Feb
3
Folk Culture
Posted by: Brian | February 3, 2009 | Comments Off on Folk Culture
I enjoyed some of the folklore readings. In the legend of the singing tablet Utuquel is the chewer of the moon a creative muse of sorts. The singing tablets story seemed to represent the idea of collective consciousness for me. It was striking how the wedding rings and family jewels of the natives were taken by the Spanish for a bell in the Legend of the Silent Bell. The Pongo’s Dream is a fairly disturbing story about the value of human life. It centers around two characters, the dominating rich lord and the submissive poor slave. The serf is described as meek and feeble. The lord is cruel not only because he keeps slaves but his humiliation of the weakest serf who serves him. The story shadows the feudal domination which took place in the Andes. The serfs description of his dream can definitely be seen as an uprising of the the working class. I thought it was imaginative how the dream was twisted into a joke with a punch line which seems to allude to the idea that we all must pay for our actions. How popular are these legends in Latin America? Are they really an important aspect of the culture?
