The Impact of Cultural Folklore on National Values: A Preliminary Study with a Focus on Bhutan

Abstract

Are the personal and national values of a people found in their traditional folklore? This paper will look at the correlation between the values expressed by Bhutan's citizens of themselves and their nation and the traditional folklore of Bhutan, seeking to discover the similarities and differences between the values of the people and those found in their folktales. A people's stories help answer questions of identity and values. They touch on the very core of who they are, both personally and corporately. Cultural anthropologists, sociologists, ethnographers, and cultural researchers seem to agree that to investigate the idea of self and all that self means, one does it by way of an individual's stories, along with the stories of his or her historical, societal, and cultural self. It is through these stories that self is revealed — whether the individual self or the “self” of a community, culture, or society.