Beyond Belief: Context, Rationality and Participatory Consciousness
Sabina Magliocco
ABSTRACT: This paper gives an overview of anthropological and folkloristic approaches to belief, and proposes its examination as a response to specific contextual factors. It approaches belief as emerging from “participatory consciousness,” a state of mind that exists alongside rational consciousness in all human societies. Examples are drawn from the cultures of magico-religious healers in Italy and modern Pagans in North America and Western Europe. KEYWORDS: belief, magic, history of folklore theory, folk healing, modern Pagans
The /Xam Narratives of the Bleek and Lloyd Collection: Questions of Period and Genre
Michael Wessels
ABSTRACT: The materials collected from /Xam informants in the second half of the nineteenth century by Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd have received attention from historians, anthropologists, rock art interpreters, and poets. Generic categories have been imported into /Xam studies in ways that are derivative and critically unreflexive. This article argues that the consequences have been far-reaching for the reading of the texts as well as for the ways that the materials have been positioned ontologically and in relation to history and period. KEYWORDS: myth, folklore, literature, orality, periodization
Frenchman's Creek and the Female Sailor: Transgendering Daphne du Maurier
Valentina Bold and Pauline Greenhill
[From the article]: Daphne du Maurier’s Frenchman's Creek has probably surprised other folklorists, as it did the authors of this article, with its representations of a very familiar traditional ballad figure. Indeed, some 50 years ago, Thomas J. Rountree linked the novel with “The Gypsy Laddie” (Child 200).... With all due respect, we think that Rountree identified the wrong ballad parallel, and that he thus fails to recognize the significance of the novel’s traditional counterparts. Instead, we suggest that narrative songs about cross-dressing women, and particularly about female sailors, provide a better analogue to the novel’s characters, plot, and conclusion.
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