(Speech to Springfield Writers Guild, 3/16/92) Hi -- and thank you for having me here. I suppose the first thing I should do is establish my credentials for talking to you about Ozark folklore. Of course, you know that I am President of the Missouri Folklore Society, and a few other things, including former editor of a folklore journal and myself a writer. There are, though, two other things about me that are more important: I am a writing teacher, and I am a native Ozarker I was born on a small farm in Laclede County near the little town of Stoutland and lived there off and on for most of my first 17 years. Stoutland, as you may know, has a population of about 200 people; our 195 acres of flint and oak was about 1-1/2 miles from town. During WWII, we moved onto Ft. Leonard Wood to live in military housing because my father was considered "essential personnel." We also lived at various times in Rolla and Richland -- Phelps and Pulaski counties. Until I joined the Navy shortly after my 17th birthday, I had been outside Missouri few enough times that I could count them on my fingers. In other words, my horizons were rather narrow, as were the horizons of most of the people I grew up among. On the other hand, I am descended from Missouri’s pioneers. My great, great, great grandfather homesteaded in St. Charles in 1805. His sons moved to Waynesville in about 1836 and are considered the first "white squatters" on the site of Roubidoux Spring. Another of my great, great, great grandfathers was one of the founders and the First Circuit Clerk of what is now Camden County [incorrect: it was his brother who was County Clerk]. Another [great] great grandfather founded one of the first newspapers in Laclede County. My great grandfather was [Deputy] U. S. Marshal in the Indian Nations. Two of my great great grandfathers fought in the Confederate Army. Another relative was decorated for valor by the Federals at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek. I am a fifth generation Ozarker on my father’s side and sixth generation on my mother’s. In short, my roots are about as deep here as the limestone will permit them to go. I often tell people that I have limestone in my blood and oak in my soul. I am an Ozarker. And I am proud of my heritage. I tell you this to establish my right to talk about Ozarks folklore. I am one of the folk. But what is Ozark folklore? That’s a tough question, but I do have an answer. The word "folklore" itself originally meant "the wisdom, the knowledge, the learning of the common people." Though in popular usage the term has come to mean something much less positive, that is still the sense in which folklorists, such as myself, use it. When I speak of Ozark folklore, I mean the knowledge, the beliefs, the traditions, the customs, the language, of the common people of the Ozarks. People like myself. It includes things like how we celebrate our holidays and what food we eat then. It includes the stories and jokes we tell. It includes how we bury our dead and how we build our houses and barns. It includes our dances and our music, the games we play, the lullabies we sing our children, the wild plants we harvest, the names of the quilt patterns we use, how we doctor ourselves, the kinds of names we give our children. It includes all of these things and more. And it includes how we do them now and how our ancestors used to do them. Because it includes so much, it is impossible to separate folklore from history, or from literature, or from theology, or from any number of other scholarly fields . Let me illustrate. For about the last six months, I have been tracking down a story I heard as a child. The story goes like this: In the summer of 1837, near what is now the border between Laclede and Camden counties, while the men of the family were working in the fields, a slave name Joe assaulted his master’s 10-year-old daughter. She struggled and screamed, and managed to escape, but not before the slave mortally stabbed her. She managed to get to the field to tell her father what had happened. The slave, of course, had fled, so the men of the neighborhood formed a search party and, after two of three days, sighted him. One of the men shot Joe, but did not kill him. So, they sent for a doctor -- my great, great [great] grandfather Dodson -- who lived sixteen miles away. By the time the doctor arrived, Joe was dead. Since he was a slave, he couldn’t be buried in a white cemetery, and the other slaves, because of the heinousness of the crime, did not want him buried with their dead. So, my grandfather took the body to a cave near his home and removed the flesh. (Though the details are always given in the story, I will forego them in respect to this occasion.) He then wired the skeleton back together and used it in his medical practice for many years. To this day, the cave, which is on a farm road which connects Camden County A and Missouri Highway 7, is called Joe’s Cave. In fact the story is most often told when some kid, such as I was, asks why the cave is called that. When I began tracking down the story, I did not believe it -- though I had believed it as a child. It sounded too much like what is called an "etiological" myth -- a story that is created to explain to a child why something has the name it does. My research began with visits to the cave site and interviews with the old-timers in the area. In those interviews, I began to get other details of the story. For instance, one woman told me that on certain nights, one can hear fiddle music playing deep in the cave. (Joe was ostensibly a wonderful fiddle player much in demand for dances.) My mother told me that if one goes way back into the cave, one can find Joe's petrified heart there. My great aunt told me it was his petrified tongue. My great uncle told me that the killing happened near Waynesville, on Roubidoux Creek. Two other of my uncles showed me "the spot" where Joe was killed. And so on. The legend continued to grow with every telling, so I began researching the "facts." To my surprise, I found that the incident happened pretty much as it as been handed down, though without many of the embellishments. I learned that the girl’s name was Amanda Fullbright and that she died on July 10,1837. She is, in fact, related to many of the Fulbrights now living in Springfield. I learned that the skeleton was destroyed in a house fire in 1944. I learned that the man who shot Joe was named Rafferty and his own death two years later was the first murder case tried in Pulaski County. The legend said that he was killed with the same gun with which he killed Joe by his wife’s lover, a man identified as "Grizzle" in the legend. Though I have not yet read the trial transcript, I know that the defendant in the murder trial was a man named William Grizzell and that he was accused of killing one Rafferty. I also know, of course, that the doctor was William Dodson, though I have only recently learned that the Dodsons in Greene and Jasper counties are also related to him. To find the information I have found, I have had to learn to do genealogical research, historical research, map research, land claim research, and even some spelunking. Though I have not yet found the exact spot where Joe was shot, I have been shown several different possibilities. And I have found the location of the house where Amanda was assaulted. Part of my reason for telling you this story is to illustrate that folklore is a discipline, an area of study, that involves many other disciplines and methodologies, but also that it often starts inside your own experiences and knowledge This story also illustrates another important point abut Ozark folklore: that point is that Ozark folklore is like folklore all over the world, but also unique and expressive of our own values, our own character. From this story we can learn about the fears and customs of slaveholders in the early Ozarks. We can learn about their entertainment -- dancing and fiddle music. We can learn about their burial customs and we can learn about frontier justice. I want to point out to you right now that probably all of you have similar stories handed down through your own families or communities, stories that you have perhaps never questioned or considered important because you have always known them and always just accepted them as true. Another such story that I heard and believed as a teenager involved the favorite swimming hole. (Perhaps you already know what I’m going to tell.) It seems that a bunch of soldiers from Fort Leonard Wood came to the swimming hole one night. One of the boys rushed up the bluff we always dove off and jumped in. He came up flailing and screaming to the other boys not to come in. When he drifted near shore, the other boys pulled him in, but he was dead. He had been bitten 17 times on the feet and legs. He had jumped into a nest of cottonmouths. Stories such as this are told all over the world, but they always take on certain local characteristics. This one is placed at the swimming hole on Sellars Creek, one of the creeks that waters the Ozark Fisheries, a place particularly infested with snakes because of the abundance of frogs near the fish ponds. But the Ozarks are full of snakes, so we have a particular fear of, or at least caution about, snakes. They are a part of our environment, and we have to learn very young how to live with them. Stories such as this one are common in Ozark folklore and teach us how to live in the Ozarks: don’t jump without looking -- there may be snakes in the water. In the desert one learns about rattlers; here we learn about cottonmouths and copperheads. lt is these details that distinguish Ozark folklore from other kinds of folklore -- the details, not the general outlines. Our folklore is mainly transplanted Appalachian folklore, just as we are mainly transplanted Appalachian people. I could tell you a thousand similar stores, but I want to talk some about using folklore in your writing. I assume that you-all write many different kinds of things, so I want to talk about several different ways of using folklore. As I’m sure you are all aware, there is a considerable market, though not necessarily a very well-paying one -- if it pays at all -- for articles that simply show what our customs are. Magazines such as Clay Anderson’s Ozark Mountaineer and Ellen Massey’s Briarwood come to mind immediately. These magazines print articles that are what might be called "human interest" stories about Ozark customs past and present. They are targeted to particular audiences who have a preexisting interest in the subject and who want specific, factual detail presented in entertaining form -- narrative or descriptive. The scholarly journals are also interested in such material, though they want more analytic writing. Not Just what the folklore is, but why it evolved and how, and what it shows about us as a people, both like and distinct from people elsewhere. Again, two that come to mind are the Missouri Folklore Society Journal and the Mid-America Folklore Journal. Magazines such as Midwest Motorist and Midwest Living are also interested in folklore articles, as are dozens of other magazines and journals. Some of you are undoubtedly fiction writers. If you write local color stories, it is as important to get the folklore right as it is the geography. For instance, you ought to be aware that a large number of early 19th century Missouri women were actually named Missouri. You ought also be aware that the typical winter menu in the early settlement days was corn dodgers (not, by the way, corn "pone") and milk, corn dodgers and milk, and more corn dodgers and milk, perhaps with a little bacon or ham. The groaning harvest tables were a rarity, not an every day occurrence. In creating characters, you need to know, for instance, the kind of language we speak and spoke. We don’t use past participles -- we say "had went," not "had gone." And we say "you’ns," not "Y’all." You also need to know what was "Women’s work" and what was "Men’s work." In creating setting, you need to know that we lived in two-room cabins built of v-notched logs. And we usually got our water from a spring near the house, not a well or a creek. You need to know that we made mash whiskey, nor corn and not white lightning. And you need to know that we made our livings, often, raising and selling livestock, and that we drove the livestock to market on foot, not on horseback. You need to know that our children played with hickory whistles, cornstalk fiddles, cornhusk dolls, limberjacks in black face, cigar box banjos, bullroarers and button buzzsaws. And you need to know that the women cooked in fireplaces until well into the late 1800 s. In creating plots, you need to know that our adventures usually involved confrontations with each other over petty thefts and adultery. You need to know that there were no cowboys here, and that there were no indian wars and no white women-stolen-by indians. You need to know that Ozark men seldom carried pistols and, if they did, they carried them in their pockets, not slung low in holsters. But, you also need to know that "Spanish gold" and "Lost California gold" stories still proliferate in the Ozarks. I heard two different ones this past summer. You also need to know that our favorite villainous rapscallions are the teacher, the preacher, and the salesman, and that one of our main entertainments until the early 1900’s was the "camp meeting revival." You need to know that we fought shamefully over our churches and our elections, and that we were, and are, a violent people. For authentic plots, build them around these things, or around the real stories, such as the story of Joe’s Cave or the cottonmouths in the swimming hole. These are the things we do and have done, the things that characterize us in our own minds, things that show our beliefs and our values. Some of you are perhaps poets, as I am. You can also use folklore in your poetry. I’ll read you two example of poems of my own built around Ozark folklore. The first is entitled "The Funeral." In Ozark guise, the ancient rite renews; As chicks scuttle for imagined cover When the hawk's cold shadow passes over, Or the Chosen cowered behind bloody doors When death stalked Egyptian night, To this fearful humans' tribal huddle, In ritual solemnity, the mourners gather in. In guileless mock of mourning clothes, In unschooled pastor's artless words, In broken hymns on untuned tongues, They lift up thanks to flint-hard gods That death has touched some other. This poem as I’m sure you saw, is merely description of an Ozark funeral. It doesn’t give a lot of detail, but enough to locate it in the traditions and customs I grew up in. This next one is called "If There Must be War." It really contains only one small piece of folklore -- a reference to a homemade toy common in the Ozarks until about 40 years ago. If there must be war -- It looms like a thunderhead -- Let it come silent and soon, In flash of cleansing fire, To smash the gibbering demons down Who lurk below the fears. We dance like limberjacks -- Hanged men on toy gallows -- To spastic tunes of terror. If there must be war, Let it come silent and soon. Others of my poems use Ozark culture and life in other ways. I wrote one which is merely a description of an August afternoon -- a dog day afternoon. When my mother read it, she said, "You were born on a day just like that." So, there is much of our past and of our present that you can use to enliven your writing. Our folklore -- our beliefs, our values, our customs, our traditions -- change as we change and reflect us at every stage of our history. Two years ago, a colleague and I collected from our students 54 versions of a tale that was running rampant in Springfield and the rest of the country. I won’t tell you the story in detail, because it is almost X-rated, but I will tell you that it involves a woman consciously and knowingly infecting men with AIDS. The story makes a very strong point about the dangers of promiscuity and, we have concluded in an article we are trying to get published, is directed primarily at young men to teach them not to be promiscuous. In other words, a folk legend is being used to reverse an element of American culture. What does it show us about the Ozarks? Among other things, it shows that our culture is no longer an isolated one, that we share many of the same concerns and values with the rest of America, that we are losing some of our local identity. But the story also names bars and streets in Springfield. How could you use something like that in you writing? Well, it depends on what you are writing. In a play or a novel, you could use the story as a plot line, or as a story one character tells another for the same purpose people really tell such stories: to teach behavior patterns. In a magazine article you could use it to illustrate how we think and believe. One of the more fun to read novels I have encountered recently is science fiction novel written by Gary Norwood. It is set in Springfield and mentions such places as the AG publishing house and Strawberry Fields Apartments. But it also refers very off-handedly to cashew chicken, cat and dog. I don’t know what people who are not from Springfield get out of that, but I immediately think of the fact that cashew chicken was created in Springfield and the fact that, because of our large Oriental population, the rumors of dogs and cats being stolen to be served in Oriental restaurants or eaten by the owners recur and recur in this area. I could go on and on, but I don’t want to. The point is that folklore is all around you, in your everyday lives, and it is the kind of thing that can give believability to your writing. It is the things you do and think and believe. It is your past and your present. It has a thousand uses in your writing and requires only that you recognize it when you see it Before I stop, though, I want to mention two other areas in which folklore is of particular value to you. Last months Writer’s Digest included an article on the kinds of things publishers are going to want in the 1990’s. Many of the topics listed were folklore topics. I’d encourage you to look at that particular magazine. The other area is in children’s literature. One of my colleagues who teaches children’s literature showed me just last week several children’s books which have merely taken folk legends, such as "The Hookman" and the "Babysitter," revised and rewritten them, and published them as children’s stories. In other words, there are two quite solid indicators that the successful writer of the 90’s may be the one who can use folklore in his or her writing. Even if that turns out not to be the case, I can personally attest that there is a great deal of satisfaction to be gained from using your own experiences and culture in your writing. I am aware that I have not told you much about the nature of Ozark folklore, so I’ll be happy to take questions now if you have some. Thank you for listening.