Anthropology and Folk ArtAuthor(s): Violet AlfordSource: Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 4, No. 5 (Dec., 1944), pp. 204-205Published by: English Folk Dance + Song SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4521218 .

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ANTHROPOLOGY AND FOLK ART

The Society has made two contacts with anthropology this year, the first on Thursday, Nov- ember 30th, 1944, when Mr. Frank Howes addressed the Oxford University Anthropological Society on a subject to which sufficient attention has not yet been given-" The Anthropoligical Content of Folk Song." Mr. Howes selected a few striking examples from English folk songs showing many aspects and many layers of anthropological interest. It is certain that the study of man does not as yet properly embrace the study of his songs, though his dances have had far more attention given them. In the one we find modes of thought, accounts of deeds, traces of beliefs dating from the Bronze Age at least, when for instance, magic swords were buried witl their warrior owners in barrow graves, right through the centuries to medieval witches, fairies, mystical knights, charms malificent and beneficent, not to mention glances backwards a hundred years or so to press gangs, clew garnets, tall ships, and all the paraphernalia of the French wars; in the other, the guisings, mummings and ritual dances of Europe and these isles, anthropologists could study (but still do not look closely enough) living fragments of man's preoccupation with sun and rain, winter and summer, which are to be found absolutely nowhere else. Mr. Howes took the tragedy of " Edward," banishment the price of blood, banishment until the sun sets out of its appointed place, therefore eternal; riddle songs full of symbolism, such as " I will give my Love an Apple," and the " Dilly Song," full of a Christian and pre-Christian mixture hard to grasp today, and possibly designed as a mnemonic for the Creed and other Christian teaching, which reverted again into pagan ideas; the little known mystical song " The Bold Fisherman," which with its collated variants depicts the early Christian fish symbol and the union of Christ with the Church, or fundamentally with the Soul of Man, these were exposed and then strikingly illustrated by Miss Marie Howes, in her excellently impersonal manner so eminently suited to folk song.

"The Cutty Wren " with some of its variants was sung, and explained as a small seasonal rite known in many parts of England, Ireland, the Isle of Man; and, I will add, particularly in Wales, where the " King of all Birds " in his passage from humility to grandeur, from the least to the greatest, as the sacrificial victim, is paraded in his beautiful little " wren box ". This is a minia- ture cottage thatched with rushes, with door and windows, worthy of its tiny-great occupant. This rite takes on more meaning still as carried out at Carcassone in the Aude, for instance, wvhere the man who catches the King becomes King himself, and Lord of the ensuing feast. We heard also that song of ours, which to my knowledge has no equivalent in other tongues. " John Barleycorn," the personification of the corn spirit, the whole cycle of sowing, growing, sprouting, ripening and harvesting described in good and hearty English verses, which in their simplicity go to the root of the whole matter.

Mr. Howes also touched upon, but had not time to develop, the question of ethnical influence on the music of folk song. Similar subject-themes and stories run through nearly every Indo- European race so clearly that as regards words this question hardly arises. As regards music it opens a subject which will need much attention, and the closest possible comparative study. I t raises questions viewed with suspicion-or should one say shyness ?-by many anthropologists, but it remains to be examined, not to be turned aside from, because of a present-day trend of thought, which may itself change.

The second lecture was by Dr. Ethel John Lingren, Editor of the Journal of the Royal Anttilropo- logical Institute, on Dec. iith at Cecil Sharp House. Her subject was Shamanism, and her field of work Manchuria. A series of slides showed a certain abnormality in the faces and expressions of these Healer-Dancer-Priestesses-unfortunately we saw no male Shamans. Dr. Lindgren noted the neurotic or hysteric tendencies in these people, who do not conform to the usual tribal type. Yet these eccentricities and more-sexual abnormalities are not disapproved in Shamans -by no means prevent them possessing a shrewdness and sharpness of observation which serve them well enough in their dealings with their own people. Deep furrows, and a curious

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difference in the right eye of each, were noticable in their portraits. The ceremonial dress si interesting, twisted thongs of leather falling from the head and covering the face, bits of metal and bells everywhere. The chief magical object is the drum which is beaten throughout the s6ance, while the Priestess is dancing, singing and prophesying. A white reindeer is essential, to carry the magic gear, more particularly'the drum, also for killing previous to healing rites. The lecturer did not tell us whether this is regarded as a purification, or as a blood sacrifice, nor, if the last, to whom. In fact she did not enter into the question of gods and heaven. The Shaman's performance, in a small tent, crowded with people, looked upon as a manifestation of spirit-power, some times of animal spirits, when beast cries are uttered, goes on for three days. The dancing- a shuffling terre-a-terre step, for the feet are barely lifted from the ground-traces a slowly pro- gressing circle clockwise round the fire. It lasts threequarters of an hour, after which the performer declares herself " very tired," and " very hot," but this, to dancers, does not seem an undue exertion. (Basque Masquerade Ritual dancers continue from II a.m. till dusk, the Rumanian Calusarii dancer-healers all day for forty days.) Of the music and singing we were told nothing conducive to imagining what it might be. It is all too rare that anthropologists are equipped for recording music, either mechanically or by hand, and is a serious lacuna in their work which might be filled as soon as possible.

This interesting description of practicing Priests in Asia naturally evokes their European counterparts who exist, albeit fallen from their high estate. Yet on one day in the year they still reign over the village, witness the head dancer-improviser in the villages of northern Spain, who- does not scruple to call attention, in his improvised never-ending verses, to faults and actions. done throughout the year, the victims thereof suffering everything at his hands on that one day.. WN'e remember also the hysterical drumming in Holy Week at Hijar, led by a Priest-Devil-Fool,. and more startlingly we think of the Chief of the Fools or Bugios, in a far-away Portuguese village,. who in their Midsummer Rite directs and controls his dancers, waving them up, pushing them off, while they creep and crouch before his imposing figure clad in Church vestments, which he has the right to wear that day; all to the hypnotic beat of a drum. Comparative work has gone on apace since the ritual dances of the folk were first examined, but an enormous amount of study wvaits to be done.

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