- What is folklore?
- Characteristics of folklore
- literary folklore
- Folk music
- world folklore day
- Examples of national folklore
We explain what folklore is, its characteristics and various examples. Also, how is folklore in music and literature.
What is folklore?
Folklore, folklore or folklore is the set of practices, traditions, knowledge Y beliefs people who belong to a human group, especially to a culture or to a specific population.
Folklore is distinguished from organized and formal knowledge, such as academic knowledge or science, and covers the practices rituals, crafts and all the traditional manifestations that determine the "personality" of a region or one community. In this way, there may be German, Chinese or Scandinavian folklore, as well as from northern Argentina in general or from a specific town in that region.
Folkloric elements are considered both the music, dances, religious festivities, beliefs and legends, and the jokes Y Word games, such as handicrafts and toys, popular stories and customs.
All this is summed up in the term folklore, of Anglo-Saxon origin, minted in 1845 by the English antiquarian William J. Thoms (1803-1885), replacing folk antiquities (“popular antiquities”). It is a term that is composed of the voices folk (“town” or “popular”) and lore (“knowledge”, “traditions” or even “stories”).
However, the notion of folklore was already used in the 19th century before it had that name, since since the rise of Romanticism and their feelings nationalists associated, the interest in compiling and studying popular traditions and stories had arisen in Europe, which contrasted with the rationalistic and cosmopolitan world of the Illustration.
Thus arose, for example, the great compilations of traditional stories by the Brothers Grimm. Subsequently, the term folklore gained much prestige and academic interest in the early 20th century, especially in Europe and the United States.
Characteristics of folklore
In general terms, folklore is characterized by the following:
- It encompasses a set of practices, knowledge and beliefs that traditionally belong to a specific human group and that have been transmitted from generation to generation orally and informally, not academically.
- It varies from one place or one community to another, since it generally reflects the cultural tradition (religious, moral, historical) of the community to which it belongs.
- It is a symbol of identity of peoples and nations, which in many places has a “protected” character, that is, it is encouraged to keep tradition alive, safe from cultural homogenization processes. It is also possible that it becomes an instrument for ideologies xenophobic or nationalists.
- It is also called "folklore" to the discipline that studies folklore, and "folklorists" to those who are dedicated to it.
It involves three stages or stages:
- Nascent folklore, when it is recently created and is in the process of being built.
- Living folklore, when it is practiced and it is possible to find it in people's daily lives.
- Dead folklore, when there is memory of its practice, but there is no one who does it (or very few).
literary folklore
The term “literary folklore” is used to refer to folkloric manifestations that are of a literary type, that is, that use the word in a poetic or figurative way to express different subjective contents. This should not be confused with the literature folklore, which is a gender poetic and novelistic that uses traditions and popular cultural life as raw material to build literary works.
This distinction can be better seen with an example: if a novelist by trade goes to a town in his country to draw inspiration from local traditions and create a new work, we are in the presence of folk literature, that is, literature that is inspired by the folklore, which comes to him as raw material.
On the other hand, if in said town there is a tradition of declaiming at festivals couplets rhymed songs told by local legends, we are in the presence of literary folklore, since the rhyme and the narration they are literary forms that in this case are put at the service of the folkloric manifestation.
Folk music
Folk music, also called popular music, is a musical genre that has a marked ethnic or traditional character, and which is therefore associated with a specific culture or population, as a manifestation of its personality.
Folk music often involves traditional instruments, popular rhythms, and even lyrics in dialect local, and is transmitted from generation to generation, since it is part of the folklore. Examples of popular music are Andalusian flamenco, samba from Rio de Janeiro, tango from Buenos Aires and the Mexican corrido.
world folklore day
Since 1960, every August 22 the World Folklore Day is celebrated, to celebrate the diversity and cultural richness of the different past and existing peoples. This celebration was established by the unesco, international entity dedicated to the promotion and preservation of the intangible legacy of the humanity, of which folklore forms a central part.
Examples of national folklore
The following are some examples of national folklore:
- Mexican folklore. In general terms, Mexican folklore encompasses a diverse set of traditions and imaginaries resulting from the intense hybridization between colonial Spanish culture and that of indigenous peoples. Mesoamericans originating. This gave rise to a culture mestizo in which Christianity and the Catholic festivals set an important pattern, but at the same time ancestral traditions are manifested, such as the famous Day of the Dead. The mixture is also evident in the linguistic traditions and word games (such as albures), in which the trace of the coexistence of Spanish with the local indigenous languages can be seen. Another good example is the talavera from Puebla, a type of pottery from Spain that acquired its own personality in Mexico, highlighted by its bright colors in classic European-type designs.
- Brazilian folklore. Brazil's folklore reflects the heritage of Portuguese, African, and native cultures, giving rise to a melting pot of traditions that can vary significantly from region to region. Thus, for example, the folklore of the Amazon region is more in contact with the indigenous, while the coastal one is linked to the African culture brought to America by the slaves of the colony. In fact, numerous legends still survive in Brazil (such as the Iara mermaid, the Curupirá, the Boitatá snake, among others) and African religious practices (such as the Umbanda), which coexist with the dominant Portuguese culture, of Catholic roots.Another traditional aspect in which the African heritage is evident is music, strongly marked by drums, as in samba, although there are also regions where the typical dance is characterized more by heel tapping and clapping, reminiscent of the dances of the European Iberian region.
- Argentine folklore. Argentine folklore is predominantly Hispanic, with an important presence in the music of traditional instruments (such as the charango, a small guitar) and a combination of song and dance. However, the folklore of the Andean region is characterized by its Quechua heritage and its typical instruments (such as the quena, a vertical flute), especially during carnival times, when the Andean highlands are the scene of traditional processions and comparsas (with devil costumes and traditional music, the “carnavalito”). On the other hand, in the Río de la Plata region, folklore accuses the inheritance of Italian migration, especially in the city of Buenos Aires, where tango and bandoneón predominate among the traditional elements, and speech is strongly marked by the appearance of words of Italic origin.