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Testing Testing: Social Consequences of the Examined Life

University of California Press

God knew the truth—and could be asked
Robert Bartlett,
Trial by Fire and Water

Appearances may deceive. People often have reasons to present themselves as something other than what they are. To foil the human tendency to dissimulate, techniques have been devised everywhere to bypass what people say and tap the underlying truth by other means. Foremost among these techniques are authenticity tests. Although qualifying tests are more prominent today, in preindustrial society, authenticity tests were the primary form of testing. This chapter, a historical review of authenticity tests, provides a context for the subsequent discussion of their contemporary usage. Moreover, analysis of their early forms allows further insights into the distinctive features of tests in general.

As already explained, tests are representational devices. The ultimate purpose of a test is to discover target information, of which the test result is a sign or representation. While deceptions may be artful, the truths beneath tend to be simple and stark. Therefore, the information sought in authenticity tests is usually

of an either/or form: genuine or impostor, honest or deceitful, faithful or heretic, innocent or guilty. Folklore provides a rich source for the variety of ingenious tests that might be used to answer such questions.

Identity

Tests frequently appear in folklore as means to determine someone's true identity: long-lost kinsman, heir to the throne, fugitive criminal, and so on. The testable sign of this target information may be some telltale capacity, as when a stranger is accepted as brother because he can accurately recount an event that occurred in childhood or when, as in an Indian tale (reminiscent of Latter Day Saint prophet Joseph Smith), a man's identity is certified because he is the only one who can read a magic book.1 The future King Arthur, Wagner's Sigmund, and Odysseus were similarly identified by the unique ability to withdraw a sword embedded in a stone or tree or to bend a certain bow. Conversely, the inability to accomplish a task may unmask an impostor, as when, again in a story from India, a false bride was undone when she was unable to finish the true bride's weaving.2

Characteristics of the body are commonly used as signs in tests of identity. Fitting a slipper was the means of identifying Cinderella, and similar tests are found in many other folktales.3 In the Ozark tale, "The Soot on Somebody's Back," a pretty girl is repeatedly raped in the darkness, perhaps by one of her brothers. On the third night, she places a dish with soot and grease beside her bed and smears some of it on the back of her unknown assailant. The next day, at the invitation of the eldest (whom the sister had taken into her confidence), the six brothers go swimming, and one of them never comes back.4 Distinctive scars, birthmarks, and other permanent body characteristics frequently serve in folklore as the basis of tests for identifying kin, friend, or foe. A New Zealand Maori marked for vengeance was known to have overlapping front teeth. A suspect was tested by having a woman perform a lascivious dance in front of him, causing him to laugh. This enabled his enemies to see the telltale sign, and he was soon in their hands.5

Tests of identity may pertain to class membership as well as to specific individuals. One test for vampires is to check for their lack of a reflection in a mirror, and Japanese folktales relate how it is sometimes possible to determine if certain individuals are mischievous foxes who have taken human form by looking for the tips of their tails peeping out from under their clothing. Strangers who claim to be of noble blood may be tested to determine if they possess the requisite sensitivity, as happens in the story of the princess and the pea. A male version describes a prince who said he thought he was sleeping on a heavy beam, which turned out to be a hair in his lower bedding.6

Character

Many tests in folk literature are designed to ascertain if an individual merits trust or some great benefit, such as a king's daughter as bride and/or a kingdom (or half of one, anyway). Cleverness or judiciousness may be tested by asking candidates to solve riddles or answer questions; courage and ingenuity are signified by enduring frightening ordeals or fulfilling assignments that require perilous quests or impossible tasks. To determine his successor, William the Conqueror is said to have asked his sons what kind of bird they would prefer to be. The first said a hawk, because it resembles a knight; the second said an eagle, because all other birds fear it; and the third said a starling, because it makes its living without injury to anyone. The third was chosen.7 Cinderlad, the hero in the folktale, "The Princess on the Glass Hill," was tested on several occasions. First he demonstrated his courage by spending several nights in a barn despite terrifying manifestations that had driven his older brothers away, for which he was rewarded with three magic horses and suits of armor. Later those magical accoutrements enabled him to accomplish the impossible task of riding up a glass mountain and thus to claim the princess seated atop it as his bride, together with half her father's kingdom. Numerous European and Arab folk traditions include the tale of the peasant girl who helped her father win a dispute by solving riddles. Her cleverness caught the attention

of the king, who resolved to test her further by setting her to impossible tasks, which she succeeded in accomplishing. This sufficiently impressed the king that he married her and made her his trusted adviser.8

Chastity, an issue on which folktales indicate that a woman's word is not invariably reliable, is a common subject for testing. Italian stories describe several devices. One is to lead a woman of questionable virtue to a place where there are two fountains. In the presence of a chaste woman, the fountain that produces clear water flows, but if she is unchaste, the other, muddy, fountain gushes forth. A litmus test of the issue was to set her before a picture that would change color depending on her condition.9

Tests that may be classed under the general heading of loyalty are extremely common. The fidelity of spouses is a common subject of tests, the wife nearly always being the one whose behavior is scrutinized. The Bible establishes a ritual procedure whereby a wife suspected of adultery must drink consecrated water, which will cause her to miscarry if she has been unfaithful.10 The representational structure of the test is clear: the test result (whether or not she miscarries) differs from but signifies the target information (whether or not she has committed adultery). The British tale, "The Loving Wife," recounts how a husband pretends to be dead in order to test his wife. True to his suspicion, he had hardly been laid out before the wife entertained a young man in her bedroom. The "corpse" jumped up and attacked the pair with a stick.11

Feigning dire circumstances also occurs in folktales when the fidelity of friends is to be tested....