Folklore as an Historical Science | Page 3

intimately related to folklore at
many stages, and yet how this relationship had been ignored by both
historian and folklorist. The research for this purpose had necessarily to
deal with much detail, and to introduce fresh elements of research.
There is thus produced a somewhat unequal treatment; for when
illustrations have to be worked out at length, because they appear for
the first time, the mind is apt to wander from the main point at issue
and to become lost in the subordinate issue arising from the working

out of the chosen illustration. This, I fear, is inevitable in folklore
research, and I can only hope I have overcome some of the difficulties
caused thereby in a fairly satisfactory manner.
The next stage takes us to a consideration of materials and methods, in
order to show the means and definitions which are necessary if folklore
research is to be conducted on scientific lines. Not only is it necessary
to ascertain the proper position of each item of folklore in the culture
area in which it is found, but it is also necessary to ascertain its
scientific relationship to other items found in the same area; and I have
protested against the too easy attempt to proceed upon the comparative
method. Before we can compare we must be certain that we are
comparing like quantities.
These chapters are preliminary. After this stage we proceed to the
principal issues, and the first of these deals with the psychological
conditions. It was only necessary to treat of this subject shortly,
because the illustrations of it do not need analysis. They are
self-contained, and supply their own evidence as to the place they
occupy.
The anthropological conditions involve very different treatment. The
great fact necessary to bear in mind is that the people of a modern
culture area have an anthropological as well as a national or political
history, and that it is only the anthropological history which can explain
the meaning and existence of folklore. This subject found me
compelled to go rather more deeply than I had thought would be
necessary into first principles, but I hope I have not altogether failed to
prove that to properly understand the province of folklore it is
necessary to know something of anthropological research and its results.
In point of fact, without this consideration of folklore, there is not much
value to be obtained from it. It is not because it consists of traditions,
superstitions, customs, beliefs, observances, and what not, that folklore
is of value to science. It is because the various constituents are
survivals of something much more essential to mankind than fragments
of life which for all practical purposes of progress might well disappear
from the world. As survivals, folklore belongs to anthropological data,

and if, as I contend, we can go so far back into survivals as totemism,
we must understand generally what position totemism occupies among
human institutions, and to understand this we must fall back to human
origins.
The next divisions are more subordinate. Sociological conditions must
be studied apart from their anthropological aspect, because in the
higher races the social group is knit together far more strongly and with
far greater purpose than among the lower races. The social force takes
the foremost place among the influences towards the higher
development, and it is necessary not only to study this but to be sure of
the terms we use. Tribe, clan, family, and other terms have been loosely
used in anthropology, just as state, city, village, and now
village-community, are loosely used in history. The great fact to
understand is that the social group of the higher races was based on
blood kinship at the time when they set out to take their place in
modern civilisation, and that we cannot understand survivals in folklore
unless we test them by their position as part of a tribal organisation.
The point has never been taken before, and yet I do not see how it can
be dismissed.
The consideration of European conditions is chiefly concerned with the
all-important fact of an intrusive religion, that of Christianity, from
without, destroying the native religions with which it came into contact,
conditions which would of course apply only to the folklore of
European countries.
Finally, I have discussed ethnological conditions in order to show that
certain fundamental differences in folklore can be and ought to be
explained as the results of different race origins. We are now getting rid
of the notion that all Europe is peopled by the descendants of the
so-called Aryans. There is too much evidence to show that the still
older races lived on after they were conquered by Celt, Teuton,
Scandinavian, or Slav, and there is no reason why folklore should not
share with language, archæology, and physical type