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thai what it reflects is the group's image ofreaJity rather than lhe objective reality. Likewise,
Pickering declares thai "cultural texts do not relate in any transparent way (0 a social
context."I Anthropologist Victor Bamouw goes as far as to suggest that
Folklore is selective; imp:>rtam aspects of the culture may not appear in the
narratives at all.
Ilis statement, it must be added, makes particular reference 10 W.I-I.R. Rivers's
observation that mythology is less likely to contain familiar and unifonn aspects ofculture
than elements which have some variety and inconsislency.2 The case, interestingly, shows
that since worldview pervades the continuum of traditional expressions, the investigation
must be carried across the folklorist's conventional genre categories, and indeed take the
whole cuhure into account. To limit the investigation to a single expressive genre, on the
contrary, would be neglecting the dynamics of folklore, ignoring cuhure as an "integrated
whole," thus opening the way to misrepresentations.
Granling Redfield the complexity of the slUdy of worldview in ethnographical context,
it remains that a synchronic study of cultural events, directly observable in the natural
context of occurrence, and possibly even, commented on by genuine participants in the
tradition, constitutes the safest venture in [his field. Studies of worldview have taken the
way of current folkloristic trends in favouring attention 10 contemporary phenomena;
conversely, explorations of worldview bearing on traditions of the past are only rare.)
Black American and native American cultures have been the most frequently investigated.
Their analyses indeed demonstrate the very intimate knowledge of the culture that a study
of worldview requires. Dundes elected his own culture for investigation, and underscored
that the knowledge of one's own native categories is equally important for an
understanding of another culture. 4 While such studies focus on a particular aspect or
genre, Navaho material artefacts, the Blacks' urban tradition of "playing the dozens," or
American English traditional idioms, they all found their analyses of these particular
"genres" in a holistic perspective on these cultures. 5
1Pickering, "Song" 74.
2Viclor Barnouw. An Introduction to Anthropology (Homewood. IL: Dorsey. 1971) 278.
3The reader is rderred to the extensive and annOlaled bibliography appended to Toelken,
Dynamics 256-61.
4Dundes, "Number" 402.
5 Abrahams, Deep Down in the lungle: Negro Narrative Folklore from (he Streets of
Philadelphia (Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associatcs, 1964); "Playing the DO/cns," Journal of
American Folklore 75 (1972): 209-20; Toelken, "Folklore" 236-45.