Patterns & Metaphors
Folklore
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Literally, the collective knowledge, including the skills and behaviour in which knowledge is embedded, of the people. Originating in pre-literate societies, folklore was expressed partly in the arts, partly in traditional behaviour and rites, and partly in the technology that was produced or that was utilized by the crafts and skills. Thus in the verbal arts such folklore as origin myths were constituted in the traditions which were later to become literature, as were wisdom sayings and various pre-scientific lores concerning man's relation to the land and to the animal world, for example. the plastic arts, particularly those that incorporated representational techniques, relfected much of the same matter, although like the other artifacts a society produced they indicated much more the practical lore or knowledge that had been carried down through tradition. Traditional behaviour, notably that connected with obervance of a seasonal calendar, or perhaps with cultic requirements, also was a principal embodiment of folklore. The distinction between a folklorist and a cultural anthropologist ultimately may not be great, as there is considerable contemporary material for the folklorist to study in industrialized, urban societies. To a certain extent the daily newspapers already capture the folklore and the myths of modern times.
