What is Folklore?
Folklore is our cultural DNA. It includes the art, stories, knowledge, and practices of a people. While folklore can be bound up in memory and histories, folklore is also tied to vibrant living traditions and creative expression today.
In the United States at least, we often think about “folklore” as something untrue (“Oh, that’s just folklore!”) or something old fashioned that’s no longer a regular part of everyday life (“nobody does that stuff anymore”).
But if you think about it a little differently, folklore is and does so much more!
From the perspectives of the people who study folklore and partner with communities to present and preserve it, folklore is one of the many ways we communicate who we are. Often–but certainly not always–rooted in the past, folklore is one of the ways we share with each other the things we see as vital and important. It is a central, every-day part of life and how we make sense of the world today, and it is at the heart of all cultures–including whatever culture we call our own–throughout the world. Folklore is a fundamental part of what it means to be human.
Folklore covers a wide range of topics, including issues in the news, such as fake news, cryptozoology, legends, holidays, internet memes, traditional and world music, and the supernatural. Folklorists are active in all areas of our society, studying topics such as education, healthcare, poverty, and immigration.
Street art to commemorate George Floyd protests: folklore. New ways of commemorating death in a pandemic that alters our common rituals of honoring life (like the Zoom Funeral): folklore. Folklore can be found at your job (water cooler jokes or the right times to plant and harvest), in your home (your family’s recipe box or the quilt on your couch), or on the internet (the memes you scroll through or the emojis you use instead of words).
Every group with a sense of its own identity shares, as a central part of that identity, folk traditions–the things that people learn to do largely through oral communication and by example: believe (religious customs, creation myths, healing charms), do (dance, make music, sew clothing), know (how to build an irrigation dam, how to nurse an ailment, how to prepare barbecue), make (architecture, art, craft, music), and say (personal experience stories, riddles, song lyrics).
These ways of believing and knowing are circulated among small groups of people. Local knowledge often responds to, augments, and fills the gaps in between its own understanding and knowledge created by larger, more dominant, or mainstream groups. Folklore asserts group identity, challenges cultural norms, and provides examples for ways of living a good life.
The word “folklore” names an enormous and deeply significant dimension of culture.