Folktale Texts Research Articles

북한과 중국의 설화 분야 비물질문화유산 지정 현황과 시사점

The purpose of this paper is to examine the current status and implications of folktales as cultural heritage North Korea and China to find a way to designate folktales as national intangible cultural heritage. To achieve this, we reviewed the current status of folk tales designated as intangible cultural heritage in North Korea and China, focusing on their content, selection criteria, and selection methods. North Korea began designating intangible cultural heritage in 2012, and China in 2006, with folktales accounting for more than 10% of the total list. North Korea has confirmed the designation of 13 folktales as national and local intangible cultural heritage, while China has designated 167 folktales as national intangible cultural heritage. In North Korea, the first criterion for designating a folktale as an intangible cultural heritage is the fact that Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un showed interest in the tale and mentioned it. Second, it is material with content that can be used as a means of public education. Third, it is material that uniquely reflects the historical and local characteristics of North Korea. Fourth, the target of designation is the recreated current publication rather than the narrative prototype of the folktale text. The characteristics that can be confirmed through the list of designations in the field of Chinese folk tales are: First, materials from minority ethnic groups are given priority over oral literature from the Han Chinese, the mainstream ethnic group. Second, the designation is based on the region where the tale is handed down. Third, for tales that are handed down in a wide area, all of the regions where the tale is handed down are designated. Fourth, if additional areas for the transmission of folk tales designated as primary are discovered, the areas for transmission are expanded and additionally designated. Fifth, the designation targets are comprehensively designated as single works or groups of tales, and also include historical records and modern publications. The designation of Korean folktales as intangible cultural heritage can be attempted in various directions. It requires passionate efforts from the national administration and academia with an open perspective regarding the cases of North Korea and China.

Gledališki eksperiment na Slovenskem (1966–1986) in njegovi odmevi v mladinski dramatiki – Andrej Rozman Roza

In Slovenian (youth) literature, three authors who have worked in the field of drama and/or theatre stand out – namely, Svetlana Makarovič, academically trained actress (Sapramiška), Milan Jesih (Four Plays for Children, adaptations of Andersen’s fairy tales The Emperor’s New Clothes and The Ugly Duckling) and Andrej Rozman Roza. The paper will focus on the latter, who was strongly influenced by the theatre experiment in Slovenia, especially during the formative period of his studies of the Slovenian language (1974–1978). Andrej Rozman Roza (1956) started performing and/or publishing plays in the period 1981– 1990 (Inspector Schwake, 1986; collection of texts Ana Monró Theatre, 1991, etc.). He is known in literary history as a youth poet and is included in Slovenian language curricula (1998, 2011, 2018). However, the definition of a systemic author is more appropriate for him (I. Even Zohar, M. Dović) since of the six functions in the literary system (author, institution, market, repertoire, book, reader) he holds at least three roles (author, “institution”, book [living book], etc.). This paper focuses on adaptations of classics of Slovenian (Cankar, Levstik, Linhart, Prešeren, etc.) or world literature that – regardless of literary genre or type – have become crossover literature in the process of literary reception, especially in picture-book editions (e.g., A Midsummer Night’s Dream which has the international fairy tale type number ATU 899A [Pyramus and Thisbe]). According to B. Kümmerling-Meibauer’s definition of crossover classics or authorship, Rozman is a crossover author. In addition, according to L. Hutcheon’s theory, adaptations are an important part of Rozman’s work and contribute to the updating of classics and modern classics. The paper presents the collection Brvi čez morje (The Footbridge Across the Sea), which contains thirteen plays, three of which are folktale texts – Janko and Metka (Hansel and Gretel) [ATU 327], Obuti maček (Puss in Boots) [ATU 545B], Vžigalnik (The Tinderbox) [ATU 562] – and one which is a fairy tale, Kekec [ATU 1137]). Intertextually, they refer to folktale types.

Мотив помощника в калмыцких сказках на сюжетный тип AT 508 «Благодарный мертвец»

Introduction. In the Kalmyk folktale tradition, AT type 508 (The Grateful Dead) develops through the motif of miraculous helper. The analysis shows that the main character pays some debt of the deceased one — to acquire an assistant. Goals. The study examines the motif of assistant in Kalmyk folktales clustering with AT type 508 (The Grateful Dead). Materials. The paper analyzes folktale texts published in Clear Script (Kalm. todo bičiq), Roman characters, and modern Kalmyk Cyrillic. Results. Before a long journey, the hero offers his servant to partake of some food which is a test for the latter: any refusal from the viands of humans shall indicate the companion belongs to the spirit world. The magic nature of the hero’s assistant is also manifested through his abilities to move at extremely high speed and understand the language of animals. And it is due to the latter gift that the assistant hears a dog and a cat’s conversation — to prompt the young man a remedy for the Khan’s daughter. Cat bile acts as medicine in all versions of Kalmyk folktales related to the type ‘Grateful Dead’. A. Afanasyev notes bile serves as medicine for the resurrection and eyesight recovery in the Russian fairy tale ‘Yeruslan Lazarevich’, emphasizing the ‘linguistic and mythical connection’ between — sunshine, glitter of gold, and the yellow color of bile. Being aware of the trouble, the grateful dead person protects his savior and the latter’s spouse from the snake venom. When accused of encroachments, he confesses all his good deeds (massacre of seven cannibal demons, their daughters, wives, and the former’s old mother) and sets outs towards the world of the dead ruled by Erlik Nomin Khan. The hero decides not to leave his assistant and follows him up to hell. Kalmyk folktales of the mentioned type are distinguished by description of trials experienced by the main character and his assistant in the realms of the dead. Possessions of Erlik Nomin Khan — the lord of the dead — are depicted in accordance with ideas of Buddhist hell traced in Oirat written monuments, such as The Story of Chojid-Dagini, The Tale of Molon-Toyin, The Tale of the Goose-Lama, The Tale of Naranu Gerel etc. It is the descriptions of Buddhist hell that distinguish the international type ‘Grateful Dead’ in the Kalmyk oral tradition through the motif of miraculous helper. Conclusions. The motif of helper in the considered folktales unfolds on the basis of traditional ideas with that earlier views were replaced by later Buddhist ones.

PENGEMBANGAN BAHAN AJAR DIGITAL TEKS CERITA RAKYAT KELAS X BERTEMA KEJADIAN SEJARAH DAERAH ASAL

This study aims to develop digital teaching materials for class X folklore texts with the theme of Regional Historical Events of Origin, as well as to determine the feasibility of digital teaching materials and students' responses to digital teaching materials. The development model used in this study is the Borg and Gall development model with eight simplified stages, namely 1) problem identification and data collection, 2) initial product design, 3) design validation, 4) design revision, 5) initial trial , 6) initial product revision, 7) usage trial, and 8) final product revision. Interview techniques and questionnaires were used to collect data with subject matter experts, media experts, class X students at SMAN 3 Kota Tangerang, and Indonesian teachers. The research results obtained were: 1) subject matter expert validation obtained 98% in the very feasible category, 2) media expert validation obtained 90% in the very feasible category, 3) Indonesian language teachers obtained 95%, and 4) Response of class X students of SMAN 3 Tangerang City gets 91% with very decent category. Based on the data from the assessment results, it was concluded that the digital teaching material for class X folktale texts is very suitable for use in learning at school.

알타이 설화에 나타난 어휘의 상징성

The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of Altai tales and the symbolic meanings of words in Altai tales. Altai refers to the Altai Republic in the Russian Federation, located in South Siberia. Altaians - the common name of a kind of historically formed union of six autochthonous Turkic-speaking ethnic groups. Altai folklore is the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth Altai people. Altai folk tales are life stories that reflect the traditions, belief systems, religions, and cosmic views of the peoples who have lived around the Altai Mountains since ancient times. Altai folk tales have similar themes or modified contents found in other regions and peoples, but reflect the uniqueness of the Altai peoples and culture. In Altai folktale texts, color words that symbolically express the main character and surrounding objects, as well as names of people and numbers using color words, are found. These vocabularies are linearly combined with other vocabularies and function as text components unique to narrative texts.

CONCEPTUALIZATION OF TIME IN BRITISH AND ARMENIAN FOLK TALES: METAPHOR AND METONYMY

Thе paper deals with the conceptualization of time with metonymies and metaphors in British and Armenian folk tales. Folk tale text as an imaginative and fictitious phenomenon carries some vivid aspects of unconscious and is considered to be a valuable material for linguistic research. The examples under analysis illustrate that in both British and Armenian folk tales the abstract concept of time is metaphorized as subject, space, and object. Moreover, the study shows that rituals, lifestyles, agricultural activities, natural phenomena, food products, and names of kingdoms are widely used as metonymies in the folk tale genre.

Семантические особенности цветообозначения улан ‘красный’ в калмыцком языке и способы его перевода на немецкий язык (на примере калмыцких сказок в записи Г. Й. Рамстедта)

Introduction. Color terms constitute a most archaic lexical stratum of any language. Being characterized by vivid ethnocultural specifics, those serve as important elements to the linguistic view of the world. Goals. The paper seeks to analyze semantic features of the Kalmyk color term улан ‘red’ and its German translation equivalents. Materials and Methods. The work explores Kalmyk folktales recorded by the Finnish scholar G. J. Ramstedt during his 1903 scientific expedition to the Kalmyk Steppe. The analysis of the color term comprises both general research methods and specifically linguoculturological ones, such as linguoculturological and conceptual insights into folklore texts. Results. Impacts of color in world perception of the Kalmyks — just as for any other nation — are diverse enough. The folktale texts recorded by G. J. Ramstedt contain a total of five shades of the color, the lexeme улан ‘red’ being largely characterized by positive semantics. German translation variants are not always complete semantic equivalents of the color term which results from that color denoting lexemes — and those of red in particular — are integral to a certain ethnic worldview, this leading to some ambivalence of the color under study. Conclusions. The lexeme улан ‘red’ in its first nominative meaning denotes a color of an object, e.g., red proper, scarlet, ruddy, etc. In the Kalmyk language, it also serves to denote the prototypic color of blood and is often used to describe animal coat colors. The Finnish scholar employed different German translation means. In most cases, the selection of translation equivalents depends on the translator’s associative/visual thinking and perception of the world, as well as on lexical, semantic and morphological patterns of Kalmyk and German. Folklore texts are structured specifically, and a translator needs utmost attention and linguistic intuition to avoid any inaccuracies when communicating a color paradigm from the original text. The challenge be tackled by a translator of color terms in a folklore text is that he/she is supposed to bear both the linguocultures examined.

Iranian Belief Narratives and Verbal Charms. A Preliminary Survey

AbstractThe role of charms in Iranian belief narratives remains largely unexplored. Hereby, I attempt a preliminary survey. First, I examine the text of the Iranian national epic, the Shahname of Ferdowsi (X–XI century A.D.), in which the word afsun denotes charm or magic spell. In contemporary folktale texts (I mainly rely on the voluminous Dictionary of Iranian Folktales), an Arabic loan-word verd (which also means a kind of prayer) is used to mean a charm which facilitates supernatural results such as shape-shifting, transformation or miraculous healing. Ritual prayer (namaz) and supplication (do’a) also function as charms in folk narratives. I also give a brief overview of the Iranian folklore scholarship.

SYMBOLS OF BORDER IN FOLKTALES AND WAYS OF THEIR TRANSLATION

Being one of the vital categories for all living beings on earth, space determines the boundaries for all humans in general as well as for an individual in particular. To define such boundaries, people employ a specific code that consists of the symbols of space. The latter are distinctly manifested in one of the most archaic forms of oral folk literature, the genre of folktale, which is imbued with the elements of the mythological worldview of primitive people, their mentality and mode of existence. One of the groups of symbols that foreground the symbolism of space in folktales is the symbols of border. They designate the boundary between ‘our’ and ‘their’ space in folktales as well as in daily life. Despite relatively extended research in the field of folktale symbols, there are few studies devoted to the issue of conveying the symbols of border into the target language. The goals of the article include the highlighting of the ways of rendering the symbols of border taken from English and Ukrainian folktales and the assessment of the adequacy of their reproduction in the target language. According to the results of the research, it can be concluded that due to its universal character, the symbols of border are easily rendered into the receiving linguocultures. However, an adequate reproduction of the symbols of border requires the identification of their role in a certain folktale text, and, consequently, the importance of their rendering into the target language. Moreover, it is essential to note, that elimination or change of the symbols of border may cause the violation of the integrity of the symbolic picture of the folktale and at the same time lead to the inadequate perception of the text by the receiving culture. Keywords: adequate translation, folktale, symbols of space, symbols of border, universal symbols.

BUILDING HARMONY THROUGH RELIGIOUS RECEPTION IN CULTURE: LESSON LEARNED FROM RADIN JAMBAT FOLKTALE OF LAMPUNG

Understanding existed various religious receptions in culture provides a great opportunity for building and nurturing the harmony among religious followers and for enhancing solidarity within the society. This article uncovers receptions of religious aspects (ultimate truth/God, cosmological and religious ritual aspects) in the cultural products of Radin Jambat, a folktale from Lampung, Indonesia. This paper is based on the analysis of Radin Jambat folktale text, interviews, as well as additional library research of the Lampung cultural literary sources. Religious receptions as shown in Radin Jambat folktale indicate the preservation of past beliefs, coupled with the gentle addition and inclusion of Islamic teachings, to create harmony between religion and tradition through folktale. This study is evidence that Islam has been accepted by the societies of Lampung through gradual processes and varied receptions in terms of cultural values. This article shows that the important meaning of Radin Jambat folktale is a solid documentation to related sources about the concepts and practices of harmony among religious followers in Indonesia in the local tradition of Lampung with regards to cultural reception.

Luzel’s ghosts: The unfinished business of translating folk tales for performance

Abstract This article emerges from the author’s work on translating a selection of folktales collected by the nineteenth-century Breton folklorist François-Marie Luzel. It argues for a new approach to the translation of folktale texts that draws less from the traditions of literary translation and more from the current thinking around stage translation. It proposes that our understanding of the folktale text could benefit from a consideration of theatre scholarship (particularly Marvin Carlson’s theories of ‘ghosting’) and that the emergence in recent decades of the figure of the contemporary professional storyteller asks us to think of the folktale not simply as a text of performance, but as a text for performance. Furthermore, it argues that the act of translation is in itself an act of performance, made within the context of all pervious performances and is, therefore, like all performances, provisional, incomplete and subject to revision.

Folktale Text Transformation: Learning Model to Read Appreciatively

This study focused on the development of learning models to read appreciatively through folktale text transformation. This study was conducted as an effort to improve the reading skills appreciatively of 12th-grade students in vocational schools. This study was a mixed method research with the subsequential design. Data were analysed by qualitative and quantitative techniques with a <em>matching pattern of test-pretest post-test</em>. The results showing the difference values between Randomized Pretest and Posttest significantly. Based on this differences, can be inferred that the developed learning model of narrative text transformation was capable of substantially improving skills of reading appreciatively of 12th-grade students in vocational schools. Thus, learning models to read appreciatively through folktale text transformation was effective and fit to be used in improving skills of reading appreciatively

Book Review: Lwin, S. M.(2010). Narrative Structures in Burmese Folk Tales.

Book Review: Lwin, S. M. (2010). Narrative Structures in Burmese Folk Tales. Amherst: Cambria Press. ISBN 978-1-60497-716-5. 178 pages.In order to properly evaluate Soe Marlar Lwin's book that is excellently structured, rich in references, and provides a well-chosen text selection, we need to give a short overview of the historical 'currents' in folktale research. European culture has been a 'cradle' for folktale research and by the 20th century a new interpretive approach, breaking away from this historicity, has been formed providing a universal interpretive framework independent of the European roots.1Taking a closer look at the historical changes considering the history of European tale research, we should distinguish between three different periods, all of which approach tales with a specific point of view. Therefore, each of them is associated with different aspects of folktales and the phenomena in tales. In the premodern period concepts, thought schemes originating from European Romanticism defined the essence of tales. For researches of the period, the most important task of folk culture when following the Herderian organic historical approach was considered to be the formation of identities of linguistic-cultural communities through the concept of nation based on folk culture, folk poetry, and especially folktales. Therefore, in accordance with their most significant aim, collecting and canonizing folktales resulted in the establishment of a set of texts (according to the latest research we should rather speak about the creation of these texts) - previously folktales were not regarded as part of high culture - by which a special value was bestowed upon folktales: On the one hand, preserving the traces of the mythical past of nations, folktale functioned as an inexhaustible archive (for the disciplines of the history of language and of folklore); on the other hand, it functioned as a model for contemporary literary production and national awakening that everywhere brought with itself the process of the literary tale becoming a special, priority genre.Those interpreting the modern period - partly due to the oral tradition seemingly being pushed to the background - were not interested in finding new tale texts; they rather turned to the interpretation of already existing (collected) texts from various aspects. The folktale text is separated from the concept of the national; attention is turned toward the universality of tales. This is how the interpretation of tales becomes the research of structures - the series of narrative elements as Proppean or archetypal reminiscences, as in the case of Jungian tale interpretations. In both cases folktale becomes interesting as a text that may carry a message for the community, remaining valid over a long period of time because it either activates the basic narrative desires of man (Narrare necesse est!''), or the cathartic force hidden in recognizing and making conscious of world view structures identified with the images of the collective consciousness. A pledge for all this is the well-graspable structure of the text which partly carries pseudo-initiative characteristics (Mircea Eliade) - a text that may be well-revealed and may be transformed into structural formulas and motivic catalogues.Folktale research in Central-Europe took the first steps toward the interpretation of folktales in the postmodern period when tales were no longer interpreted as being a historical archive or a network of narrative structure but a kind of socio-cultural phenomenon in which text production and reception governed by interpretative tendencies gave a new color to folktale research. Between the 1940s and 1970s Central-European folktale research has stepped out of the closed world of texts collected in the 19th century; researchers again began to venture out to field work and recorded the last traces of the living traditional European folktale telling tradition. According to the theory of the individuality (or Budapest) school coined by Gyula Ortutay - which became famous and respected internationally due to Linda Degh's work - folktale is not simply a structure but it carries with itself traces of the storyteller's world view and experiences. …

THE STRUGGLE FOR AUTHORITY IN GEORGE MCCALL THEAL’S KAFFIR FOLKLORE (1882)

This article focuses specifically on George McCall Theal’s collection of folktale texts, Kaffir Folklore (1882), as an example of an early South African ethnographic publication, and argues that the folktale transcriptions contained therein, although a part of Theal’s general colonialist project, are hybrid, containing the voices of both coloniser and colonised. The key argument is that the presence of the African voices in this text reveals simultaneously that Theal’s editorial aspirations were never absolutely imposed, and that agency and influence (albeit limited) of the colonised Xhosa co-authors were present. The article offers an analysis of the paratext (the preface, the introduction and the explanatory notes) of Kaffir Folkore, rather than a close reading of the tales themselves. To facilitate an understanding of Theal’s editorial practice, Kaffir Folkore is compared to Harold Scheub’s The Xhosa Ntsomi (1975). More generally, drawing on postcolonial folklore and book-history scholarship, the article explores how folklore texts of the colonial era, although contributing to the establishment of a literary and cultural orthodoxy in modern South Africa, constitute a telling hybrid genre, which invites a re-evaluation of colonial relations, and of individual texts themselves. In short, these texts synthesise different literary traditions (European and African), different mediums (the oral and the written), different disciplinary approaches (ethnography, folklore, literature), and most significantly, the voices of different subjects. Kaffir Folklore (1882) epitomises this synthesis.

On Reality, Truth and Ideologies in the Case of Munchausen Tales

This article studies the way the meaning of a tradition has changed over time. It is based on four text samples, all representing similar motives. The story reflects a former popular belief that if you hold on to a wild animal's tail, the animal will jump clean out of its skin. The Man Nails the Tail of a Wolf to a Tree (ATU 1896) is a popular folk tale with an international distribution. Texts of this type have also been called Munchausen tales. The changed message of similar traditions reflects the change in our attitude towards nature, but also the growing distance of man from nature. In the modern world, folktale texts reach us through various channels: they are spread in oral communication, and can be read in fiction books, on the Internet and in the written press. We can listen to these texts, read and sometimes even watch their adaptations in television programmes, feature films and theatre plays in the visual media. For a folklore researcher, issues of texts and their relation to the tradition are as important as the issues of the context and mean- ing in these texts. The folkloric text, once learnt and stored in the memory, be it a small product remembered verbatim or a longer narrative that can be repro- duced according to a plot scheme and key lines, is in its latent inactive state in the mind, open or devoid of meaning. Yet the situation, in which the product enters the consciousness, is recalled, actualised, produced and performed, is full of meaning. (Honko 1986a: 99) Why do some old and well-known stories/texts keep reappearing every now and then, what is their meaning for us, and what is the message they convey? Does the meaning of a text change in time, and if so, to what extent?

Fairytales and the Magic Lantern: Henry Underhill's Lantern Slides in The Folklore Society Collection

Among the collections of The Folklore Society, London, are a number of hand-painted magic lantern slides by Henry Underhill, an amateur scientist and naturalist who lived in Oxford during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The slides illustrate Japanese, Irish, Russian, Norwegian and French folktales drawn from various printed sources. They add a new dimension to our understanding of folktale reception at the period and to the interaction of folktale texts and their visual realisations.

A grammar of Mantauran (Rukai) (review)

Reviewed by: A grammar of Mantauran (Rukai) Lawrence A. Reid Elizabeth Zeitoun. 2007. A grammar of Mantauran (Rukai). Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica. Language and Linguistics Monograph Series A4-2. xviii + 551 pp. ISBN 978-986-01-1219-1. $50.00, hardcover. Mantauran is one of the six dialects of the Formosan language Rukai, spoken in the south-central region of Taiwan. It is spoken by only 250–300 people and is highly endangered, with only a few elderly speakers still fluent. This alone is reason enough to document the language that in a generation or so will probably no longer be spoken. Rukai is unique in that it apparently exhibits an accusative case-marking system, while most other Formosan languages are arguably ergative, and it does not exhibit the widespread “focus” system characteristic of the so-called “Philippine-type” languages of Taiwan, such as Amis, Kavalan, Bunun, Thao, and Atayal. While a substantial grammar exists of one of the other dialects, Tanan Rukai (Li 1973), until Elizabeth Zeitoun (henceforth EZ) began her research on the language, there was very little information available about the morpho-syntax of this dialect. With this grammar, we now have extensive coverage of two considerably different dialects of Rukai. EZ's goals in writing the grammar in effect match the reasons given above. They were “to provide a description of the most salient characteristics of the grammar of Mantauran in order to reach a better understanding of this language and second, to make available enough empirical data to show in what respect Mantauran differs from the other Rukai dialects and other Formosan languages in general” (13). In these respects it is clear that EZ has succeeded admirably. The grammar is a model of clear prose and elegant argumentation supported by a multitude of carefully chosen examples drawn primarily from over 600 pages of transcribed narrative and folktale texts that the author collected from her primary language consultant. Chapter 1 discusses the current status of Mantauran Rukai (henceforth MR), providing brief notes on some of the commonly used loanwords, most introduced during the Japanese colonial period, and it is to this language, according to the author, that speakers persistently resort. The possibility that Japanese has also influenced the morphology will be commented on below. This chapter also provides the theoretical orientation of the work, stating that the grammar is a functional and empirically based account of MR, utilizing principles laid out by Dixon (1997) and Noonan (2006). The Conclusion (463) also notes that the grammar is “not circumscribed in any formal theory.” Nevertheless, various syntactic operations used by formalists, such as “raising,” form part of her argumentation to support one analysis over another in later chapters. A succinct outline of the grammar closes the chapter. Chapter 2 provides a standard structuralist account of the phonology and morphophonemics of MR, and a summary of the sound changes that have occurred in the language from Proto-Rukai as reconstructed by Li (1977). Of particular interest in this chapter is the evidence, rare in Austronesian languages, of a contrast between vowel-initial forms, and glottal stop-initial forms, such as ʔoɭipotso ‘unwrap’ vs. oɭipotso ‘wrap’. Of interest in the morphophonemics section are the various processes labeled by EZ as rightward [End Page 294] and leftward “glottal hopping” associated with the addition of various affixes. Typically, for much of the grammar, EZ provides a clear summary of the data, drawing generalizations and providing explanations where possible, and acknowledging problems that she is unable to account for. Chapter 3, Morphological units and morphological processes, begins as do most chapters with definitional statements and supporting general literature. EZ briefly outlines various approaches to the description of words, including IA and IP morpheme-based accounts, generative lexeme-based morphology, word and paradigm, and seamless morphology, and makes explicit her claim that, despite recognized difficulties with morpheme-based accounts, this model allows a transparent treatment of the structure of MR words, helps account for the distribution of some forms, and facilitates a comparison with other Rukai dialects and other Formosan languages (45). She concludes that typologically MR is a synthetic-agglutinative language, with a wide range of “dependent” morphemes, or...

Old Deccan Days, or Hindoo Fairy Legends, and: Folktales from Northern India (review)

Deccan or Hindoo Fairy Legends. Mary Frere. Edited with an introduction by Kirin Narayan. ABC-CLIO Classic Folk and Fairy Tales. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2002. 261 pp. Folktales from Northern India. William Crooke and Pandit Ram Gharib Chaubc. Edited and with an introduction by Sadhana Naithani. ABC-CLIO Classic Folk and Fairy Tales. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2002. 427 pp. The two volumes under review are part of a series from ABC-CLIO, Classic Folk and Fairy Tales, under editorship of ever-zealous Jack Zipes. The series, according publisher, brings back life [some] key anthologies of traditional tales from golden age of folklore discovery, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I recognized title Deccan Days', I had a copy, published in 1897 in Albany, New York. Other readers may remember it as an aging volume on a library shelf; as Kirin Narayan says in her introduction, By now every library with a substantial South Asian or folktale collection has a copy of Deccan Days, which has also been many times translated other languages (vii). The new series provides a freshly typeset but otherwise virtually unaltered edition of a classic work and each is enhanced by an authoritative introduction by a top scholar. Though both volumes offer old wine in new bottles, they differ in materials and intention. Kirin Narayan's detailed and comprehensive introduction Deccan Days identifies it as the outcome of a remarkable collaboration. Mary Frere, daughter of British governor of Bombay wrote down stories told by her servant, Anna Liberata de Souza, and published them in 1868, with her notes on teller and her fathers ethnographic commentary. Kirin Narayan discusses tales and Mary Freres editing; she recounts unexpected success of book. She then reconstructs biography of teller and points out a recurrent theme in her tales: working for a living-after all, this is substance of relationship between herself and Mary Frere (xvi). In a third section, she explains role of the famous and well-connected Sir Bartle Frere in fostering publication of his daughter's book. Through his introduction, he put tales to service of larger colonial project of typifying and generalizing about (xxi). Then Kirin Narayan discusses Mary Frere, salvaging stories that were being distorted or forgotten (xxiv), and her challenge others collect in India. The conclusion of introduction proves that Old Deccan Days is a groundbreaking and deeply original (xxvii). The twenty-four tales themselves are eminently readable, more, I think, because their Victorian vocabulary causes a reader relax into a childlike receptiveness. Folktales from Northern India also reveals collaborative role of an Indian subaltern with a colonial officer, but it is far more of a discovery. The book presents a collection of 363 Indian folktale texts, published originally in periodicals North Indian Notes and Queues and The Indian Antiquary from 1892 on. The editor was most prominent of British colonial folklorists in India, William Crooke. …

The Prehistory of Korea (review)

BOOK REVIEWS139 a reader who tries to find a tale type without knowing its type number usually has to search through several pages of plot summaries. Given the strengths and limitations inherent in folktale type indexes, Choi has admirably achieved his goal of constructing an index for Korean oral narratives . He has done a fine job of identifying their types, and he has thoroughly researched his sources of folktale texts and Korean classical literature for variants of each type. In sum, he has obviously expended much painstaking effort to produce this volume. The few shortcomings of Choi's work are apparent enough. First, his English is awkward and sometimes hard to comprehend. Second, the Type Index is plagued with an excessive number of typographical errors. Third, though the romanizations of place names follow the ROK Ministry of Education system, other Korean terms are romanized in apparently haphazard fashion. Finally, the Type Index is somewhat out of date. It was originally prepared in 1974 as a dissertation at Tokyo Kyöiku University, and the present edition is an English translation of that dissertation. As a result, none of the folktale collections published after 1974 (and these have been numerous) are included among the sources. But these shortcomings are almost trivial in comparison with Choi's substantial contribution to Korean studies and international folklore scholarship. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for providing us with this important new research tool. Dawnhee Yim Janelli Indiana University The Prehistory ofKorea. By Jeong-Hak Kim. Translated from the Japanese and edited by R. J. Pearson and K. Pearson. Honolulu, Hawaii: The University Press of Hawaii, xxxv, 237 pp. Maps, illustrations , tables, bibliography, index. $17.50 A synthesis of the prehistory of a region can be either mainly descriptive or mainly explanatory, though there will be elements of each in either case. The Prehistory ofKorea leans strongly toward the descriptive. As the thoughtful introduction by Richard Pearson points out, an understanding of Korean prehistory is essential to an understanding of prehistoric events in Japan, Manchuria, and northern China. As a compendium of information on the prehistory of Korea, this work should be, indeed, a welcome addition to the library of anyone interested in the development of East Asian cultures, or in cross-cultural comparisons . It is the first synthesis of Korean prehistory to appear in English, and as such it makes much data available for the first time to those who have no command of Korean or Japanese. Moreover, it draws upon many diverse and obscure sources, quite a few of them from North Korea. The four chapters of the English translation do not comprise the entire Japa- 140NELSON nese original. While it is possible to omit Three Kingdoms archaeology as separate from prehistory, as the translators have done, this leaves a gap of about six hundred years for the Iron Age, a period that was at best protohistoric in Korea. It would have been very valuable to have this translated also. The chapters follow a technological-developmental sequence, and presumably also a temporal one, through "preceramic" and "geometric" periods to the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age is discussed in two chapters. The first of these concentrates on pottery, and the second on metal artifacts. The chapters are of uneven length, reflecting the amount of excavation that actually has been accomplished. The chapter on the Paleolithic, entitled "Preceramic Industries," is very sketchy indeed. It includes only partial information from excavation sites, with no integrative material. The chapter's short introductory section, subtitled "Natural Environment," will be of little help to anyone not already familiar with the geography of the Korean peninsula. The chapter on early ceramics, which Kim calls "Geometric," is more extensive . (The pottery of this period has more often been called chülmun, or "combware ," but Kim finds this designation inappropriate.) The chapter opens with a brief review of early opinions about the relationships of decorated pottery types, followed by regional descriptions of detailed differences in ceramic styles. Descriptions of other artifacts and some descriptions of dwellings are also included. The chapter concludes with a chronology based on a kind of polythetic seriation that hinges on a supposed transition from pointed to...