00:00:02.810 - 00:00:11.900

I think I was one of the lucky boys alive to be born and ran a little village like Society Hill, South Carolina.

00:00:11.900 - 00:00:23.100

This old man who had been a slave in Virginia, had migrated and settled. I was a boy under 10 years of age who

00:00:23.100 - 00:00:35.220

traded him around to hear him talk for, despite the fact that diamond down, who we call affectionately, could not write his name,

00:00:35.220 - 00:00:45.380

but I had to make a cross mark. Despite the fact that he couldn't read a line of English, had a wonderful imagination and had

00:00:45.380 - 00:00:53.150

the act of expressing itself in dramatic language. And when I give you some samples of his stories this afternoon,

00:00:53.150 - 00:01:03.770

please know that I'm not doing real credit to his ability as a storyteller. I'm simply imitate us. But I followed him around.

00:01:03.770 - 00:01:18.760

And he told me stories of the Crito. We didn't see animals either decreed US. Economy is talking about. And I have a suspicion.

00:01:18.760 - 00:01:27.890

Yea, I had a conviction. Then under thymine, great line of storytellers during the slavery period in

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America had a feeling that added benefit to them or out to the morale of the slaves to give them hope,

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Jeff, yeah, definitely, I just thought you did. Or that they would someday be free time and stay.

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In his dialect, language. Beautiful and poetic. Me. And got no claws the pipe like a wildcat,

00:02:00.740 - 00:02:11.540

tree, like a squirrel. But don't read it. A big guy. He could see in the front and the side and back without turned to him.

00:02:11.540 - 00:02:24.950

He got long legs and you can learn fast. And he got, he thinks he's the smartest people in the deep woods. Therefore, when the humble rabbit or

00:02:24.950 - 00:02:36.080

overcome the tiger and outward the bear and puts a wolf like, Oh my God, I know you've never heard that term before.

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Breaking Bad on Di Salvo's, I'm no longer a yardstick and people like Pitchfork problems and being spoken,

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nose and the red ones get an enema. It must have done something to the slave. That's an interesting part of this liquid jar.

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And so the magnitude was a hero as well as a proxy. Even the proctoring for the slave. Because like Edgar Bergen telling a copy,

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the flag connect things to the mat for some of the children and the display, wouldn't that be like straight up to

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the time of coffee. Said when he wants to about a popular actress or an act on Edinburg and wouldn't think of saying that they're

00:03:33.170 - 00:03:44.820

ready to read widely product the hero of the story. And I have come to love the dialogue, though it has repudiated by

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a very large element in the Negro community and in the white community too. And I can understand that they're

00:03:51.740 - 00:03:56.980

getting farther and farther away from that sort of language in the English, teachers are trying to purify

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changed from the language children. With James Weldon Johnson, one of our great poets and writers dented a Mr. Faulkner.

00:04:04.790 - 00:04:18.170

Please, when you tell us stories, keep them in the easy flowing and it menthol, one of the dialect, please do that. And Audubon Tom, who is one of

00:04:18.170 - 00:04:28.160

our contemporary writers, librarian at this. Can you now when you transcribe these stories into easily flowing English, because the publishers will

00:04:28.160 - 00:04:35.510

take dialect from a new writer. You could use some of the idioms and let them slide into it. So there'll be unnaturalness

00:04:35.510 - 00:04:44.840

about the stories that will not be to spoil my dressing them up into fine King, King's English. Do I promise you that when I rewrite

00:04:44.840 - 00:04:55.250

these stories, some 25000, he collected authentic original stories with the mouse or people who were living at that time.

00:04:55.250 - 00:05:10.160

I hope that it will be added to the sum total of this very beautiful literature, which has come to what I would say that

00:05:10.160 - 00:05:18.490

an avid Negro folklore should occupy just as fine a place at the American Indian full floor and the mountain for

00:05:18.490 - 00:05:27.170

law and the folklore of the plains and of the cowboys. And then we up the Negro community, had no sound ground on which to stand.

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When we say we dislike it, we want to forget it. It doesn't reflect upon us that default position.

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The sustains me and my thesis that unfold law which we up inhibiting and have contributed to the literary life of America is beautiful.

00:05:47.150 - 00:06:02.940

It's charming, it's delightful, entertaining. And now I would like to say this last word. And then I'd like to share with you a few of these very lovely stories.

00:06:02.980 - 00:06:14.340

I mean, it's a great gift. Gift of survival for a subjugated people to be able after the day's work is done.

00:06:14.340 - 00:06:26.600

After the body has suffered perhaps torture from clippings or exposure and nutrition can be able to escape into the land of make-believe.

00:06:26.600 - 00:06:33.370

I asked the children in one of the schools this morning, would you like to go with me with Alice in Wonderland?

00:06:33.370 - 00:06:44.810

And as it varies, Wonderland. I said nobody knows who cared to know where is Wonderland. If we can go and sell this land of

00:06:44.810 - 00:06:58.640

make-believe was peopled by these humble, unlettered slaves in America with actors and actresses that characters that perform

00:06:58.640 - 00:07:07.810

that made love and that fought and died and came welcome again and did stupendous thing. And so Uncle thymine would take me

00:07:07.810 - 00:07:17.910

as a boy into the land and make believe and regaled me with the exploits of this and the animals and fill now I shall give you

00:07:17.910 - 00:07:29.260

a sample of how delicately handle everything. And I waved my wand over your heads. And there'd be nobody in this room under overcame years of age and I

00:07:29.260 - 00:07:40.960

will be 75 and over and all the Simon Brown uncle sign. In olden days. They used to walk and talk

00:07:40.960 - 00:07:49.810

together just like men folks. We had a big house, post Bread House on the side of a hill. And rural.

00:07:49.810 - 00:08:03.290

They could read it one day. Let's plan of God. And the red, it said, I got to talk on platinum Lian.

00:08:03.290 - 00:08:20.980

Due to high. Whoops, that I will put some ketogenic God and some greens and some collared greens. And don't you come and teach my cabbage?

00:08:20.980 - 00:08:38.050

Cabbage? Cabbage. I totally fine clothing or don't bleeding. So we will plan to be on he put into cabbage and putting

00:08:38.050 - 00:08:47.680

the turn of the foot in the gaps and you put in the color green. And they all grew up melodically. And then the will says that

00:08:47.680 - 00:08:54.930

radical eat my colleague green, that'll put a fence around the gun. There. Lean this way around.

00:08:54.930 - 00:09:12.560

You put a gif from glucose. So remember we'll put a gate all go into the house a little bit and come up to the gif at

00:09:12.560 - 00:09:23.330

night when the moon was shining brightly greatly. And a wolf was in the house. No. Just the snow.

00:09:23.330 - 00:09:48.090

And read it is creeping up and ready. Come to the gating, says Play and detach. Get him to go into here again. The ship must be a magically ink that stuff.

00:09:49.090 - 00:09:59.300

Okay. And the hide in the bushes in the moment. And then I'll move over to gate. That's what we're going to soon

00:09:59.300 - 00:10:09.050

in the morning to radically crawl out of the bush and kind of squint up and wouldn't come out the house. And when we come to the gate,

00:10:09.050 - 00:10:26.150

you see we don't see the reading the books. All say to the gate opening. And they got it. You said that that overwhelm

00:10:26.150 - 00:10:41.870

coming to god, turnaround. Think the gate I blow up in the GitHub. Thanks. So that night when the wolf within

00:10:41.870 - 00:10:52.040

the house sound asleep gives us know on branded credit up to the gate and it'll shining bright. To come to the gate, you'll be a little

00:10:52.040 - 00:11:15.850

bit open-ended. Feedback, good. Clip up each small and red and pick out a knife.

00:11:15.850 - 00:11:25.100

To cut the carriage, to call it stops dopamine effect. Pull up the total care WD, that particularistic I will

00:11:25.100 - 00:11:37.920

draw my shoulder, stopped it again. And once you read the cloud, come on to the moon and grow die. They got ebook.

00:11:39.220 - 00:11:58.160

How negative number? Well, yea. That you take it again. Dc pipa, and give them a little bit about today.

00:11:58.160 - 00:12:10.070

Well, what balances out the gate? Foods like, oh my god, I'm loaded a good idea to get lamb. And we're going to keep dropping

00:12:10.070 - 00:12:23.490

down to department. Because politically and hide behind college will say to the gate. But he woke enough.

00:12:23.490 - 00:12:35.180

Dawn. Who's your movement even migraines. Update that for reading a mono bread it and then get you.

00:12:35.180 - 00:12:46.880

I'm going to follow each day. Wow, I probably couldn't even breathe. Come on out, read it on the queue. And the editors, just the Cleveland behind

00:12:46.880 - 00:12:56.690

college dock with the movies binding it. And just about that time the cloud move out from one of the moon, a bright daylight. And when the cloud move out and the moon come

00:12:56.690 - 00:13:05.800

out already is pop up like that. And the workday by late. Because I gotcha. Gotcha.

00:13:05.800 - 00:13:17.780

At the reading you did lab and lab and they really feel greatly, what's the matter with me? You think you've gotten da,

00:13:17.780 - 00:13:29.020

da, going to call adopted baby by an egg man and a woman. We wouldn't call it dark and we're ready to get down to the little angle

00:13:29.020 - 00:13:45.650

will enable cocky me, it really was the days when the rapid with a single man and

00:13:45.650 - 00:13:57.540

a white reading and without the house and make up the bed and cooked a little wider. Your workbook, man and a woman, what?

00:14:00.130 - 00:14:15.630

You're going to get away. And you get about a pretty candidly Creep. And in the Yad is a great big flat rock. So he grew up to the house to coat the gap.

00:14:15.790 - 00:14:29.430

And he had only been bow up and down, going up and down. And you'll come out on the porch. I guess it must have been ill,

00:14:29.430 - 00:14:47.160

meaning that it says what you're doing. Yeah. I got a call. He says, You want to guess that, show that you see

00:14:47.160 - 00:15:04.790

a pretty good way to go about yacht. Got lucky on that. Thank you. Download event lead has been released. So when the England

00:15:04.790 - 00:15:14.660

comes everybody with them. But man, did he get out in the middle of the yard? And he did when he was different.

00:15:14.660 - 00:15:28.520

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Belong to, just follow, but does come out. Yellow was the devil.

00:15:28.520 - 00:15:39.110

And he'd come up on a rock and eat more than, you know. Just hit on the law clinic off the clock the clock,

00:15:39.110 - 00:15:47.280

validity, validity, broccoli follow. And again, she's that non-important is looking. But it does come out drug yet.

00:15:49.780 - 00:16:03.350

Gone through now. And he come along and eat whatever the claw hammer, cosine y plus this shot me.

00:16:03.350 - 00:16:11.720

Just still Dawkins patent leather shoes with silver buckles. All again, kind of pinned up when he come.

00:16:11.720 - 00:16:29.130

And the potential penalty both the shoulder and begin to play. Anything does come up. And that same day, the manageability gown.

00:16:29.130 - 00:16:48.080

And from that database, pretty yeah. And I don't know that the red ashes any shoes. I'm going to take you out of

00:16:48.080 - 00:16:57.770

your subjugation temporarily and say to you that with switches the stoic now from these Attainment to sort of an adventure story

00:16:57.770 - 00:17:07.280

that the sociologists might enjoy. If an equal to this for now, uncle specimen was quite an act on and jump up high.

00:17:07.280 - 00:17:15.700

He is he has to go through pulling it down. I couldn't do it. So buying thalamus thing you'll have to lead up to the weakness of the body.

00:17:15.700 - 00:17:23.760

And spirit is willing, but sometime the body isn't quite equal. Well, we'll go back into the role or the sign.

00:17:24.430 - 00:17:36.230

In olden days depleted is used to fall. When the rain come. New crops was good. Rain or rain on time.

00:17:36.230 - 00:17:49.420

People. And one sum up, in O-ring come. Son was like a ball. Apply our shining down from the skies. And all.

00:17:49.420 - 00:18:05.390

The oddity is done through law. And all done. In bringing done right up. Got time to talk to you will have to go

00:18:05.390 - 00:18:14.770

down to rule to guide him folks for the week, create the hurricane coming through two would be built yet. And there was a lot bigger then, bam,

00:18:14.770 - 00:18:21.470

bam, bam, bam, a boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It was at the end of the trees was abandoned and the wind was blowing.

00:18:21.470 - 00:18:28.880

The Laplacian and landed was a hard on people to keep the wind, blow them off that these are the up and it will kind of you mounted rule.

00:18:28.880 - 00:18:43.460

He says Google your data, the labs as well, but they didn't end up a little bit about Gillette and you put the rope around,

00:18:43.460 - 00:18:51.730

it puts any pull them tight. Tight with the robot running. Any prolonged kind. And the bear was a big, bigger,

00:18:51.730 - 00:18:59.720

bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bang and agrees with the wings was applied. And when was a boy instead about

00:18:59.720 - 00:19:11.370

Harlan? It was a time. In Thailand is the pitch and let me see urea. So the twist NACADA he pitch, he said But algebra at a time.

00:19:11.370 - 00:19:18.960

When the ball York, these are the other overhead erotic. Rubbing around the waist and pull type a lot about your neck.

00:19:18.960 - 00:19:25.160

Long time, Rocky Melodic looks any problem type? And he said NaBr, the fight off disease adventure,

00:19:25.160 - 00:19:31.910

Medici your bag all the time. They make a net force. We keep adding a boom to get bad and sober directly to his and he couldn't

00:19:31.910 - 00:19:40.860

width and read it. Then I go up that children's outcomes are things I want to hit, Done.

00:19:40.860 - 00:19:51.110

And raw decreases through the trees and come out from the grass and the leaves and it's thorough. And to narrow the gap, there was the man.

00:19:51.110 - 00:20:04.200

He said, Oh, I don't want the tree to think in more than you need. And all you little tweeted. The tighter you go States, looks off you.

00:20:04.200 - 00:20:11.180

And you can go on get your water bucket to get your purpose. Thanks. Come on, get all eternity and

00:20:11.180 - 00:20:25.500

all the drinking water for the lot unquoted get voice anyway, advertiser uses data to the Lord, knows Dan demand for that he had a captive.

00:20:25.500 - 00:20:32.930

Personally, I think even a captivated audience. And I think we had something that by about two things,

00:20:32.930 - 00:20:40.940

you've got to get it running out of watching now, I hope it isn't. He will answer questions from the fly now. And I hope you are all

00:20:40.940 - 00:20:49.170

good questions among other things, and get them to tell a few more of these dogs. He thought that a speaker.

00:20:49.840 - 00:21:06.280

And as a Balkans know, it's cool. It wasn't all that I think most story too bright. But on the final and this tell me this.

00:21:06.280 - 00:21:18.500

He said though, really you wanted to yeah. I was brave us to get under them. A voice. Give you some thought.

00:21:18.500 - 00:21:27.150

And then you wrote, I thought over your left shoulder and retired. They look like quite easy again, we know

00:21:37.060 - 00:21:47.140

that with another cash in my life, I've written up in a book at all on that island. Oh, it's still a because

00:21:47.140 - 00:21:55.010

they tell me You Sheng, frightened children and that helped me to leave. What do you think I want to write entity

00:21:55.010 - 00:22:06.230

that is Sterling who lived in Chesterfield County. And we go over to his bomb, sometimes grapes over then

00:22:06.230 - 00:22:17.210

we liked his grapes and he said that, you know, there's a which did Cunningham and nine bother me. I said Rich. Yes.

00:22:17.210 - 00:22:25.250

She just tie it all up with them. Couple Bert and my colleagues to give a gallon of milk in Beijing and get them on a pike.

00:22:25.250 - 00:22:37.830

Now. And he was curious about, and we said that Eastlake, nobody nobody can be a which you don't know.

00:22:37.830 - 00:22:54.430

You I don't know. You know how to be a which says no village. When you make up your mind, you don't deal which all you've

00:22:54.430 - 00:23:07.370

got to stay is download. Download. You see that we got the data look up. If you're lucky.

00:23:07.370 - 00:23:21.480

And you say, Oh, which? Ever see it? All right. You got to sell me your soul will be a wish. And you say, all right,

00:23:21.480 - 00:23:35.020

and then that was gone. I will get back get back. In both the corn peel. It'll continue to fire.

00:23:35.020 - 00:23:46.470

Yeah, like EEOC on. And then you take that call and you take off one day and put it in a stump with some lot in every Friday.

00:23:46.470 - 00:24:13.400

And a gun and cake and grain of corn. And that was all around the house by Chamberlain. And is Galerkin say, get a shovel.

00:24:13.400 - 00:24:25.460

And a preacher man. He said chimney ended preacher, he take the shovel and E are either local them in

00:24:25.460 - 00:24:40.100

the channeling in what you read any fine grade big pot of gold. And you can say that shows since hewing scan as haka my hand,

00:24:40.100 - 00:24:55.380

this helps language ever come back no. Chemical on. And it brings you put Iraq back. Pursuing his house. He went to sleep.

00:24:55.660 - 00:25:07.380

And the next day when the math come around, the nucleus now the speed in the housing then any hitting Hughes, good. He says No, sir.

00:25:07.380 - 00:25:17.560

Douglas gay last night? No, sir. No, sir. He said, Well, if yours and mine in the house.

00:25:17.560 - 00:25:40.370

But I recommend never detailed message. Anytime a particle to know Dr. James Johnson has been stolen, who encouragement given to storytelling.

00:25:40.370 - 00:25:46.280

That is the folk stories, which are the stories that come up that sort of out of the unconscious life

00:25:46.280 - 00:25:55.960

of unlettered people. That there's very little of it knew that he's being born. We're substituting action and

00:25:55.960 - 00:26:05.150

what he calls the, we bought music and all that thing. So that there's not a great deal of the literature that's coming alive.

00:26:05.150 - 00:26:18.650

Now there are songs like Stan Lee, who was a criminal CAPTA, who was a great marksmen with his pistol, who for example, could shoot

00:26:18.650 - 00:26:27.430

the buttons on his enemies cope without touching the code book, it should resolve the shoes and the scatterplot that that was statically.

00:26:27.430 - 00:26:45.200

And he lived so far down, so far back. And nobody ever, then. Those characters, they need situations. Balance, such as the balance

00:26:45.200 - 00:26:53.980

can span and Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo on folk singers and folk musicians by Josh White,

00:26:53.980 - 00:27:08.000

build up balance and legends. But the stories dating back into the old literature don't seem to be coming out now

00:27:08.000 - 00:27:21.320

because there's no biotin cards. I do pick up stories, however, from unsuspecting people who will give me a plot unconsciously.

00:27:21.320 - 00:27:31.230

And that makes me believe that the folk literature still being produced back in the hinterland. For example, I went out,

00:27:31.230 - 00:27:44.820

backed up some place an arc and so on. Ready state college Barney goes is located about 40 miles back on let me The Arkansas.

00:27:44.820 - 00:27:54.680

And there was an old woman at the Pullman house, the pulmonic always one of the big old plantation houses back there.

00:27:54.680 - 00:28:05.050

And this woman lived on the place. She was unfit and age and said she had come over directly from Africa many, many years.

00:28:05.050 - 00:28:12.930

And she had never been out of the county. She couldn't read and write. And she look like a person who might have a story.

00:28:12.930 - 00:28:23.510

So I said to her, isn't a guy on his plantation who can pick 300 pounds of cotton Monday. She has no money and are like into that.

00:28:23.510 - 00:28:31.210

Cogen. Why is a man preach? And he said he is and he can think 300 pounds of cotton a day.

00:28:31.210 - 00:28:46.120

She says, Don't you bleeding? Do you mind me talking budget? And I said, Well, what is it? She said, Oh, Tukey budget,

00:28:46.120 - 00:28:59.600

fly and feel looking for something. That's only do you know how seeing gotten a mess in gotten done in daddy was our deadline would

00:28:59.600 - 00:29:08.000

feel and a big storm come up and just don't kick him out of there. And then when common blow on that side and the rain

00:29:08.000 - 00:29:17.190

come down hitting month Anthony, heat, waves, he flies away, fly away and bye-bye, see a treaty catch on Whole Foods.

00:29:17.190 - 00:29:27.000

And then the rain come down with him on the other side. And upon the role and the lightning flash and cities hold on for dear life to the treat.

00:29:27.000 - 00:29:34.190

And Bye-bye. A storm gets so 2020 and he says, Lord please at all any drown, please the Lord,

00:29:34.190 - 00:29:43.830

don't let the lightning strike me and tell me a house and I have a place to stay. On top of the house.

00:29:43.830 - 00:29:56.690

The old lady said the load ui, spread it good for nothing. Tukey was a prep loss stops goal. And when he died. And the fun,

00:29:56.690 - 00:30:05.150

let me go back over across the river. Wave come from an enlightened me. Die down the trees. And all you could hear with

00:30:05.150 - 00:30:11.660

the little pigment and the water going down to the ribbon. And then pretty soon the sunburst through the clamps.

00:30:11.660 - 00:30:19.340

Now, we're talking about the lip of the hidden look around. And quickie, don't forget what he said to the Lord.

00:30:19.340 - 00:30:27.110

Leg swings and move right out in the field line out there looking for soft, meaning that the kind of

00:30:27.110 - 00:30:38.090

man and talking with kind of peoples on the river bank and fish or to someone you don't know, Taylor's named got no chicken into

00:30:38.090 - 00:30:52.360

your ETL would polygonal count. And the fish involve some invited by cold, let it come. And Jack thought he jumped up off the ground.

00:30:52.360 - 00:31:07.500

And snow, north land and puberty ground. Any co it'll Neil into been in a joke in our median, the smoke house.

00:31:07.500 - 00:31:17.750

And then he goes on. Then divide by to get down on the knees, get down onto OT, and look up the chimney.

00:31:17.750 - 00:31:27.560

And they said, Lord, don't let us stop the depth Lisa. We know we ain't nothing but more. We promised should go and put some tables in

00:31:27.560 - 00:31:36.940

the field and until a fence and put the puck on the past. The one in the Word file. Please don't let us freeze to death.

00:31:36.940 - 00:31:47.980

Long. Walk from the Southwestern and spring come soon so we don't die, please a sentence, know, Norway belong and crossing the ground,

00:31:47.980 - 00:32:01.040

please Lord him a good load here and good for nothing people graph. And a wall when come from the self and blow smoke,

00:32:01.040 - 00:32:09.430

I don't want to wait long. And a jack Frost go back into ground. And the little flowers begin to put down by the pass defense.

00:32:09.430 - 00:32:21.090

And honey bees begin to zoom around, warm and nice. And then people come out the house, come on Piazza and they sniff degrees.

00:32:21.090 - 00:32:30.630

Any smell so good. And to come out in the yard and then walk around the house. Yet they walk around the chin.

00:32:30.630 - 00:32:39.480

And what you do, you take down deficient gain. Don't forget all about the load that the derivative day,

00:32:39.480 - 00:32:53.260

no good to be with immense it. You see that? That is real folk literature. She wasn't trying to impress an audience.

00:32:53.260 - 00:33:02.100

She was, and burdening us out of a lot Sophie of life that she had seen a better way. And there are people who are bluffing.

00:33:02.100 - 00:33:11.020

And she gave me some coming from lips that were untrained and the mine that had never been trained in a formal fashion, tall.

00:33:11.020 - 00:33:17.100

She never expected that I would tell that story to a sophisticated audience like this. I think it isn't all dead.

00:33:17.100 - 00:33:24.840

It still comes up out of these people. They're unconscious mind when they feel a concern, as the Quakers would say,

00:33:24.840 - 00:33:45.420

a concern that they need to express. Are there any other questions? Did you want to save the United Way about designated to I think it's a very

00:33:45.420 - 00:34:06.240

nice this is the end of the road

00:34:06.240 - 00:34:23.850

back. As chuckling to myself. Name of this group. Kinda while ago I was

00:34:23.850 - 00:34:37.420

asked to speak in a small town that state. They said, What are you going to talk about? I said, Well, I think maybe the folk culture of the yacht said You can't do that.

00:34:37.420 - 00:34:46.680

You must never use the word culture and a title for anything and they stay in power. No real calm. Bravado with, with you

00:34:46.680 - 00:35:01.660

when you just tag to a subject, carry whether anybody comes are not. As director of State Historical Association. And us a long time.

00:35:02.750 - 00:35:16.590

I'm constantly FaceTime kind of ambivalence in my own work because I'm very aware. Anesthetic.

00:35:16.590 - 00:35:28.360

Part, a continuing and growing emphasis on states, local Hystrix, done along the traditional lines.

00:35:29.720 - 00:35:40.680

I think that's tremendously important. And I want nothing I say today to lead you to think that I believe that we should

00:35:40.680 - 00:35:51.960

do less than one of the traditional studies in history and local and state history. I'm really asking that we do

00:35:51.960 - 00:36:03.830

a great deal law and goes much further than we have been doing. This time tends to do research whether our

00:36:03.830 - 00:36:12.000

tangible written records. But you can prove that on such and such a date it was recorded in such and such a body or

00:36:12.000 - 00:36:25.040

such and such a manuscript that such and such with some knowledge of Niobe, of his drink, of knowledge. This is five.

00:36:25.040 - 00:36:35.710

In Minitab, a legal and constitutional political history. This meets our needs, or at least many of our needs.

00:36:35.960 - 00:36:46.890

It. But in recording the history of cultured classes, I was a psych clip left a little clue,

00:36:46.890 - 00:37:02.620

let live price so that we can analyze their reading. Flip left letters, diaries, family records of various contexts.

00:37:05.570 - 00:37:18.630

But us to yourself. I hope. What about all the rest to the people? What segment of life

00:37:18.630 - 00:37:32.080

in the period up to a 100 years ago? Guy into this category. My question is not changing. Just a little raw.

00:37:35.630 - 00:37:45.820

When you remember that the bulk of our p.stance, we're not in this group that left a written record.

00:37:46.970 - 00:38:00.480

You begin to wonder, what about the history? 90 percent. I am more interested in the privates in the armies that I am in what

00:38:00.480 - 00:38:16.630

the generals thought and planning. I am more interested in what the prime its sign and told each other and thought, I'd put up with that I am with what?

00:38:16.630 - 00:38:23.670

The channels, what thinking as they plan their back. Partly perhaps because we know to a certain extent,

00:38:23.670 - 00:38:39.990

go back what the channels where I am, I am from much the same because it's a great company. In the tense, rather than

00:38:39.990 - 00:38:53.250

the landowners in the immigrants, rather than the established ones. Without the right to vote, rather than with those

00:38:53.250 - 00:39:08.230

who had the rights of suffrage. Because perhaps they had property which made it possible. I want to know, as an historian,

00:39:08.230 - 00:39:22.420

as a folklorist, one. Who came out of the great teeming millions who worked with their hands.

00:39:23.390 - 00:39:39.450

But the dispossessed. And the, I use the word in quotation marks. Uncultured. What thinking, doing, singing, laughing about crying,

00:39:39.450 - 00:39:49.030

about what traditions they were passing on to their children. What theories they were passing on to their children?

00:39:49.030 - 00:39:56.730

What their homes were all going in, what way their homes were organized. But their relationship to their community too,

00:39:56.730 - 00:40:11.560

to their Darwin went to their school. Was it the fascination of an uncharted land? Not quite on China's, we might think at first.

00:40:12.230 - 00:40:24.440

Because the culture of the uncultured did not leave a manuscript direct address. It left as you would, if you will,

00:40:24.440 - 00:40:39.220

coach or the path that he had left them in the tradition. It left them in artifacts, left them in architecture, and in folk off.

00:40:43.850 - 00:40:55.620

Let's, let's define our terms. When I talk about folk culture is I shouldn't be doing next minutes to get

00:40:55.620 - 00:41:15.980

my watch out around talking. I'm thinking of the whole culture, those segments of our society, which was preserved and tradition.

00:41:15.980 - 00:41:28.500

Rather than being based upon the legend wreck. The legendary that was passed on by word of mouth rather

00:41:28.500 - 00:41:40.850

than by the printed page. The Song style is the beliefs, customs. And much beyond that to the traditional, the traditions of cracked.

00:41:40.850 - 00:41:53.180

And it's the way the horse was shot, the way they they quit was packed. The techniques and methods of the cracks on the whole,

00:41:53.180 - 00:42:10.920

the whole anthropological picture of the less fortunate on the farm or nutrients. So our society, I

00:42:10.920 - 00:42:20.460

think it's important that we begin to know something about the roots of American culture have been. And I think we've only just begun to find

00:42:20.460 - 00:42:29.580

out when you realize that there are only one or two places in the country, for example, one or two museums where you

00:42:29.580 - 00:42:44.850

can find out about life. Particularly when in fact it may plot. We did men read. What were the methods of

00:42:44.850 - 00:42:55.000

agriculture in particular areas? And agriculture is a, is always one of the most traditional of our occupations.

00:42:55.000 - 00:43:07.120

And I could go on naming Scott and of others. Areas of study where we are blindly ignorant and where there's a century of research to be done.

00:43:09.380 - 00:43:26.910

Because our folklore and I, I think folk culture is a little better word. But the word which covers the same concepts that I'm thinking of here.

00:43:26.910 - 00:43:35.550

I think the reason why, the reason why for folk culture is the peptides come to me for so many of us, they all material the STI songs

00:43:35.550 - 00:43:43.570

and so I spoke culture is broad enough to encompass crafts and trades, occupations, and village patterns.

00:43:44.390 - 00:43:55.930

Because this material covers such a wide variety of fields of intellectual interest. I took the 10 departments of this university

00:43:55.930 - 00:44:05.100

represented in the institute merely because they were, there was a convenient group. And again, thinking about

00:44:05.100 - 00:44:16.230

folk culture in terms of those tentative path. And I found that in different ways the scholars

00:44:16.230 - 00:44:27.210

are trained for those departments. Could bring that training to bear on special aspects about folk culture. And add not only to

00:44:27.210 - 00:44:36.480

our national understanding of what culture is, but I think at a perspective to his own field that would be

00:44:36.480 - 00:44:46.170

valuable both in terms of our scholarship than in terms of one's own. Teach. Let me start

00:44:46.170 - 00:44:54.720

what I am most familiar with the Department of English, where I spent 15. My own professional life.

00:44:54.720 - 00:45:05.940

I got it. I got into the world of the historians, but the back door. So it's, one of my friends says, folk.

00:45:05.940 - 00:45:22.050

It's the parity of the house of history. Let me tell you about an experiment that we went far beyond the realm of experimentation.

00:45:22.050 - 00:45:29.040

20 years ago, how Thompson was teaching at New York State College teachers in Albany didn't as long as

00:45:29.040 - 00:45:39.000

that it was 930 for it 16 years ago I began teaching a course called American folklore 940. You went to Cornell to then taught

00:45:39.000 - 00:45:50.310

the same course that I taught it for the next six years. This course was designed to teach the overall picture

00:45:50.310 - 00:45:57.750

of American folk law. The great virtue was did we spend these young people out into their homes and their communities,

00:45:57.750 - 00:46:17.820

particularly their homes, to discover their own family culture. What I could talk at some length on the therapy and relations

00:46:17.820 - 00:46:25.710

that this frequently results. How Thompson, you've saved the Great, I said about his cart is that young people got to

00:46:25.710 - 00:46:34.560

know their grandparents happily. Many grandparents suddenly discovered that they had something that their grandchildren

00:46:34.560 - 00:46:43.890

challenged in a new light. It was a particularly bad it will cost, I think for students who came in the later boats or

00:46:43.890 - 00:46:51.990

whose folks came on the link or boats. Because they suddenly recognize the fact that the European cultures that had come to a slate brought one

00:46:51.990 - 00:47:00.130

of the elements that were important, which all too many people had been alleging that the families forget and discard.

00:47:03.470 - 00:47:10.200

One of the things because this was a teachers college, one of the things we were interested in was to see in

00:47:10.200 - 00:47:20.950

what ways could be plowed back into an educational system. This has bought all kinds of interesting fruit.

00:47:20.950 - 00:47:31.380

Yogurt dark, not running away to Washington, to a meeting of a special committee of the microphone. Stand up to see in

00:47:31.380 - 00:47:41.540

what ways the folklore people themselves can provide teachers and librarians with the kind of bibliographical information they need so that we can help.

00:47:41.540 - 00:47:52.350

I'm going to young Americans a knowledge of their own thanks to coach their traditional. Any teacher of English,

00:47:52.350 - 00:48:01.130

of course, working in the realm of folklore, soon discovers that here is one of the most interesting places to approach.

00:48:01.130 - 00:48:13.300

The whole problem of narrative. For the people much tell hundreds of taints. Tall tales and shock tenants. Mary tails and tails.

00:48:19.280 - 00:48:28.020

I like the Mary tails and that's tall tales myself. I'm not going to tell you that one perhaps because it's actually a dog

00:48:28.020 - 00:48:37.230

and dogs master storyteller. And I know better than trying to compete, but I like the story we tell up an on-off switch though

00:48:37.230 - 00:48:47.580

about my cat bites an old guy and he's been there for 1000 years, practically speaks to hear you,

00:48:47.580 - 00:48:56.310

tell it to 1000. The city slicker is come up with high Ahmad to take them out hot. And it But most of all I think

00:48:56.310 - 00:49:06.110

the I am to sit around at night telling him starts. He likes to tell them about this three-legged cat photos.

00:49:06.110 - 00:49:21.360

Great big cat, and the best rabbit in Hamilton County. My tell the story this way. At damn cat can catch

00:49:21.360 - 00:49:30.660

a rabbit faster in any dog. And the candidate, to tell, you know what I do in the winter time? In the morning, I get up and I let him

00:49:30.660 - 00:49:40.180

out about 20 minutes. He did back here with the red is mine. I'd hang it up and I hit rabbits do all winter.

00:49:41.600 - 00:49:53.020

Somebody say I see the catch got 11 legs to 90 good teeth. And now she's list and let me tell you about that.

00:49:53.020 - 00:50:03.090

One morning my cat didn't come back all about noon. I went out to find 20 below 0. It was awful call I'd want to add to that.

00:50:03.090 - 00:50:14.430

I would add something traps. And now it's time for this four o'clock on a track. I right about that type gloves,

00:50:14.430 - 00:50:25.980

the trap took them all. I figured I advocate. So I advocate. I found it up and put it in a while.

00:50:25.980 - 00:50:36.420

I got thinking about that. How is a three-legged cat ever got to catch? And I thought to myself, I figured, I figured finally I got

00:50:36.420 - 00:50:43.680

a check that and a little piece of output. I began platelets. And that's a nice little like, yeah, we'll see it there.

00:50:43.680 - 00:50:53.920

And you see that high fixed, just as perfect as if it grabbed these. But what you don't know always that down at the end I got baby shots.

00:50:53.920 - 00:51:03.510

Can see CIA's other yeah. Yeah. Somebody said with the cat, cat, cat, rat. She's let me tell you.

00:51:03.510 - 00:51:16.260

I got on the line because I think he sits there with one Paul. Though the ears come up out of the radical plan.

00:51:16.260 - 00:51:32.270

A rabbit hole. In the atmosphere of the, of the woods, cabin. Tone in the dialect of the country.

00:51:32.270 - 00:51:47.380

It becomes not just a start, but a segment of like a reflection of a philosophy and a pattern. A pattern of thinking and acting and living.

00:51:48.620 - 00:51:57.510

The teacher of English discovers a problem with all of it, set it and shipped to poetry. It's truth and its waste them.

00:51:57.510 - 00:52:09.890

I often experienced dissolution. She discovers sties erupts, help all of you come to discover Dr. jogging dorsal out.

00:52:09.890 - 00:52:25.110

Dies of my catch. Guilt is protected and saved. My life, has been mentioned, became particularly

00:52:25.110 - 00:52:39.160

interested in the supernatural material. Perhaps is closer to the interests of the anthropologists than the teacher. I have records of something like

00:52:39.160 - 00:52:56.940

12 hungry ghosts she totaled up in my state due to the native talent. Doctors who are stressed. Let me say a word about that sort of material

00:52:56.940 - 00:53:06.550

and the historical society just in passing that. It seems to me that they Historical Society, the local society I'm thinking of now,

00:53:06.550 - 00:53:15.060

that ignores the style of it's haunted houses. And it's which houses. The practice which trees

00:53:15.060 - 00:53:23.050

if you have them here, is forgetting one of them. The important aspects of the intellectual history of its community.

00:53:23.050 - 00:53:36.060

After the belief and the return on debt, the belief in witches to believe in. Miracle man, whatever you call it, is. One segment of the intellectual history

00:53:36.060 - 00:53:47.850

of your community and one that we have common unfortunately to look down upon, add to it to disregard.

00:53:47.850 - 00:54:03.570

And yet another generation may or may well, which that, to find a variety of reasons. It knew quite cubits houses. How loud it.

00:54:03.570 - 00:54:12.450

Woven legends. I come with tau, which I happily add a locally star and a bad side of James Fenimore Cooper.

00:54:12.450 - 00:54:21.210

It's a matter of fact and of the same name WHO in the decade of this century published the ghost floor of

00:54:21.210 - 00:54:30.060

the top branch to, to watch the effect of that publication, the stories we're beginning to die us. But the fact that they were

00:54:30.060 - 00:54:39.690

published as kept them alive and the kind of special pride, a documentary text, not only in the back neck buddy and retaining

00:54:39.690 - 00:54:50.400

its whole tradition has been tremendously by this, this interest on the part of articulate his locally start index.

00:54:50.400 - 00:54:57.300

And it becomes a matter of intense local products. And those of us who live in haunted houses is I have

00:54:57.300 - 00:55:16.210

this other kind of that. Actually the kind of day linked point in the noise is that you get at midnight. We a lot of noise for a lot of noises.

00:55:16.880 - 00:55:26.350

They stop. They stopped eventually, but were replaced by a weird kind of polio. Now eventually discovered.

00:55:27.470 - 00:55:37.770

Our goals were just squirrels. We don't know about other folks to die in the woodwork. But there are still doors that do

00:55:37.770 - 00:55:49.000

strange things and footsteps that aren't squirrels at night. It's really my pleasure. Let's turn to the people that were interested in trying.

00:55:49.220 - 00:55:57.180

Because I noticed that the drama department, it's involved in your institute. Let me tell you a little about what they've done up at Cornell under the,

00:55:57.180 - 00:56:16.320

under the leadership of Alexander Graham, who was a friend of Thompson's. Now, for the last 10 years, colleague. Began work about 1938.

00:56:16.320 - 00:56:25.230

Comma program, where they took the pope law that students collect and develop them into small one.

00:56:25.230 - 00:56:43.170

I shot one act primarily designed for Farm Bureau bureau Grange groups. It's been very interesting to watch how those pamphlets published and given

00:56:43.170 - 00:56:55.650

away free to whatever groups will use, have ground of the day. And it is continuous. And the second Vine has now come out.

00:56:55.650 - 00:57:09.400

Of those four librarians, are people interested? Are two volumes by Roland guy, GID and others.

00:57:12.800 - 00:57:27.060

What's the first listened to a lump-sum drum is drought related gardens of Seneca and KU. That's a collection of

00:57:27.060 - 00:57:34.950

plays and 31 wonderful play about the strange gardens underneath our finger length. The second volume is as

00:57:34.950 - 00:57:44.640

a long single play on the kind of jive by grant. But those smaller blade sharp plays in the volume available to

00:57:44.640 - 00:57:57.720

product groups through our state services. And it's encouraged other plays about that local legendary and put them up. There had been a kind of resurgence

00:57:57.720 - 00:58:10.510

of interest in local folk flow through the rooftop they drop. I'm happy to see the doctor Dunlop

00:58:10.510 - 00:58:27.570

working on the problem of place names. One of the most fascinating subjects. I hope that you will have an opportunity to study the names of the Popeyes.

00:58:27.570 - 00:58:37.230

Likes best. The names that to some damn real estate operator always want to change. We had we had a lovely low

00:58:37.230 - 00:58:53.600

straighten our town called Pig out, of which the real estate people changed to Prospect Avenue. Writes up,

00:58:53.600 - 00:59:05.190

how many how many product that goes around it. I'm not there 10 thousand. But tell us about pig out.

00:59:05.190 - 00:59:17.430

That would be a distinction. It happens all the time we are where we place our lake called stony lump-sum, which I think is a beautiful name.

00:59:17.430 - 00:59:31.060

They get things done. Stony lungs and the test has started. Somebody wants to call it to shun angle point.

00:59:31.060 - 00:59:40.650

Mangoes, good Indian name. But when you've got a name like stony loans, why give it up? We are a lot of Indian names,

00:59:40.650 - 00:59:47.220

of course, in our area. And there are a lot of these are going to talk about, which has no basis

00:59:47.220 - 00:59:56.490

in history at all of course, except in the history of thought in the community. Which is up in the way the northern

00:59:56.490 - 01:00:05.760

parts of the fault glories of the Indians up there, its toll on the horse. The horse ran away and one of

01:00:05.760 - 01:00:13.110

the young braves chase to the, chase, to the chase. And finally grabbing said, We guy. So it became us,

01:00:13.110 - 01:00:26.710

we got to connect to the, and all those Indian names have Laughter flow are about. Let's talk for a few minutes about

01:00:26.710 - 01:00:38.610

the history department and folklore is with you. But the county historians and historians in my section,

01:00:38.610 - 01:00:48.150

the country, incorporated in their local histories a good deal of thought. They could deal with local legend. Now it's true that

01:00:48.150 - 01:00:56.070

they weren't always careful about identifying what was legend and what was history. And the archive, I think Can we

01:00:56.070 - 01:01:07.830

want to keep the distinction clear? Let's not add confusion to confusion. Let's also remember that between those localise diets and

01:01:07.830 - 01:01:23.040

our time came that kind of style mind a group called a plague. And Scott pull up the folk heritage in there and felt that

01:01:23.040 - 01:01:32.880

everything had to be tied to their indirect. Really know why, but they tended to go a long way from the true feeling of the essay is about which they would

01:01:32.880 - 01:01:41.670

like the Twilight, the historical list. So often it's done a better job of catching the spirit of an earlier time in the stomach.

01:01:41.670 - 01:01:56.510

Then they estoy. Sensible viewpoint for the love of his time. Time is children right corner, both the local and the local history,

01:01:56.510 - 01:02:06.360

keeping them separate, recognizing that there are two techniques in follow-up. Each approach is a scholarly approach, but you're really working with

01:02:06.360 - 01:02:15.750

different materials. Don't make the mistake of thinking that Popeyes, a schwa, the catalyst.

01:02:15.750 - 01:02:27.770

Since not it has its own discipline. It has its own legend, but it requires and validity and velocity to the original,

01:02:27.770 - 01:02:39.970

I'm told is just as important as copying down what the record says is telling his story. But the true folklore,

01:02:39.970 - 01:02:49.830

working as a full class material, precisely preferably with this kind of machine. So there's no question about how

01:02:49.830 - 01:02:59.950

I would show biding at the time you recall. He is just as meticulous then as they die and working through documents.