HUMOUR OF THE WEST

Humour has always been a notable feature of American literature. We have met with the witty humour of Benjamin Franklin in "Poor Richard's Almanac', and with the good-natured humour of Washington Irving in his essays and romances. Traces of humour are found even in the works of the most serious of American romanticists, Edgar Poe. But the vigorous, outspoken, typically American humour, however, reached full development only in the second half of the 19th century, when the vivid stories and tales that had originated in the West began to have an influence on American literature.
When the movement westward started at the beginning of the century, the pioneers had only animal and Indian trails to guide them through the wilderness. It required great endurance, physical strength and courage to cope with the dangers and hardships they met up with everywhere in the unexplored country. The pioneers could not but call on their sense of humour as a weapon in their struggle with the wilderness.
The pioneers saw many wonderous sights as they went westward: huge lakes, mighty rivers, giant redwood trees in virgin forests, boundless plains^ majestic mountains, and canyons with boiling springs and geysers of steam shooting up into the air. These marvels of the wilderness stirred ,the imagination of the frontiersmen and gave rise to stories of adventure that were told and retold, and in the retelling were, more often than not, flavoured with humour. But the daily dangers the hunters and woodsmen had to face often gave a touch of horror to their stories, and the mixture of horror and humour became grotesque. Usually the stories were merely comical to make everyone laugh and cheer up each other.
The funniest stories circulating in the West were "tall tales", stones so exaggerated that they were obviously pure imagination. Stories like: "I met a man so tall that he had to get up on a ladder to shave himself; or "The mosquitoes were so huge I had to use a shot-gun to kill them. One escaped and then crept upon me from behind and hit me on the head with a club."
In some parts of the United States traditional contests are still held to see .who can tell the "tallest tale", that is to say, the most incredible story.
One cannot speak of the humour of the West of those days without mentioning Davy Crockett (1786-1836). He was a jolly-natured frontiersman who was born in the family of a backwoodsman in Tennessee. Davy early became one of the most noted bear-hunters of his time. In telling about one of his adventures with a bear he said he missed a shot and had to run"in all sorts of a hurry" to reload his gun"for I knew if he got hold of me, he would
hug me altogether too close for comfort".
In 1823 Crockett moved to the extreme western part of Tennessee. He was elected to the state legislature and in 1826 was elected to Congress and went to Washington. His jokes and shrewd comments on city life made him a popular figure in the capital. What is most remarkable is that Crockett was illiterate and could neither read nor write. Such of his stories that have
seen print were taken down by others.This is what Crockett said in his autobiography about city life: "...the thousands of people who would pass me by without knowing or caring who I was, who were all taken up with their own pleasures or their own business made me feel small; and indeed if any one who reads this book has a grand idea of his own importance, let him go to a big city, and he will find that he is not higher valued than a coon-skin."
When Davy Crockett ran for Congress in 1827, there were three candidates from Tennessee: Colonel Alexander, General Arnold, and Davy Crockett. At the election meeting each made a speech. The general, who spoke last, took pains to reply to Alexander's speech but did not mention Crockett. Here is how Crockett tells what happened: "He (the general) had been speaking for a considerable time, when a large flock of guinea-fowls came very near to where he was, and set up the most unmerciful chattering that ever was heard... They so confused the general that he made a stop, and requested that they might be driven away. I let him finish his speech, and then walking up to him said aloud, *Well, colonel, you are the first man I ever saw that understood the language of the fowls.' I told him that he had not had the politeness to name me in his speech, and that when my little friends, the guinea-fowls, had come up and began to holler, Crockett, Crockett, Crockett', he had been ungenerous enough to drive them all away. This raised a universal shout among the people for me, and the general seemed mighty bad plagued.”
When Davy Crockett died, many legendary tales were told about him. One of these legends is that Crockett had climbed a hundred times up a tree that rose thirty feet without branches, sliding down and climbing up again to break a chill1 after a plunge into icy water.
On another occasion it was said that he had struck sparks of fire by bringing his knuckles together like two thunder-clouds.
There is also the legend that once, when Crockett had been in danger, he had escaped on an alligator which had glided up the Niagara Falls as easily as a wild cat climbs a tree.
The good-natured humour in the tales of the frontiersmen is in keeping with their strong and independent character. They had cast off the prejudices that had made so many people slaves to the bourgeois civilization of the East, and had worked out a pattern of living based on a strong sense of mutual respect for each other and devotion to the principles of freedom. There was nothing sentimental or even idealistic about the frontiersmen; they had rough and ready manners, stuck to their own opinions and did not “care a hoot" what anyone else thought of their ideas. And their humour was a product of that self-respect.
Story-telling became a favourite pastime everywhere: on river boats, around the camp-fire, on the roads, at way-side inns, and in the mining camps after the day's work was done.
These stories are the important tributaries of the mighty current of Critical Realism in American literature.