CHAPTER 1

DOROTHY NOYES

Group

Ideas about group are the most powerful and the most dangerousin folklore studies. Our influence as a discipline has often come fromarguing for small groups against big groups. Against imperialism, we arguefor the nation-state; denying the homogeneity of the nation-state, weargue for the ethnic group or the social class; at last, wary of the dangersof essentialism at any level, we turn to the face-to-face community.

It is less comfortable to recall that we have also argued for big groupsagainst small groups: for the historical and racial unity of a nation againstthe diversity within it, for example. Today, on the left, we often participatein efforts to redefine and organize stigmatized social categories as"communities." On the right, we cringe as we see our abandoned structural-functionalist models reborn in claims for "community values."Applying for grants, we know we'll do better if we can frame our projectaround a "community"—that is, a viable political constituency—insteadof a practice.

We prove the reality of a group by demonstrating that it has a culture,unified within and differentiable without (Handler 1988). In documenting,"preserving," and synthesizing this culture into canonicalforms—the Kalevala, the Kinder- und Hausmärchen, the Catalan sardana,the open-air museum, the American ethnic festival—we diffuse and generalizeit among that group's potential members, thus improving the isomorphyof group and culture (Klusen 1986 [1967]).

And yet, working ethnographically, we are aware of the fragility of thegroup concept put to the test. We learn in interaction of the status differenceswithin a group that may make men public, and women private, performers;we discover the creative individual whose influence galvanizesand directs performance in a particular milieu; we find that a festival declaredby all to be a celebration of unity is in fact animated by vigorousfactionalism; we discover the complex networks of contacts and influencesfeeding into and emerging from an apparently bounded community.

The impossibility of a neat definition of the group became clear to meone day in 1988 when, as part of fieldwork for the Philadelphia FolkloreProject, I was visiting Italian Market Days, the autumn festival that promotesthe market to the rest of the city. With a photographer, I had cometo rest in front of the greased pole, a New World reflex of the albero dicuccagna. The Tree of Cockayne, a common feature of European carnivals,promises infinite satisfaction if only you can get to the top of it. Hereit was, a twenty-five-foot metal pole planted by the city on the base of astreetlamp; from a little platform on the top there hung lengths of salami,whole legs of prosciutto, balls of cheese, and an envelope of money.The length of the pole had been generously rubbed with bacon fat.

A group of teenage boys clustered around the pole, trying to get up.By their looks they were working-class Italian Americans, the kids whowork in the market. They had come up with a collaborative strategy,forming a tight circle of bodies at the base and a second layer of lighterboys on their shoulders. They had to decide on the best way of linkingarms and scrambling up backs, and they tumbled down several timesbefore getting it right. Then a few boys tried for the top, inching up withtheir knees, sometimes wiping the fat off with a towel, always slidingback down at the end. At one point a girl came in and climbed up to thesecond layer, but the hands and the jokes of the boys became too much,and she soon retreated. Later we were agreeably surprised to see an AfricanAmerican boy stepping in; he was dressed like the others and seemedto be a friend, remaining part of the group until the end. Exhibition labeltext began composing itself in my head: here was the freedom of themarketplace fostering multiethnic collaboration for the common prize.I checked myself—was my subconscious turning Republican on me?—andthe boys also decided to take a rest. We and a large crowd had beenwatching them, rapt, for a good hour and a half.

The advent of a Southeast Asian man prevented that text from everbeing written. Perhaps from the new Vietnamese neighborhood adjacentto the market, the man looked thirty; he was wearing nothing but a briefpair of white shorts, and he strode straight to the pole through the gapmade by the relaxing boys. Then, with no help whatsoever, he started up,using his feet instead of his knees. On his second try he had reached thetop and grasped the leg of prosciutto, grinning hugely.

The boys on the ground, who had been frozen with surprise, nowbegan to stir. They shouted at him, struck at the low part of the pole. One,then another, threw a sneaker at him, narrowly missing. Then they beganto shake the pole from side to side. The man decided to come downbefore the shoes became stones and, trying to treat it as a joke, smiledand walked away rather quickly.

As we caught our breath—imagining the consequences if there hadbeen a larger Vietnamese presence in the crowd—the boys started up atthe pole again. This time, galvanized by the competition and having observedthe Asian man's technique, they made it up within a quarter ofan hour. The boy on top scrambled onto the platform, enjoying his triumph,and gestured to the crowd, tossing small toys down to them andwaving his clasped hands in victory. Eventually he took the envelope ofmoney and slid down to the cheers of his companions.

The photographer approached him and asked what we were bothwondering: "What happened? That black kid was with you, and that wasokay. Why couldn't the Asian guy get it?"

He was not at all embarrassed. "We know that kid," he said. "We goto school together, he works in the market with us, he's a friend. But thisChinese guy—" ("Chinese! I hate Chinese!" interjected one of his friends)"—just came out of nowhere. This is an Italian festival, an Italian shouldget it. He's got his own festival to win at." Then he excused himself: hewas ready for a beer.

The first time I told this story in class I...