Book Description

Excerpt from The Journal of American Folk-Lore, 1925, Vol. 24 The field of the American Folk-Lore Society has been defined by Mr. Newell as including the beliefs, customs, and oral literature of the aborigines of North and South and Central America, as well as the folk-lore that has come into America with the immigration of the various European stocks. Professor J. G. Frazer, in his inaugural address at Liverpool two years ago, divided the field covered by such a definition into two parts, calling the one the study of savagery, and retaining the name "folk-lore" (in accordance with its original use) for the study of those survivals or remainders of an earlier belief and practice which are to be found among the so-called civilized nations of our day. And he states very clearly the reason for attaching to the beliefs and traditions of the more backward part of our civilized populations the same significance as to the social and psychological phenomena of savagery. He is speaking of religion; but what he says applies as well to science, art, and civil institutions: "The present is the best guide to the interpretation of the past; for while the higher forms of religious faith pass away like clouds, the lower stand firm and indestructible like rocks." It is upon this ground only, it seems to me, that the study of folklore in the narrower sense - the study of "the beliefs, customs, and oral literature" of the less-sophisticated part of our civilized populations - can be justified in the eyes of science. Without this postulate, folk-lore must stand exposed to the charge once made by a carping critic against philology, - the charge of being "an unintelligent curiosity about trifles." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.