Twins/Zwillinge: A Broader View. A Contribution to Stith Thompson’s Incomplete Motif System—A Case of the Continuation of Pseudoscientific Fallacies †

Explaining the rationale and main objectives for his motif system; Stith Thompson declared that it emulates what “the scientists have done with the worldwide phenomena of biology” (Thompson 1955, I, p. 10). In this respect; the underlying principles for motif identification and indexing are comparable to those devised by anthropologists at Yale for “categorizing” culture materials into 78 macro-units and 629 subdivisions thereof used to establish “The Human Relations Area Files” (HRAF). By comparison, 23 divisions (chapters) make up the spectrum of sociocultural materials covered in Thompson’s Motif-Index system. Thompson’s cardinal themes are divided into 1730 subdivisions permitting more specificity of identification (El-Shamy 1995, I, xiii). Historically; the disciplines of “anthropology” and of “folklore” targeted different categories of the human population; with “folklore” assigned to populations stratified into “social classes” (Dorson 1972, pp. 4–5: For details, see El-Shamy: “Folk Groups” (1997b, pp. 318–322, in: T.A Green, gen. ed. 1997c, p. 321); El-Shamy 1980, p. li; compare El-Shamy (1997a), p. 233 (“African hunter”). The limitations Thompson placed on the goals of his motif system (along with its tale-type companion) were triggered by the fact that “folklore” was; then; primarily interested in literature (prose and verse). The sociocultural milieu surrounding the creation of the literary forms occupied minor roles. Considering that a folktale is a “description of life and/or living” including all five universal culture institutions; the relevance of the contents of folktales are of primary significance for understanding the community in which they were born and maintained (El-Shamy 1995, I, p. xiii). Consequently; for the present writer; a folktale is considered a sixth (universal) culture institution. Also; because Thompson’s Motif-Index sought global coverage; many regions and national entities didn’t receive adequate attention: significant fields of human experience are missing or sketchily presented. This article offers two cases as examples of: (1) How editors of folklore publications ignore novel ideas incompatible with established trends; and (2) Samples of the spectrum of current psychosocial issues addressed in an expanded Thompson’s System (with more than 26,000 new motifs and 630 tale-types added).