I read and we talked about German, English, and Irish folktales which are “The Three Spinners”, “Tom Tit Tot”, and “The Brewery of Egg-Shells”. Unlike other folktales, German and English folktales came down from white peasants. People lived with social hierarchy of status and they expressed their earnest hope to escape from their reality, which they had to work hard in daily routine. People in that time used supernatural elements to show their hope in the stories and they wanted to live different life by being chosen by King. I noticed their hope and thought of beauty from the stories. Unlike these stories, Irish folktales are little different in themes. Irish folktales are having supernatural elements which was imp who took women’s babies. Then, old women told the mother that she could figure out whether babies are imps or real by boiling egg shells. I believe this story also came from hard worker in brewery. People might added miraculous elements in story because it could heal their weary life.

As Anansi stories have three versions each from Ghana, West Africa, and the United States, they had their own different view and endings. Compared to our stories, these are dealing with nature and wisdom. Each stories have different type of language. From Anansi story of Ghana to Aunt Nancy story of the United States, I think when it is closer to slavery, civilization, and hierarchy, poor people are suffered more and had harder time. When it comes to U.S. Slave Spirituals and Secular Songs, they are implicitly expressing death. I was quite surprised that the word “Jordan” was meaning heaven and escaping from slavery. Slavers eager freedom as much as death. However, not only songs about slaver’s harsh life but also poetries of love and wisdom exists in Madagascar. People in that time used lots of metaphor to show what love is.

In our group, we present the three Anansi story, the famous oral folktales originated from west Africa and later on spreading all over the world. In the first two stories, “all stories are Anansi’s” and “Anansi, tiger and monkey” the character Anansi, a half spider, half human hybrid represents the underdog, the weakling who uses his intelligence and wisdom to defeat enemies that are much stronger than him in turn off physical strength. Especially during new world era, where a large amount of Africans is captured as slaves, they look upon Anansi as the symbol of the ideal survivor from the harsh reality, who can really embrace the worst situation possible and eventually surpass the problem by his very own tricks.

While the “Anansi” from the Africa are worshiped by many Africans during their slavery as a last resort, the hope who can save them from desperation, the American version of “Anansi” is the complete opposite. In” brer rabbit and aunt Nancy”, “Aunt Nancy” is an evil female character who enjoy deceives others and makes them suffer. It is very intriguing to see how oral stories can be so diverse in different regions. The exact same character can be the hero who provides the positive moral lesson to the listeners or becoming a disturbing villain in another place. The idea of retaining specific culture and the flexibility to share anywhere from the world makes oral traditions incredibility precious.

As for the Malagasy Wisdom Poetry, the poetry which describes the common issues many people have experience in their life. the everyday struggle of finding the right answer from unambiguous questions are the main focus of the text. and Those fundamental beliefs and principles of its people are very similar to the African folktales.  Both kinds of literature are emphasizing the important culture and the profound lessons to display to the audiences. Whether it is about wisdom, courage or even love, those short yet remarkable piece of writing really deliver the message to everyone and help us to understand the uniqueness of different culture.

at the end, the identity of a country or nation is its people. The everlast  tradition from the ancestors make our literature fulfill with valuable lessons that even after generations of   generations we still admire those stories and treasure them all with our heart.

In our group’s presentation, we talked about three different folktales happened in nineteenth century Hawaii. Compared with US slave spirituals and secular songs, I found that African slaves and Hawaiian they all expressed their desire to rebel against and escaped the control of the leader. The leader put high burden on their people and gain benefit from them. People have to work from day to night without break. But that is not the community people want. However the difference is slaves could not overturned the hegemony like Hawaiian. There existed weakness of the political system which lead oppression and hegemony.

This folktale reminds me of the disputed president, Donald Trump, who is regarded as despotic president in some people’s mind. His action by deporting unauthorized immigrants and immediate action of building wall with Mexico provoked lots of people. But the difference between United States and nineteenth century Hawaii is that the court can withdraw Trump’s order. This advanced institution and law system prevent monarchy and hegemony. The order of the president has to pass different institution, which makes the order more rational and objective. The seperation of power proposed by French enlightenment prevented concentration of the power, helping people govern and control the leader.

Thus, what kind of ideal community does people in Hawaiian expect? The highest leader of the nation or state doesn’t have to be the person manage and govern people but just a symbol without real power, like the queen of England. The primary role of Elizabeth is focus on national unity. She can refuse the government’s request and choose minister, however her power is limited but just a symbol and royalty. Most country has president or minister who own real power to govern the country, however does it mean they real need one? It does not have to Three different chiefs in Hawaiian folktale oppress and force people. The ideal nation should be governed by people and benefit people.

My group presented about the U.S slave stories and secular song. In our presentation we learned a lot about all the hardships slaves had to go through during that time and how difficult it was for them all they had to go through.

For our presentation we talked about the things slaves had to go through all the pain they had to endure. During the story “All God’s Chillen Had Wing” we see how all these slaves had to work from sunrise till night time non stop without any breaks and it didn’t matter men, women, children all of them had to work there was no exceptions. As we saw in this particular story how a women had her baby in her back as she worked but eventually fell to ground which cause the drivers to whip her until she got up, in this particular part of the story the women who is getting whipped speaks to an old men but the driver does not understand because they are speaking in a different language, she seek for help from the old men in to which he replies it’s not time yet. Eventually the old men free not just the women but all the slaves as they up the sky to freedom. In “Steal away Jesus” we learn about how the slaves we would work together to plan or organize an escape to finally get freedom. we see how they are all united during this and how they will work together to escape the suffering they all have to go through.

Comparing these stories to Hawaiian folktale we see one of the traditions known as Halaea and in this particular tale we see  how the people sought to rid themselves of the chief’s oppression. Together, the people were able to overthrow their oppressor by sinking him “in a sea surrounded by the objects of his greed.” This story encourages unity and harmony within the people of a community. Harmony is essential in a community in order to gain agreement. It also reinforces the strength of a group and its ability to rebel and bring change for the benefit of society. This lessens the power of higher authority and illustrates the consequences of abusive power.

These two stories are similar in a way because we see how in secular song the slaves work together planned meeting to escape and the same goes for Hawaiian folktales we see the community work together against higher power by holding a council and agreeing to deposit all of the fish onto the chief Halaea’s canoe. We can see the oppression the slaves received is similar to the oppression illustrated in Hawaiian folktales.While the slaves had many authorities leaders and Hawaiian folktales had a single chief.

My group presented about English, German, and Irish folktales, which told us about the how the narrator’s, stated the culture, tradition and types of fairy tales stories of each country. The German, and English folktales we kind of similar traditions and culture. The tales were about women’s who couldn’t spin a flax, were offered to marry the king. Spinning a flax was a tradition especially to women should know to spin flax. These stories was about these woman’s overcome the fear and how they were being helped for the marriage. The Irish Folktales was about brewery egg shells to save her son, Brewery is really famous in Irish, where I have seen and been to many Irish pubs.

I believe that The U.S. Slave stories and Poem were also about tradition and torture of slavery In the USA. During the French revolution 8 million slaves were being transported to America alone. In that time have slaves is like a culturally passed on tradition and slaves were accounted as an asset, so the more slaves the farm owners has the rich they are. The similarities between these narrators from the folktales and the slave history is that they both express tradition and there theme is fear. Language is a big difference between these two stories. The song “All God’s children had wings” the Narrator states that the slaves has spoken different language among themselves to keep them safe. Slave’s language which is called slang in the present day, also used by most African Americans. Slaves spoke different languages because they could help each other during the period of slavery from not getting wiped by the master. In the German, English and Irish folk tales the language was direct but the pronunciation by the poor people were different because the lack of education, but the king from German and English folktales were educated and spoke proper English.

Freedom was a big difference between the U.S slavery and the English and German folktales. German and English folktales, stated that the women’s were from really poor family and were given and opportunity to marry the king and get a great life, where they don’t have to work, have good food and even get to where expensive clothing. Whereas in the Song “All God’s children had wings” stated about if the slaves were in their own continent (Africa) what types freedom would they have and the opportunity to live a better life than working and getting tortures as a slave. Therefore there were different comparison between the German, English, and Irish Folk tales and the US slave story, but the Narrators tried to point out their traditional and the culture that has been passing on to generations.

English Folktale “Tom Tit Tot” and Hawaiian Folktale “The Despotic Chiefs of Kau” seem to be completely different based on the content and message conveyed. However, despite of the difference of origins, they share similarity in terms of recorded purpose.

The English Folktale “Tom Tit Tot” conveys a message that only extreme hard working can lead to success. A girl is invited by a King to live in a palace and promise to marry her after one year if she can meet the requirement of spinning five skeins a day in the last month. Otherwise, she will be killed, but before that, she can do whatever she wants. This requirement is unrealistic to this girl, especially when she has no ability to finish it. Fortunately she finally receives help from a little thing and therefore is able to marry with the King. This story emphasizes that the only way people can get rid of poverty and move from lower class to higher class is working hard. This girl draws King’s attention due to her mother’s claim “My darter ha’ spun five, five skeins to-today,” implying that employers (the King) are always looking for talent (the hard working girl claimed by her mother) who is able to do excessive and outstanding jobs and then give them opportunity to try something more challenging with great rewards, but once that talent does not meet the expectation, he/she will be eliminated or replaced by someone else.

In the Hawaiian Folktale “The Despotic Chiefs of Kau,” it brings another message that the authority needs to listen comments from its people; otherwise, it will eventually be overthrown. Chiefs in Halaea, Koihala, and Kohaikalani are all being killed by people in the tribes due to unreasonable requests, such as asking all fishes caught from sea regardless of whether he can finish them or not, forcing people to carry heavy things to meet him without telling them the absolute destination, and sending people to work for something unnecessary. The deaths of these three chiefs mean that even if the authority has certain priority over its people, it does not guarantees that people are required to obey all the rules or policies that are not reasonable and tend to harm to people and even the nation as a whole. For example, “they were obliged to catch the fish without ever having any to take home to their families.” In this case, if people within the tribe can’t get food, then how can they survive in long-term? If people are getting weaker and tend to not give birth, then how the tribe can be formed besides the Chiefs? It is necessary that the authority is aware of what rules and restrictions imposed on people in a sense that it can the connection between people and the nation with proper rules that guide people’ behaviors.

Besides the messages brought by both Folktales, they have the same recorded purpose which is preserving their own traditions within the countries. For the English Folktale, it aims to protect English culture from the Grimms, in which the “Three Spinners” has similar plots and main idea as “Tom Tit Tot” does, emphasizing that local heritage needs to be preserved by its own folktale derived from its traditional culture. Hawaiian Folktale also has the same role. The United States annexed Hawaii in 1898 due to American Imperialism that U.S. expanded its influences internationally through different aspects. When one country is imperialized by another, its local tradition is easily eradicated, affected, or replaced by that of imperial country. The collection of folktale serves as a tool to remind local people of their tradition even when getting in touch with new cultures.

Orature is different from traditional recorded method as it passes by one person to another orally. People may add their own interpretations while receiving it from one and passing it to another. In this case, the content of the stories and even the messages conveyed can be changed as well, especially when a story from one language is translated to another one, the original meaning of this story can be altered or misunderstood, so it will be interesting if readers read the story in its original language and compare it with translated version. But I believe for most of the time, despite of slight changes in the content, the general messages in the orature will be still maintained, especially when people can associated the foreign orature with the their local one.

Our group presented about the United States slave story and songs. From these story and songs we learned how strong slaves’ wish is to run away from master, and to get freedom.

Throughout 2-day presentation, we have a taste of different oratures in different historical stage, with different background. All of them contribute to the development of literature. I believe that comparing different types of oratures would help us to understand deeper about the pieces. So I’m going to compare the United States slave story and songs to German folktale, English folktale as well as Irish folktale from different perspectives, such as the use of language, the religion, their content, and their purposes.

Comparing with other oratures, we can find that slave story and songs have features in the use of language. In the “All God’s Chillen Had Wings”, it repeated mentions that the driver can’t understand what slaves are talking about because slaves are using their own language to avoid that drivers know their conversation. Additionally, when looking at the story and songs, especially “All God’s Chillen Had Wings” and “Promises of Freedom”, we would find that there are lots of words are not standard English. That’s because when using English, slaves mix their own language with English. This mixture is still in use today, which is called “Negro dialect”. As for German, English and Irish folktale, the language used is more understandability and straight forward.

Also, slave story and songs are special because of slaves’ unique religion. According to Minji’s introduction, we learned that African traditional religion consists of Islam and Christ. The characteristic of African religion is animism. As for “All God’s Chillen Had Wings”, it is based on the religious legend that Africans had a special God given ability to fly when they were still living on the continent of Africa. It’s just like what saying in the text “once all Africans could fly like birds, but owing to their many transgressions, their wings were taken away”. For the slave songs and spirituals, most are full of biblical allusions. Take “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” as an example. For the sentence “I looked over Jordan and what did I see”, “Jordan” is a river that appears in the Bible. This is an image that crossing Jordan means going to heaven and escaping from slavery. Precisely, because of the religion in pluralism, there were a large number of excellent works during slavery period. In contrast, even though German folktale, English folktale as well as Irish folktale are based on religious belief, they don’t show much religious allusion but describe lots of magical situation. For example, there would be witch, elfin, and magic in these stories.

Comparing the content between folktale and slave story as well as songs, we can find that folktale focus on the relaxed topic to teach people simple truth. However, when it comes to slave story and songs, they describe a painful period in the history and how slaves attempt to get freedom and right.

As for the purpose of slave story and songs, obviously, it’s to express that slaves long for free life and civil right. Somehow, these kinds of stories and songs not only the spiritual sustenance of slaves’ life, but also let people learned what happened at that period later on. On the other hand, folktale has the totally different purpose. As a type of literature especially written for children, folktale imparts moral values and wisdom to children, also it instills codes of conduct for acceptable behavior in the community and the society. Therefore, folktale owns significant value for the existence.

All in all, by comparing different types of oratures, we learned that each has its own merits. No matter what types of the oratures are, they all play significant roles in the literature world.

After presenting my own presentation on German (The Three Spinners), English (Tom Tit Tot) Folktale and observed presentation on Hawaiian folktale (The Despotic Chiefs of Kau), I believe that those stories are quite different. They are differ in terms of  culture, theme, and folktale writing style. But they are similar in purpose of recording stories.

I believe that geography play very important role in the formation of folktale and culture. Since Hawaii is an island and other two stories are from mainland of Europe. In term of culture. For German and English folktale, both stories share some common elements in tradition of European such as woman’s task —spinning flax, class difference (peasants— King and Queen), and emphasize on power of upper class man (King). In Hawaiian folktale, since Hawaii is an island people’s main daily task is fishing and class difference (man—chief). In Hawaiian folktale, we can feel people being oppressed hardly because of chief. (They have to give up all the fishes to the chief, left nothing to themselves).

In term of theme. Readers can get very different messages from those stories. In German and English folktale, it mainly focuses on woman’s traditional task-spinning and their classes. The only way woman can climbs the social ladder to escape the tradition (spinning) is through using trick. But final decision on whether or not they can climb the social ladder is on the King. This shows that no matter how hard lower level class people try to improve their social status, they will not success. The real power lie on the highest level of social class, they are the one who has the ability to change lower level class people’s fate.  In Hawaiian folktale, all three little stories show us that people suffered hardly under chief’s control (they have to give up all fishes, they have to prepare foods for chief and follow him to anyplace, and they are force to build temple that might result in killing themselves). They want to have rebellion against authorities that oppressed them so hard. They want to have a leader that can benefit all people in the island. And they executed, people finally free from chief’s control. It is all base on lower class people. They have the ability to overthrow the authority.

In term of folktale writing style. “The Three Spinners”, “Tom Tit Tot”and U.S Slave Stories all offered the fantasy of an escape from life of painful labor (Anthology pg.932). Hawaiian folktale, I think  it appears more real to me. It expresses in the way that can connect with people. The group presented the Hawaiian folktale also mentioned that French Revolution is very similar to those stories. They all deal with unpopularity of King/Leader, high tax burden on people. And finally, people who suffered from high tax burden rebel against King/Leaders to gain their freedom.

They are very similar in purpose of recording stories. German Grimm Bothers  collected and edited stories because they are afraid of Napoleon’s French armies invaded and imposed new laws will wipe out generation of tradition German lore. English folktale, Joseph Jacobs collected and edited stories because he is afraid of Grimm Brothers folktale stories will wipe out local England’s tradition. Finally, Mary Wiggen Pukui in Hawaiian folktale She was worried that given the upheavals in Hawaii, ancient oral traditional would be forgotten unless she recorded them.

Our group’s orature is about Malagasy Wisdom Poetry, Ohabolana and Hainteny.

For Ohabolana, in Malagasy word means “wise proverbs”, expresses cultural values and guides for living. It explains life, god, death, time, man, woman, and justice by relating the beliefs with fundamental objects, which are straightforward and vivid for people to understand, remember, and transmit. For example, “death is not a condemnation, but part of a tax.” Malagasy considers death as a payment of  tax to the life, which is same as we paying tax to the government. It is compulsory, but is not punitive. It persuades people not to fear death, but to accept it indifferently.

For Hainteny, in Malagasy word, means “knowledge of the words”, involving heavy use of metaphor. It deals mostly with the idea of love. It has four parts altogether: the first two parts together describe the initial understanding of love between one couple, the third part expresses the feeling of being apart and abandonment, and the last part deals with the bitter blame for the failing relationship. We observe that there are dialogues between the couple, as one continuously asks, “How do you love me?” And the other always responds by, “I love you as I love money, rice, water etc.”, like all the essential living materials. One would not be satisfied with those answers as she/he is searching for true pure love. For example, “I love you as I love the door.” If the relationship passively needs to be pushed as door, then it is not about true love. One is only once satisfied when the other says, “I love you as I love the ruling prince.” Then, it is truly loved, as the prince’s passage inspires awe and his glance causes me shame. In other words, true love should be like the love towards ruling prince, which is invisible without physical touching.

Overall, Malagasy Wisdom Poetry is different with other group’s oratures focusing on nationalism, slavery, and freedom. I choose to compare the Malagasy’s with the English folklore, Tom Tit Tot. Considering the historical background, we see that English folktale is for the sake of preserving its traditional English culture, as other dominating cultures at that time had wiped out too many its native traditions. Then, Joseph Jacobs aimed at children’s literature by gathering and editing stories so that the younger generation could absorb and inherit their national literature, For Tom Tit Tot, the plots are fairy and gripping that attract children to develop constant interests in it. Readers are nervously guessing whether the female character correctly guesses the name or not. Among the folktale, it also shows the social background that there exists severe class structure, The rich have all they like to eat, all the gowns they like to get, and all the companies they like to keep; while the poor even care about one single piece of fried pie. The tale eventually reveals that the staying power of the ancient superstition that to know someone’s name gives you power over that person.

With different objects and focuses, our oral poetry conveys traditional knowledge and deals more with common elements in daily life. This is because of Madagascar’s distinct social and humanistic background. Despite many waves of migration, there is no cultural invasion or conflict wiping out Malagasy’s original culture. Malagasy’s inhabitants live on large island and share cultural institutions and traditions. People there all enjoy life and pursue love, even including women. Despite the particular social structure, Malagasy women are comparatively free to pursue love. Perhaps this is also why we observe the dialogues between the couple in the poetry.

THE THYRSUS
To Franz Liszt
By Charles Baudelaire

What is a thyrsus? According to the moral and poetical sense, it is a sacerdotal emblem in the hand of the priests or priestesses celebrating the divinity of whom they are the interpreters and servants. But physically it is no more than a baton, a purp staff, a hop-pole, a vine-prop; dry, straight, and hard. Around this baton, in capricious meanderings, stems and flowers twine and wanton; these, sinuous and fugitive; those, hanging like bells or inverted cups. And an astonishing complexity disengages itself from this complexity of tender or brilliant lines and colours. Would not one suppose that the curved line and the spiral pay their court to the straight line, and twine about in a mute adoration? Would not one say that all these delicate corollae, all these calices, explosions of odours and colours, execute a mystical dance around the hieratic staff? And what imprudent mortal will dare to decide whether the flowers and the vine branches have been made for the baton, or whether the baton is not but a pretext to set forth the beauty of the vine branches and the flowers?

The thyrsus is the symbol of your astonishing duality, O powerful and venerated master, dear bacchanal of a mysterious- and impassioned Beauty. ‘ Never a nymph excited by the mysterious Dionysius shook her thyrsus over the heads of her companions with as much energy as your genius trembles in the hearts of your brothers. The baton is your will: erect, firm, unshakeable; the flowers are the wanderings of your fancy around it: the feminine element encircling the masculine with her illusive dance. Straight line and arabesque — intention and expression — the rigidity of the will and the suppleness of the word — a variety of means united for a single purpose — the all-powerful and indivisible amalgam that is genius — what analyst will have the detestable courage to divide or to separate you?

Dear Liszt, across the fogs, beyond the flowers, in towns where the pianos chant your glory, where the printing-house translates your wisdom; in whatever place you be, in the splendour of the Eternal City or among the fogs of the dreamy towns that Cambrinus consoles; improvising rituals of delight or ineffable pain, or giving to paper your abstruse meditations; singer of eternal pleasure and pain, philosopher, poet, and artist, I offer you the salutation of immortality!