Faith, Folklore, and Folly | Thomas E. Cheney, ed., Lore of Faith & Folly, and Jan Harold Brunvand, A Guide for Collectors of Folklore in Utah

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In a preface to Lore of Faith & Folly, William A. Wilson observes that while few states possess Utah’s abundance of folklore, few have been more reluctant to collect and study their traditions. With the appearance of two volumes on Utah folklore, both published within the state (as many earlier studies were not), this reluctance seems happily to be disappearing.

Although the Folklore Society of Utah has functioned at varying levels of activity since 1958, Lore of Faith & Folly presents the first fruits of its commitment to publication. The twenty-five selections comprising the book were wisely chosen to reflect the entire membership of the Society (rather than its academic wing alone), and therefore include popular literature, personal and family reminiscences, and comparative and analytical studies. The results provide pleasant glimpses of Utah’s traditional heritage to the casual reader as well as stimulation for the professional folklorist. 

The reminiscences survey numerous aspects of Utah existence in earlier days. Juanita Brooks recalls a child’s introduction to Indian custom in “Our Annual Visitors,” and recounts community practical jokes (sabotaging the wagon of a couple setting off for a St. George Temple wedding, adorning a church steeple with a gate from the bishop’s home) in “Pranks and Pranksters.” Andrew Karl Larson’s “Reminiscences of a Mormon Village in Transition” covers virtually the entire spectrum of traditional small-town life at the beginning of this century. Carpets and mattresses were made at home, school children played mumble peg and base-rounders, “ragging” (the telling of tall tales) passed away winter hours, and community songs memorialized such events as “Julius Hannig’s Wedding.” 

Other examples of Utah lore were gleaned either by collecting or through library research. Olive Burt’s “Wine-making in Utah’s Dixie” presents tales from Toquerville, Utah, where the traditional potent brew was said to have distracted U.S. deputies searching for “cohabs” in the 1880’s. Gustave O. Larson brings together from secondary sources numerous legends surrounding the career of Porter Rockwell, and Thomas E. Cheney develops a “double exposure” of Samuel Brannan, drawing on accounts which range from admiration for Brannan’s financial acumen to condemnation by Church leaders (and, according to some sources, pursuit by the Danites). Utah’s ties to the wider patterns of American folklore are reflected in Austin and Alta Fife’s “The Cycle of Life Among the Folk” and in Wayland Hand’s “The Common Cold in Utah Folk Medicine,” both of which include Utah-collected beliefs and customs that are traditional throughout the country. In “Unsung Craftsmen,” the Fifes point out that material culture traditions were both brought to and invented within the state. Helen Z. Papanikolas’ “Greek Folklore of Carbon County” illustrates the strong ethnic components of Utah lore and serves as a fascinating reminder that Mormon pioneers were not the only contributors to the state’s heritage. 

While these selections will be enjoyed by both academic and casual readers, they would be much enhanced by the inclusion of biographical and bibliographical data. A scanty “About the Authors” does not include all contributors, and gives none of the biographical details which would interest the lay reader and authenticate material for the scholar. In fact one selection, “A Strange Gift,” is meaningless because it lacks such data. Turning to the second page of this account, written by Rosabel Ashton (unidentified), the reader discovers that he is actually examining “Lerona Wilson’s Own Story,” apparently in Lerona Wilson’s (also unidentified) own words. Brief headnotes would make “A Strange Gift” intelligible and would help to place other selections in context. (The book’s foreword indicates that some sections were prepared for and presented at meetings of the Folklore Society of Utah, but neglects to tell which or when. Casual readers would appreciate, and scholars consider essential, such information.) Even without headnotes, though, Lore of Faith & Folly is a fine first offering from the Society, and will surely whet readers’ appetites for the future volumes which the Society hopes to provide. 

The gathering of material for such volumes will be greatly facilitated by Jan Brunvand’s A Guide for Collectors of Folklore in Utah. Directed largely toward amateurs who might develop an interest in folklore, the Guide “is intended to show you what to collect, how to collect, and where to deposit your material.” Its success results mainly from the ability of the author, a talented and energetic professional folklorist, to transfer his enthusiasm for collecting to the printed page. 

Brunvand does an excellent job of making readers who may never have heard the word folklore aware that they have been learning and transmitting it all of their lives. He defines the essence of folklore, drawing on previously collected Utah lore to illustrate each aspect of the definition. His discussion of the folk group (“any group that shares some common trait out of which spring some shared traditions”) will quickly sensitize readers to their memberships in several such clusters. As Mormons, for example, church members share traditional anecdotes about church leaders (such as J. Golden Kimball stories), a specialized vocabulary (“Jack Mormon,” etc.), a body of orally transmitted songs and stories—in short, folklore. Yet as Brunvand makes clear, a Mormon may also be a member of an ethnic culture, or a student learning dating customs at B.Y.U., or an Army private absorbing the lore of the military. 

Convinced that he is a member of several folk groups, the reader will be eager for suggestions on the collecting process. These are presented in chapter 2, which suggests guidelines for developing collecting projects and presents brief but adequate remarks on the use of tape recorders and cameras. For the reader who just can’t wait to begin collecting (and there will be some), the book includes a questionnaire on personal folklore which may be filled out and submitted to the Utah Heritage Foundation. 

The Guide is a handsome volume, creatively designed and well executed; however, its attractiveness raises what is, for this reviewer at least, a central problem—cost. While $6.50 is not unreasonable, and while a paperback edition is available at $3.95, this book simply is not going to be made as widely available as a state collecting guide could and should be. This is not to imply that the book is not worth the money (it is), but rather to suggest that its central purpose could have been achieved in a less spectacular format. Surveying the photographs in the Guide, for example, one quickly notices that while some provide information necessary for potential collectors (such as showing what the Nauvoo or “I” style house type looks like), others depict scenes totally familiar to readers (such as children jumping rope) and are merely decorative. Perhaps Brunvand will one day supplement the Guide with an inexpensively printed group of suggestions which could be sent out free or at low cost to potential collectors. (The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission published such a guide in 1968.) 

Dialogue readers are urged, however, not to await the materialization of a reviewer’s hopes, but to examine Brunvand’s Guide at once. Interesting reading in itself, the book should spark collecting adventures that will result in contributions for the sequels to Lore of Faith & Folly.

Lore of Faith & Folly. Edited by Thomas E. Cheney, assisted by Austin E. Fife and Juanita Brooks. Salt Lake City, The University of Utah Press, 1971. ix + 274 pp. $7.50.

A Guide for Collectors of Folklore in Utah. By Jan Harold Brunvand. Salt Lake City, The University of Utah Press, 1971. xi + 124 pp. $6.50.