In the process of working with folktales during
my study of Nagum Boiken medicinal knowledge system I encountered another
important relationship between translation and power. I had collected a version
of a folktale earlier in my research, but on further analysis, I was told that
the version I collected earlier was “not a serious version” to the one my
collaborator wanted me to collect. At that time, without knowing the complex
nature in which various versions of folklore texts are structured and layered
in terms of their power and authority, we disagreed. What did we disagree on?
First, we disagreed because the version I had collected earlier was the popular
version. My collaborator argued that my research lacked any seriousness. The
popular version is heard and performed in public for a general audience. The
version which he wanted me to collect was a sacred version. He is the only
person to know the sacred version. He felt it was time for me to know the sacred
version and wanted me to document both the sacred and popular versions.
So what does this tell us about folktales,
translation, and power? Within different societies there are different texts
lodged at different levels within a culture. Each society views public and
sacred texts or folktales in different ways. My collaborator held the view that
the sacred texts itself is the source of his power and authority. He refused to
surrender it through the process of translation from the primary oral culture to
the secondary print technological culture. His insistence on maintaining two
versions of the same folktale meant he could maintain his control and power of
the sacred version over the popular version. This lesson has taught me to
consider folklore texts, whatever they may be, as existing in two different
levels of power in the indigenous knowledge world.
The first level is that power is sanctioned by
the rules governing the performance and recitation of sacred texts. Denying
access to the sacred knowledge constituted within the magic utterances and
narratives in the sacred text is a refusal to transact any powers outside of
the rules that govern performance of sacred texts. Power is maintained within
the jurisdiction of sacred texts. The second level is the authority to perform
or narrate folktales. One gets to be an authority on performative narratives
and magic utterances through inheritance or through a long process of learning
under the influence of great elders and authoritative mentors in a society. Individuals
with such authorities are considered powerful in Nagum Boiken societies.
The Nagum Boikens have two
mythical figures named as Haiwanga and Yarawali. Most magic utterances evoke
the names of Haiwanga and Yarawali. The two culture heroes began the wali
kombo (spirit illness) among other magic utterances. The folktale of the
two brothers is dispersed in the northern New Guinea mainland. The two brothers
are either seen as gods or friends. Lipset discusses the myths of the two
brothers as the genesis of “geography, male agency and Austronesian hegemony in
north coast cosmology” (Lipset 1997). Lipset links the theory to an earlier
work by Hogbin that concludes among other things the emergence of conflict over
powers between two brothers in “the magico-religious” world. The two brothers
mythology appears as Manup and Kulubob myth in the Rai Coast area or as Andena
and Arena in the Murik society. The myth is narrated to explain sibling
rivalry, the “material knowledge” and the “masculine contests for authority and
control” (Lipset 1997). The latter is questioned in relation to the female
agency of such contests. The folktale of the rivalry between the two brothers
has implications in the ways in which we view the closely connected tribal or
ethnic groups in Papua New Guinea, and elsewhere in Oceania. Looking at this folklore more critically we
uncover the construction of male authority and power in societies where this
folktale appears (Winduo 1998).
There are folktale models that are universal in
occurrences, but are also indigenous to the region. Specific elements in
Oceanic folktales can be teased out and their functions in socio-cultural and
political development explained in detail. Translations of folktales have
political potential as well as challenges in defining power. Power is
constructed in folktales by those who recite or perform the unique local
folktale. Various models of power often constructed in folktales are adequate
enough as models of social political articulations. Members of a society use
folktales to reinforce socially productive relations in society.
Translations
of folktales, viewed from the perspective considered here, relate to the ways
in which we read and study the traditions within the social cultural contexts
and of such texts in the magico-religious world of Oceania. We are concerned
with power embedded within the text and its performance as defined within the
limits of sacred and secret knowledge. We also considered the literary and
scholarly interpretations of Oceanic folktales in their appearance as cultural
motifs infused into literary constructions. The folktales and their motifs
serve the function of grounding the literary, artistic, or cinematic work
within a localized concrete Oceanic space. It also consolidates the expression
of feeling of a people at the highest level of expression in Oceania. The final
issue is whether the process of translation from one language to another or
from one medium to another affects the authenticity of the original folktale.
Every performance, every translation, or every transfer of oral folktale is
different from the last time it was performed, told, sung, translated, or
transferred. It does lose its originality, but then it also gains its
popularity and acceptance. The folktale survives because of the renewed
interests it gains through new performances, new literary translations, and
transfusion in literary works, and its transfer from one medium to another
powerful medium such as novels, theatre, and films.
The research on folklore and our cultural knowledge systems helps
deepen the understanding of Papua New Guineans through the cultural frameworks existing
in their traditional societies where most customs are in oral performative
forms.
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