Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers is nothing new. Dorson’s rich 1952 ethnography has influenced future generations of folklorists so thoroughly that its innovations have become standard practices and his novel creation has become a classic work. However, James P. Leary’s third edition of this classic work provides a wealth of expansions that increase the relevance and usefulness to modern scholars.
Leary’s new edition takes a Talmudic approach to Dorson’s rich ethnography, erecting a frame of additional material around the text to help the scholar. First, the new text includes a significant additional amount of Dorson’s Upper Peninsula material, pulled together from Dorson’s other publications on Yooper folklore for easy use and reference. While this additional folkloric material may prove useful, Leary’s best addition comes in the form of his introduction. When Bloodstoppers & Bearwalkers was first written and published, the process of ethnographic research had not reached modern levels of transparency and introspection. While Dorson does reflect some on his methods and presence in the community within the text, Leary’s introduction takes that several steps further, outlining the nature of some of Dorson’s collaborative work with individuals such as Ariane de Félice and George Cadotte, the cultural and technological conditions under which he labored, and a sense of some of the later reactions to the book. This introduction opens up the text for study, proving that Dorson’s study itself can prove a rich source of information for the folklorist.
In this way, Leary’s edition highlights the complex mission of the editor, reviving a well-known text. Dorson’s text is well-known enough that a revised edition must in some way improve upon prior printings. By including materials that are outside the strict bounds of the text, Leary’s edition adds context to a work that focuses on the importance of context, a general sense of the relationship between text and setting similar to Dorson’s work.
Dorson’s book, nestled within Leary’s additions, stands as a rich testament to Dorson’s views on understanding America. Instead of seeking to extract myths from literary works like many of his contemporaries in the study of American civilization, Dorson saw the true core of American civilization existing in the creative dimensions of everyday life, the way in which Americans express their relationship to each other. Dorson’s text remains relevant, speaking volumes to the way in which the identity of a group emerges from its folklore.
In general, Leary’s additions frame a well-crafted folkloric ethnography, a rich explanation not just of the folklore of an area but of the relationship between a community and its stories, or as Dorson lays out so well in his own introduction, a folk and its lore. Dorson’s writing is born out of a deep love for the folk that is evident in this work. Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers revives a work that should be in every folklorist’s repertoire.
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[Review length: 470 words • Review posted on October 16, 2008]