Michelle Newcomb, Topic of Choice #3

Michelle Newcomb
Religious Studies – Primal Religions
Topic Of Choice #3

American Folklore and different interpretation

In class a few weeks back I remember us discussing an incident in the book Bruchko that involved the telling of the story of Judas and his role in the crucifixion of Jesus. In his telling of the story (although it was totally correct) Bruchko was surprised to find that the natives, rather than hate and despise Judas, were impressed with his quick wits and cunning nature. This reminded me strongly of another text I read regarding Shakespeare’s Hamlet read to the bushmen of Africa by anthropologist L. Bohannan. Here thesis in the text – which I found profound – was “one can easily misinterpret the universal by misunderstanding the particular.”

In her autobiography of her time in the bush, Bohannan tells of a difficulty she had in translating the story of Hamlet into a plausible story for the bushmen. In the end, after much struggle, she failed remarkably – not because she was a poor story teller, but because the story was translated (or understood) by the bush men differently than she expected. After some time and much confusion, the story ended and at the outcome their interpretation is thus; Hamlet was not only a great fool for wanting to marry a girl who wouldn’t have him, but was also an insubordinate and struck down by the gods for using violence against a senior of his (both Polonius and Claudius). Ophelia was obviously a witch, for only witches can be drowned and it is a sign of their ill doing to be found so. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were decent men who deserved recognition for their obedience to their elders. Claudius and Hamlet’ mother were wrongly killed, they had done right to be married (what else was a women to do when left husbandless? She must always marry her husband’s brother). Polonius was the overall victor and hero of the story, he was cunning, conniving and quick witted and died a terrible and unfortunate death at the hands of the young and stupid Hamlet.

The article is much, much longer than the summary given above and I found it so amusing that such a simple story (as with Bruchko) could interpreted so differently. I think this is an excellent tool for anthropologists to use in order to understand the culture they are studying, I think the interpretation of the story told more about the culture than weeks of studying them could have.