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Shawls and Pig Spleens: Folklore, Anecdotes, and Humor of the Germans from Russia
By Ronald J. Vossler, free-lance writer
Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, North Dakota State University
Libraries, Fargo, North Dakota, 2002, illustrated by Andrea Trenbeath
and Joshua Vossler, 131 pages, softcover
Artwork
The Germans from Russia Heritage Collection is pleased
to announce publication of Lost Shawls and Pig Spleens: Folklore,
Anecdotes, and Humor of the Germans from Russia in the Dakotas
by Ronald J. Vossler, free-lance writer, University of North Dakota,
Grand Forks.
This book, Vossler's fifth, is as he states in his "Author's
Introduction" a companion book to his earlier collection, Not
Until the Combine is Paid and Other Jokes from the Oral Traditions
of the Germans from Russia in the Dakotas, though, as the
sub-title indicates, it contains not only humor, but also folklore
and other various anecdotes about North Dakota's most numerous ethnic
group.
There are eighty nine separate entries, of varying lengths, and
what adds greatly to the material are the eighteen line drawings
done in ink, which showcase the ample talent of the illustrators,
Andrea Trenbeath, a free-lance artist from Grand Forks, ND, and Joshua
Vossler, the author's son. The drawings cover a range of feeling,
from humorous; to whimsical (note the cover illustration of an elderly
lady trying to "milk a bull;" to haunting (see "The
Prairie Maneater").
A good part of this modest volume consists of examples of the everyday
humor of Germans from Russia-- including "ritual" greetings,
quips, proverbs, and retorts - once typical fare for this distinct
ethnic group, often stereotyped as stoic and humorless, which settled
in the Dakotas between 1884-1914. This collection also includes
some narrative jokes, complete with translated English punch-lines,
similar to those from the earlier volume, and there are also anecdotes
which reveal, as members of this ethnic group slowly assimilated
to American life, how elderly Germans from Russia misunderstood
the intent, the speech, or the holidays of the younger generation,
often with comical results. Included in the panoply of characters
of this volume are garrulous old farmers, naive town kids, and deprived
farm boys who play music in order to steal the most luscious watermelons
in the township.
Not all the material is humorous; the collection is, as the author
notes in his introduction, "eclectic," with much of it
deriving from first hand sources, including the author's personal
notebooks.
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Andrea Trenbeath and Joshua Vossler |
There is weather lore, faith healing rhymes, remedies for ringworm,
and brief narratives, such as "The Lost Shawl." Part of
the book's title grows from this particular anecdote, which describes
how the owner of a lost shawl manages to retrieve a beloved shawl
which has been swallowed by a voracious cow.
The setting for this material varies widely. There are numerous anecdotes and
other material that obviously derive from ethnic traditions brought
to Dakota small towns and farms. There is also peripheral material
from German or Ukrainian villages of the Soviet era, including folkloric
beliefs gleaned from old letters written to the Dakotas by German
villagers, as well as stories and jokes from Ukrainian traditions,
which give some insights into the lives of the German villagers
who did not immigrate to America like their kinfolk. The most striking
story in that regard, which likely is a real story but reads more
like a legend, concerns a Soviet collective leader who after insisting
on driving a harvest machine over a bridge built from razed German
tombstones, suffers the consequences of that sacrilege, and is killed.
All in all, this collection- which gathers remnants of the fast
disappearing oral traditions of the Germans from Russia in the Dakotas
-- is not only fun and informative, but in addition is a visual
delight. There is much in this book that will appeal to anyone who
wants to learn more about the folk beliefs, superstitions, and everyday
humor of the Germans from Russia ethnic group.
Related Articles:
Review
of the book by Edna Boardman
Lost Shawls
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