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No piccies, but just some ruminations

Urban Myths, Gossip and the Poor Cow
What is an Urban Myth? Loosely described, it could be seen as a form of gossip, a tale told very much in the form of a vocal exchange that in its telling proves to be fluid and open to interpretation and more importantly to re-interpretation as there is often little research into the myth itself. Gradually, as this myth extends within the milieu of the urban terrain it takes on it's meanings, its importance resting on whoever remembers the salient bits of the story and how far it travels. Often the urban myth does not actually travel very well. It tends to be a story that stays close to home and is only understood because 'it could or has happened to you or your next door neighbour'.
I heard a couple of stories recently, urban myths from the Caucasus region. Each one had a leitmotif; a constant thread; a common subject. In these cases, it was the fate of the poor cow.
The first one tells the tale of a family of self sufficient dairy farmers. Under the occupation of the Soviets, the family was turfed off its land so that it could be given over to the production of wheat growth. They were not a big enough dairy concern and their production was not large enough to warrant their space, so they were placed in a small apartment in the capital city. Used to the fact of being self-sufficient, this family took their most useful asset with them, a small calf. This calf was to live in their fifth floor apartment for a number of years. As a calf the animal had been relatively easy to manoeuvre, but of course calves grow. When the family were returned their land, they had no way of moving their dairy producer and thus the poor cow was left alone in the flat. The story goes, that it was not long before the cow became distraught and desperate and in its desperation, it managed to throw itself out of the fifth floor window. Neighbours watched aghast as this bovine creature balked, fell from the air and landed on the Lada underneath. There was only one fatality recalled in the story, the poor cow.
The second story, came from the same group of people who were gathered around listening to the first story, and began “Well, I heard another cow story....”
This one was not so detailed, but nevertheless spoke volumes. Allegedly, it took place only last year on a lake just outside the city. An aircraft carrier was taking a consignment of cows from one place to another. No one listening to the story is really sure from where to where, nobody is bothered to fill in the details.
During the journey one of the heifers had broken loose from its tethers and was running amok inside the confines of the aeroplane. As the aircraft was over a lake, it was decided among the crew that the best form of action was to eject this rampant animal, and so swiftly it was steered towards the back doors and given no parachute.
On the lake, a solitary man was fishing in his row boat. Hearing the noisy aircraft overhead he looked up to see this poor cow plummeting towards the ground, or rather, the lake, straight towards him. It landed directly on his boat, and neither the man nor the cow were ever seen again.
Now, of course, it did cross my mind to question how this last story came about, who saw it and told the story initially, but in the larger scheme of things, it really didn't seem to matter. What does it matter if these stories are true? In many ways, being located where they are they says everything about a disillusioned and angry land that questions the role of 'progress', a 'progress' that during it's heyday slaughtered much the country's dairy stock and saw the private pursuit of fishing as unnecessary, not to mention the desired fate of the foreign imported car. This is not the kind of urban mythology that one would hear in countries that have historically treasured their livestock, England or the US or for that matter New Zealand. It's not too hard, therefore, to imagine that urban myth might be used as a tool, a partisan against the oppressor. Without implicating the teller of the story as a traitor or an enemy of the state, huge nationalism can be expressed in a small story about a cow.
As I mentioned at the outset, urban myth has a lot of similarities with the properties of gossip. Interestingly, where urban myth has historically been taken much more seriously than gossip, there is now a recognition of the validity of gossip as a form of testimony. The very real problem that people have with gossip which strangely they don't have with urban mythology is that it is considered 'unauthored' or 'untraceable' or 'unfixed' in historical time. Jacques Derrida, philosopher and cultural theorist famous for his theories on 'deconstruction' of language, discussed the notion that where gossip did place itself as historical and political, it exemplified ' a principle of contamination, a law of impurity, a parasitical economy...a law of abounding, of excess, a law of participation without membership”. It has traditionally been gendered as a female occupation, not an important form of socializing and recognizing your enemies or your friends. As art historian, Griselda Pollock writes on the subject, 'for the simple fact that gossip is not seen to arise out of structures of knowledge which connect notions of truth with empirical, verifiable evidence and with the scientific researcher's moral obligation to assume personal responsibility for a truth”, it would not be taken seriously. She seems to overlook, however, one of the most compelling slogans that came out of World War II to new recruits of GIs “Loose Lips Might Sink Ships”. Of course, this was the warning to all recruits to refrain from giving any unauthorised information out to anyone, even one's nearest and dearest. Obviously, there was some fear that unauthorised information was useful to the enemy somehow.
We cannot be too confused about the roles of gossip and urban legend or myth, as is generally agreed, urban myth or legend serves society as did the ancient myths and legends. They are just updated cautionary tales, usually embroiled in some moral message and often just the tale of someone's bad judgement, luck or crime. With all of their undercurrents and sub-texts they both prove to be elusive forms of information spreading, that serve some purpose in the localized context to which they are being transmitted.
Myths and legends have created many of the building blocks for our various social codes and laws. But today, can we really say that these forms of information transmission, or the transmission of opinion, are really so localized any more. From the ancient Hindu mysticism involved in worshipping the sacred cow, to traditional Biblical stories of the fatted calf on the return of the prodigal son; the golden calf that was the icon of trans-substantiating produce into economy to early Azerbaijan myth of the cow being the symbol of life-force and strength, the cow is a creature that has been revered and respected globally.
When England, shortly followed by news that it was in Europe and had reached the US, was gripped by the increasingly desperate stories and realities of what was so charmingly called 'mad cow disease' which was what cow's got,or the more humane and scientifically entitled 'new variant Creutzfeldt – Jakob disease' that humans got, the cow became the enemy. Gossip and urban myth, quickly incarnated itself as scientific fact and the news media were the main story tellers. One of the immediate questions was of course, where did it come from? On April 29 2001, India Abroad News Service broadcast that the British Army were blamed for the transportation of Foot and Mouth epidemic. Well, that's got a subtext worth thinking about.
Gradually, of course more likely stories came out. Domestic and oversees feed merchants had been cutting costs on their grain output by mixing it up with ground up bone meal, bone from the cow. Cow was feasting on cow, and humans were wondering why that was a problem. The first case of 'mad cow' disease was found in the US in 2003 in Washington state. The British 'Guardian' newspaper tells the story, and remembers to add the details of how the cow was identified as as a Holstein, “which was tested because it was a 'downer', unable to walk when it arrived at the Washington State slaughterhouse. The meat from the cow was nevertheless sent to a processing plant”.
Now in 2006, it's the turn of the chicken. 'Bird Flu' the pandemic, or as it is more scientifically called Avian Influenza, or even more scientifically, H5N1 strain of the virus. The BBC reports that by the end of February 2006 there have been 90 reported deaths globally of people from the virus and thousands upon thousands of birds died or have been slaughtered. The structures of the stories that we hear about Avian Influenza, or maybe AI....maybe not as it's a bit close to Artificial Intelligence... tells us that it is all related. But who really benefits, is how I've recently taken to questioning these stories . In this case it could be the cow as the heat is off them now, or more likely... the beef farmers.
Like the poor cows falling from the sky, it's manna from heaven for them. Of course, this is completely uncorroborated and just my opinion, but on a small scale the story could go something like this.
There was a family of self sufficient chicken farmers in Washington State who lived on a small plot of land among three large farmers of beef. They were really into their organic life and had inherited the land generations ago. They were regularly asked to sell up by one or other of the beef farmers, but had to this day resisted. In 2003 during the early stages of the panic of 'mad cow disease' in the US,these beef farmers were ordered by the state to destroy their herds, as cases had been found very locally. The farmers went bust and had to sell their land off, and ironically they sold it to the chicken farmer. That family then had more land than the three other farmers put together. They had never had it so good.
The beef farmers were really upset, but survived the next few years by learning new technologies and setting up small dot com businesses, some of them started writing stories in agricultural journals about their experiences.
A few years later, the beef crises died down and the family that had raised chickens had so many now they were rich, started reading reports that their was a mysterious 'bird flu' going around that was attacking poultry and people were dying of it all over the world. What's more it was heading their way. Knowing the catastrophe of the beef farmers, they decided better to be safe than sorry and so decided to destroy all their resources so they would know they were not responsible for any deaths. They were rich enough it didn't really matter, the last few years had been good for them.
Anyway, so there they all were on this land with no cattle, no poultry, and no knowledge about growing fruit or vegetables. All of them, decided to move to the city. They got a good price for the land from the military and now they're all working in consultancy roles.
I doubt that this story will catch on, but keep your eyes and ears open.

Emily Clark