Western Folklore

Vol. 68, No. 1 – Winter, 2009

Contents

Editor’s Note

Articles

The Ritualesque: Festival, Politics, and Popular Culture
Jack Santino

 
ABSTRACT: In this article I examine emergent acts that can be identified as forms of mumming or related to ritual house assaults and rough music. I question the nature of this linkage in terms of traditionality. I further suggest many events and symbolic social actions involve an intent to transform some aspect of public life, whether it be attitudes, conditions, ur opinions. As instrumental symbolic actions, such events may be termed “ritualesque.” KEYWORDS: ritual, festival, mumming, traditionality, ritualesque

Lonely Ranchers, Solitary Students, and Angry Governors: Personal Vulnerability and Community Conflict in Yaqui Emotion Talk
Kirstin C. Erickson

 
ABSTRACT: This article explores emotion discourses in a northern Mexican community. For Yaqui Indians, extreme emotional states are considered perilous: “anger” and “sadness” threaten community and jeopardize the self. The folklore of emotion—verbal acts and cautionary tales—reveals Yaqui emotion-talk to be an intersubjective, deeply sig;nificant commentary on humanness itself. KEYWORDS: folk belief, Indian, Yaqui, emotion, cautionary tales

The Birth of Fingerling as a Feminine Projection: Maternal Psychological Mechanisms in the Fingerling Fairy Tale
Ravit Raufman

 
ABSTRACT: Tale Type AT 700, named “Tom Thumb,” is presented as an expression of maternal psychological mechanisms and of experiences that relate to the early mother-son relationship. The underdeveloped figure is presented as an expression of maternal-symbiotic needs, as well as of the experience of maternal immaturity, projected through the child. KEYWORDS: folk tale, Tom Thumb, psychology, mother-son relationships

Reviews

William H. Beezley, Mexican National Identity: Memory, Innuendo, and Popular Culture
Reviewed by Sydney Hutchinson

Bess Lomax Hawes, Sing It Pretty: A Memoir.
Reviewed by Burt Feintuch

Brian Joseph Gilley, Becoming Two-Spirit: Gay Identity and Social Acceptance in Indian Country
Reviewed by Jason Whitesel

Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers
Reviewed by Willie Smyth

Julie Cruikshank, Do Glaciers Listen?: Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination
Reviewed by Michele Hartley

Rudy Abramson and Jean Haskell eds., Encyclopedia of Appalachia & Handbook of Appalachia
Reviewed by Guy Lancaster

Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf ed., Female Circumcision: Multicultural Perspectives
Reviewed by Elizabeth Tucker

Leela Prasad, Ruth B. Bottigheimer, and Lalita Handoo eds., Gender and Story in South India
Reviewed by Frank J. Korom

Roger D. Woodard, Indo-European Space: Vedic and Roman Cult
Reviewed by Joseph Falaky Nagy

M. Elise Marubbio, Killing the Indian Maiden: Images of Native American Women in Film
Reviewed by Jacqueline L. McGrath

Benjamin Radford and Joe Nickell, Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World’s Most Elusive Creatures
Reviewed by Luke Powers

Shelly O’Foran, Little Zion: A Church Baptized By Fire
Reviewed by John Wolford

Leith Davis, Music, Postcolonialism, and Gender: The Construction of Irish National Identity, 1725–1874
Reviewed by Dianne Dugaw

Samuel S. Hill ed., The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Volume 1: Religion
Reviewed by Frank de Caro

Richard Pillsbury ed., The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Volume 2: Geography
Reviewed by Guy Lancaster

James P. Leary, Polkabilly: How the Goose Island Ramblers Redefined American Folk Music
Reviewed by Richard March

Frank J. Korom, South Asian Folklore: A Handbook
Reviewed by Lena L. Reynoso

Frank J. Korom and Paul J. Smutko, Village of Painters: Narrative Scrolls from West Bengal
Reviewed by John Wolford

Michael Largey, Vodou Nation: Haitian Art Music and Cultural Nationalism
Reviewed by Mickey Weems

Monica McDermott, Working-Class White: The Making and Unmaking of Race Relations
Reviewed by Elinor Levy

Mark F. Sohn, Appalachian Home Cooking: History, Culture, and Recipes
Reviewed by Lucy M. Long

Elizabeth Tucker, Campus Legends: A Handbook
Reviewed by Steve Warrick

Sue Fawn Chung and Priscilla Wegars eds., Chinese American Death Rituals: Respecting the Ancestors.
Reviewed by Juwen Zhang

Rosemary Radford Ruether, Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History
Reviewed by Sabina Magliocco

William M. Clements ed., Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Folklore and Folklife
Reviewed by Steve Roud

Barry Lee Pearson, Jook Right On: Blues Stories and Blues Storytellers
Reviewed by Derek Allen Clements

Nancy C. McEntire, Grey Larsen, and Janne Henshaw eds., The Lotus Dickey Songbook ; John Bealle, Old-Time Music and Dance: Community and Folk Revival
Reviewed by Anita Anderson and Paul Jordan-Smith

Simon J. Bronner ed., Manly Traditions: The Folk Roots of American Masculinities
Reviewed by Joseph P. Goodwin

Mark C. Amodio ed., New Directions in Oral Theory: Essays on Ancient and Medieval Literatures
Reviewed by Elissa R. Henken

Bill Mercer, People of the River: Native Arts of the Oregon Territory
Reviewed by Willie Smyth

Wolfgang Mieder, Proverbs Are the Best Policy: Folk Wisdom and American Politics
Reviewed by Anand Prahlad

George W. S. Aguilar, Sr., When the River Ran Wild!: Indian Traditions on the Mid-Columbia and the Warm Springs Reservation
Reviewed by Willie Smyth

Oyekan Owomoyela, Yoruba Proverbs
Reviewed by Anand Prahlad

Film review

Mark Morgan, Director, The Human Hambone
Reviewed by Irene Chagall