|
ANE OHRVIK
"Stjernegutter" - The Star Boys Tradition of Norway
This paper will concentrate on the tradition of starboys or stjernegutter in Norway. In this case
I will use the Norwegian term stjernegutter
instead of the English "starboys" or "starplay". The
English words can easily generate misunderstandings or misinterpretations of
what I am going
to talk about here. Today, the stjernegutter
act out their play on two locations in Norway: in
the city of Grimstad in the south and
on the islands of Vigra, Giske and Valder? the west. I
will focus on the tradition in Grimstad (I apologise for my somewhat
misleading abstract).
My sources are based on fieldwork conducted in Grimstad over Christmas and
New Year in
1997, 1998 and 1999 as part of my work for my master thesis. Interviews,
videos, photos,
observations and collection of other written sources were gathered during
this period. Growing
up in Grimstad, I've also had the chance to experience and observe this
tradition over a long
period of time.
So, what constitutes the tradition? Over Christmas and New Year, young boys
in Grimstad
act out a short play based on the biblical account of the birth of Christ.
The boys usually
perform at night, between the second day of Christmas and 6th of January
which, according to
Christian tradition, is the day of celebration for the Three Kings. During
this period the boys
visit private houses in the central and most populated areas of Grimstad. The
boys also
perform on request at private parties and at different social events during
Christmas. In
general, there are nine boys working actively as stjernegutter each year, plus one or two
substitutes. These boys are divided into three teams called stjernelag which
get different areas
of Grimstad to visit.
The play involves young boys of around ten years old who dress up and act the
characters of
the Three Kings going in search of the new-born Jesus. They are dressed in
black trousers,
white shirts and black ties. They tie red sick scarves around their waists,
the scarves then
hanging down their left legs. On their heads they wear white and red paper
hats called
stjernehatter (starhats). The
cylindrical hats are decorated with angels and stars and
approximately half a metre long. The performers also carry a big star with
them, made of wood
and paper and decorated with red and white paper and with pictures of angels
and stars. The
star is roughly one and a half metres in diameter and bigger than the boys
themselves. Inside
the star there is a candle that is lit during each performance. The boys also
paint their faces.
Using soot made from burnt cork, they paint their faces with moustaches and
beards, thus
imitating adulthood.
The play has little dialogue. Indeed, the central part of the play involves
the boys singing. For
the duration of the song, the lights in the room where they are performing
are switched off and
the candle in the star is lit. During the song the star is turned around,
specific movements are
made by the actors, and money is collected. Each play involves three boys.
During the
performance, one of the boys switches into a role known "Judas with the
purse". This happens
when money from the spectators are collected. Each year, the money is donated
to Mother
Theresa's Catholic humanitarian organisation. When the stjernegutter are performing, there
can be anything from one to a hundred spectators present - all depending on
whether the
performers are visiting private homes or larger events.
Field of interest
I will not discuss the stjernegutter
as a ritual. Nor will I discuss the tradition in a historical
context, or focus on ritual experience ? even though all these perspectives
are both interesting
and important. I will not be looking into the tradition, but behind it. I will
try to focus on
exactly who is creating the tradition in question, and how this is carried
out. By studying the
stjerneguttene and carrying out
fieldwork I became aware that this particular tradition is
inspired, directed and controlled by a few people that functioned as experts.
During the last decade, discussions on what is normally called "cultural
heritage" has become
increasingly important, both in public management and administration, as part
of public social
and political debate, in political conflicts, in tourism and in national and
regional constructions
of identity. Two examples of this can be seen in the European Community's
recent focus on the
collective European cultural heritage, and UNESCO?s list of specific objects
and places worth
protecting and preserving.
During the last few years, Cultural Heritage has also been a focus for
academic studies. In this
context, the term "heritage" is ? as the Swedish folklorist Barbro
Klein puts it ? : "...frequently
used to refer to phenomena in a group?s past that are given high symbolic
value and, therefore,
must be protected for the future." Klein also emphasises the fact that
"Heritage, then, is not
something that is merely there. It is selected or appointed in complex
processes" (Klein
2000:25). This definition focuses on cultural heritage as a specific content
produced in the
past, stressing that this content serves specific social functions in the
present. When studying
cultural elements as cultural heritage, it is the dynamic between the
specific content from the
past and the functions it serves in the present that one must focus on: what
keeps it together,
what historical links are created ? all within the dimension of time and
space. I?ll try to focus
on this here. Specific persons are central in this particular case: four
persons, all known in
Grimstad for their interest and engagement in specific cultural elements and
cultural issues,
have been particularly active in the transmission of the tradition. And they
have been active for
decades. By doing so, they define how the stjernegutter
are to be interpreted, and they manage
and direct the activities in the tradition. We can call them
"tradition-experts". And here I am
touching on some of the same areas that Peter Tofosky talked about in his
case-study from
Germany.
There is no doubt that the stjernegutter
in a certain perspective are a tradition. Certain practices
are rooted in the past. For generations, young boys have dressed up as stjernegutter and
performed a play for the inhabitants of Grimstad. What I want to avoid in
this case is a view of
tradition as a phenomenon which transmits cultural elements from one
generation to the next ?
as a kind of natural object with a life on its own. In this view, factors
such as continuity and
authenticity serve as qualities inherent in the tradition itself. I would
rather see tradition as a
different use of strategies and that these strategies are applied by certain
specific experts. The
strategies refer to how the past is interpreted in the present (Handler and
Linnekin). By
"strategies" I mean the way certain cultural elements from the past
are chosen and transmitted
to the next generation, while others are forgotten. The term
"strategies" implies that some
elements are seen as being more important to be transmitted and preserved for
the future, while
others are valued as being less important. And this is of course important.
When we look at the
past, it is always a question of how the past is interpreted in the present.
When I look at the
amount of activity conducted by some people, I can with certainty conclude
that the tradition is
given high symbolic value, and seen as being regarded as being important to
protect ? to use
Barbro Klein?s words. This might not be surprising, as this tradition is far
from controversial:
young boys are acting and singing, activities that it is sometimes difficult
to get boys of this age
to carry out, and the collection of money serves as token of a collective
consciousness of
humanity, just to mention a few aspects of the tradition. By not being
controversial, but by
using symbols related to Christmas, it becomes a tradition that is not hard
to sell. But what I
find more interesting here is how the tradition is given this symbolic value.
I want to take a
look at which strategies are used in this process of transmission and
preservation. What is
protected? Or constructed?
To understand the strategies involved we need to look at the tradition with
the eyes of the
experts. How is the history interpreted by them? I will present a few
examples.
Context
According to the experts, the Stjernegutter
have been a part of the Christmas celebration in
Grimstad from the second half of the 19th century. The oldest star still in
use in the play dates
back to around 1900. People in Grimstad also point to a list which is said to
exist, and
contains the names of all the young boys who have been active in the
tradition from the late
1800s. The star and the list both serve as proof of the tradition's
continuity in this period.
The different "objective" elements of the tradition have not
changed much during the last
hundred years, according to the experts. However, the boys who played in the
past were a few
years older. From the second half of the 19th century, there have always been
three boys in the
play, nicely and neatly dressed in white skirts and black trousers, and the
places where they
have performed have remained the same: private houses and large social
events. There have
never been any girls actively involved in the tradition, and this is used as
an argument for the
continuous exclusion of girls. During the whole period of time that the
tradition has been
going, the boys who have been recruited to be stjernegutter, have been connected to the school
in the centre of Grimstad. This is also the case today. In this way, in the
eyes of the experts, the
tradition has retained its acting arena in the city. In the past, some people
have noted the fact
that the best areas of Grimstad are those in the centre of the town, and that
the tradition in this
respect is thus defined by class. Is it a tradition for the rich and wealthy?
This is not thematized
by the experts, however. Their arguments are based on what they interpret as
being tradition.
Here some memories are selected and underlined, while others are suppressed
or forgotten.
Mentality - Independence
The story goes ? according to the experts - that during the second world war,
the tradition
went on every Christmas despite the collective Nazi curfew of Norwegians and
the strong
dislike and prohibition of the tradition. This story has been transmitted
during the decades
since the war. Late at night, throughout Christmas the young boys were
supposedly sneaking
round house-corners, secretly visiting houses and by doing this, keeping the
tradition alive
throughout the war. I have not been able to confirm whether these stories in
fact are true or
not, but the story itself is interesting. The story symbolises in a strong
way the view of
stjerneguttene as an independent tradition. The stjernegutter could not be stopped by the war or
the Nazis, and went out of their way to give the people of Grimstad their
star, even though this
was both dangerous and illegal. The stjernegutter
can in this sense even be said to represent a
part of the various forms of resistance during the war - and as such - a
symbol of
independence.
This emphasis on the tradition as being a strong, independent tradition that
would not bow to
external factors is also powerful today. As one of the persons active in the
transmission of the
traditions puts it - and I quote ? "I?ve been scared to death by the
thought that some Christian
organisation will take over the responsibility for the tradition". The
protection of the tradition
is important on many levels, as regards, for example, as freedom of
expression, freedom to
choose who money will be donated to, and the freedom for boys outside a
particular Christian
community to be involved. All of these factors can definitely be discussed in
terms of the
tradition as it exists today, but it is not in general seen as being
problematic by the people of
Grimstad. As the tradition is interpreted in a historical perspective ? in
terms of being
independent - this is also protected in the tradition today and for the
future. The independence
is seen as a quality, and makes the tradition a "tradition for
all", not one defined by specific
religious, economic or social factors. The religious content in the tradition
is not
communicated in any particular way, even though the Catholic roots are
obvious. And when
the experts do not emphasise the religious aspect, the religious content and
meanings in the
tradition are set aside. What is interesting, though, is the indisputable
fact that two of the
experts are practising Catholics. Why this religious freedom? Let me point at
one possible
explanation: by claiming independence and religious freedom, the tradition
has the best
potential for common participation in the tradition in a post-modern,
secularised and
multicultural society.
Every year, the children in fifth grade at Grimstad Primary School get a
visit. In December, one
of the central persons in the tradition visits the pupils in order to recruit
performers, telling
them about the history of the tradition, and giving them specific
instructions about how the
play is performed. This particular person ? a man of around sixty years old ?
has four
generations of stjernegutter in his
family. He is considered an "expert" on the tradition by the
people in Grimstad, and has been active over a long period of time in the
transmission of the
tradition. You can find four or five "experts" of this kind in
Grimstad. His visit to the school is
one of the things he does in this regard. He also gets the local paper to
write about the
tradition.
This visit, however, is not the first time the pupils hear about stjerneguttene. In earlier grades
at school, the tradition of the stjernegutter
has an integrated role in the pupils' education in
local history. The material used in this education is assembled by one of the
experts. During the
month of December, the young boys and girls also get a visit from the boys
who will be
stjernegutter the following Christmas. In the first years of school the
pupils are given drops of
information and experience the tradition, and in this way are
"prepared" for the task itself when
they are old enough and the opportunity might arise. Among other things they
also experience
the play live - so to speak ? when new boys are practising as stjernegutter.
For the persons involved in the transmission of the history of the tradition,
and in the training
of new boys, this is utterly important. In the training of new boys, a video
film is used ? a "blue
copy" as they put it ? to show the boys how the play is performed. The
video stems from a
recording of the stjernegutter in
the 80s made by the Norwegian Broadcasting Company.
Through the use of a video, the performance can be copied by the boys:
movement, the
singing, the dialogue, the clothes ? everything. And this is exactly the
point. The video
represents the tradition as it is meant to be according to the experts, and
therefore it is
important that the transmission is as accurate as possible. For the experts,
it is important to
sustain ritual continuity, and this is the way in which this is secured.
The way in which the boys are educated in school, and the video used in the
learning of the
ritual, makes the tradition a homogenic unit. One specific version of the stjernegutter is
created. But it is also a regressive process in which an attempt is made to
protect the historical
ritual. In one way, one can (perhaps) say that what is presented today is an
idea of how it all
was ? further back in time.
Material objects
Another element of interest in the tradition is the star - or more precisely
- the stars that are
used by the boys in the play. Today there are four stars of which three are
in use. The fourth is
preserved in the local museum in Grimstad. The stars are of different ages:
the oldest has been
dated back to around 1900, on the basis of markings inside the star. This
particular star serves
as a model for what new stars should look like, and how old ones should be
restored. During
the last few years, some people have tried to make the star more modern and
practical. One
year, a star was covered in plastic by one of the boys' parents. The idea was
to make it less
vulnerable in use. This was disapproved of by one of "the experts"
that I have referred to
earlier, and was altered after having been in use for only one season. Other
parents have
wanted to change the light inside the star to electric light ? to avoid the
danger of burning
candles being carried in stars of paper and wooden, and to ease the work for
the young
performers. This has also been rejected. The arguments are clear. It is worth
quoting the
reactions of some of the persons involved: "By keeping it as it has
always been, the continuity
is easily secured" ? "If you change these things, I think the
tradition will lose some of its
content, and some of its meaning" ? "In making the tradition
modern, you will lose a specific
ritual experience".
By underlining the specific ways in which the stars are to be restored, by
using the same
material - and really going out of their way to get exactly the same material
- the star functions
not only as a symbol of the past. By refusing to allow people to bring new
material to the stars
? time in some ways is frozen in around 1900.
Conclusions
One of the conclusions we can draw from all of this is the obvious fact that
the tradition of the
stjernegutter in Grimstad is not
"merely there" to use the expression of Barbro Klein. Specific
people are involved in the process in which new boys every year are picked
out to be
stjernegutter. Furthermore ? the
material objects used in the tradition, and the way in which the
boys dress and act, are all directed by a just few people who are considered
as being "experts"
in the tradition.
So to try to provide some answers about what is protected, one can say that
the act of
protection can be recognised in both specific ideas about the tradition, and
in concrete material
objects. As Jack Santino noted earlier, there is a certain consciousness
regarding the tradition
that these tradition-experts are trying to pass on. And when it comes the
material objects, time
has been frozen in more than one way.
|
