrow from a neighbor. Before we start playing around with it we should learn about its traditional use, its special powers and vulnerabilities. We may never be able to play it like a native-born musician, but at least we won't misuse or distort it. Let's remember that a borrowed ethnic story is part of its people's life and heritage. They have kindly allowed us to borrow it. We should be able to return it undamaged.
STEAL. But haven't storytellers carried tales around the world, constantly changing and adapting them, since time immemorial? Right. As Steve Simmer has pointed out, traditional storytellers were not borrowers but thieves. They took something from someone else and made it their own.
A skillful car thief changes more than the license plate and paint. So if we're going to appropriate a foreign story, claiming it happened right here, let's steal it right. We won't just change the accents and add some local names. We'll take it to the chop-shop: strip out motifs and incidents which don't fit the new setting, wipe off the fingerprints of alien cultural assumptions. We may have to rebuild the plot or turn the ending upside down before we can drive off in a story we can call "our own".
For example: Jay Stailey transports urban legends and public domain folklore onto his island of Clear Lake in Galveston Bay, peopled with vivid local characters. When a new-age Vibration Specialist rids the island of giant roaches, then punishes the stingy town council by luring away their pickup trucks, you know Jay stole that story fair and square! He stripped it down to the basic idea and then customized it himself.
[Copyright law says you can't copyright ideas, just the individual creative expressions of them. Note that Jay's expression of an old idea has become so creatively original that it now falls in category #18)
So go ahead and Beg, Borrow, or Steal that story. But before you make it "your own", be sure your know who owned it first. Then you can act accordingly.
Fran S.
Response
In general, folk tales circulate like citizens of the world and can settle comfortably into any culture. Some folk motifs take up nationality when they merge with a specific culture's legend or myth, and they change or take on a native culture form to suit their new lifestyle, while giving a fresh vitality to the native story. This may be what happened with the tale of the Empty Pot.
The Pickpockets story is a good example of a tale that migrates freely. My only competitor in Spain is an English teller, Tim Bowley, who I've never met. I've learned to ask the organiser if Tim has been there recently, because he tells the Pickpockets as a British tale, while I tell it as an Irish tale, having heard it from an Irish teller (who may even have heard it from Tim). Same with the Man With No Luck.
As an American living in Ireland for 25 years, I'm more Irish than half the population, having been here since before they were born. However, it's still a bit awkward telling Irish stories to Irish people. They know the most popular ones from school, so I only tell adults the more obscure Irish legends and stories from my non-Irish repertoire. They often remark that I know more about Irish traditions than the Irish, with admiration mixed with begrudgery. I tell the popular ones in schools, because the children either don't know them or only have them in diluted or superficial forms in "children's" books.
Fortunately, the Irish myths and legends have been thoroughly cleansed (by Christian scribes) of overt paganism and so are not sacred, as Hopi and Maori and other living non-Christian culture's myths are, and I can tell them as freely as lingering resentment and envy allow.
I often tell Spanish and Basque legends to Spanish and Basque people. Few of them are even aware that the stories exist -- I feel sorry for the authors of the many excellent native language books of those stories; they can't be making much in the way of royalties -- and they are very interested in hearing them from an American living in Ireland who has never lived in Spain and speaks the language imperfectly.
I tell some true American Indian stories that I heard from the Indians involved, but I don't tell their myths or even the pourquoi and trickster stories that ultimately derive from and are often fairly close to myth. I leave that to Dovie Thomason, who frequently visits Ireland, as did the late Nancy de Vries. Besides, there are plenty of Irish trickster tales -- the Gadaí Dubh, the Gilla Deacair (aka the Striped Kern), Dark Patrick, and various anonymous wise priests and poets and peasants -- and everybody's friend, Nasruddin Hodja, with his Johah and Afantí alter egos.
I suppose I don't tell sacred stories more out of respect for the stories than for the people of the culture. I hear native Indians, Maoris, Africans telling their own myths -- even Jews telling whatever Jewish tales -- and I can hear how the same stories might sound coming from my own mouth. They would sound weak, pretentious, presumptuous, superficial, insubstantial ... Is that enough of an anti-rave, predictive self-review?
Richard M.
Dublin
5) On the subject that has brought forth so much discussion, here is my little story. A while ago Muammar Kaddafi, head of the state of Libya commented on the entry of Turkey in the European Union: "It will be a Trojan Horse." The people who told that story many centuries ago are not alive today; neither is their culture. Their legacy is their stories, which have kept humanity studying, respecting, admiring, and telling those same stories for three millenia since they were commited to writing. Kaddafi is an Arab, but he chose that metaphor, which makes his meaning clear to most of the modern world. A storyteller from Iran who doesn't know how to read and write recognised my sons name (Telemachus) as something to do with Odysseus. Later, at the table, we exchanged stories of Alexander the Great (it did change my perspective, I can tell you!). Great stories are meant to be told, sometimes even used for good or bad means. The modern state of Greece would not exist without the support of Europeans steeped in the culture (and mythology ) of the Ancient Greeks. Personally, I believe it is a little bit like a medal, a source of pride when the world hears and tells stories that hark from the culture you call your "own." They can also be a gateway to make the world interested in a people—also a counterweight to prejudice, which also needs stories to take hold.
Manya M.
Created 2005; last update 7/19/09