Speak Bird Speak Again by Folktales Page B

the future.
    Using
the ideas we have thus far explored, we can begin to develop a theory
of action in the tales. Our last observation about action was that
final judgment concerning its ontological status must remain
tentative, since the tales, through their use of the journey motif in
the basic plot structure, locate action neither fully in the domain
of the supernatural nor in that of the physical. The parameters of
our discussion will be the major topics discussed thus far - namely,
the concretization of the nonmaterial; the interpenetration of the
physical and the supernatural; the distinction between good and evil,
and the balance of forces between them; the notion of rewards and
punishments as aspects of daily life; and the doctrine of
predestination. Certainly these ideas are not discrete and separable;
taken together, they form a unitary whole constituting the entire
moral outlook of the community. If, as we claim, the tales present a
portrait of that community, action in them can only reflect this
outlook.
    Of
course, by "action" we do not necessarily mean only
physical activity. Through the process of concretization, or
reification, of the non-material - a very important process operative
not merely in these tales but in all folk narrative - a thought or
wish becomes an action the moment it is put into words. And in fact,
that is precisely how many tales are begun: a lack is articulated,
the fulfillment of which then becomes the central action of the tale.
Language thus becomes a silent "actor" in the drama of the
tales, giving narrative form to the unspoken attitudes, feelings, and
dreams of the community, and awareness of the power of language on
the part of the tellers is evident throughout. We recall that the
root meaning of the Arabic word hikaye, or "folktale," is
"that which is spoken," and we have already alluded to the
use of opening, closing, and protective formulas, distancing devices,
and invocations. Language, particularly in verse form, has power over
the nonhuman world in the tales - both the physical, such as animals
and rocks, and the supernatural, including the jinn, ghouls, and
divine power. By repeating a certain incantation, the heroine of Tale
35 exorcises the demon who had been haunting her, and Jbene (Tale
13), by repeating her lament, enlists the sympathy of both animate
and inanimate nature. The power of language is also manifest in
formula tales, a representative sample of which is included in Group
IV (Tales 38-41). Here language aids not only in the memorization of
the tale but in plot management as well. Tale 41 in particular,
through the use of a rhymed formula, evokes the unity and
interconnectedness of human beings with nature. It is as if the end
rhyme, which unifies the tale, also unites human with nonhuman
nature. Other potent linguistic processes in these tales are
onomatopoeia, puns, and naming, which may operate singly or in
combination. Thus Tale 1 derives its name as well as its central
action from a linguistic imitation of the sound of a rolling cooking
pot (see Tale 1, fn. 1), and the resolution of Tale 45 relies on the
use of the hero's name as a pun. Naming is itself an important
confirmation of the power of language, for by giving something a name
it can become a material reality - the "water of life"
(Tale 5), the "robe of anger" (Tale 5), the "fart"
that becomes a person (Tale 43), the name that the heroine of Tale 26
adopts ("Mistress of All and Flower of the House"), and so
on.
    Ambiguity
concerning the ultimate status of action is a critical feature of all
folktales. On the one hand, Palestinian tellers do resort to
narrative distancing devices to put the action in the realm of
fiction. On the other hand, by concretizing the supernatural they
manage the opposite effect, locating fictional entities in the domain
of the real. The out-of-the-ordinary locations in which tellers like
to place the action are, as we have pointed out, essential aspects of
plot in nearly all