Page 136 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

The Donkey 111

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The Donkey: A Mirror

of Self-iDenTificATion

Guy Poitevin

Three examples of structural analysis and thematic interpretation of
oral myths that incorporate the personage of the donkey as a signifi-
cant ‘agent’ or ‘actant’ (Ricœur 1971: 43) are submitted with the view
to mainly project points of method. My conviction is that we cannot
inconsiderately use, let alone abuse, at will any so-called ‘folk’ cul-
tural form even for commendable cultural or development purposes.
Reappropriation should not be manipulation or mere instrumental
utilization, leave aside misuse, but fair reinterpretation grounded in a
semantically safe reassessment. A fruitful and legitimate interaction of
past and present cultures raises issues of methodological transparency,
that is to say, proven procedures of validation.
It is with such questions relating to modes of cultural interaction
across disconnected periods of time that we give an account of our way
to read, assess and interpret today three Indian oral myths in which
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the Vadar—traditionally a community of stone-workers, nowadays
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road workers and agricultural labourers—deal with their carrier, the
donkey. We shall not debate definitions (Thapar 1984: 294–325) and
hermeneutics of myths, though our method obviously has its own as-
sumptions, which we shall spell out in the course of demonstration
whenever necessary. We mainly mean to show the grounds of our
attempts of interpretation.