What Shall We Do with "Little Matty Groves"?- MacEdward Leach
What Shall We Do with "Little Matty Groves"?
by MacEdward Leach
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 76, No. 301 (Jul. - Sep., 1963), pp. 189-194
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH "LITTLE MATTY GROVES"?
MAcEDWARD LEACH
MAN AND BOY I have been identified with this Society for many years. I was taken to my first meeting by Frank Speck, one of the really great folklorists, when I was a graduate student in his classes. Boas was in the chair. Kittredge, Espinosa, Sr., Elsie Parsons, Charles Peabody, Reed Smith, Marius Barbeau, Robert Lowie, and Philips Barry participated in the program. As I think back over that first meeting I attended, I realize that in spite of our flourishing Society, folklore no longer has the place in American culture that it had then. I remember being impressed by the large number of unacademic people who were there-cultivated lay folk who were actively interested in folklore and well-informed on the subject. That group was somewhat like the amateur scholars of England, cultivated people pursuing the subject because of the love of it, rather than engaged in bibliography building. Then there was no problem of the image of folklore. Then the Wall Street Journal would never have dreamed of excepting folklore from the company of serious studies. The president of the Chase National Bank was an active member of the Society. The American Folklore Society was then the center of folklore studies; it was widely known; its activities were reported in the public press. It had the discipline of folklore in its keeping. Today things are different. The serious study of folklore is limited to a relatively small in-group: a group that has little impact outside. I am sure that the present president of the Chase National Bank has never heard of AFS. But he has heard of folklore, for folklore is booming. AFS is not identified with the boom. I was thinking about all of this the other day as I was transcribing ballads and songs I had collected in Jamaica. In thinking of editing these songs, suddenly I felt I had a clue perhaps to the answer to this problem.
One May afternoon in 1957 I was collecting folklore in the old city of Port Royal, Jamaica. It was a warm, still day. Shimmering waves of heat rolled up from the beach sands. Above the tide mark fifty men were hewing out the hugh boles of giant silk cotton trees to make the great dugout canoes. Across the alleyway a group of women were gathered in a small adobe house, laughing, talking, and singing. They had readily consented to my setting up the tape recorder in one corner of the already overcrowded room. The singing, joking, laughing went on. The women were of all ages, all very black, and all dressed in single garments-Mother Hubbard affairs that hung loosely from their shoulders to their knees. Much of the singing was improvised; songs were like the digging songs with pronounced rhythms and monotonous repetitions, with now and then an incremental line leading into the next set of repetitions. The textual unit was the phrase. There was whooping laughter between songs and appreciative bursts when a particular singer scored off someone with what was evidently a telling dig. A dozen children slipped around among the moving figures or clambered into spacious laps of those seated on the broken-down sofa at one side. Three old men, ragged and dirty, added to the confusion as they prodded and pinched with senile giggles any available woman.
An hour went by. Bending over the machine adjusting tape, I was aware of a sudden silence. I looked up astonished to see a white woman standing there; she was tall and straight and very blond. Her blondness, her blue eyes, were startling by contrast. Like the others, she wore the Mother Hubbard, hanging loose and ragged to her bare legs. A fat, button-eyed black baby rode astride her hip. Port Royal is still the Kasbah of the Caribbean; one must be prepared for anything. The woman who owned the house addressed the girl, "Mistress, I hope you would sing yu murder song fe us and dis man." She nodded, smiled, and hoisting the baby to a more secure position, she sang:
[music]
Sung with ritard only after last stanza
*Stanza I only-seems to be unintentional
"Will you take a walk in the garden with me?
I'll show you the finest rose,
The finest rose your eyes ever seed
And your eyes will sparkle with joy."
"You asked me to take a walk with you,
It's more than I can do
For the rings on your finger were tollen to me
That you are the Barnet's wife."
Lord Barnet is not at home;
He has gone six miles to Almand town
And will not come back till morn.
A little boy hid under the bush;
He heard of the whispering song.
He walked three miles and drove three miles
To tell the lord what was done.
"My lord, my lord, if you know what I know,
Not a piece of that meal for you."
"Is my house burnt down or mine ass gone astray
Or my fair young lady dead?"
"Your house is not burned nor your ass gone astray,
Neither is your lady dead,
But young Prince Law sleep now with her,
And that's what I've come to tell."
"I think I hear a whisper come down.
Is your husband coming home,
Is your husband coming home, my dear?
Let me get up and go."
"Lie down, lie down, my young Prince Law
And keep your body from the cold;
It is my father's sheep they've driven in;
They've driven to the fold."
Five minutes more Lord Barnet came
With a raging fire and sword
And saw Prince Law unto his bed
Close combine to his wife.
Arise, arise, my young Prince Law
And a piece of your clothes put on,
That no man will ever tittle [sic] to say
I slaughtereda naked man.
The first blow Lord Barnet gave Prince Law
He struck him to the ground;
The second blow he gave Prince Law
He could no longer rise.
"To you, my lady, farewell this night;
I and you shall part tonight,"
And then he drew his glittering sword
And pushed it through her heart.
Prince Law sleep now with you,
Prince Law sleep now with you.
He saddled a horse and mounted aback
With vengeance I need not tell you,
He walked three miles and drove three miles
To see what he could do.
What today do we do with "Little Matty Groves" from Henry Morgan's Old Buccaneer City of Port Royal? Today our ballad gets a neat box in an archive, and it may get anthologized if its owner lives long enough. In the anthology the ballad will be treated as a cold, dead text. A head note will list the variants and where they may be found; reference will be made to the Child versions, to the Coffin text types, to the Bronson tune types. Or the ballad will see print in a dissected form as part of an over-all study with analysis of variables, of shade words, of color words, of independent phrases, of combinable motifs, of molecules that have independent existence, of sound patterns. Using the proper key, we shall be able to represent our ballad neatly, economically, and finally in such a formula as beta 2, plus cosine 3, plus 4 m, plus 33/9, plus delta, plus Pr Rs * L. The accuracy of the analysis is guaranteed by the presence of delta, for delta is the intuitive factor. Or we may take
another kind of study of our ballad: we may make a family study of it, comparing it
element by element with all of its fellows (that is, all that we can find) and by
geographical-historicala nalysis come to the archetype (as representedb y our material),
establish direction of drift, intensity of occurrence, and the like.
This is not to decry serious folklore scholarship. Most of it is exceedingly valuable,
providing answers to the often shoddy subjective article that too frequently passes for
scholarship among folklorists. Careful analytical studies lead to wider understanding
of folklore materials, relationships, techniques, culture problems. But a double warning
should, I feel, be posted. First, the folklore technician is often dealing, as in the
instance of the ballad of "Little Matty Groves," with works of art. Works of art, if
they be ballads or folktales, are dynamic. I know of only one analysis that includes
the performance of the song or tale. All analyze dead script. It is like a review of
Gielgud's Hamlet written from the text. Secondly, analysis should not be allowed to
become an end in itself. Too often I feel a folklorist, having performed an elaborate
and complicated job of analysis, proud of his achievement, sits back content. He often
fails to go on to relate his results to other material, to life itself. Rather he treats it as
an end. If he is a scholar and not a mere technician, it is his duty to interpret his
discipline to educated laymen everywhere.
As I listened to "Little Matty Groves," it was this thought that came to me: that
the scholars, the professional folklorists, the American Folklore Society have lost
contact with the educated layman, lost touch because they have tended to ignore him.
But there is a kind of culture determinism at work. Folklore in one form or
another goes on outside of AFS and the professionals. Recordings are made, books of
folksongs published, articles on folklore appear in national magazines. All of this is
in varying degrees bad, ranging from pure "fakelore" to overwriting of traditional
material. It is written without benefit of trained folklorists. They deplore but ignore;
it is time that they take the place which only they can properly fill.
We are at a moment in our culture when folklore, and everything associated with
it, commands more and more interest and attention. Among college students, there
exists a great ground movement in the colleges across the land, of interest in folksong,
folk music, as well as in folklore in general. The phenomenal sale of recordings having
to do with folklore and folksong; books like Jarvis' Folk Medicine, which sold over
300,000 copies; the development of museums of folklore and folk arts; the folk
festivals; the increased enrollment in college courses in folklore; the increased use of
folklore in lower schools-all these attest to the popularity and importance of folklore
in American culture.
So far the leadership in these folklore activities, if not also the motivation, is in the
peripheral group: the folkniks, the fakelorists, the money changers, the nice old ladies,
the school teacher who rewrites Little Red Riding Hood for the kiddies, the quack
healers with a pharmacopoeia of folk remedies, the journalists who make folklore to
order and their counterparts, the illustrators who supply the lurid, exaggerated pictures,
the folksinger who learns his songs from recordings of other folksingers and
who writes folksongs when occasion demands, the trios and the sing-along-with boys.
These are the agencies that have folklore in keeping in the U.S.A. It is as if history
in America were known through the activities and publications of the sentimental
local historians, the anecdoters, the chauvinists, the popularizers telling all about the
private life of Washington for a fast buck.
Folklorists confronted by this situation seem to have two choices: they can continue
as an in-group, publishing for one another in a private language, or they can assert
themselves and step into a position of leadership and authority in folklore. If they
choose the first, it would probably be well to give over the word "folk" and all of its
compounds to the folkniks so that the image rapidly growing around folklore will not
be identified with the scholar-professionals.W e might take up again the term of a
hundred years ago, Popular Antiquities, and rechristen the Society-The American
Popular Antiquities Society. If, however, folklorists would reach again for the leadership
they had in the past, then as a beginning I believe we should make three general
policy changes in our Society.
1. We should change the nature of the Journal of American Folklore. (In saying
this I am in no way criticizing the present editor or any of the editors of the past. An
editor must work from what comes to him; it is here that I suggest a change-the
nature and content of articles submitted to the Journal).
2. Professional folklorists should assume a more active role in education.
3. The Society and its members should take the initiative in making themselves
known and their special qualifications known to the appropriate government agencies
that should use them, agencies like the State Department, the Voice of America, the
Peace Corps, the Federal Commission on Education, and UNESCO.
May I say a brief word about each of these points? One of the senior members of
the Society remarked to me recently that he invariably read Folklore, the English
periodical, from cover to cover as soon as it appeared with interest and profit, but that
he read JAF out of a sense of duty. The reason, he suggested, is in the fact that articles
in the English journal are more frequently concerned with principles, with general
studies, with comparative studies across genres and with collectanea, and that all of
this is more interesting than the specialized technical articles more frequently found
in JAF. To this I would add that by and large the articles in the English journal are
more skillfully written, written with more grace and style; they are more literary, but
none the less scholarly for that. They appeal alike to the educated layman and the
folklorist. In America the articles and books of Loren Eisley are beautiful examples of
such writing in contrast to the heavily documented technical study that is our
inheritance from German scholarship of the last century, a carry-over from our
dissertation procedures. Like the dissertation, it is likely to be of value to the few who
are concerned with a special field and its special problems.
Since both types of articles are of importance, the way out may be to publish two
journals-one for the very specialized studies and one for the British type of essay
article, commanding a wider audience. This latter type of journal has been suggested
before; a committee was even appointed by the President of AFS some ten years ago
to study the matter. The committee reported that it was a fine idea but impractical,
impractical because it would cost too much and impractical, too, because we had no one
in the Society who could write the kind of article called for. I disagreed then and I still
disagree with both objections. If such a journal is ever published, I hope it will contain
collectanea, not snippets, trivia, jury texts, but good tales, fine songs, each reviewed
in its context as a work of art. The Port Royal version of "Little Matty Groves" might
well find a place there, accompanied by an appreciative subjective study of that ballad
as a work of art-folk art.
We must serve well a larger readership with our publications; we must also take a
more active place in education. We need authoritative, well-written books for school and college in folklore. We need books of readings in folklore. It is incredible in a
discipline as old as ours that the only authoritative general study of folklore is thirtytwo
years old and now reprinted without the needed revision. Two general syllabi
texts have recently appeared which can serve as guides in the general college course
in folklore. They are only a beginning. In addition to texts and books of readings, we
need courses. Let us point out to administrators the widespread student interest in
folklore and folksongs, insisting that this built-in interest be properly channeled. For
the lower schools we need texts, guides, syllabi-material to guide teachers thru
the maze of synthetic material billed as folklore.
These are solid ways by which we can improve the image of folklore. A third way
lies in showing the various government agencies that should be aware of folklore how
the American Folklore Society can be of assistance. Already we have furnished advice
to the Voice of America. In these days of global involvement, it would seem imperative
that the State Department should have a Division of Folklore to which personnel
could turn for information and advice. Members of the Peace Corps especially need
intensive training in folklore. The recent roster of trained personnel of the Society
made available to government agencies such as these, and in addition, to educators,
editors, and publishers, is a beginning-but only a beginning.
My plea is, then, that professional folklorists as organized in the American Folklore
Society do not stop content with technical studies, but that in addition they present
and interpret folklore accurately and gracefully to the larger audience, that by the
vigor of their wide scholarship they see to it that the image of folklore is identified
with them and no longer with the uninformed fringe group.
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania