ABSTRACT
Limón’s important essay contrasts a performance of “The Vanishing Hitchhiker” by a group of women with its later inversion by a group of men. The first is a standard presentation, the second an anti-legend variant. Limon shows how the second performance is a commentary on the first one, particularly on the women’s ethnic loyalty and artistic competence. Limón’s analysis—based on performative theory drawn principally from Richard Bauman, and on the concept of “metafolklore” drawn from Alan Dundes—demonstrates how performance-analysis can render many conventional approaches to legend irrelevant. For example, questions of belief do not fully enter, if at all, into the motivations for these legend performances; the crucial motivations are the claim/denial of esthetic competence and ethnic personae. José Limón is the author of many studies of ethnicity and ethnic folklore including: “Folklore, Social Conflict, and the United States-Mexico Border.” In the Handbook of American Folklore, ed. Richard Dor son. 216–26. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983; and “Agringado Joking in Texas-Mexican Society: Folklore and Differential Identity. “ In New Direction in Chicano Scholarship, ed. Ricardo Romo and Raymund Paredes. 33–50. La Jolla, California, 1978. The essay below is reprinted from Western Folklore 42 (1983):191–208.
