The Number Three...
Author: Herb O. BucklandPublished on: Jan 12, 2001
In 1846 W. J. Thoms proposed the term "Folklore" as a replacement for the then used "popular antiquities." And depending on the quality and quantity of resources one cares to gather definitions, "Folklore-ology" is generally considered to be the study and scientific investigation of traditional beliefs, legends, sayings, customs, etc., that are passed on from one generation to the next via oral transmission. To be such an investigator, many researchers feel a need to emphasize the requirement of distancing themselves from that which is being studied, in order to facilitate objectivity. However, other researchers such as a police detective may produce a type of over-indulgent absorption of a criminal's activities in order to facilitate their capture. Likewise, many people consider an ability to appreciate the intimations of a culture's language is due to a deeply ingrained attachment. Needless to say, objectivity can be defined differently from various perspectives.
When a Folklorist looks at Fairy Tales and finds a prominent pattern such as the number Three (i.e. 3 bears, 3 pigs, 3 Billy goats gruff, 3 notes to the Pied Piper, 3 kittens, Cinderella and her 2 sisters, 3 wishes, 3 characters, 3 tasks to be performed, travel to the third bend in the road, etc.,) recurring in a single culture or among a group of related peoples and does not find the same persistant recurrence in other cultural groups, there is a tendency to categorize such an occurence as a cultural artifact. Take for example the short paper published by Alan Dundes in 1968 entitled The Number Three in American Culture which can be found on page 401 of the book entitled Every Man His Way. While he gives numerous examples to support his view that while trichotomy exists and that number three is the predominant cognitive category, such examples represent the nature of culture and not the nature of nature.
While he provides a few examples of scientific categories, and he can be forgiven for not mentioning humans as being the third chimpanzee, he doesn't mention the obvious circumstance of we humans are on the 3rd planet from the sun, nor that most people tend to hold a pen or pencil with 3 fingers. He didn't discuss DNA's Triplet codon system, nor make the connection between the prominence of three-patterned ideas in America, which is a conglomeration of cultural offshoots from the larger 3rd born group of Indo-Europeans. This is particularly significant because of the wide-spread inter-relatedness of Indo-European languages and the oral transmission of folklore.
In discussing the prominent recurrence of three-patterned ideas in America and other Indo-European cultures, some researchers downplay the fact that Asian cultures tend to exhibit fewer examples and African cultures tend to show the fewest. This is significant because in terms of our family dynamics with respect to an Out-of-Africa hypothesis for the arrival of Modern Humans, Africans are 1st born, Asians are second born and Indo Europeans are third born. The baby of the family, so to speak. This 1st-2nd-3rd maturational sequence may at first seem to be but another three-patterned item of folklore, until we recognize that this same 1-2-3 sequence can be found in what is sometimes referred to as the Triad of the Biosphere, namely RNA, DNA, Proteins. RNA is predominantly single stranded, DNA is predominantly double stranded and Proteins may have a primary-secondary-tertiary structure with a composite of these called the quaternary. Interestingly, while RNA is predominantly single stranded there are a few double stranded examples, and while DNA is predominantly double stranded there are a few single stranded examples. This suggests a developmental overlap of sorts. Just like the overlaps which occur amongst the 1st-2nd-and 3rd born racially defined cultures.
This idea has far-reaching implications for many areas, one of which is our education system. Take for example the following classroom scene:
- "Today class, we are going to write a story. All stories have a Beginning-Middle-End, sometimes called the Title-Body-Conclusion. Remember you end a sentence with a Period-Question mark-or Exclamation point; nouns are Persons-Places-or Things; I before E except after C; there are 1st-2nd-3rd person Pronouns; and if you need more informatioin you may go to the library and look it up by Author-Title-Subject. And Please remember to hold your pencils with 3 fingers and not your toes."
Most of the students will use these and other three-patterned mnemonic rules-of-thumb to turn in relatively acceptable papers. But as every teacher can attest to, there is a Johnny or Suzy who just doesn't seem to get it. For their's is a world made up of a predominant two-patterned orientation. They see a world of rich/poor, strong/weak, yin/yang, positive/negative, smart/dumb, heaven/hell, ugly/pretty, fast/slow, etc...
This is similar to the same orientation we can find amongst prison inmates and youth in correctional facilities. They too see the world in a dichotomous fashion, though they use such references as perpetrator/victim, convict/inmate, inmate/cop, my gang/your gang, etc... They see a world measured by black versus white standards both racially and metaphorically. Is it any wonder why so many two-patterned oriented individuals end up in conflict with three-patterned oriented society?
This idea provides us with an alternative interpretation of why there is a high proportion of minorities in prison, youth corrections and jail. But why is this? Is it due to malnutrition of the mind and body, neglect, abuse, retardation, gender, race, hormones, etc? Did these individuals as children not read the three-patterned fairy tales on their own or have such read to them? Is it any wonder why we can find gangs which have a dominant Asian membership exhibiting a two-patterned name such as Ghost Shadows, Red Dragons, White Dragons and yet the epitome to which they all strive to emulate is the distinction of a triad?
While our teachers are teaching our children about 3 bears, 3 kittens, tic-tac-toe-three-in-a-row, 3 colors to our flag, the 9-1-1 number, the 3 ships of Christopher Columbus, 3 divisions to our government, 3 colors to our street lights, to open 3-numbered combination locks, to use 3-ring binders, to cross a street by looking right-left-right, to play 3 strikes you're out, to sing Row-Row-Your-Boat, etc., we as a society need to be teaching our young how to teach themselves pattern recognition. We need to teach them that we are on the 3rd planet from the sun, that there is/was an Indo-European based Christian Trinity, Hindu Trinity, Ancient Egyptian Triads, German Third Reich, French Third Estate, Italian Third Way, Dumezilian Tripartite structure, etc., along with all the other patterns-of-three amongst the Irish, Celts and Nordic peoples.
I realize I have given but a few examples of "Threes". That is why I invite you to the following site which provides more than two thousand. Please understand that it is still under constructioin and my sponsor likes the colors red and black.
Herb
herbobuckland@hotmail.com