Abstract
It is certainly insufficient to explain treasure hunting as a reaction to poverty or a form of greed and avarice.1 Avarice has been seen as a part of the human condition and thus as a non-historical, that is, a quasi-anthropological constant. Anthropological constants hardly ever help to explain the behaviour of historical people. In our case, an alleged human tendency to accumulate material wealth does not explain why some people engaged in treasure hunting whereas others did not. Why did people look for treasure? Why did they talk about treasure? Why were they willing to suffer the repeated failure of treasure hunts and continue to look for hidden riches?
People think you have more money than you ought to have.
(A Sussex farmhand to a neighbour who recently became affluent, 1863, TNA, ASSI 36/10)
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Notes
G.M. Foster (1965) “Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good” American Anthropologist, LXVII (1965), pp. 293–315 (The text was reprinted in J. Potter (1967) (ed.) Peasant Society (Boston: Little Brown), pp. 307–321).
Foster summarized his concept in G.M. Foster (1976) “Reply to Frans J. Schryer” Current Anthropology, XVII, pp. 710–712.
Cf. J. MacLaughlin (1975) “Treasure, Envy and Witchcraft”, in R. Dorson (ed.) Folk tales Told Around the World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), pp. 517–527.
Foster, “Peasant”, pp. 293–297. Gregory’s criticism was partly based on a misunderstanding of that concept, J. Gregory (1975) “Image of Limited Good, or Expectation of Reciprocity?” Current Anthropology, XVI, pp. 73–84.
Foster, “Peasant”, pp. 306–307, more specific G.M. Foster (1964) “Treasure Tales and the Image of the Static Economy in a Mexican Peasant Community” Journal of American Folklore, LXXVII, pp. 39–44. The ethnolinguist study by Briggs pointed out similarities between treasure narratives from Central America and from Europe.
C. Briggs (1985) “Treasure Tales and Pedagogical Discourse in Mexicana, New Mexico” Journal of American Folklore, XCVIII, pp. 287–314.
E. Blum and R. Bloom (1970) The Dangerous Hour. The Lore of Crisis and Mystery in Rural Greece (London: Chatto & Windus), p. 44.
J. Lindow (1982) “Swedish Legends of Buried Treasure” Journal of American Folklore, XCV, pp. 257–279. Lindow’s own interpretation of treasure lore is most interesting but too overdone to be convincing. He stressed that treasure in Swedish folk tales is depicted as a corrupting gift of the devil. According to Lindow, swiftly acquired wealth disturbed the social order of static agrarian societies. Therefore, the treasure was presented as dangerous: a menace not only to the one who found it but to society as a whole. Lindow interpreted the magical rituals during the digging (e.g. the strict silence) as metaphors for the treasure hunter’s turning away from society, pp. 273–275.
Commenda, “Gesellschaft”, p. 192; M. Bönisch (1994) Opium der Armen (Tübingen: Silberburg).
Foster, “Peasant”, p. 308, problematic P. Mullen (1978) “The Folk Idea of Unlimited Good in Amercan Buried Treasure Legends” Journal of the Folklore Institute, XXV, pp. 209–220;critical Lindow, “Swedish”, pp. 269–270.
There is a curious parallel between early modern treasure magicians and narrators of folk tales in modern societies dominated by agriculture. Schryer demonstrated that the narrators of the tales about treasure troves analyzed by Foster often came from the lower class. The heroes of their stories were wealthy people whom they frequently claimed to have known personally, F.J. Schryer (1976) “A Reinterpretation of Treasure Tales and the Image of Limited Good” Current Anthropology, XVII, pp. 708–710. The parallel between them and the treasure magicians of our sources is obvious: both provided and interpreted traditional knowledge. Priests and vagrant cunning men were only able to play active, even leading, roles in treasure hunting enterprises because they were the interpreters of older traditions offering expert knowledge about the early modern market for magical services.
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© 2012 Johannes Dillinger
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Dillinger, J. (2012). The Significance of Treasure Hunting: Past and Present. In: Magical Treasure Hunting in Europe and North America. Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230353312_9
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