Sabitri Malla Kakshapati
It is considered that the relation between folk creation and culture has been intimate since time immemorial. Before the coming of written artifacts, the experiences of folk life has been manifested through various forms of oral artifact. Consciously or unconsciously, when folk creation expresses different experiences through various means, it makes use of various image, myths and maxims in a lucid way. Since the prehistoric age till the present time, the folk life style has been expressing itself in unwritten form, and has been preserving it in oral tradition in one way or the other. This attests its significance. In almost all countries of the world, the folk way of life expresses itself in the same way. Expressions of the people, who had been living informal ways of life, started to be looked down upon as savage, when people made a leap to formalized systems of living with the change of time. This posed an impediment in the development of such folk culture. In absence of the right environment, it could not ensure its own speedy development. Yet, in order to save its existence in the flow of civilization in highly non-conducive time, it has remained alive in some for form of minor or undercurrent expressions in the form of tales, verses, dance, song, or idioms and proverbs.
Historic Effort in Restoration of the Past Consciousness
The informal contemplation on the significance of folk creation started from the west. It is considered that the detailed study of the various facets of folk culture started in the later phase of the 18th century. Vico had studied the epics of Homer, and had expressed the idea that they truth had symbolic manifestation in legends and myths. With this claim when he put forward a new idea to study the past, a significant leap had been made in the study of folk artifacts. This accorded a significant position to the historical significance of folk expression in the history of western metaphysics. Such expressions helped listeners and readers to live life in ease at a time when they had been reeling under utter hardship. Lately, doors have been opened for the idea that by studying such artifacts that flow from generation to generation orally, it is possible for us to make a explanation of the past fact.
With time, as man started seeing the destruction of different centers of faith handed down by the ancestors, and the gradual dismantling of their own caters of faith, people started being utterly dejected. When the new conscious, rejuvenating from the age of distress, led to the rise of science and industrial revolution, a tradition of realistic contemplation started. It tried to restore the tendency to take the oral tradition flowing along through oral tradition in folk life, as exaggerated and unbelievable imagination of the early man. In 19th century, when German philosopher Frederic Nietzsche declared the death of God and the rise of ‘Superman’, the objective interpretation of science dismissed all Puranic beliefs and their figurative meanings. This had a detrimental effect on the development of folk expression. With the passage of time, the idea of interpreting human mind in terms of cultural interaction gained ground, dispelling the earlier practice of interpreting folk life in realistic, logical and intellectual terms. The idea of making mental and individual interpretation of human action paved way for the research of various aspects and genres of folk tradition, and to make a rise in the curious effort of their interpretations.
Influenced by the attraction towards cultural heritages adopted by folk way of life, the symbolic interpretation of Baudelaire, that came in the late 19th century France, accepted the fact that the antique psychological archetype manifest in various artifacts, expressed man’s intense experiences in a symbolic way. In the 20th century, when the interest of modern thinking had inclined towards the symbolism of the antique mind, the practice of looking at life from psychological point of view rose and gained popularity. Among such theoretical assumptions, the most important are the ideas of conscious and unconscious minds projected by Sigmund Freud, and the idea of Collective Unconscious Psyche by Carl Gustav Yung. This assertion vindicated the validity of an unconscious mind, and along with it the validity of the antique mind, ethnic mind and the uncivilized mind. This led to the acceptance of the first or the primordial image, that provided an conducive ground for the exploration of folk ways of life.
This way, Yung’s idea of collective unconscious seems to have played a decisive role in reestablishing the importance of the expression made through folk creation. According to this assumption, an individual has no knowledge of the collective unconscious. In this layer of mind, there exists a collected experience and sensibilities of the generations gone by, and ancestors from the antiquity. Its structure is independent of individual attributes, and is of sovereign nature. The experiences and culturing gathered since time immemorial establishes its essence, bridging the gap between people’s internal and external attributes, and moved ahead refining it. Even in the walk of life, sometimes, the unconscious appears to be more goal-orientated and sensible than the conscious, and this gives direction to the conscious mind. When such a behavior of the human mind began to be considered important in relation to the analysis of past during this era of philosophical deliberation, theoretical grounds got prepared for the study of folk artifacts.
After this theory got established, there was a rise in the practice of reckoning the fact that the symbolic consciousness expressed by folk creation contains the reflections of antique experiences. With it, it is being accepted that man, in the passage of his life, moving through a dialectic of rational and emotional forces within, giving a continuity to human civilization. With it, it has been proven that different manifestations of folk life have been protecting the turns brought about by changes that took place in human life, accepting the evolution of new thoughts from the footsteps of our civilization.
Such various developments in history have helped the evolution of a solid theoretical ground for the study of fork culture from various angles. With it, the folk culture which the objective view inspired by science dismisses as disjoint, unbelievable, and antique imagination, has figured out as an important area of episteme, as a result of the changing standards. As a result, once again, there has been a rise in analyzing life by scrutinizing folk cultural artifacts from perspectives of the past, and by making a study of the figurativeness of the antique mind. It appears that through this theoretical modality, attempts have been made to explain the ethnic relation of modern man with early man’s action and belief, and to assert its significance and maintain its continuity. This also has paved a fertile ground for cultural and anthropological study.
A study of folk art reveals that early man believed in divine power, tantra-mantra, rituals, whose powerful expressions are found in various images, symbols, legends and myths. This culture has remained in the collective unconscious of man a legacy unknowingly passing down from the ancestors and settling down in people’s mind as an ideological belief. Viewed this way, the nature or behavior of the early man is his antiqueness, which he has procured as a birthright attribute. This mentality not just allows man a fulfillment of desires; it also inspires an individual to pursue for knowledge. When the conscious mind activates with signals and directions inherent in it, the resulting action manifest man’s originality. A microscopic examination of human behavior reveals that it generates difference between people of one community and another. Since interested of the modern man has risen in foregrounding this difference, the study of folk expression is getting even more importance and attention.
Coming hitherto, the theory associated with the study of folk culture seems to have constantly simplified itself. The points ahead are discussed as behavioral cases of these theoretical assumptions in Nepal.
Restoration and Use of Past Consciousness
While studying what kind of a person an individual is, information about the culturing he or she grows in can reveal many things about his or her reality. Cultural revolution, that is engulfing the world now, has had its implications in Nepal as well. Though there have been no deliberate plans in its favor, the annual Kartik Dance, staged at on the pedestal near Patan Durbar Square can be taken as example. The Dance not only maintains the tradition but also exhibits how Nepalese civilization of the Malla period had paid importance on cultural values. Some legends appear to conserve Nepal’s history of a particular time period in songs. For example Chandra Shamsher’s Journey of England, and the battle between Kings of Ismel and Muskot reveal political history, while legends like ‘Chhittai Aauchhu Bhanera Gayeko’, ‘Mankumari Sati Gayeko’ and ‘Hariprasad ke Masur Bheyeko’ tell social and cultural histories. Even in our own days, Deuda songs unfold to us the past consciousness of the people of the far west. It appears that the folk arts from different parts of the country, their subjects, feelings and images present the civilization and history of those regions in an glorious way. The most important contribution it makes is that every single touch of folk art presents the image of the past consciousness of that region. Probably, there is no other way besides the study of folk artifacts, to understand the ancient civilization, human values and faiths, and beliefs of ancient Nepal.
In the name of change and modernization, the present generation is gradually neglecting its own tradition, rituals and way of life. On the other hand, each class and group aware of its identity appears to have deliberately and consciously applied itself to preserving its own folk culture. The Nepalese people, living under different rituals and cultures, are seen interested in projecting their cultural identity among one another. They are taking interest in presenting themselves in their own cultural dresses, and if possible, in their own folk tunes in various occasions, as a manifestation of their growing interest in their folk tradition.
Even at present when the folk culture is endangered, people have, consciously or unconsciously, or say as a result of such collective unconscious, preserved it, maybe in the form of religious rituals and festivals for centuries. We can discern their own typical, ancestral culture in different contemporary cultural manifestations like rituals, festivals, ceremonies to celebrate victory, shows on the playground during inaugural sessions of sports. They showcase different cultural traits like Hakupatasi for Newars, Ghalet and Chhit for Gurung, Bakkhu for the Sherpas who come from the Himalayan districts, jewels like peacock’s feature and those used during Kaurha dance by people of Rajbamshi community etc. Similarly, during Chandi Poornima, the people of Guring community perform Ghatu dance, the Magars sing Chatka in winter, while the Newars stage the fiesta during Gai Jatra festival, and chant their cultural number ‘Takan-tusi Twakka!’ The Rais entertain themselves by dancing the Udhauli dance during the Sakela festival. The songs sung to make such dances complete are all folk creations.
It appears that these days, people have renewed their interest for certain melodies of the folk musical tradition. The growing popularity is evidenced by remixing of such melodies in duet songs, increased sale of the cassettes of such songs, rise in the number of songs aired by FM and other radio stations, use of folk songs in many public awareness programs. These creations, that date back to prehistoric time, contain primordial indications of the way our ancestors thought and behaved. There is no doubt that such creations can play a very important role in bringing to us the trend of the development of communities, and to make comparative and objective study of the religious, economic, social and other aspects of a society.
Conclusion
In the present society, the importance of folk tradition and culture has been renewed as source to regenerate the past consciousness. It appears that the first, personal experience of folk life, in due course, acquires currency as a collective manifestation. In making various experiences of the folk life public through various manifestations, the feelings and presentations, and the content they express, play a very significant role. Globally speaking, folk ways of life and their manifestations through various means, have become fresh sites for research. Lately, the tendency to study and analyze folk behavior and action, and hand it over to the newer generation, has increased. In the modern, globalized and digitalized world, people appear to the converged into uniformity from outside. Though they might generically appear the same, people are different from one another in terms of their typical, cultural identities and practices. Of late, due to consciousness about various identities, interests have been renewed in showing difference among the cultural groups, in order to assert their own, unique identities. In this move to assert specialties, people appear to be concentrating on rejuvenating the past experiences. In this quest, important folk expressions, pertaining to folk experiences have been revealed to researchers, and in those experiences, one finds human values and ancientness of social culturing safely treasured. The entire world has today accepted the grandeur of such values in relation with life and the world. The United Nations has decided to observe this century as the century of the indigenous nationalities, and this indicates an increased support for such nationalities to assert their own typical identities and to preserver and promote the same in a more scientific way.
[Kakshapati teaches at the Department of Nepali, Padmakanya Multiple Campus, Tribhuvan University.]